What’s so wrong about a label?

If we want to normalize LGBT, we can’t assume someone’s sexuality, so therefore labels are valuable.

And no, straight people don’t need a separate pride day, they could just use the same day we already have. I’d love to see straight people marching alongside their LGBT friends celebrating normalizing all types of sexuality. The LGBT community has “won” once people are more likely to all ask than assume someone’s sexuality.

Yup, I’m still a noob in EU4 after nearly 1000 hours. I’ll get the hang of it eventually. 😅

I don’t know if Ys Origin counts, but I really liked how each character had a unique twist on the same events.

Nah, support Windows as well, otherwise the game will likely flop. It needs to be pretty successful so it actually gets noticed, and if people are interested in Linux, they’ll be able to switch w/o giving up that game.

Eh, I think it would be better to just make a really good, competitive game that supports Linux day 1. Show these devs that you can support Linux and have a decent player experience wrt anti-cheat.

I have friends from Iran and India, and I have a family member to lived in Kazahkstan for a couple years, so I’ve heard of it, but I couldn’t tell you very much about it. Just roughly where it is (east of the Caspian Sea). I couldn’t even tell you confidently what the climate or geography looks like, just a rough guess of “probably similar to Afghanistan?”

It used to be decent, until they sold out a few years ago.

if you even hold an internally consistent view of what scams are

Yes, and I’ve detailed it already. A scam is a fraudulent business deal, meaning you receive something other than what was agreed on.

Selling someone the Brooklyn Bridge is fraud because you’re not receiving what was promised, ownership of the Brooklyn Bridge, because the seller doesn’t own it and therefore can’t transfer ownership to you. It’s not a scam because you can’t take it home with you, it’s a scam because you’re not getting what was advertised.

Yep, no ranked competitive games have this

Right, and there are two mentalities here:

• “posers” - those who spend a ton to “look” fancy, but they’re really not that good
• good players - they’ll either earn cosmetics, or they stream and the cosmetics become a business expense

You’ll see the first in the lower brackets and the second in the upper brackets. They’ll both often have top-tier gear, and the first gets it to “feel” cool instead of actually getting an edge from the benefits of that gear, whereas the second actually benefits from the gear. So even in a competitive game, the MTX are still targeting the more casual players. I think there’s also a significant overlap in cheaters and the first group, because the first group feels “entitled” to doing well, despite not actually being that good.

I consider that first group to largely be “casual” because the intent there isn’t to practice to get better, but to show off, even if the game is designed to be competitive.

In any case, those MTX aren’t scams, you’re getting exactly what you’re paying for, and in many cases you can demo it before purchasing. I think buying them is stupid, but that’s because I put very little value in what they offer, whereas others could find a lot more value in it.

That doesn’t impact all games though, the game market has essentially split into catering to three groups:

• casual games (mostly mobile games) - more “investment” into a profile than actual game
• live service MP games - “investment,” but with a skill element
• “experiences” - focus is on SP gameplay and/or graphical fidelity

The more social a game is, the more likely the game is to throw in vanity purchases like skins.

I have a simple rule in my house, no F2P games, and it has worked really well in avoiding BS. There are some paid games w/ MTX and whatnot, but those are a lot fewer than among the F2P games.

Refuse to play the worst offenders and offer alternatives to your gaming friends, so you can eat your cake and have it too.

I’m on about all the people getting taken by this systemic problem

What do you mean by “taken”? Were they not aware of what they were buying? Was there fraud at any point in the transaction?

A bad deal isn’t criminal, it’s only criminal if it’s misrepresented. And given that there are a ton of repeat customers, I fail to see how it’s being misrepresented. When exactly did the fraud take place? Did the customer get something other than what they expected to get?

At the end of the day, all value is made-up, especially with digital licenses. I may value a cosmetic skin a lot more highly than you do, but that doesn’t mean I was defrauded, it just means I find more value in it than you.

The small charges are more insidious

Oh, they absolutely are, and I definitely don’t like the stupid dopamine machine that mobile gaming has become. But you also have to understand that the value in paying for a ton of MTX in those games is often less about those incremental dopamine hits and more about showing off to friends/randoms online (Look how big my base is! Look how cool my character looks! Look how high on the leaderboard I am!). That’s the real dopamine hit IMO, and that’s where the analogy with luxury items comes in (lifted trucks, designer bags, etc).

lootboxes

This one is different and I consider it gambling, and it should be regulated as such, because the value is undetermined.

These games are no longer optimized to make you feel good when you’re good at them.

Right, these are casual games, where you can pay to appear successful. That’s what luxury goods are. If I go into debt to buy a fancy car, I look rich to other people, and that gives me that dopamine hit. This is just the digital equivalent of that, in many cases.

The F2P players are being used to give these whales an audience so they can flaunt their “skill” (read: how much they paid).

That’s why pretending any of it can have real monetary value is a scam.

And that’s where I disagree. It’s only a scam if you get something other than what was advertised. If the advertising is simply “buy this to instantly complete X” and buying it instantly completes X, then there’s no fraud, therefore no scam. You paid a stupid tax for being impatient, and you did that while understanding that you’re buying a temporary high.

Just because something is addictive doesn’t mean it’s a scam. Cigarettes and alcohol aren’t scams. Gambling isn’t a scam. Lotteries aren’t scams. Using any of them to excess is a really bad idea, but I don’t think they’re scams. And that’s why I think any legislation should be limited to kids, since kids are assumed to be more susceptible to dark patterns and addictions, whereas adults are assumed to have responsibility for their own actions.

The game was made objectively worse for them

And I think Blizzard recognizes that WoW has largely run its course, so it’s trying to extract maximum profit from those who remain. That’s what happens when a company shifts from innovation to profit maximization, and it should be a signal for players to move on.

‘just boycott!’ utterly useless

It’s only useless if your metric for success is Blizzard changing their behavior. But if you shift your metric of success to “less predatory companies are viable,” it can absolutely be a success.

Depending on your metric of “success,” maybe legislation is the only option. But we don’t need every company to behave “properly” (however you define that) in order to have a competitive market for games. If you look beyond the handful of top-grossing games w/ manipulative in-game stores, you’ll find a vibrant market of games to play.

“scam victims.”

A scam is something else entirely. “Problem gambling” is largely a choice, and if you ask any gambler, they’ll be able to confirm that they understand that the casino always wins eventually, but that they continue to play because they think “this time will be different.” However, if you ask a scam victim, they’ll tell you they thought the scammer was legitimate and continued because they honestly believed they were making a good choice. Those are very different things.

Games fall under the “problem gambling” umbrella (players know what they’re paying for), not the “scam” umbrella (it’s rare for players to not know what they’re getting for their money). If there are incidents of the latter (e.g. loot boxes with lower than advertised odds of getting something of value), those should be aggressively litigated by regulators, and honestly anything where there isn’t a guarantee (i.e. not paying X to get Y product) should be considered “gambling” and regulated as such (restricted for minors, age verification required, etc).

Spending $90 for a mount is a stupid decision, but it’s not a fraudulent transaction if you get the mount when you pay. I don’t think that should be regulated, but it should spark outcry from news orgs and players and push people away from the game.

I see spending stupid amounts of money on a game to be similar to spending stupid amounts of money on any other vanity purchase, like lifted trucks, designer clothing, or expensive jewelry. If you want to buy those things, you should absolutely be allowed to, even if a lot of people would say it’s a stupid idea if they understood your finances. Adults must be free to make stupid choices, and the only limits IMO should be if you were deceived and wouldn’t have made the choice if you had more accurate information.

Not unlimited, but certainly a lot of flexibility. As long as they don’t commit fraud, I think they should be allowed to provide whatever services their customers are willing to pay for.

That said, I won’t participate, and I’ll be vocal about calling out their terrible business models. But I won’t go so far as to suggest legislation to solve a “problem” of adults making poor choices. People should always be free to make stupid choices, provided those choices don’t hurt others. I am sympathetic to some limits around kids, but those limits shouldn’t apply to adults. So maybe slap an “M” rating on a game if it has microtransactions or something and restrict direct sales to underage kids (enforcement should be lax though to avoid privacy violations).

The indie game scene is vibrant, and there are still plenty of AAA games without that nonsense. So play those and send a message to these companies that non-abusive games are absolutely still wanted. Also, be vocal about these exploitative practices by companies to convince others to avoid their products.

Only legislation will stop this.

Disagree. Let the whales waste their money, I have plenty of other options. In fact, indie gaming is better than it has ever been.

I certainly don’t like that type of revenue model, but I don’t think it should be banned, especially since the alternatives are plentiful and growing.

Nice! I haven’t played Factorio in a while, so now seems like a good time to jump back in. I bought it way back when it was beta released (2013 or 2014?), and I’ve played it a bit here and there since. I know a lot has changed, so this gives me an excellent reason to jump back in.

Huh, I thought it would be bigger than that, what with how massive it is and how much ash would go up into the sky.

Looks like I would probably survive, but my house wouldn’t, and getting out would royally suck because it would wreck the air intake for my car. But I could probably make it out.

So far, things seem to be prety decent where I’m at in Utah, but we do have the looming risk of “the big one” Earthquake. But to be fair, that has a pretty high chance of causing Yellowstone to erupt, which would probably kill everyone on the planet, so I guess I prefer a quicker death to starvation.

But yeah, Ashville is way in there, no wonder he was surprised.

My bad, I’m not familiar with NC, so I guess I assumed Ashville was near the coast.

Yeah, and we probably should discourage storing them in areas prone to hurricanes.

Yeah, there’s that. 😞

Yup. But if I worked at Nintendo, I’d realize that even big studios can be creative.

Indies are where it’s at though.