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Ahh, the pinnacle of internet discourse - pretending that one wins an argument by minor differences in tone, rather than content. Only… suggesting over and over that someone is throwing an entitled tantrum certainly sets a tone, don’t it?
Strange, that I am the only emotional one here. Perhaps if you take a deep breath, and read my comments slower? Maybe ask a chatbot to read them in the voice of David Attenborough or Morgan Freeman?
Maybe you’re right, and I’ve just gone deaf from all this blind rage. At this rate I’ll never achieve my dreams of being acutie…
So… exactly what I said, then? You think Epic’s licenses are okay, and it’s entitlement to complain about them. I genuinely don’t see the difference you’re trying to describe.
Lol but enjoy defending unethical business practices, I guess. Keep imagining that I’ve bought these licenses at all, and keep imagining that it’s entitlement to want things to change for people’s best interests.
I hope the corporations thank you for defending their right to walk all over consumers. Manipulating children into gambling and renting worthless digital products is “just video games” after all. I’ll try to keep that perspective in mind.
You absolutely said everything that leads to this conclusion.
People sign agreements with Fortnite that give Epic the right to sell them microtransactions that don’t belong to the purchaser. They also give Epic the right to take down Fortnite and therefore remove access to any of the content that they paid for. This is the license that every player agrees to when they play the game.
You claim that protesting the usage of that license is “throwing a tantrum.”
Lol I forgot that teens aren’t children, apparently. That makes the microtransaction okay, because the players are (supposed to be) teenagers. As if teenagers aren’t vulnerable to manipulation, or as if the ESRB actually does a goddamn thing anyway.
Just couldn’t help yourself, could you? You just have to defend the corporation’s right to advertise to children, and blame everything on the parents. We already had this fight with cigarrettes, you know. People would say that it’s the parents’ fault if kids were attracted to cigarettes.
How did that turn out? That’s right. Nearly every developed country in the world agreed that advertising that shit to children was not okay. Full goddamn stop.
“Oh but it’s on the parents to make sure capitalism doesn’t poison their childrens’ bodies and minds through cartoon villain levels of social manipulation”, you say.
Corporations advertising harmful shit to children should not be tolerated under any circumstances, and functioning societies are entitled to make that a goddamn law, which they have done before, and can do again.
Everything about the “rent/subscription” model is predatory, but we weren’t even talking about the truly fucked up stuff, like deeply unethical microtransaction marketing to children ala Fortnite.
Amazing that you think its okay for children to sign contracts where they agree that any money they give to Epic is gone forever, and that any worthless digital assets they are manipulated into purchasing can be voided and deleted at any time without any recompense!
(Lol inb4 “it’s the parents job to monitor their kids at all times in case a predatory corporation sneaks capitalism and FOMO advertising into their apparently harmless child-friendly free-to-play game or app”)
But sure, keep on defending predatory corporations! Enjoy the taste of boots!
I’ll be over here advocating for stronger consumer business protections! Sorry, I mean, I’ll be throwing an entitled tantrum lol.
Lol swing and a miss again, my friend.
Nice use of the word “entitled” - really sums up your stance on the consumer/business relationship.
The consumer is “entitled” for protesting predatory or unethical business practices.
The consumer is “entitled” for opposing the ongoing enshittification of entire industries.
The consumer is “entitled” for wanting businesses to not be able to legally hide behind unsustainable licensing practices that provide no value to society and further entrench the ever-growing rent/subscription model that is squeezing people dry for no reason.
The entire point - the entire fucking point - is that these licenses are not okay. So, no, I don’t pay for these licenses, but I don’t think anyone should be able to pay for these licenses, because I don’t think anyone should be able to “sell” these licenses.
These licenses - like many unethical business practices - put the corporation that offers them at a financial advantage over the corporations that don’t.
Regulations - in every industry - should level the playing field. They can allow ethical business practices to be viable and competitive, instead of being liabilities and risks. The copyright/IP system is an example of those regulations instead being weaponized against the consumer, and needs a massive overhaul.
And guess what? In a functioning society, consumers are entitled to get what they want. They are entitled to oppose unethical business practices, and use their collective power to try to stop it. Why the fuck would we want it the other way around? Why are corporations entitled to get whatever they want?
We have every goddamn right to protest those business practices whether or not we do business with those companies - just as we have every right to protest unethical or discriminatory hiring practices by companies that we don’t work for. Even if plenty of people applied for those jobs and signed those contracts, we have every right to protest anyway.
But enjoy the taste of corporate boots!
Private WoW servers thrived. Much of the endgame content required 40 players to collaborate for hours at a time, and they have kept their own dream running for well over a decade.
You should have the option to find and play with others long after corporate servers are abandoned. Whether or not there are other players immediately available is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Edit - and you’re all over this thread licking boots and saying “you signed the agreement!”
Thanks. We know how license agreements work. They are included in the thing we want to change, when we talk about changing the industry. We want to stop allowing bullshit license agreements. The exact same way many of us want Right to Repair for people who bought tractors with proprietary software.
Maybe they shouldn’t over-hire by tens of thousands for the sake of “growth”? “They hired more than they fired” isn’t a good thing when they fire thousands of people. it just means the company is willfully and apathetically churning through the labor force while making money hand-over-fist and increasing C-suite compensation.
The bonus was also basically all stocks, so if the company does well, he gets more money. If it fails he gets less.
… so? Why is this relevant? A bonus is a bonus.
But I could get over a lot if it didn’t feel like I was playing a menu instead of flying a spaceship at every change of scenery.
I stopped playing mid-loading screen. My awareness just snapped into place, and I realized that the last 30 minutes of “gameplay” was effectively:
- bland fetch quest dialogue
- walk through corridor - board ship
- loading screen
- space (menu)
- loading screen
- Space over different planet (menu)
- loading screen
- landing pad - walk through corridor
- bland fetch quest dialogue
- GoTo step 2
So basically your argument is, if you don’t like the gameplay loop, they force you to pay?
Lol no, I’m saying if you do like the gameplay loop, you will eventually get trapped in it. The more you play, the more time-gated walls you hit in the daily grind, and the more time-gated ceilings you hit in the weekly/monthly grinds, all while the game is designed to hook right into your dopamine reward system and never let go. Want to play more? Better cough up some money! Finished your dailies? But today’s the last day, time is running out on the banner! Cough up some money!
Oh, lol, you don’t see it? The fact that there is an entire model type called “short female” with eight (edit: ten!) characters… but no short males? “Modestly dressed” lmao they’re like 60% exposed skin, short shorts and skirts.
And oh, right, there are some “modestly” dressed children that look like children, and act like children… but coincidentally several of those short female models who aren’t modestly dressed fall under that “I look exactly like the children but I’m not! I’m actually an adult! Or even an immortal” lolicon trope.
It’s. Fucking. Gross.
The only thing spending money is good for is specific characters and weapons, none of which are required, and you can absolutely save up from playing for free and get almost any of those characters/weapons without spending a dime.
This is dramatically underselling the gacha loop. There is absolutely a ceiling for F2P content, where grinding to progress becomes unbelievably time consuming.
It’s deep in the game, I’ll grant that, but that’s the point - like every mobile game, you’re meant to get completely hooked on the progression loop with fast early rewards, then each loop drags longer and longer and longer until you either have to abandon the game entirely or start P2W.
It’s not that hard to get characters and items, but the FOMO system is ridiculous. Just invested all the grinded resources you had to mercy pull a character you’ve had your eyes on? Guess what, the next patch just launched an even better character, or the next banner brought back a 5* that is so meta for your team comp that getting that character will exponentially increase your damage output.
Now you have a limited amount of time to grind all that shit again, or let the banner pass and wait for that massive improvement to your team comp to be available some months/years into the undefined future.
And actually upgrading those items and characters to be useful in late game content?
Time to fork over $$, or at least dozens of hours grinding out dungeons that you can only play on certain days and with a limited number of the same daily grind resources that are required for every different type of progression from level ups to ascensions to gold to skill upgrades… the same materials that you can also buy. And each time you progress to the next “level”, the cost (and time needed to pay it) increases exponentially.
Basically, the “good” parts of Genshin are specifically (and very effectively) designed to increasingly consume your time or your money. There is nothing “good” about it because it’s all just a massive investment in stealing away your life or your life savings.
They didn’t make all that awesome content for you to have fun - they made it so that you don’t notice when your brain starts telling you “I’ve put hundreds of hours into this game, $5 is totally worth all that time… just $20 and maybe I’ll get that character or skip the next 30 hours of grinding… if I spend $100 I’ll get all the stuff I want at a discount, and then I won’t have to grind for awhile… except I still need to keep progressing and now that I’ve skipped ahead by investing money, the gacha loop is even more punishing now, but I’m locked in an ever spiralling sunk cost fallacy now”
And yeah, don’t even get me started on the sexualization. What the actual fuck.
Now can be both the second-best-time to plant a tree and the first-best-time to grab a bucket of water!
Remember everyone, the forest is on fire and there’s not many places to run. The fires of climate change affects the entire world, and this administration and the wealthy that back them will gleefully pour fuel on the flames and let your house burn.
You can stand around begging for rain, asking why the landlord didn’t fix the sprinklers or why he never checked the fire extinguishers or why he’s hiding under his desk clutching the cash register for dear life…
Or you can grab a bucket.
Recent and huge progress on that front. It’s an industry wide union, and apparently even recently laid-off workers can join.
Bethesda “supports” modders the way WOTC “supports” D&D content creators. They profit immensely off of other people’s work without lifting a finger but also try to exploit those same creators for even more profit at every possible opportunity. Usually in such a way that it does permanent harm to an otherwise thriving community.
I can’t hit anything with a dagger because I’m too stupid to read” doesn’t come close
This happens 3 seconds into the game, and very few modern gamers will ever RTFM. It’s far more likely to be a hard wall to a newcomer. I wouldn’t blame them, either. Invisible stamina-based dice rolls was certainly a choice.
Oblivion’s system took time to break down - long enough to actually get players invested, at least.
It’s because he was internally fuming about the incoming messages on screen.
He does a lot of really unnecessary kiting but when the messages talk about trans rights and tell him he has no real friends and will die alone, you can see that he stops fighting and runs as far as he can from the boss. Then he stops and opens the chat box for a second - as if to try to respond, but he can’t quick reply because the JFK/Israel message was the most recent - before the boss arrives and he gives up and returns to the fight.
It’s also why the instant he lags he quits. You can see the connection catches up and he’s still alive but no longer playing.
In other words, Musk’s childishly named character died because his ego was absolutely tearing him apart. He couldn’t think or focus when confronted by messages about how pathetic he was, and his failures as a father. He wanted the stream to end so badly that he was willing to blame his own product as the excuse.
The entire point is this:
In a world where companies boast record profits in the same breathe as they announce mass layoffs, this is good news.