Caveat: It isn’t available in the app store in the EU, and is instead only available via the developer’s marketplace, AltStore¹. As far as I can tell, this genuinely isn’t because of greed, but because of a little detail in Apple’s EU rules (possibly wrong):...
The fact that popular free apps in the EU are subject to fees unless they come up with their own app store is bullshit and clearly Apple trying to punish developers over there. Like, “if you don’t want to owe us money, then make it so the only people who can find your app are those who already know about it”?
It was fairly quickly demonstrated IIRC that Yuzu could emulate TOTK at higher res and 60fps. So it’s entirely possible to me that Yuzu’s Patreon sub soared because users wanted to play their purchased game on better hardware.
I hope the courts find in favor of Yuzu and set the legal precedent that it’s legal to dump secret numbers and purchased software from a device you own.
FYI, this is not about free GPUs. “GeForce NOW” is a streaming service.
Headline would’ve been less confusing if it had the service name in quotes or something. I can see how people might read that and assume it means free, ad-supported GPUs. It does not.
I look back fondly on the moments of “where is the phone?!” Because someone took it to their room to have a private conversation but then left it there on accident.
Still happens I guess, but where everyone has their own phone (not one shared for the whole family) it’s less frantic and thus less hilarious to me.
I mean, gaming exploded over the pandemic. Anyone who thought that was going to become some kind of norm was an idiot. Have we shrunk below pre-pandemic levels? Or is this just idiots who thought they could keep skimming free oil off the surface once the leak was fixed?
Also, I disagree with the idea that AAA games are performing poorly. Bad ideas in AAA games and chasing “easy money” in AAA is performing poorly. Helldivers 2 seems to be doing well, whereas Suicide Squad isn’t. Baldir’s Gate 3 killed it while Starfield kind of flopped. Final Fantasy 16 didn’t meet expectations, but we know Square Enix regularly sets expectations too high anyway.
Are people tired of the same Call of Duty games over and over? Are people full up on live service games and looter shooters? Yes and yes. But are people crazy excited for the new Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth? From the communities I’m in, very much yes. Did Alan Wake 2 release and sell faster than any other game from that studio? Pretty sure I saw that headline recently, yeah.
So when Diablo 4 dies on impact, was that the fault of the gaming landscape? Or was it because Blizzard execs pushed the team to maximize systems and balance they thought would bring in easy money but actually ended up alienating their core audience and reviewers?
I’ve seen this before when working in mobile. Execs want to chase the whales so badly that they don’t allow designers and devs to make the game actually fun to play. Doesn’t matter how “well” you monetize your shitty game if nobody wants to stick around to play it.
My favorite thing about podcasts is how, at least in the ones I listen to, the ads are generally relevant because they’re added when you download each episode. I HATE the modern YouTube thing of “this video was sponsored by” segments. “The first 100 people to…” on a video from even just 1 or 2 years ago is completely useless, and I hate that they’re forever burned into the videos :(
My 7yo was upset the other night because I’d been playing FF7R (wanted to finish before the new one hits) instead of joining him in Minecraft or Fortnite or Parkitect or whatever.
He literally thought that FF7R didn’t have an ending because I guess in his mind all games are just live service/hobby things. Even I guess the ones that are story things.
Haven’t there been some pretty flagrant cases where someone said “we are not doing XYZ” and then like 3 months later there was a big press announcement stating “guess what? We’re doing XYZ, and think you’re going to love it!!”?
I could see Xbox becoming just a Windows PC preconfigured to launch essentially a Big Picture mode version of the Xbox app or something. And then maybe Sony goes ahead and makes their own store/launcher to sell a PS6 or PS7 that’s just a PC as well. But if you have your own PC, that’s fine too.
With them releasing more of their library to PC, this wouldn’t surprise me.
I have a 2Gbps internet connection, and at my desktop running Firefox, I can’t reliably stream anything fancier than 1080p60. In the next room on my TV with an AndroidTV box attached, 4K60 streams flawlessly.
I never see ads because I pay for Premium, yet they still fuck me over.
I tried replaying the Kingdom Hearts games leading up to playing KH3. Got all the way to the final boss sequence in KH1, but I just couldn’t get past the second phase, and I didn’t have any good saves for going back and leveling up. Gave up. Already beat it as a kid when it first came out. No need to kill myself in my late-30s for it.
I don’t mind Souls games, but I kind of hate how so many games lately (especially sequels) have been trying to low-key fit the genre when nobody asked them to. God of War, Darksiders 3…
Yeah, I also paid for Destiny 2 on launch, and then like a year later they went f2p and archived all the original content I paid for. Really, really shitty.
I rip all my CDs to FLAC so I can listen to them easily while working or driving or walking or otherwise where having headphones and a phone is easy but carrying a book of burned backups and a CD Walkman would be hard.
But I also have a humble collection of vinyl because I actually really like the ritual of placing the stylus and listening and turning the record over when I want to just… hear the music and enjoy it for itself.
I’m trying hard to hold out buying a new vehicle until I can move into somewhere I can charge an EV. Sold my last ICE when I moved overseas, and current apartment has no charging places.
My best guess is that they’re being posted by click bait farms to sell ads to people who view their pages… though I don’t know enough about Facebook to know if that would actually be possible.
I don’t want to believe that hundreds of actual people are independently stealing and making variants on this one artist’s work to get fake internet points…
I’m about a week off coming back to Windows from Linux.
Some things that chased me off:
Alan Wake 2 used too new of GPU features
Once after playing a game, my cursor was just gone—not invisible, just not there. Only keyboard.
A few times after quitting games, something was broken about the desktop experience and I had to reboot the machine to get things working again
Discord crashed any time the machine went to sleep (or woke up? Hard to tell which)
Several games only worked if I manually put in Proton launch options
No support for DLSS framegen
Cyberpunk had to be given a fake driver version to support ray reconstruction
No support for GamePass games still, which is how I’d been playing Starfield and Lies if P, and planning on Cities: Skylines 2.
No native support for middle-click scrolling without pasting (I don’t count editing low-level X config files)
[edit] Also Lords if the Fallen thought I was using a modified game and wouldn’t let me online—solo play only, thanks to EAC
I keep feeling like Linux is just a year or two away from being good enough for common folks to switch over, and I guess if all you need if Firefox, it’s probably there. But the experience is just so subtly, but consistently, bad year after year.
For reference, I was on Pop!_OS (whatever their latest stable was, I think based on Ubuntu 22?). I had read that Pop!_OS was one of the better distorts for games.
Weirdly, I read this as “Reddit doesn’t think it needs search engines,” and was confused about seeing everyone discussing Google specifically. That’s a bit stupid to try to block only the one search engine.
I really need to try them and see how many searches I actually use. Even their higher paid tiers seem like way too few searches to me. But I have no actual idea.
Epic would need to have a “import your games and achievements and saves from Steam” feature AND THEN ALSO have a much better performing app than they currently do, for me to convert. But years later and EGS is still a pretty awful user experience compared to Steam. There’s just no way.
I was happily using this for a year or so now. Feels fairer than using an ad blocker. But now they apparently want more money out of people. Feels like some sort of internet video apocalypse is happening, where the services become extremely fragmented and expensive, like YouTube, netflix, hbo, Hulu, Disney+ and whatnot. Each...
So far, Starfield is an awesome game, but now I have an urge to pick up my character on no man sky, and I’m having trouble putting that game down right now....
NMS is super janky in spots… but it pulls off a whole lot of awesome things I can’t do anywhere else, so I tolerate all the junk and loading stutters and fading in geometry…
For me its honestly a ton of my work software (digital forensics), shit is too niche to be replaced by good FOSS options. Cellebrite, Magnet Axiom, etc. Autopsy is great and free and has a linux version but it simply cannot get the same level of data without a pretty nutty level of custom code....
Discord on Linux is one of the biggest reasons I stopped trying to switch to Linux. Not the only, and I know web apps are a thing. But I hate setting literally a web app when there’s a “native” app, but their native app was doubling all my back/forward button inputs, and high was a massive disruption.
It was far from the only reason, more like the final straw in a growing list of frustrating shit that ALMOST worked right.
I am not a professional gamer nor do I have much time to invest into a game in one stretch. However I do enjoy the cumulative progress I make with each session I have with the games, specifically progress of acquiring loot, money, powers or in-game materials. Are there any games that try to match my interests?...
Might’ve meant “material” progress, like “tangible” or progress that’s real and meaningful? “Materialistic” I think usually just means thinking about things you own rather than the quality of your life and relationships? Though saying it out now, I guess that works kind of… But I’ve only ever heard “materialistic” referring to people who only care about what someone owns rather than being a good person; never about video games or the kind of progress I think you’re wanting.
Anyway, lots of good suggestions here. I can’t add anything that meets all your qualifications; but if you are willing to dramatically break your install size requirement, I’ve been having a lot of fun lately with the Forza Horizon games (4 and 5) which are open-world racing/challenge games; but literally everything you do contributes to experience points and money you can use to upgrade and purchase new cars, and there are a lot of challenges which aren’t just races, there’s speed trials (how fast can you hit this one stretch of road), trick trials (how many jumps can you pull if in a minute) and so on.
But the install is like 65GB for FH4, and 150+GB for FH5… hundreds of high detail cars and massive open worlds, I guess… :(
I, like many gamers, grew up playing Pokémon Red and Nintendo 64 and was obsessed with Nintendo products. I graduated to a PS2 and PS3 and became super into Metal Gear Solid and Call of Duty and Fallout. Also spent a ton of time with the Guitar Hero series. I loved the escape gaming brought me and it genuinely helped me relax....
I would say to look for something that looks like you would vibe with it, but is also a VERY well reviewed release. Like, there’s a lot of people complaining these days about how all open world games are kind of the same—meaning a lot of the meta-game tasks are similar—but especially if you’re not constantly playing them, just find whichever has the highest reviews.
Folks have mentioned Horizon, Spider-Man, and God of War, and those are all top-notch games in their genre! If you like sports, there’s some quality games for both football (USA) and football (int’l).
Street Fighter 6 just came out, and if you like fighting games, that’s maybe the best one out in a long while.
Racing, you’ve got Mario Kart on Switch which is CLASSIC; but also Forza Horizon 5 is a blast to drive around and do random races and challenges.
Also on Switch, you’ve got the two Zelda games (Breath of the Wild and the new one, Tears of the Kingdom), both of which are high quality plays with lots of different things you can do, and very little you strictly MUST do, so very chill!
This to say, there’s zero shame in just picking up whatever the current popular game is! They get well reviewed for a reason, and all you want is a good time? They’ll probably give you that! :)
I was really sad the day I completed the last Picross S game on Switch. I had run out. I was playing in bed to unwind my brain at the end of the day. Found a clown on Steam that’s decent, but my Steam Deck is too big to play lying down in bed comfortably. 😥
Microsoft and Activision have indicated that they may abandon their proposed $68.7 billion merger if federal courts grant FTC a preliminary injunction.
The only good outcome of the merger IMO is hopefully getting rid of Bobby Kotick. The fine devs across the company deserve better leadership and a safer working environment than they’ve had over the years under his frat boy reign.
But do I think Microsoft will eternally play fair with the acquisition? Not by a long shot.
The free Delta game emulator for iPhones is live on Apple’s App Store (www.theverge.com)
Caveat: It isn’t available in the app store in the EU, and is instead only available via the developer’s marketplace, AltStore¹. As far as I can tell, this genuinely isn’t because of greed, but because of a little detail in Apple’s EU rules (possibly wrong):...
Nintendo is suing the makers of the Switch emulator Yuzu, claims 'There is no lawful way to use Yuzu' (www.pcgamer.com)
Nintendo says Yuzu played a large role in encouraging piracy of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
GeForce Now adding ads for free users. (feddit.nl)
Gen Z is bringing back landline phones because they think they look ‘cool’: ‘I love to twirl the cord’ (nypost.com)
cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/10105454...
Game over? Industry suffers slowdown after decades-long winning streak (www.ft.com)
almost certain this is behind a paywall and usually FT is one you can’t get around, so some choice excerpts:...
“Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement (www.anildash.com)
Phil Spencer has reportedly reassured employees Microsoft ‘won’t stop making Xbox consoles’ (www.videogameschronicle.com)
Is Google deliberately slowing down YouTube video buffering for adblock users? (www.ghacks.net)
What difficult games/game challenges did you give up on?
Be it a game that’s difficult in its entirety, or a particular challenge in a game that you just couldn’t complete....
Suicide Squad Boss Downplays Live-Service Elements Of Obviously Live-Service Game (kotaku.com)
Get ready to hear more about "pre-internet" times (www.axios.com)
The march towards an all-EV future hit a major roadblock. What went wrong? (www.businessinsider.com)
Facebook Is Being Overrun With Stolen, AI-Generated Images That People Think Are Real (www.404media.co)
This Firefox for Android feature you've been begging for is finally here (www.androidpolice.com)
Most readers want publishers to label AI-generated articles — but trust outlets less when they do (www.niemanlab.org)
TC on open source evangelists (lemmy.ml)
TechConnectify@mas.to - Oh my gosh I just figured it out....
YouTube's plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers (www.androidauthority.com)
cross-posted from: lemdro.id/post/2883134 (!android)
Decentralized Matrix messaging network says it now has 115M users (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
‘Reddit can survive without search’: company reportedly threatens to block Google (www.theverge.com)
Why projects start with a Discord and not an alternative - Comment found on Mastodon
Original comment, copy-pasted for convenience:...
The cult of Obsidian: Why people are obsessed with the note-taking app (www.fastcompany.com)
How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet - WIRED (www.wired.com)
cross-posted from !google...
$600 Million And A Decade Later, Where Is Star Citizen? (exputer.com)
Epic Games Is Cutting About 900 Jobs, or 16% of Staff (www.bloomberg.com)
YouTube is axing its ad-free Premium Lite subscription plan - The Verge (www.theverge.com)
I was happily using this for a year or so now. Feels fairer than using an ad blocker. But now they apparently want more money out of people. Feels like some sort of internet video apocalypse is happening, where the services become extremely fragmented and expensive, like YouTube, netflix, hbo, Hulu, Disney+ and whatnot. Each...
Starfield has made me obsessed with no man’s sky
So far, Starfield is an awesome game, but now I have an urge to pick up my character on no man sky, and I’m having trouble putting that game down right now....
What's a good game you played with an awful tutorial?
Either it didn’t teach you anything at all, or it taught you the most irrelevant parts of the game.
What non-FOSS software are you using that you wish you could replace?
For me its honestly a ton of my work software (digital forensics), shit is too niche to be replaced by good FOSS options. Cellebrite, Magnet Axiom, etc. Autopsy is great and free and has a linux version but it simply cannot get the same level of data without a pretty nutty level of custom code....
in my opinion, '98 was the best year for game releases. What's yours? (en.m.wikipedia.org)
98 has some of my favorite games to ever come out, like:...
Recommendations for short session games with materialistic progress made with each session
I am not a professional gamer nor do I have much time to invest into a game in one stretch. However I do enjoy the cumulative progress I make with each session I have with the games, specifically progress of acquiring loot, money, powers or in-game materials. Are there any games that try to match my interests?...
I’ve fallen into a deep gaming rut lately. What game(s) helped “get you back into” gaming and rediscover the magic of video games?
I, like many gamers, grew up playing Pokémon Red and Nintendo 64 and was obsessed with Nintendo products. I graduated to a PS2 and PS3 and became super into Metal Gear Solid and Call of Duty and Fallout. Also spent a ton of time with the Guitar Hero series. I loved the escape gaming brought me and it genuinely helped me relax....
Picross is underrated (beehaw.org)
Microsoft may abandon Activision merger if federal judge grants FTC request (www.tweaktown.com)
Microsoft and Activision have indicated that they may abandon their proposed $68.7 billion merger if federal courts grant FTC a preliminary injunction.