Various video game stuff not deserving its own thread

[Yankee Zulu]

Did you know the word "coward" is cencored on twitch? If you try to put it into your stream title, it wont let you.

[MrTwinkls]

Did you know the word "coward" is cencored on twitch? If you try to put it into your stream title, it wont let you.

Соuld аlwауs swаp sоmе lеttеrs with Суrilliс.

[logincrash]

Did you know the word "coward" is cencored on twitch? If you try to put it into your stream title, it wont let you.

Соuld аlwауs swаp sоmе lеttеrs with Суrilliс.

Сошагd?
Couldn't find the replacement for "d" in the alphabet.

[MrTwinkls]

Did you know the word "coward" is cencored on twitch? If you try to put it into your stream title, it wont let you.

Соuld аlwауs swаp sоmе lеttеrs with Суrilliс.

Сошагd?
Couldn't find the replacement for "d" in the alphabet.

Just С, О, or А are fine. Usually this is enough to trick any filters, unless they know what they are doing.

[rusty_shackleford]

imagine not using a cheap LLM to censor in 2025

[Vergil]

Is that like an MLM?

[wndrbr]

Rusty had to waste time and effort implementing an LLM-powered censorship extension because he didn't want people to say 'Gulf of Мехїсо'.

[UltraFan123]

Rusty had to waste time and effort implementing an LLM-powered censorship extension because he didn't want people to say 'Gulf of Мехїсо'.

It was totally worth it then. kek

[rusty_shackleford]

Does anyone know if any economist has written about how the (paid) video game market is essentially using the labor theory of value?

It's no wonder that gacha games make so much more money when you pay for what you want rather than paying for how much it costs to produce. AAA games default to $70 because… they're AAA, not because they're particularly good.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Does anyone know if any economist has written about how the (paid) video game market is essentially using the labor theory of value?

It's no wonder that gacha games make so much more money when you pay for what you want rather than paying for how much it costs to produce. AAA games default to $70 because… they're AAA, not because they're particularly good.

This is not answering your question, but the gacha model of selling characters severely damages the experience of a game in so many ways, I do not see how it could be seen as something to emulate. Characters not being able to be killed off or change or retire because then you are taking away the fantasy that a customer directly paid for. The writing is incentivized to be about showing off the newest character of the current patch to advertise them, whether it makes sense or not and often at the expense of older characters who would have been more appropriate for the current situation. And so on. I would rather buy a box price game that gives you all of the characters for a holistically better experience. I do not sell how to have people "buy what they want" without delving into microtransaction ******** like paying to have fast travel feature, paying to get a house, paying to have voice acting, etc. Not to mention the other issues with the live service format gachas are often based in where you often have spaghetti code that prevents massive changes and eventually leads to the formularization of the game, as opposed to just making a series of games where you have the freedom to do anything from entry to entry.

[rusty_shackleford]

Does anyone know if any economist has written about how the (paid) video game market is essentially using the labor theory of value?

It's no wonder that gacha games make so much more money when you pay for what you want rather than paying for how much it costs to produce. AAA games default to $70 because… they're AAA, not because they're particularly good.

This is not answering your question, but the gacha model of selling characters severely damages the experience of a game in so many ways, I do not see how it could be seen as something to emulate. Characters not being able to be killed off or change or retire because then you are taking away the fantasy that a customer directly paid for. The writing is incentivized to be about showing off the newest character of the current patch to advertise them, whether it makes sense or not and often at the expense of older characters who would have been more appropriate for the current situation. And so on. I would rather buy a box price game that gives you all of the characters for a holistically better experience. I do not sell how to have people "buy what they want" without delving into microtransaction ******** like paying to have fast travel feature, paying to get a house, paying to have voice acting, etc. Not to mention the other issues with the live service format gachas are often based in where you often have spaghetti code that prevents massive changes and eventually leads to the formularization of the game, as opposed to just making a series of games where you have the freedom to do anything from entry to entry.

Avowed probably would have made more money at $25 than at $70 is what I'm saying

And if you consider gamepass, most 'purchases' of avowed probably cost much less than $25.

[Jordy]

My dog got killed by a warg in Rimworld.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

Does anyone know if any economist has written about how the (paid) video game market is essentially using the labor theory of value?

It's no wonder that gacha games make so much more money when you pay for what you want rather than paying for how much it costs to produce. AAA games default to $70 because… they're AAA, not because they're particularly good.

This is not answering your question, but the gacha model of selling characters severely damages the experience of a game in so many ways, I do not see how it could be seen as something to emulate. Characters not being able to be killed off or change or retire because then you are taking away the fantasy that a customer directly paid for. The writing is incentivized to be about showing off the newest character of the current patch to advertise them, whether it makes sense or not and often at the expense of older characters who would have been more appropriate for the current situation. And so on. I would rather buy a box price game that gives you all of the characters for a holistically better experience. I do not sell how to have people "buy what they want" without delving into microtransaction ******** like paying to have fast travel feature, paying to get a house, paying to have voice acting, etc. Not to mention the other issues with the live service format gachas are often based in where you often have spaghetti code that prevents massive changes and eventually leads to the formularization of the game, as opposed to just making a series of games where you have the freedom to do anything from entry to entry.

Pretty much the reason why I stopped playing FGO for reasons outlined. I don’t understand how people can enjoy playing games like that for prolonged period of time especially when the game is so basic and monotonous that it makes Ubisoft games looks like peerless excellence.

[Demonic Fate]

Does anyone know if any economist has written about how the (paid) video game market is essentially using the labor theory of value?

It's no wonder that gacha games make so much more money when you pay for what you want rather than paying for how much it costs to produce. AAA games default to $70 because… they're AAA, not because they're particularly good.

This is not answering your question, but the gacha model of selling characters severely damages the experience of a game in so many ways, I do not see how it could be seen as something to emulate. Characters not being able to be killed off or change or retire because then you are taking away the fantasy that a customer directly paid for. The writing is incentivized to be about showing off the newest character of the current patch to advertise them, whether it makes sense or not and often at the expense of older characters who would have been more appropriate for the current situation. And so on. I would rather buy a box price game that gives you all of the characters for a holistically better experience. I do not sell how to have people "buy what they want" without delving into microtransaction ******** like paying to have fast travel feature, paying to get a house, paying to have voice acting, etc. Not to mention the other issues with the live service format gachas are often based in where you often have spaghetti code that prevents massive changes and eventually leads to the formularization of the game, as opposed to just making a series of games where you have the freedom to do anything from entry to entry.

Avowed probably would have made more money at $25 than at $70 is what I'm saying

And if you consider gamepass, most 'purchases' of avowed probably cost much less than $25.

Well, it's basic market segmentation. There are some people who will buy it for $70 no questions asked; but many of the people who would have bought it for no more than $25 will still fork over $25 when it goes on sale next year.

It's mostly multiplayer games that care about maximizing sales at release, for the network effect (which is why F2P dominates). For single-player games, getting three people to buy it for $25 is worse than getting one $70 purchase, one $25 purchase next year on sale, and one lost sale.

[rusty_shackleford]

This is not answering your question, but the gacha model of selling characters severely damages the experience of a game in so many ways, I do not see how it could be seen as something to emulate. Characters not being able to be killed off or change or retire because then you are taking away the fantasy that a customer directly paid for. The writing is incentivized to be about showing off the newest character of the current patch to advertise them, whether it makes sense or not and often at the expense of older characters who would have been more appropriate for the current situation. And so on. I would rather buy a box price game that gives you all of the characters for a holistically better experience. I do not sell how to have people "buy what they want" without delving into microtransaction ******** like paying to have fast travel feature, paying to get a house, paying to have voice acting, etc. Not to mention the other issues with the live service format gachas are often based in where you often have spaghetti code that prevents massive changes and eventually leads to the formularization of the game, as opposed to just making a series of games where you have the freedom to do anything from entry to entry.

Avowed probably would have made more money at $25 than at $70 is what I'm saying

And if you consider gamepass, most 'purchases' of avowed probably cost much less than $25.

Well, it's basic market segmentation. There are some people who will buy it for $70 no questions asked; but many of the people who would have bought it for no more than $25 will still fork over $25 when it goes on sale next year.

It's mostly multiplayer games that care about maximizing sales at release, for the network effect (which is why F2P dominates). For single-player games, getting three people to buy it for $25 is worse than getting one $70 purchase, one $25 purchase next year on sale, and one lost sale.

From the data I know of, the massive majority of copies sold happen within the first month excluding titles with extremely long tails e.g., Witcher 3 or something.
I'm not aware of any actual studies done, internally or otherwise, on the effectiveness of video game pricing.

FWIW, I can't remember the last time I paid the full $60(and now, $70) for a video game. I would have said Divinity Original Sin 2, but… they're one of the counterexamples — DOS2 was $45 at launch. You could argue it wasn't technically a AAA game, but I'm certain any major publisher would have gone with the standard $60 for it.

[Acrux]

I've never heard of this Blue Prince game and now today I'm bombarded with "this is the best game I've ever played".

I assume then it's both terrible and designed for modern audiences.

[Demonic Fate]

Avowed probably would have made more money at $25 than at $70 is what I'm saying

And if you consider gamepass, most 'purchases' of avowed probably cost much less than $25.

Well, it's basic market segmentation. There are some people who will buy it for $70 no questions asked; but many of the people who would have bought it for no more than $25 will still fork over $25 when it goes on sale next year.

It's mostly multiplayer games that care about maximizing sales at release, for the network effect (which is why F2P dominates). For single-player games, getting three people to buy it for $25 is worse than getting one $70 purchase, one $25 purchase next year on sale, and one lost sale.

From the data I know of, the massive majority of copies sold happen within the first month excluding titles with extremely long tails e.g., Witcher 3 or something.
I'm not aware of any actual studies done, internally or otherwise, on the effectiveness of video game pricing.

FWIW, I can't remember the last time I paid the full $60(and now, $70) for a video game. I would have said Divinity Original Sin 2, but… they're one of the counterexamples — DOS2 was $45 at launch. You could argue it wasn't technically a AAA game, but I'm certain any major publisher would have gone with the standard $60 for it.

I think the only game I ever bought for full price shortly after launch was Overwatch, and that was only because half my friend group was playing it, including a girl I was trying to **** at the time.

[Havitner]

Does anyone know if any economist has written about how the (paid) video game market is essentially using the labor theory of value?

It's no wonder that gacha games make so much more money when you pay for what you want rather than paying for how much it costs to produce. AAA games default to $70 because… they're AAA, not because they're particularly good.

This is not answering your question, but the gacha model of selling characters severely damages the experience of a game in so many ways, I do not see how it could be seen as something to emulate. Characters not being able to be killed off or change or retire because then you are taking away the fantasy that a customer directly paid for. The writing is incentivized to be about showing off the newest character of the current patch to advertise them, whether it makes sense or not and often at the expense of older characters who would have been more appropriate for the current situation. And so on. I would rather buy a box price game that gives you all of the characters for a holistically better experience. I do not sell how to have people "buy what they want" without delving into microtransaction ******** like paying to have fast travel feature, paying to get a house, paying to have voice acting, etc. Not to mention the other issues with the live service format gachas are often based in where you often have spaghetti code that prevents massive changes and eventually leads to the formularization of the game, as opposed to just making a series of games where you have the freedom to do anything from entry to entry.

Microtrannies are literally worse than Churchill. I'm too lazy to write down any of my own arguments to support that claim, so here is a link to an old article by some nerd.

https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=50354

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Does anyone know if any economist has written about how the (paid) video game market is essentially using the labor theory of value?

It's no wonder that gacha games make so much more money when you pay for what you want rather than paying for how much it costs to produce. AAA games default to $70 because… they're AAA, not because they're particularly good.

This is not answering your question, but the gacha model of selling characters severely damages the experience of a game in so many ways, I do not see how it could be seen as something to emulate. Characters not being able to be killed off or change or retire because then you are taking away the fantasy that a customer directly paid for. The writing is incentivized to be about showing off the newest character of the current patch to advertise them, whether it makes sense or not and often at the expense of older characters who would have been more appropriate for the current situation. And so on. I would rather buy a box price game that gives you all of the characters for a holistically better experience. I do not sell how to have people "buy what they want" without delving into microtransaction ******** like paying to have fast travel feature, paying to get a house, paying to have voice acting, etc. Not to mention the other issues with the live service format gachas are often based in where you often have spaghetti code that prevents massive changes and eventually leads to the formularization of the game, as opposed to just making a series of games where you have the freedom to do anything from entry to entry.

Microtrannies are literally worse than Churchill. I'm too lazy to write down any of my own arguments to support that claim, so here is a link to an old article by some nerd.

https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=50354

He had some pretty good articles. The one I used to keep linking in Trails discussions when complaining about how conspicuously out of place Ouroboros and their huge secret armies from nowhere were in such a realistic setting was his ME3 article on Cerberus.

[Manny V]

Well, it's basic market segmentation. There are some people who will buy it for $70 no questions asked; but many of the people who would have bought it for no more than $25 will still fork over $25 when it goes on sale next year.

It's mostly multiplayer games that care about maximizing sales at release, for the network effect (which is why F2P dominates). For single-player games, getting three people to buy it for $25 is worse than getting one $70 purchase, one $25 purchase next year on sale, and one lost sale.

From the data I know of, the massive majority of copies sold happen within the first month excluding titles with extremely long tails e.g., Witcher 3 or something.
I'm not aware of any actual studies done, internally or otherwise, on the effectiveness of video game pricing.

FWIW, I can't remember the last time I paid the full $60(and now, $70) for a video game. I would have said Divinity Original Sin 2, but… they're one of the counterexamples — DOS2 was $45 at launch. You could argue it wasn't technically a AAA game, but I'm certain any major publisher would have gone with the standard $60 for it.

I think the only game I ever bought for full price shortly after launch was Overwatch, and that was only because half my friend group was playing it, including a girl I was trying to **** at the time.

did you get the pusi

or did you play that dogshit game for nothing

[maidenhaver]

From the data I know of, the massive majority of copies sold happen within the first month excluding titles with extremely long tails e.g., Witcher 3 or something.
I'm not aware of any actual studies done, internally or otherwise, on the effectiveness of video game pricing.

FWIW, I can't remember the last time I paid the full $60(and now, $70) for a video game. I would have said Divinity Original Sin 2, but… they're one of the counterexamples — DOS2 was $45 at launch. You could argue it wasn't technically a AAA game, but I'm certain any major publisher would have gone with the standard $60 for it.

I think the only game I ever bought for full price shortly after launch was Overwatch, and that was only because half my friend group was playing it, including a girl I was trying to **** at the time.

did you get the pusi

or did you play that dogshit game for nothing

Yes, he failed. I put my seed in her.

[Just Locus]

Got my hands on Balatro. The game's more fun than I thought it would be, less complicated too.

[Nemesis]

Got my hands on Balatro. The game's more fun than I thought it would be, less complicated too.

Be careful. It's addicting.

[Jordy]

Got my hands on Balatro. The game's more fun than I thought it would be, less complicated too.

Be careful. It's addicting.

When I finally got a good hand I never loaded it up again because I'm scared I will **** it up.

[DemoGraph]

I'm trying Valheim vanilla solo. Bro gifted it to me, we've ran a bit on x3 resource rate and I got a bit hooked.
It's minimalistic, but quite nice so far. It has a bit of that loneliness feel Morrowind had.
I'm periodically switching settings to free building, because cutting trees takes a lot of time (no bronze yet) and I just want to build my hilltop fortified village.

[Oyster Sauce]

I'm trying Valheim vanilla solo. Bro gifted it to me, we've ran a bit on x3 resource rate and I got a bit hooked.
It's minimalistic, but quite nice so far. It has a bit of that loneliness feel Morrowind had.
I'm periodically switching settings to free building, because cutting trees takes a lot of time (no bronze yet) and I just want to build my hilltop fortified village.

Cheater

[Irenaeus]

Does anyone know if any economist has written about how the (paid) video game market is essentially using the labor theory of value?

It's no wonder that gacha games make so much more money when you pay for what you want rather than paying for how much it costs to produce. AAA games default to $70 because… they're AAA, not because they're particularly good.

This is not answering your question, but the gacha model of selling characters severely damages the experience of a game in so many ways, I do not see how it could be seen as something to emulate. Characters not being able to be killed off or change or retire because then you are taking away the fantasy that a customer directly paid for. The writing is incentivized to be about showing off the newest character of the current patch to advertise them, whether it makes sense or not and often at the expense of older characters who would have been more appropriate for the current situation. And so on. I would rather buy a box price game that gives you all of the characters for a holistically better experience. I do not sell how to have people "buy what they want" without delving into microtransaction ******** like paying to have fast travel feature, paying to get a house, paying to have voice acting, etc. Not to mention the other issues with the live service format gachas are often based in where you often have spaghetti code that prevents massive changes and eventually leads to the formularization of the game, as opposed to just making a series of games where you have the freedom to do anything from entry to entry.

Microtrannies are literally worse than Churchill. I'm too lazy to write down any of my own arguments to support that claim, so here is a link to an old article by some nerd.

https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=50354

Was reading this and it reminded me that I hate GTA 5 so much it's unreal.

[Irenaeus]

I'm trying Valheim vanilla solo. Bro gifted it to me, we've ran a bit on x3 resource rate and I got a bit hooked.
It's minimalistic, but quite nice so far. It has a bit of that loneliness feel Morrowind had.
I'm periodically switching settings to free building, because cutting trees takes a lot of time (no bronze yet) and I just want to build my hilltop fortified village.

One of my brothers love this game, I watched him playing for a bit and can't understand how anyone can have fun with that or other similar games like Satisfactory and other base practically identical first-person base-building games.
Then again I play map games

[Irenaeus]

This is not answering your question, but the gacha model of selling characters severely damages the experience of a game in so many ways, I do not see how it could be seen as something to emulate. Characters not being able to be killed off or change or retire because then you are taking away the fantasy that a customer directly paid for. The writing is incentivized to be about showing off the newest character of the current patch to advertise them, whether it makes sense or not and often at the expense of older characters who would have been more appropriate for the current situation. And so on. I would rather buy a box price game that gives you all of the characters for a holistically better experience. I do not sell how to have people "buy what they want" without delving into microtransaction ******** like paying to have fast travel feature, paying to get a house, paying to have voice acting, etc. Not to mention the other issues with the live service format gachas are often based in where you often have spaghetti code that prevents massive changes and eventually leads to the formularization of the game, as opposed to just making a series of games where you have the freedom to do anything from entry to entry.

Microtrannies are literally worse than Churchill. I'm too lazy to write down any of my own arguments to support that claim, so here is a link to an old article by some nerd.

https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=50354

He had some pretty good articles. The one I used to keep linking in Trails discussions when complaining about how conspicuously out of place Ouroboros and their huge secret armies from nowhere were in such a realistic setting was his ME3 article on Cerberus.

One of my favorites from him is the one about the ******* door in Neverwinter.

[DemoGraph]

I'm trying Valheim vanilla solo. Bro gifted it to me, we've ran a bit on x3 resource rate and I got a bit hooked.
It's minimalistic, but quite nice so far. It has a bit of that loneliness feel Morrowind had.
I'm periodically switching settings to free building, because cutting trees takes a lot of time (no bronze yet) and I just want to build my hilltop fortified village.

One of my brothers love this game, I watched him playing for a bit and can't understand how anyone can have fun with that or other similar games like Satisfactory and other base practically identical first-person base-building games.
Then again I play map games

I like the "painting" aspect of Valheim. You're making a house / village, try to integrate it into environment so that it looked realistic.
When I've played Minecraft, I used to find a nice looking random village and "upgrade" the houses so that they looked more interesting: I added animal pens, storages, expanded farmland, added outhouses, built walls with towers, etc. I also tried to make villages from various biomes have distinct style. The challenge also was to alter existing villages somewhat, not to rebuild them from scratch - of course you can make anything pretty, but too pretty, so that it begins to fall into uncanny alley.
I guess that's what people play Sims for. But with mob slaughter.

For me it's like solitaire or realworld painting, bow shooting, writing LPs or PBPs (or fishing). A meditative activity to fall into the flow-state with.

I've tried Satisfactory, but it didn't click. Too much running and micro. Factorio is an order of magnitude better in this regard.