It's crazy how far micro-transactions and monetizing games have come since Bethesda charged $2.50 for cosmetic armor to put on your horse. If you'd told someone back then that one day an in-game mount would cost more than the game itself they would have laughed you out of the room.

Why just ruin a web browser when you can try and ruin the entire internet?

Well, that's not a good sign for Starfield's modding future. Honestly, it feels like post-Skyrim Bethesda just assumes their games will have a robust modding community. Except that for a game to garner that kind of community it has to be, you know, good. Maybe Bethesda hopes paid modding will be the carrot that brings modders to Starfield, but even if that becomes the standard I don't expect many people will want to make mods for a game they don't even enjoy playing.

Just showed up one day and made himself at home? Keeps falling asleep? Terry and the cats are kindred spirits.

I mean, I am going to miss the regular videos, but I'm glad he's getting to step away on his own terms. So many youtubers burn out, stop uploading, and then just disappear. Or they turn into a brand that they have to manage instead of creating what they want to. Not many get to fly off into the sunset under a helicopter, so that's nice. Plus, he's not stepping away from creating stuff entirely so there's that.

Yeah. At least when nuclear war was the existential threat hanging over humanity you had the comfort that it would all be over in an instant. Now we get to watch a slow unraveling of civilization over decades while things continue to get worse. Fun times.

Every time I think Musk has written his stupidest Tweet he goes and proves me wrong. It's honestly impressive.

They're charging people higher prices and refusing to allow them to keep their digital content? They're basically just handing out the pirate hats and eye patches at this point.

I mean it's not surprising that Capcom is complaining about people modding nude characters into their games, but this still reads like some Capcom executive just learned what mods were and what they could do.

Seeing MatPat being called the old internet is...something all right. Almost as disorienting as seeing all the "Who?" reactions to the news. I guess it isn't that surprising given how huge Youtube is. I'm sure there are plenty of giant channels I've never heard of. That being said I'm curious to see if any more "old-school" youtubers decide to retire over the next year.

So there's a very good chance that a few generations from now this will just be an expensive paperweight? Like I've accepted that most games need online connections these days, and so do the consoles, but now we even need it for the add-ons?

This is what happens when you wish for the resurrection of a beloved IP. Another finger on the monkey's paw curls. The idea of a Crazy Taxi live service game is weird enough, but it's just bizarre that they are using Fortnight as a major inspiration for the Jet Set Radio reboot. I guess at the very least we are getting proper remakes of these games alongside the live service reboots. It will be interesting to see how the games do head to head, especially with the difficulties live service games have been having lately.

On the one hand I'm always excited for more Witcher. On the other hand Cyberpunk 2077. More seriously, I hope they make a great game and it that lives up to the expectations people are going to have for a new Witcher game, but I'm keeping my expectations in check until I see the finished product.

Being owned my Embracer must feel like a death sentence at this point. I mean even if your studio has been spared cuts or closures so far how safe can you really feel with the higher-ups desperately throwing everyone overboard to stop the ship from going under.

Cool. I don't really care about the name if it means that finding games that I like gets a little bit easier.

Painful for who? I highly doubt any of the CEOs and investors interviewed are going to suffer all that much compared to the artists, programmers, and other employees that are going to be laid off because their company wants to be leaner, more dynamic, or whatever the latest buzzword is.

Honestly? Yeah, I probably would have stuck around. I think if they had given more notice then the protest would have been a lot more muted and you wouldn't have seen as many people jump ship for the fediverse. Although, it's not really anger or spite that's been keeping me on the fediverse and away from Reddit. When I learned RIF was shutting down I was more annoyed than anything else. But every action Reddit has taken since then has convinced me that it's just going to become a worse platform as time goes on. Yes, the fediverse is hard to navigate at first and a lot of sites are struggling under a user base that was never expected to grow so rapidly. Still, I appreciate the smaller communities here and I've been more active here in a week than I was during how many years I've been on Reddit. There's a novelty to figuring things out that I never really had with Reddit.

Unity really just keeps stepping on rakes right now huh? Can't wait to see how they manage to make this situation even worse before it's over.

Good. Not every developer needs to be snapped by a bigger publisher. Some game devs just do better on their own than as part of a corporate monolith.

It's a shame that people are being laid off, especially when it seems like it's retaliation for complaining about working conditions. Still, I don't think I'd ever be able to buy anything from ZA/UM after they kicked most of the creators out of the company and took control of the IP.