I called to specifically inform them that I was a decently regular shopper, as someone who avoids many “mega-corps”, and that in the wake of their anti-DEI move, I would never buy anything from them ever again.

Granted, I live in a city with many shops of various local varieties, and have other options. I’m aware the same chances aren’t available to everyone else.

I mean, if they find actual artwork, audio, or code stolen, much of which goes into UI development, that would definitely make for a fair case. I’d presume that Schedule 1 devs would never do something so stupid though.

The game pricing argument goes back and forth for me. Yes, on paper, you could say that inflation suggests games should go up in price, especially considering how many more developers are needed to put out high-fidelity games. BUT, on the other hand, the minimum wage has not raised significantly in all of that time. As a result, a significant number of gamers genuinely can’t pay more for games than they could 20+ years ago. The reason these larger studios exist is because of gaming’s expanded reach in that time; and many of these new target territories similarly can’t pay for the equivalent of $80USD.

There’s maybe only about 1-2 games I’ve ever even paid the $70 price tag for.

How will those old joycons charge? Is the Switch 2 able to have S1 joycons slide in without using the magnet?

120 and 4K are often claimed on console specs but are rarely achieved within games. At best it will be capable of that when playing Netflix or streaming.

I’m curious what other people’s main gripe is (likely emulation fights?) For my own, it’s when they enacted an assault on Garry’s Mod assets.

That domain never did anything to harm their brand and was a source for tons of fan content. Emulation has its murky arguments about capitalism, but going after GMod was just litigation and harm for its own sake.

The condemnations are lukewarm because at best they wouldn’t accomplish much. For all the effort voting out Chuck and finding a replacement, Republicans would have full focus on special elections.

We all know for all intents AOC and JCrockett are the leaders of the Democratic Party currently. A title would not change that to a significant degree. Neither of them has encouraged focus on Schumer, and I imagine there’s good reason for that.

I’m all for finding inspiring new candidates - but we don’t actually gain all that much by dragging down the pretty bad ones - and I fully agree they’re bad, especially when their seats are not up for election. The house has a lot of seats to claim.

I once had a bad sandwich at a shitty sandwich shop. I said it was bad. I just don’t devote time and energy to warning everyone away from the shop. I’m finding better sandwiches. This is the challenge of building yourself off what inspires you rather than what you hate.

Something I want to highlight, because I know it’ll come up (even if just in people’s minds) is democratic betrayals and silence, eg on the budget CR.

Chuck Schumer likely betrayed the Dems either for financial institutions and “stability”, or for state safety and cowardice. The former is scummy, and pretty much grants him all the hate he deserves. The latter is also plausible, and perhaps more excusable (still betraying our wishes) in that millions of people who hadn’t been following politics would hear smear tactics against Democrats. Plus, it would shut down the courts which is the one area of frequent victory.

I’m not making that case because I agree with it, especially now that courts are faltering, just that someone good but scared could believe it. And even if you assume the worst of Chuck, think about the motivations that put most Democrats in place across the country. A good number of them aren’t going to capitulate to the silence/financial appeasement.

If you want a better solution: Research democratic candidates before you vote for them. I’ve been phone banking for Susan Crawford, and while everything I see about her is good, I do get worried by the voter response of “Oh, I always vote Democrat!” Someday, for some people, that will not be a good idea. For some 80% of them, it is. And if the House is ever 80% democrat, it won’t matter that 20% of them are spineless.

No. Republicans filibustered overnight on medical care as well.

…Oh, wait, that was Ted Cruz speaking against the ACA.

Ugh. I suppose I can only feel grateful that Tencent’s stake is only in this subsidiary? I’ve already done as much as I can to divorce from Epic Games from Tencent’s 40% stake in them.

And yet, famous Japanese creators don’t understand the hate, and see it as a vocal minority. https://www.dexerto.com/assassins-creed/legendary-japanese-dev-says-normal-people-dont-care-about-assassins-creed-shadows-controversy-3168442/

I would be doing the same, but I decided to drop off fascist Twitch - just YouTube streams, and whoever cross-streams to Noice for me. (And, the latter doesn’t have ads!)

“Why did you put transgender people in this thing? Why did you make it divisive?”
“Wait. Walk that back. Why do you think that adding transgender people makes something divisive?”

The bigotry is hidden in the questions, but they’re not hiding so successfully anymore.

It’s distressing how often the track of inventors has been overtaken by the plans of hyper-capitalists.

• Tesla cars were invented by Elon Musk Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who were then cut out by their investor to enshittify the interface.
• Keurig coffee pods were invented by a pair of roommates that wanted them to become recyclable so they wouldn’t cause so much waste.
• Blizzard used to make fun games, and is now bought out by people that don’t.

I still need to put out my big, long-form video promoting the Accountable Capitalism Act - something that could lead a large body of software devs at a big company to be present for the big-shift plans to, say, “Remove error messages from Windows!” and tell their bosses: Hell no. The same style of issue exists in many industries.

This might be a dumb idea, but I may buy this game just to make up for all the baseless hate it’s been hit by. Maybe just to avoid shareholder claims of “See, people prefer historical accuracy. Hence black people are banned in all future games.”

I haven’t really even tracked much of Ubisoft games for a while, and I recognize usually they’re pretty mindless open world fun - personally I’m often fine with that.

Wow, you mean they didn’t make a successful game and then immediately triple their staff and try to start pumping out formulaic games at double pace?

But what about company growth??

This is very optimistic for the devotion behind a cult. People are already used to sacrificing for an oligarch.

If people are being kidnapped out of their homes for free speech, and plans are made for invasion of other countries, which party is “starting” said war?

I admit I’m not up to date on the leaning of various social media, but I had thought Tiktok, being Chinese-owned, might approve of more anti-Trump sentiment. Maybe they were more attuned to the “Incarcerate” portion.

America has previously spent TONS of money destroying the property of people with those ideologies. They even had a name for that historical event: World War 2.