Nintendo bets you’ll buy Mario Kart even if it’s $80. Focus bets you won’t buy Roadcraft unless it’s $40.

Yes, but then their lives are often uprooted, since the entire existence of their job was based on a bad bet.

“Recently” also means something different in a time where BioWare makes one game every 5 years rather two games in the same year.

This one and FairGame$ are both screwed, and they’ll mark the end of an era for Sony and live service. What’s funny too is that Bungie was purchased in large part for being experts in making successful live service games, but it reminds me of something in investing where those who appear to be very smart after a string of successes are compared to being “expert coin flippers” who just got heads a number of times in a row. As we’ve gotten a peak or two behind the curtain after the purchase, it certainly looks like Bungie was only lucky.

Typically, when Steam handles the matchmaking, it’s peer to peer. But in general, they also sort of broker the connection between you and the other player or server. Street Fighter 6 runs its own servers and matchmaking, but if Steam cuts out, I lose my connection to them.

GOG is competitive for my dollar. DRM-free is a compelling proposition, and they’ve got an excellent refund program. There are a lot of things they could stand to do better, but those two things alone give me an actual reason to shop there over Steam.

It’s a lot of cutting out for about a minute, but that’s just enough to interrupt a fighting game match. If it was once per week at a predictable time, that might be okay, but it’s been happening more and more lately when it used to only be on Tuesdays.

As a customer, why would I ever shop at Epic if the game is also available on Steam and typically has more features? Epic doesn’t solve any problems for me and actively introduces others, like a lack of Linux support. Do I want to play Alan Wake II? Of course I do. Am I going to buy it when they could push an update tomorrow that breaks compatibility with my operating system and offers me no recourse as a customer since it was unsupported in the first place? No, I’m not.

There are things worth solving that Steam does poorly (if they also support Linux customers). Finding out if my multiplayer game will be playable without external servers is a nightmare; DRM sucks, and I want none of it; Steam’s multiplayer/friends network has more downtime than is acceptable; Steam Input should be a platform agnostic library; etc. Instead of solving those problems, they made the store enticing for suppliers (publishers) but not customers. If I’m shopping someplace other than Steam, it’s GOG and not Epic.

Are you under the impression that Metal Gear Rising is an Obsidian game?

Do you think there’s any stopping the industry’s shift to digital at this point? Because we just saw another quarter where we went even harder in that direction.

Well, playing through the first KC:D now, I can tell you it was rough to go from Avowed’s combat to KC:D’s, but that’s okay, because KC:D has other strengths. When development gets restarted, it’s not because it was shaping up into a better game than what we ended up with.

Every time you buy a PC, you’re buying a platform that Microsoft couldn’t care less if it sells at all, and that’s all this will be. It will be supported by Microsoft as any other Windows PC, for better or worse.

Allegedly, it’s an improved Windows experience so you get the compatibility without having to use a desktop operating system on a handheld game machine. So, you get Game Pass and kernel level anti cheat games with a UX similar to the Steam Deck (ish). And besides, “everything is an Xbox”. They don’t care how many of these things sell as long as you’re on Game Pass or buying their games.

I finished the game already, but the biggest quality of life update is being able to use Soul Pods to dispel illusions so you’re not more or less locked in with Yatzli while exploring in the later Acts. Set your expectations appropriately, and Avowed is a hell of a game, but it’s got more in common with Dark Souls or God of War than it does Fallout: New Vegas or Skyrim.

No linking to piracy

Rule #6 in the side bar.

I’m not following your argument. You’re perfectly capable of having the rug pulled out from under you with a native Linux build too.

Negative hundreds of millions of dollars. But the point still stands that they believed this was a rational way to make a boatload of money. With hindsight, we’re all geniuses, but yes, this was a stupid move.

If they have to compete, which it looks like they will in some capacity, then it’s totally possible.

Oh, if you’re a fighting game player, the innovation is impossible to miss. Now there’s only one USB port on the front, so when you play at locals and majors, you have to spin the console around to blow all the heat directly at the people trying to play a competitive match so that their controller cords will reach the additional USBs in back. Also it gets hot enough to melt the connectors that you’re plugging in there. Also we all had to update our controllers specifically for PS5 even though our PS4 controllers still functioned just fine. So innovative.