Most of your write ups seem decently done if you clicked with the game at all, but if you're going to continue to review things, you might want to do reign in your personal biases a bit.
Low scores for games you didn't play or realize you don't understand the appeal of are pretty bad takes.
Vampire Survivors was quite literally one of the hit games of the year when it came out, to call other games of the genre that are following on its coattails "not really a game" and saying people shouldn't buy a literal genre is just ridiculous. Is FatalZone trying to be some huge blockbuster, no, it's just iterating on the survivor concept (same as Deep Rock Galactic is doing, which has more polish but less features than most). The game is literally $5 to buy right now in early access and as one of the many who do enjoy the genre, it's probably worth the price with the content it has now (unknown if it'll be same insane value VS has been).
People with a gambling addiction will find an outlet for it unless they get help controlling it, just like people with any addiction. Addiction is treated on an individual basis, not by banning an activity that the vast majority of the population can partake in with self-control.
We don't have tons of public numbers to be able to discuss the initial development, licensing, marketing, support and ongoing development, distribution and overhead costs vs initial costs, expansion and MTX income of games at a large scale. But you can be sure the companies that make the games have those numbers, and they're used for pricing and budgeting of future development. And that's before we open the can of worms that is discussing how much profit is ethical.
Maybe they could make less money, maybe they could not make certain features, but where does the ethical line fall when it comes to predatory features and marketing? Who needs protection? From who? How do you implement it without infringing the rights of others? Is it ok to let them gamble if there's a deterministic worst-case scenario? What if there's a limit on how much they can spend? What if purchases are purely only deterministic, but they're limited time exclusives that will never return? What about if you can earn them by playing or pay extra to just get them up front or faster? What about if they carve that feature out of the main product and sell it as an additional cost? These are all predatory in some way, but we don't need to ban them all when a person can make their own value judgments and interact with games in a way that brings them enjoyment. Otherwise, it's a slippery slope to asking why we even let people "waste" money on entertainment.
Whales subsidize the cost of the game for everyone else. If there weren't whales, the cost goes up for everyone or the product diminishes. Reality isn't a magical realm where the company will not use ROI and net profit to determine what to make or how to price things, it's all interrelated and you don't get to hold everything else constant when asking for something to change.
You just can't draw the article's statements as even a reasonable conclusions without ignoring a whole host of things. They're largely comparing a general election to a midterm election, Rs show up for midterms more reliably than Ds, a drop is basically expected. Even compared to the previous midterm, that was with a very polarizing R in office, so we'd also expect a higher D turnout than one with a D in office. Plus add in consideration for the effects of voter suppression that's been building basically specifically targeted at the group in question.
This article is just bait created by someone who is either ignorantly or purposely misrepresenting the actual study's implications.
While that's true, there's also a huge difference from like 20+ years ago when they more often than not released games as a complete functional product as opposed to a "we hit the date" buy-in beta test. Games just tend to release with less features and polish than they used to, for the most part companies will keep working on it and get it where it needs to be so the final product is comparable, but it makes for a murkier cycle, buy in at release and probably suffer or wait and try to time when it's actually ready.
It should probably just say "TBD - Court". But it wouldn't surprise me if their system just cannot handle putting letters in a field that typically uses numbers.
Eggs are what you get for killing Guardians and the Reaper, or purchased from the merchant. They provide a small permanent bonus to 1 of the active character's stats. Egg farmer is just a massive gold farmer that you can use to repeatedly purchase many eggs on both themselves and then other characters for the stat bumps. But it really is a different kind of build.
While, the Grim Reaper isn't really THE goal of most runs, just getting to him is enough to let you get several achievements, but getting that first kill is sweet, and you don't even need to cheese it anymore, it takes a few weapons plus other decent DPS.
The achievements really are the general on ramp to most of the game, rather than just getting to 30 mins, look at them, figure out a few to try for on the next run and then trying to solve that puzzle. Getting to 30mins with weapons you've used on characters you've used in a map you've already beaten without some other goal, can definitely be boring to do repeatedly. But surviving just 18min on Bat Country to unlock Chaos Malachite can be a real challenge if you aren't well leveled/lucky/skilled, preferably more than 1 of those.
The point the other person is trying to make is that if a person wants to watch something, but the price is higher than they value or can afford for the experience they will not pay the price, so the company will not profit. If the person then pirates the content to view it, the company has lost nothing additional.
However, one could also make the argument that the viewer having the ability to pirate lowers what they are willing to pay, thus the company does lose some amount of profit in aggregate over time. This though is not necessarily true for those who lack the means to pay, rather than just the willingness.
Ultimately for people who do have the means, piracy is a symptom more of a service issue rather than a price issue. People generally will follow the path of least resistance to acquire what they desire. For most people a small payment and easy access will lead them not to pirate, but as prices rise, content fractures and UIs enshitify, the aggregate effort crosses the line and they start to withdraw and turn to other methods.
Everyone has their own willingness to pay for things on the demand curve, if companies pick an optimal price, they maximize profits, and aren't harmed by people who cannot or will not pay that price utilizing a non-consumable resource without payment.
Honest criticisms: It's a bit of a brick for sure. I turned the RGB ring off. The multi-function button isn't as usable as I'd hoped, mostly just a flashlight/screenshot button. The headphone jack and USB port are behind a protected rubber flap, so I keep opening/closing it frequently, but that's to help with being waterproof. While the optional case functions as a good stand for horizontal viewing and for holding, it is inadequate for vertical, and it just would've needed a small internal brace to fix that. The case also blocks their wireless charging connectors, if you were planning to use a dock for that. Attaching the endoscope requires removing a tiny screw. The lack of a bottom button bar has taken some getting used to but I'm fine with it now, the side fingerprint scanner is similar.
Overall I am happy with it. The battery lasts a whole day with high use, it has decent internals for games, the screen and included protector are appropriately unobtrusive, it isn't running a very outdated version of Android. Perhaps most importantly, it should survive my child who likes to throw my phone and my dumbass who left it in my pocket getting in a pool.
I've an Armor 21, it has the radio, headphone jack, IR blaster and the memory card slot, plus a loud and clear speaker, actual night vision and is rugged as fuck. Base price sub-$250, upcharge for an attachable endoscope.
From Wikipedia, Mediatonic created the international remake of it, which presumably included some kind of licensing fee from the original developer, which this tweet implies is at least partially based on number of sales. Seems like someone involved in contractual obligations at Epic dropped the ball on at least this game.
If only employers cared. It has been nice, now my employer is rolling out a arbitrary but mandatory 4 days return to office policy. In like 8 years of employment I never needed to be there that much. Whatever, 100% remote job market looks decent for me, hopefully find a better place soon.
That's kind of the sad truth of it though, once it is a useful and safe enough thing, you either pay for it or get left behind, it's dystopian as fuck, but it will significantly increase the utility of those who can get it.
Most of your write ups seem decently done if you clicked with the game at all, but if you're going to continue to review things, you might want to do reign in your personal biases a bit.
Low scores for games you didn't play or realize you don't understand the appeal of are pretty bad takes.
Vampire Survivors was quite literally one of the hit games of the year when it came out, to call other games of the genre that are following on its coattails "not really a game" and saying people shouldn't buy a literal genre is just ridiculous. Is FatalZone trying to be some huge blockbuster, no, it's just iterating on the survivor concept (same as Deep Rock Galactic is doing, which has more polish but less features than most). The game is literally $5 to buy right now in early access and as one of the many who do enjoy the genre, it's probably worth the price with the content it has now (unknown if it'll be same insane value VS has been).