Everyone is better off without game pass (though MS have had the capability to do it for a long time before they launched it, and that infrastructure was largely just going to waste). IMO it doesn't change that the millions that show up to buy CoD every year will be direct marketed game pass as a way to get it for $20 instead of $70 and that will be highly successful
Game pass numbers stalled out because Microsoft stalled out on adding blockbuster games since Starfield, which was poorly received. Check the numbers once the new CoD, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., ARK, Indiana Jones all get added towards the end of the year. CoD in particular will likely show the reports about them reaching full saturation to be false
I'm really meaning the lack of option not to consume fast-moving consumer goods, rather than the option to pay a premium for them elsewhere. When their market position is similar to like an outlet for government rations except for private profit, their net is essentially what was skimmed off the top of free enterprise. 2.66% is just the current maximum amount that is justifiably worth without doing societal harm
That's an expected tradeoff of operating an essential service is the point. It's not as though their margin is that slim by mistake, or out of goodwill, or bad business sense. It's meant to lead to the situation where we shop at Walmart not by choice, but in lieu of other options.
For herd immunity. Even endemic viruses can be eradicated if its spread is sufficiently restricted. Not everyone in a community needs to participate in being vaccinated for the community to achieve that. Perhaps your herd is already there (outside your family).
Yeah probably not but it depends on how the virus changes over time. I read there is some early research potentially indicating that symptom severity is lower in the current wave than Omicron. If so and if that becomes a continuing trend that may impact the rate at which we vaccinate (or whether new vaccines need to be developed etc)
Technically that advice will somewhat depend on statistics about infections which haven't occurred yet. At this stage the CDC advice is to get 1 dose of any of the 3 available vaccines if you haven't already done so in the last 12 months (for people aged 12-65)
I've had a lot of thinkpads and currently use an ideapad flex 5. I prefer the smaller form factor for a portable machine I take travelling or out to biz meetings etc. The autorotate and touchscreen work great in Debian with gnome-shell out of the box. No pinch-to-zoom but I believe that works on KDE plasma out of the box.
Steam/Steamworks is DRM. You can't purchase games on Steam and play them independently of Steam.
The overlay, the community pages, reviews, friends chat etc were all there circa 2010 and function identically to how they do today. Regional pricing was there too, today it's been reneged in many countries to protect against region-spoofing.
The primary group of people who prefer Steam only for Steam Workshop and/or Community Market are those who seek to extract profit from them. There were paid mods before Steam Workshop and it was fine. There were digital collectibles inside games before Steam Community Market and it was fine. There wasn't any skin gambling, though.
These systems are designed to provide functions which already existed, but with Valve taking a cut of the sales. That is a profit-adding for Valve, and literally value-reducing for consumers. They are popular because they are bundled with a popular pre-existing service, that's it.
A launcher is an unnecessary contrivance of anti consumerism (DRM). GOG Galaxy is entirely optional.
That and the other launchers are a product of Steam's dominance, not a cause of it.
Steam only historically dominated GOG, snowballing off the success of their first-party titles & providing a platform for DRM where GOG chose not to.
Valve has done a lot of great things, I'm not seeking to argue against that. To argue it hasn't become artificially bloated for purposes of maximising profit over the years seems silly, though.
Its content delivery network for games existed without those things 15 years ago is my point. If the argument is that being privately run exempts them from the need for constant pointless expansion, there is no greater contradiction of that than examples where it expanded pointlessly. Systems which they hired an in-house economist to develop; whom rejects their modern implementations on the principles I described.
Steam has certainly degraded over the past 15 years, it just gets a pass because the pointless economies it created to capitalise on are player-driven: steam workshop & steam community market.
Neither offer something which didn't already exist, they just do so in a way which generates income for Valve. Including in ways that are predatory toward people predisposed to gambling etc behaviours, and enable exploitation by 3rd parties (which Valve also profits from)
I don't think there's any reason why Oakes' recollection of McBride's intent trumps what McBride has publicly said about his intent. Doesn't the court have a word for that?
It seems fairly logical to me. He had the personal experience of witnessing soldiers unfairly scapegoated by superiors. His substantiation for the unfairness is that those superiors were complicit in war crimes. That the motive was there for superiors to make false specific allegations of misconduct in order to sweep systemic issues under the rug.
If McBride were a perfect witness, he'd have been motivated enough by war crimes to speak up. But the doubt about his awareness of what he was exposing is an appeal to authority which flies in the face of Occam's razor.
Simply, whistleblowing as a means of recourse only became preferable after his fellow soldiers, whom made the same choice he personally did to sacrifice their normal lives to enlist, presumably with virtuous intent i.e in Australia's name, were effectively betrayed by their own.
That might leave something to be desired about his morals, but this must be considered in context, and "not whistleblowing" under prior corcumstances isn't something that could reasonably be prosecuted. Oakes is right to conclude that our military personnel should have been more closely monitored in general. That doesn't speak to the specific conduct of the soldiers McBride aimed to exonerate, though.
I really liked enter the gungeon. It was one of the first roguelites I played. It's fairly basic in terms of mechanics compared to some newer entries in the genre. But it's just good arcadey fun. Bonus is that it runs on a lot of systems. It's still one of my go to's for plane trips or other offline scenarios
I grew up near gas hubs, where it's normal to have gas mains at home, have family employed by producers. They've been spinning this yarn as long as I can remember. It has not clean energy by any stretch, this is just the basic sales pitch for natural gas unchanged for like 30 years
gila @ gila @lemm.ee Posts 0Comments 354Joined 2 yr. ago
You could just refund it if it doesn't work well for you. GOG are usually pretty generous