Have a look at Wanderburg too then (not released yet).

Kinda hard to be original with four digit PINs. Of course there’s some worse choices than others, but 9999 possible combinations really limit creativity.

I didn’t know there’s a website to login to. Always ever used the app. But yes, I can open it:

I have two D5 and the app and cloud connection is working just fine!?

But they haven’t so far, and the question was why it’s popular at this moment.

Possible future enshittification disqualifies all software, unless you prevent it from going online - which you can also do with Unraid.

I genuinely thought it’s not limited, but yes, the trial.

Decent UI. Affordable lifetime pricing. Actually just-works. No retrospective enshittification. Free trial is actually free, not ad supported.

You get what you pay for, and you’re not the product.

Still the point is you don’t spend money without knowing what you get so it is better. Still predatory, but better

He’s definitely also not a “fixes the bug himself” CEO.

We can pretend he’s different. I can freely admit that I like to think he’s different. But no way in hell is he fixing any kind of problem, that arises in the middle of the night, himself.

My parents’ Switch has a multi-page settings menu, an online account and subscription, even games that come on cartridge often require downloads and updates before you start playing.

Two-fold problem: a) give the consumer freedom of choice b) make it difficult enough to successfully set it up once, and then stay locked in

That’s both by accident (provide freedom choice) and by design (lock them as long as possibile).

No. Marathon has strong marketing.

That question is so broad it cannot be answered.

There’s a myriad of games which are or have been wildly popular (e.g. Mario, CS, GTA, WoW, Minecraft, Fortnite)

There’s games which pushed the borders to new limits (e.g. Tetris, Doom, WoW, VR Chat)

And there’s games which warped the industry or their players (e.g. mobile games, micro transactions, loot boxes)

No shit. If you artificially limit your customer base… and then open up.

Not really. Tim Sweeney would sell his grandmother to appear cool / anti-establishment / consumer friendly - while trying everything to establish Epic Store as a monopoly. Once he achieves that, he would lick boots just like the others.

You monster

In another comment you say yourself they are not developing games. What’s your point? You’re just arguing to argue now.

CS 2 and is missing key features, a working anticheat included, and is not getting any meaningful content for months (the missing features included).

My bad with HLA. But CS2 is a glorified engine update, and is not even near the features CSGO had. In the current state the game is a mess.

Sure they are working on it. All 3 three developers. Which is exactly my point. It’s impossible to compare valve to the other studios, because valve isn’t making games anymore. They just happen to own some eternal IPs where the fan base (myself included) eats their shit.

Well, they don’t develop any games. You don’t require a lot of people to run a store.

“Their” last game, Counter Strike Global Offensive, is 12 years old, and was developed by a contractor: Hidden Path Entertainment. Ony then Valve took over to maintain it. And anyone familiar with the current situation around the game (CS2) knows how much “development” is going on there.

Never heard of CarX. But I’ll check it out.

Not what I’m looking for at the moment, but it made me remember Flatout. Fun times at LAN parties.