Ya think?

Sounds like Spaz is about to have another Numbnuts Moment.

I admit that I have all alerts deactivated for the simple reason that our local agencies can’t seem to use SAME codes and I get tired of waking in the middle of the night for a thunderstorm three counties over.

Now I have no idea what you’re talking about.

History? Have you looked at the wealth sequestered in churches?

It’s a common expression, especially in the US South. And what gives you the idea that Christians are banned from having wealth?

Nvidia and their Chinese customers had to see this coming. Wonder if they’ll also be fined for trying to circumvent the export ban?

I’m surprised Intel hasn’t gotten into the planned obsolescence game yet

Judging from this post, they just figured it out.

Short of buying the IP catalog, Microsoft seems to be doing right here.

Tomshardware is a blog, not journalism. It seems to be a generally credible blog (passes the CRAAP test), but it’s still just a blog.

That said, sadly, I have to agree about the general state of almost all US-based “journalism” these days. About 90% of headlines today would have gotten the editor fired on the spot in my newsroom. That was a point of strong disagreement between me and the station manager, and It’s one of the major reasons that I left the field.

Misleading headline. This improvement was only the best video encoding result. Most relevant improvements were in the 7-17% range. Still an improvement, but not so spectacular.

I mean, some game studios consult child psychologists and lawyers to better implement addictive gambling-like mechanics without being liable for that.

For example? They couldn’t consult child psychologists for this purpose. It would be an ethics violation of the highest order and would get any license revoked.

Media does impact the consumer…

What kind of media? Evidence?

But violent games that do reach the market and aren’t dead on arrival are mild in that and can only supplement other, more real problems like mental health issues, trauma, neglect, bullying. And in 99.9% cases it’s just an excuse to push them under the carpet. Like, from drawing a line to what makes older demographics cause daily mass shootings. Not videogames, not even guns mostly, but the environment and culture as a whole.

Again, videogames simply do not influence social behavior. It’s difficult to find credible non-biased research, but here are a couple of relatively recent articles:

• Tear, Morgan J., and Mark Nielsen. “Failure to Demonstrate That Playing Violent Video Games Diminishes Prosocial Behavior.” PLoS ONE, vol. 8, no. 7, July 2013, pp. 1–7. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068382.
• Goodson, Simon, et al. “Violent Video Games and the P300: No Evidence to Support the Neural Desensitization Hypothesis.” CyberPsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, vol. 24, no. 1, Jan. 2021, pp. 48–55. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2020.0029

What “older demographics”? “Daily mass shootings”? Where do you live?

All that said, environment does seem to impact social behavior. It’s likely a much stronger influence than a recreational activity.

What evidence links video games to violent thinking? I’m unaware of any.

That question aside, there’s simply no evidence that gaming impacts behavior, which as you suggest is the major interest here.

One thing I wish we could ban are opportunistic suits from hungry law firms that are just hoping that these companies will settle rather than fight an obviously frivolous suit. This is an insult to the civil legal system

Agreed on all points.

game studios consult child psychologists and lawyers to better implement addictive gambling-like mechanics without being liable

For example?

Video games do not promote violence according to any modern ethical research on the question.

I can’t imagine the pain of these families, and I’d want to lash out at any available target, too. They might even get lucky and have a settlement offer from Activision rather dragging everyone through a trial. But if this even makes it into a courtroom, I would bet that it will ultimately go nowhere. There’s just no credible evidence to support the claim.

There’s something to be said for knowing when you’re in the wrong role and fixing it rather than doubling down.

I mean, it seems pretty clear to me. Nice simple language. Clearly defined common terms. Not much room for misunderstanding or miscommunication.

Unless this is a very peculiar way to spell “We got caught with our pants down.”

Sorry if I have that wrong. I’m not on Steam. That was the gist of one of the articles.

I didn’t play Marathon when it was first released due to life making other demands. But I’ve enjoyed it immensely in the last several years. Old school is my thing, it seems. :)

I think that’s the point of the article. Bungie arranged to use Aleph One’s code for the free Steam version. It’s just another avenue to introduce the game to new players.