I care a lot about audio and that’s why I don’t use spatial. Stereo all the way with a good pair of headphones, or better yet, a really nice stereo monitor setup.

Then again, audio is also a drop in the bucket of why I don’t care for COD games lately. The sound is often weird, and the hit marker sounds too much like a cash register, which reminds me what COD games are really about - in case I forgot about the clowns and gorillas running around for a moment.

When I open a steam page for a game that looks interesting to me, and I find out it has 3 versions at wildly different prices and 10+ other DLC, I just pass and move on. I’m not doing external research to find out what is the difference between the complete and ultra complete and definitive deluxe director’s cut editions and whether it’s worth it, or whether I “need” such and such DLC to get the full experience. I’m instantly and thoroughly turned off by it, and I’m just not bothering. Fuck that whole mess.

I think they’d do two things if they want to keep the buy button. 1) Not require always online connections to play, or properly remove the online requirement or convert to P2P in the case of multiplayer games if they want to end support, or 2) sell their server infrastructure to a third party.

I assume this law is to preempt demand for something similar to the EU’s “stop killing games” petition. It’s a way to say that consumers were made aware and agreed that their games are only temporary licenses, so they can’t demand refunds or continued support when the company wants to stop.

There should be an exception: If they want to still say “buy” or fail to comply, they will need to refund the full original purchase price if they ever shut down the server.

Next do planned obsolescence and products that are designed to break a week after the warranty expires.

I am shocked, shocked I tell you. I truly believe this will be fixed before launch or shortly after. Surely it will be fixed sometime within the 1 year lifespan of the game. Surely they will fix it for the next COD game. Sur…

This is such a wild departure from real beauty pageants, which have always been known for pushing realistic beauty standards and for making normal women feel good about their bodies.

I’ve always been a PC+Nintendo person. I get mostly just Nintendo’s games (Mario Kart, Smash, Zelda, Metroid, Splatoon, etc.) and some party games on console, and everything else on PC.

There’s not been a time in my life when I haven’t had the first-party Nintendo lineup since the NES came out when I was like 8. Since most non-Nintendo games seem to eventually make their way to PC these days, they complement each other nicely.

Steam, GameStop, Toys-R-Us, Walmart… Someone always makes a profit on selling games, or any products - even digital. Steam has not reinvented the wheel here. It’s not a new concept. Are you arguing that the idea of stores should be eliminated?

In return, the game is more likely to be seen, just like placing a product in a real store where people walk by it. It also gets advertised, reviewed, has another community outlet, and Steam uses their own servers and bandwidth to distribute it.

It’s not a bad deal for the devs and publishers.

I’ll wait till it’s like $0.99-4.99.

I feel like this is a dying gasp effort to keep the game online. I actually feel bad about it.

Elite is one of two games where I’ve ever spent money on cosmetics. I spent like $60 on paint jobs because I actually wanted to support the game.

I’m not sure what to think about this, because normally I hate “pay to win” and cosmetic shops alike. I wish Elite just had a subscription model and could support more stable servers or something. I don’t know how they expected to put an always-online game on sale for $5 all the time and keep it profitable without eventually running into a brick wall where they’d need to choose between shutting down and pissing off players.

I genuinely hope this somehow turns out to be worth it for them.

What a great way to motivate your other employees and show them that hard work is worthwhile and success is rewarded.

It’s also an easy way to show new users one basic front-facing feature on Lemmy that is different from Reddit - which is a good idea on its own, but especially because Reddit used to display upvotes/downvotes this way and then removed it entirely, probably for manipulative reasons.

It’s good to be able to customize, but better to have the default option be an improvement over the alternative. Even more-so when the change isn’t jarring.

Putin orders development of homegrown rifles that can be fired by next generation of young conscripts with stubs for hands

I usually enjoy online multiplayer because it’s always a different and unpredictable experience. Keeps it fresh. I don’t really feel competitive when I play against other players. The key is to play casually, and disable voice chat. There’s never anything of value in random voice chat, only the contrary. And if cheaters show up, just exit and do something else.

That said, if you find yourself feeling very strongly about how you think the other players might feel when they win or lose, then I agree it’s probably a good idea to just avoid multiplayer or any other environment you perceive as toxic and unhealthy.

I know people like to hate Halo Infinite for a number of reasons, but IMO battle passes are one thing they do fine. MP is free, while the $10 battle passes are optional and you can buy and finish them any time.

I’m still on season 2 while everyone else is on 4 (I think?) I play a few rounds once a week, maybe, but there’s no FOMO because you earn the rewards at whatever pace you want. Once you finish a battle pass you can buy the next one. Or you can buy them out of order or skip any of them.

It’s for voice actors’ IP rights for AI and non-existent residuals, according to the article. It’s basically about the same issues as the writers/actors strikes.

Though it’s interesting because games have a legitimate use for AI voiceovers. I hope they can negotiate for per-title AI training and residuals, and not just eliminating AI altogether. The potential situational and reactive voiceover seems amazing for games - or even just having an NPC speak your unique name.

IMO the devs could stand to unionize and strike too. God knows gamers all have a backlog and many would hopefully support them for the long haul.

I haven’t played every COD by any means, but my understanding is that you stopped on a good note. Every recent COD I’ve tried feels like an absolute mess - mostly because of the aggressive cash shops that bog down the menus, and immersion-breaking skins/tracers etc. which I personally don’t enjoy seeing at all, like a gorilla and the clown from Saw. There are always bugs and crashes that literally never get fixed. Regardless of all that, they generally feel soulless and sloppy. There aren’t many FPS offerings these days, and Activision clearly knows they don’t need to be competitive. They just push a new one out the door every year, knowing fans love to hate the games and buy them religiously.

I did enjoy MW 2019 for a while, but MW2 did not hit the spot. Vanguard was extremely disappointing. Before those, my last COD was BO2. I’ve been on the fence lately about buying BO3 (2015) for a good zombies experience every time I see it on sale. But I know I would be playing solo because of the veteran stage those zombies players are in, and I have a feeling I’d get screeched at if I don’t know every meta strategy, so I end up passing on it every time.

Personally I’d say skip the Sledgehammer games and be skeptical and cautious about IW games, but give Treyarch’s next BO game a try if it doesn’t turn out to be an obvious bomb.

They’re almost all wildly successful and popular though, so there must be many fans who disagree - YMMV.

I like how they made the logo look like it says “ADS” throughout.