Sure but the fully fleshed out diplomatic victory in Civ V was only added by DLC, it’s not that crazy that the equivalent was a DLC in VI. Beyond that, things like religion, archaeology, and espionage were all DLC features in V but were base game in VI. It was a clear step forward on the whole.

6 definitely had religion at launch. IGN actually declared “This game will go down in history as the most fully-featured launch version in the 25-year series.”

Huh? League is bigger than dota 2. By like a lot. Because League has much more mass appeal than dota. And that was their point, it has a dedicated but niche fanbase.

Hard disagree. There’s plenty of games that are little more than dressed up choose your own adventure stories. Plenty that are meant for chill and relaxing gameplay. Plenty that do little more than guide you through horror scenes. And so on.

And even beyond that, most people don’t even play a game long enough to have any real “skill development over time.” I read from the Civ7 director recently that if you’ve ever finished a game of Civ you’re literally in a minority of the player base. And that tracks with what I’ve heard about other games as well.

Most players of any given game never finish it. Most of those quit at the first sign of frustration and most are on the easiest game difficulties. This would indicate to me that the majority’s conception of “fun” has little to no relation to skill development in the game. They’re there for the moment to moment experiences. Rubber band mechanics are there to evoke those fun experiences more often in the majority of the player base.

I think you’re overstating the importance of games as a platform for skill development as opposed to a platform for, you know, having fun. The fact is that the vast majority of players play any game on one of its lowest difficulty settings.

Rubber banding is made for the core of the game’s audience and challenge-seekers are just not large enough to be that core. Some of those rubber banding mechanics can and are disabled at higher difficulty settings. Others are needed at higher difficulty because the AI can’t compete and the investment in dev time to improve the AI just isn’t worth it because, again, very few people actually play the game at those difficulties.

I never said story games are shallow. But if the games you like are ones where you can feel like you’ve experienced all the game and the story has to offer in a single playthrough then they are, by definition, shallow. Even a great movie is worth watching multiple times of its story has any appreciable depth. Video games, even more so since there should be more to the story to experience.

Sounds like what you enjoy are shallow, linear story games. To each their own, of course. Glad you’re happy with what PS5 offers you in that regard. But the industry has a lot more to offer than that.

I’m in the same boat (as far as free time goes) but I have the opposite outlook. Strategy games, and other games with some amount of crunchy complexity, keep me engaged even when I’m not playing. I can spend some time on wikis, crafting theories, and cooking up plans throughout the week and that keeps me coming back.

I can’t do story games because it’s too easy to forget what’s going on when you spread it out that far. Or there’s online action games (shooters, mobas, etc) but it’s rare that I can guarantee I’ll be on long enough to complete a match.

Guns may not cause the mental health issues that make people turn violent, but they do allow violent people to become mass murderers. Video games do neither.

I’m not sure how anybody can look at the way GTA 5 online was monetized to hell and not seriously question how far they’re going to try to go with GTA 6. I’m fully expecting it to leak into GTA 6’s single player with an intense focus on getting more and more out of mtx.

I’m guessing this is it. The setting is a 1950’s culture but without the racism and sexism that were rampant at the time. Women and POC holding significant positions in the corporate world, which never would’ve happened in the actual 1950s. It is a fictional world, of course. People seem to forget that.

How’s the concurrent player count doing? The number of people playing it on my friends list has declined significantly.

Designing for a huge amount of users costs money and expertise, so more money, and not even their most optimistic predictions included this many players. If they hadn’t made it big, that money would’ve been wasted. Which games are going to go viral is just insanely hard to predict.

People are saying that the rubber band on joystick trick doesn’t work, at least. So they at least are checking for changes to input events.

You can be thinking about shareholders despite not having them if your goal is to sell to them. I take it that they mean they don’t really have any interest in catering to the demands of even potential shareholders.

You could try some alt-history paths (though they’re usually locked behind DLC). You can do some wacky things like restoring monarchies or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or in the new expansion restore Norse paganism in Iceland. There may be some RP opportunities there for you to get into.

Ultimately, though, HOI is a wargame that doesn’t pretend to be anything else. If spending most of your time planning, preparing, and engaging in world war doesn’t sound like something you want to do, then it may not be for you. You won’t find any deep economy, diplomacy, or political systems that make it all that fun to stay out of the war.

I can think of one: a parent who installs this before letting their child play it to enforce their culture of hatred within their house.

I know Netflix has been enshitifying for a while now but that’s accelerated a bit this year too. I work in tech and it’s been happening everywhere.