ChillDude69

@ChillDude69@lemmynsfw.com

LEMMY ALLOWS ME TO HAVE A SCREENNAME THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN 15 YEARS AGO, ON REDDIT. I AM CHILLDUDE69 AND I AM FREAKIN’ HAPPY ABOUT IT!

Yes, I’m screaming all that. Capslock is still cruise control for cool, y’all.

Peace.

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ChillDude69,

Oh, for sure. He looks like a deadly space pirate’s personal trainer.

ChillDude69,

I think G might be for Gräfenberg, tho.

ChillDude69, (edited )

I actually started to say THIS EXACT SAME SENTENCE, in the meme. I’m not shitting you.

I typed it and deleted it twice, eventually deciding “ehhh, maybe not everyone will see that, and I kinda don’t even want to type their names in the same paragraph.”

But yeah, it’s absolutely the truth. Silverstein had real masculinity, in a way that the current “alpha male” crowd could never hold the slightest hope of attaining.

But, ya know, they’d probably call him gay, the second they found out he wrote poetry. As if there’s anything wrong with being gay, goddamn. Society is backsliding at warp fucking speed.

ChillDude69,

You almost caused a spit-take, over here. No shit.

ChillDude69,

Extrapolating from this point, I can only imagine the kind of fun things Windows 11 will have in store for us, when they finally force everyone to switch over to it.

ChillDude69,

Meh. I never liked that whole concept. That’s like saying “I hate the cars Detroit and Tokyo are designing, these days. That’s why I’m going to build my own train.”

“Wait, hold on! Don’t walk away! It’s not like it was, back in the old days! With the current build-your-own-locomotive kits, you ALMOST never have to lay any of your own track, anymore!”

All along, the correct solution would have been for Microsoft to have a real commercial competitor, other than Apple.

ChillDude69,

Hmmmmmm…what force might have coerced Microsoft to behave more reasonably, in that situation? PERHAPS A SOLID COMPETITOR, WHO WOULD GAIN MARKET SHARE AGAINST THEM, IF THEY PISSED OFF THE MARKET BY BREAKING COMPATIBILITY, IN THE VITAL OFFICE SUITE SPACE?

Robust competition in the actual operating system market would be the solution, exactly like I said.

The problem with Linux is that, despite being fucking free, it’s not robust competition. It always hovers somewhere in the 1-4 percent range, for desktop users. It’s not fair or logical for that to be the case, really…but here we are.

I honestly think there’s a parallel universe, quite close to our own, where IBM made a bigger push to establish OS/2 (or something else) as a general-purpose, consumer-targeted operating system, or maybe a whole other company made a compatible competitor OS. I’m talking, like, all the way back in the early 90s, when Windows was just getting on its feet.

In that world, where Microsoft had been forced to split the market with a genuine competitor, they wouldn’t have been able to do all the crazy shit that a monopoly allows. The point is, they truly would have had to be forced into that position. No business is going to compete fairly out of the goodness of its heart, because it doesn’t have a heart. It only has predatory instincts.

Of course, to belabor the point, that’s why nobody’s high-minded philosophy about “free as in free speech, not free beer” software was ever going to be the solution. That kind of homespun cringe shit is exactly how you get 1-4 percent market share, even though your product can be obtained gratis.

It’s not my fault, but it’s the truth.

ChillDude69,

See, here’s the thing, though:

Imagine what might have been accomplished if everyone who has ever oh-so-aggressively proselytized to their fellow citizens, trying to get them to adopt Linux had TALKED ABOUT THIS SHIT, INSTEAD.

Not as a reason to adopt Linux. Not as a way to try and grow Linux’s 1-4 percent of the market share up to oooooh, maybe 8 percent. No. Imagine if they had set that shit aside and expended all that effort, getting the vote out for candidates who would have supported anti-trust enforcement.

And don’t get pessimistic on me, now. If you’re enough of a die-hard, lost-cause enthusiast to believe Linux can grow from 1-4 percent of the userbase to somehow, some way take over Microsoft’s dominant position, one of these decades…well, you can’t very well turn around and say “nah, all politicians are the same, there’s no hope for change in that area.”

Either be a pie-in-the-sky dreamer who never gives up hope OR DON’T.

In all honesty, I think most Linux street-preachers would actually rather open source never get any more traction. At least, not in the actual desktop operating system realm. Deep down, I think most of them prefer to be the poor, noble, beknighted underdog. Always preaching the truth, always being ignored by the idiot masses. It’s a phenomenal way to stroke one’s own ego.

ChillDude69, (edited )

That analogy fails, because a full 32 percent of New Yorkers take the subway for their commute, whereas about 1-4 percent of people use Linux.

Go ahead and say “well, that’s because a lot of people are stupid sheep.” Doesn’t really matter. The fact is, Linux has been “just about to take over the desktop OS market and leave all these commercial-software-loving Wintel Box users in the dust” for almost as long as we’ve been waiting for nuclear fusion.

And it actually looks like we MIGHT get fusion power, before Linux can break 6 percent (edit: wait, if you count ChromeOS, I guess it broke 6 percent, at some point. I don’t know if you count ChromeOS, though. I kinda don’t, because of how much it relies on cloud shit)

If any non-windows PC-compatible operating system had ever put together a 32 percent market share, that would have made EVERYTHING better, because it would have been placing market pressure on Microsoft. They wouldn’t be able to pull bullshit stunts like we’ve been talking about.

But Linux could never actually get enough users. It just wasn’t ever meant to be.

EDIT: I actually had my numbers wrong. 32 percent is the number of commuters who use the subway to get INTO New York City, for their daily commute. Apparently, A FULL 55 PERCENT OF ACTUAL NEW YORK RESIDENTS say they use the subway as their primary mode of transportation, inside the city.

So, again, the analogy simply cannot hold. Linux will never have 55 percent of the userbase.

You probably think it should have 55 percent. And that’s fine. But a bunch of could’ves, should’ves, and would’ves taped to a $10 bill are worth one picture of Alexander Hamilton, and not much else.

ChillDude69,

Do you want a second videogame industry crash? Because this is how you get a second videogame industry crash.

ChillDude69,

I kinda wish I was, my dude.

ChillDude69,

My main quirk is typing before I think. I am beginning to suspect that learning to touch type might have been a mistake, for me. I say a lot of embarrassing shit that brings catharsis for a brief period, then makes me annoyed with myself.

ChillDude69,

The biggest issue with this monetization model is that the developers ARE REQUIRED TO INVALIDATE your progress in some way

THIS IS EXACTLY THE POINT THAT I SHOULD HAVE BEEN MAKING.

This is why it’s categorically impossible for there to be any “good” examples of these games. As long as they’re following this model, they can’t be okay and they must be boycotted by anyone who gives a shit about games.

I think this is why I was so frustrated, when people were asking me for examples of this model fucking shit up. It’s not about specific examples. Examples aren’t needed. There simply isn’t any way for this shit to be anything other than harmful.

It’s like if I said “getting whacked on the thumb with a sledgehammer will cause injury” and people were like “uhhh, could you cite some examples of this claim being true?”

Like, no. Just no. It’s fucking obvious. Asking for citations to prove that obvious harm is harmful is intellectually dishonest.

ChillDude69, (edited )

To expand on that last point, the original MMO grind was also supposed to be fun and interesting, in and of itself. It wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the original grind wasn’t a roadblock in the way of progress. It WAS the progress.

As someone else very eloquently pointed out, the problem with the new mobile-style model is that “the developers ARE REQUIRED TO INVALIDATE your progress in some way.”

That’s exactly the center of the point that I’m making. That shit isn’t fixable. There is no way for there to be a good or acceptable game that uses that model.

And I think that’s why I’ve bristled so much, when people are like “uhh, could you cite some examples?”

Like I said in that other comment: that’s like if I said “being hit in the hand with a sledgehammer causes injury” and people were like “hmmm, could you supply some evidence for this claim?”

Saying “fuck off” to that request isn’t ME being intellectually dishonest. It’s THEM being trollish for even asking some shit like that. It’s some Elon Musk level shit.

Mobile-style free-to-pay monetization models are simply harmful. Period. Exactly like a sledgehammer to the knuckles.

Some people might be legit masochists and like being whacked on the hands with hammers, but that doesn’t change the basic facts.

ChillDude69, (edited )

What about people that pre order games? Or people that buy each version of Madden or Fifa? Or people that buy games regardless of rootkits like Denuvo? Are you going to call them all evil for supporting companies with dubious practices? For daring to buy games they like?

I have no problem with any of that. You’re putting words in my mouth. I actually think pre-ordering has a really good place in the activist buyer toolkit. Pre-order from companies who haven’t burned you. Stop pre-ordering if they do burn you. It’s a means of incentivizing good behavior. Make companies acutely aware that they have reputations that are either constantly at risk or needing to be mended, and there are always economic consequences for how they maintain those reputations.

Like someone pointed out, the problem with the mobile-style business model is that the developers are forced to put roadblocks in front of your progress through the game and/or invalidate that progress. That’s where I draw the line. When the basic gameplay loop is based around the default setting of “it takes forever to do everything,” and you can buy your way out of that, as long as you keep pumping money into the game…well, that’s not okay.

There can’t be any kind of good or acceptable way to run that model. It’s outrageously harmful. And those “let’s milk the players for a little more, every day” practices have become normalized to the point that they are showing up in games that supposedly aren’t mobile-style pay-for-everything games. Like, look at some racing games, these days. They used to just have all the cars unlocked when you started the game, or maybe you’d unlock them as you progressed through the campaign mode.

But now, there are plenty of racing games where LOTS of the cars are just locked behind microtransaction paywalls. I don’t think I’m out of line for suggesting that we should try and stop this shit, before it gets worse. Remember: at least one game company exec has proposed a future where we have to buy in-game ammunition with real money. Not in mobile-style games. Not in free-to-download games. In real, full-price games.

ChillDude69,

I get what you’re saying. I haven’t been exactly displaying ideal form, here.

I think what set me off is how some of these people responding are just being intellectually dishonest. The industry-harming, anti-consuming practices I’m talking about ARE definitely harmful. But people are like “hmm, could you cite some examples?”

It’s like if I said “being hit on the hand with a sledgehammer causes injury,” and jackasses came crawling out of the woodwork, doing their best smug-ass Elon Musk impressions: “hmmm. Interesting, if true. Can you cite some examples of this phenomenon?”

It’s bloody fucking obvious that a hammer to the knuckles is bad for you. It’s equally obvious that mobile-style milk-the-customer-for-everything-and-fuck-the-actual-gameplay software development practices are harmful.

Playing along with intellectually dishonest people isn’t something ANYBODY should feel obligated to do. It’s arguably something to be avoided.

ChillDude69,

I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding, here. I didn’t ever intend to call the customers I disagreed with evil. Maybe I technically said that, at some point. Maybe without intending it, at all.

That’s not what I’m intending to say. I am intending to vehemently state that mobile-style game monetization models are evil. Furthermore, they represent an existential threat to the entire gaming hobby.

There are possible futures where this shit snowballs into another gaming industry crash, like the one back in '83. And this one would be even more preventable. We’re drowning in excellent technology, which has the potential to bring gaming to more people than ever. But that tech is being misused and abused, and so are the players.

ChillDude69,

I really find it disturbing that a couple of the comments have an “okay, Boomer” flavor to them.

Well, yeah, no shit. This IS coming from a place of “back in my day…”

Yeah, I do remember a time when games weren’t as horrifically monetized as they are becoming. But the difference between me and the average pathological Boomer is that I AM ON THE SIDE OF THE YOUNGER PEOPLE. I’m advocating for them to have the good experiences that I have had.

I don’t want them to be fucked over, stripped of their money, and abused by the corporate fuck-machine. It’s disheartening to basically get a response that feel like: “whatever, old guy. I’m happy paying hundreds of dollars for a handful of .png files of anime tiddies.”

ChillDude69,

why do you believe that the crappy monetisation practices of these mobile gaming pay to win companies would bring the industry as a whole down?

Well, let’s look at Starfield. I don’t hate it nearly as much as you do, but I definitely agree it has flaws. But now imagine that some of these hyper-monetization practices had invaded it, on top of the other problems. Like, if you had to do some horrible grind to get fuel for your ship, unleeeesssssss you wanted to pay for some Bethesda Bux, to make that process go faster.

And now imagine almost every other single player RPG game has similar shit, crammed into it. Say anything you want about Todd Howard, I do think he would fight tooth and nail to prevent such a thing. And so would every other traditional RPG developer. But they don’t really own their companies, anymore. They’ve all had to sell out to bigger entities, to keep putting food on the tables of their employees. And even the ones who remain independent aren’t entirely above the pressures of the publishers.

So imagine that they can’t hold the flood back anymore, and the mobile-style ultra-monetization shit gets into all the RPG games, even more into every online FPS game, into all the single player FPSes and Boomer Shooters, even somehow into sidescrolling platformers and Metroidvanias. And adventure games. And every other genre you can think of.

If all the major releases become completely overburdened with this shit, people might just decide “welp, I’m out. I’m leaving the hobby.”

That could cause a crash. Hopefully, true indie games could pull us out of the spiral, but I’m not sure of that. Especially in a scenario like I’m talking about. If there was a real exodus of millions of players, away from gaming, the industry would have to contract massively. Then all those devs who are currently employed by major studios would found a bunch of little indie studios. Some people would applaud that as an unalloyed benefit, but they would all be competing for a much smaller pool of money, and maybe none of them would be able to remain solvent.

So, again, you get the potential for a devastating crash.

ChillDude69,

This is exactly what I’m talking about. And honestly, if it had just remained on the mobile platform, I could dismiss it. Like, “well, people are free to waste their time and/or money.”

But these new games like “Honky Stair Rail” and “Getshit Implants” are available on PC and consoles. They’re moving into territory that has traditionally been occupied by less hyper-monetized games. That means the developers of traditional games will be feeling more and more pressure to add hyper-monetization features into their games.

It’s scary. As I’ve mentioned, that could eventually lead to a second video game industry crash.

ChillDude69,

The TV industry is a great parallel example. Like it or not, TV also needs the large money investors to keep the entire thing afloat. Sure, if the proliferation of ludicrously high streaming service prices continues and causes a contraction in that industry, a lot of actors and writers and production crew could try and get together to make YouTube content, but it would be a similar splitting of everyone into little channels, where none of them actually have enough revenue to really sustain true TV-style production.

I think the “nature abhors a vacuum” principle could work beneficially, in terms of another reset, after a crash. But if we had to restart the console market from scratch, that would be much more difficult now than it was back in the 80s.

ChillDude69,

I just looked up Crossmath. That’s an actual mobile game, the way mobile games are supposed to be.

You’re not spending your kids’ college fund on gacha pulls, trying to unlock a sexy outfit for the number 18.

So yeah, you carry on. You’re fine.

ChillDude69,

When the purveyors of ocean services act like scurvy dogs, ye surely cannot be blamed for hoisting yer own flag, on the high seas.

ChillDude69, (edited )

Oh, I’m judging. I wonder if this guy you’re replying to pretended to care about the Uyghur people, a few years ago. That was pretty fashionable. Weird how everyone stopped giving a shit about them, right?

Not surprising, though. Because now we’re back to “pffft, all sides are the same. Both parties are the same. All the countries are the same. Everything’s the same.” That’s the fashionable sentiment, among certain political quarters.

But no, goddammit, it’s not all the same. The way we’re headed, maybe we’ll eventually have the kind of constant state surveillance and trips to reeducation camps that the PRC furnishes to its people, BUT WE ACTUALLY DON’T HAVE THAT SHIT, RIGHT NOW.

That matters. We’re waaaaaay far from perfect and we’re definitely headed in a shitload of wrong directions, but we’re not actually a totalitarian goddamn dictatorship, yet. We have a de facto oligarchy. And a corporate klepto-state. That needs to be fixed.

But I’m fed up with this “nah, the USA is the worst” attitude. I see our country as a shitty old Ford Fiesta, with no air conditioning and a transmission that keeps making weird noises. Sure, it sucks, and it’s gonna cost an arm and a leg to fix…but it’s the only car we’ve got. So there’s no sense in ignoring the problems until the transmission blows up on the highway, and it’s catastrophic.

That’s basically what jokers like the guy you’re replying to are advocating, though. Not only do they resist taking our shitty car into the shop while it’s still fixable, they’re looking over at guy in the Yugo with the bald tires and the potentially deadly exhaust leak, and saying “we’re no better off than him.”

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