I use “honestly” or “to be honest” myself sometimes.

It’s a simple way to convey “I’m going to give you a risky or unpopular opinion. Can be unpopular with you personally, or for public in general. But either way I value the honesty of sharing that opinion over the unpopularity it will cause”

I can see why you would hate it. it wouldn’t be unusual for people to share bigoted/sexist/violent opinions on subjects they should keep to themselves.

I’m sorry to hear about your son, and I apologise if my comment brought up some difficult memories.

For me, it was my best friends funeral and his family had an insufferablely god-fearing priest speaking for part of it who knew him from his childhood. He was telling stories were “he found God”, “god has now welcomed him” and “he now knows God’s love”. I don’t recall exactly what he said word for word, I just remember quietly seething throughout his whole speech and also afterwards my other best friends were venting that the whole thing was disrespectful to his memory.

My friend wasn’t religious in the slightest. it felt like a complete stranger trying to convince a room of grieving people comforting lies that he is “in a better place”, when it was clear he didn’t know him at all.

“God loves you” is fine for me. they are usually simply wishing us happiness in their own way (sure it can be passive-aggressively throw to people they call “sinners” too).

What I really despise is “god has a plan” as words of comfort.

A plan for fucking what? Noahs ark V2? cleverly getting around the “promise not to flood the earth” clause by having greedy assholes pollute the earth in his stead ?

“Ah little 4 year old Andrew would fuck up my plans, better give him cancer… Hm, let’s hit Jane with a truck just incase”

I don’t appreciate that you somehow think a magic man in the sky planning something so cruel would be of any comfort to me.

Of course it is exaggerated. That is the point of a hyperbolic arguments.

Examining hypothetical edge cases in more detail is a useful tool for defining where the issues lie in a debate.

Would you support/play a game of 100+ devs if key management DID commit war crimes? I’d like to think probably not.

It’s though it is clear from your response that misogyny isn’t a deal-breaker for you for this case, so the question then becomes; how shitty does a single person need to be before it becomes an issue for you then?

Other people drew a line in the sand at misogyny and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact I’d say it is a respectable opinion.

You probably would prefer to just ignore any controversy and just judge the game on its merits alone, and that is fine in its own way too. It is exhausting keeping up with the news and you would be happier and find it easier to just blindly enjoy a game.

But don’t pretend that just because you are ignoring it, doesn’t mean that you aren’t supporting bad practices like misogyny when you do so.

Edit: downvoted for not wanting to pay attention to stupid controversy about video games? Weird…

It’s one thing to live peacefully in ignorance. I get it. it is exhausting keeping track of every shitty thing a company does when it’s so much easier at the end of an exhausting 9-5 shift to avoid news and play your games guilt free without thinking about who it’s hurting.

It’s a completely separate thing to brag that your ignorance somehow makes your way of life superior.

People caring about these issues, and sometimes leading to actions being taken because of that, all makes the gaming industry, or to be hyberbolic; the world a better place.

It’s fine to avoid news on controversy and just blindly enjoy games, but don’t lie to yourself (and others) by pretending that it is a good thing.

Llama gets massacred via large glass planes

I get where you are coming from.

I feel it could pass for a political compass meme if it coloured the backgrounds.

Also Google their sister company. Company number: 11933362

I don’t think any of these are planets.

Though one interesting thing is that Ligma was actually the name of a company incorporated in England and Wales that provided IT consulting services.

It has the company number: 12243748. Google the company number and see for yourself.

Seeing Tango go is actually hurtful. Hi-fi rush was a great IP and had the potential for a great sequel if given the chance.

(I feel they wrapped it up nicely but left it open enough for a sequel.)

I hope the employees can continue making great games elsewhere but it’s sad we will never see them develop the IP further.

I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there.

I’ll tell about the time I mauled some kid with a bear!

Apathy is worse than the whales.

Let’s do some theoretical scenarios for microtransactions:

-apathy with whales: “we need to ensure a good monetisation model to extract value from the whales, even if the normal players are missing out”

-apathy without whales: “let’s try adding microtransactions to extract more value per player, it won’t hurt our sales!”

-No apathy with whales: “no one is buying our game! And our whales have no one to play with! Are the whales even enough to fund this on its own? We got to undo the microtransactions soon!”

-No apathy no whales: “why did we even add microtransactions! Every business knows that only quality games and good marketing can help sales!”

A little hyberbolic but surely you see my point.

Ah. The “I’ll just tolerate this until it gets worse” mindset. Never backfires!

Surely even you can admit that slipping this in on release was a scummy move.

It’s “theoretical” only because there is no non-monetised version. They could have created a cheat shop with the items for free. Even if you choose not to use them having that option means it is a better experience, so it would still be a “diminished experience”.

If someone can pay extra money to get a different game experience from you then the publishers have denied you the chance at that experience which is “diminished”.

This isn’t even mentioning the performance issues on lunch that would be tolerated because “surely they’ll fix it later!”.

Sure you don’t care. Many people don’t care. And surely someone is going to try and highlight this apathy as a virtue somehow. And so publishers get to continue experimenting with how to milk franchises for every dollar it can instead of making an optimal game experience, overall making the game industry worse.

I don’t like the idea of them being slid in there

Yeah, but you’re tolerating it. which is good enough for greedy publishers.

If you want it to stop, don’t buy it. It’s the only option. Otherwise you allow publishers to make your game experience worse for profit.

The reason people like me are disappointed it is selling well is that these anti-consumer practices are not a deal-breaker for most people thus it allows these practices to persist in the game market. That is hardly “nonsense” as you put it.

I’m sure I’ll get a lot of “tolerating” people commenting that these “can be easily ignored”, but I doubt I will get a single person that says their experience was enhanced by these microtransactions, which could have simply been a cheat code instead.

I think klei may be my favourite studio. They create amazing games that are all truly unique but backed by strong game design concepts.

Mark of the ninja - great 2d stealth game were most games in the genre are 3d.

Invisible Inc - great turn-based Rougelike stealth game.

Don’t starve - probably one of the best survival games out there that relies on clever resource management rather than combat

Oxygen not included - a base building survival game, that is well designed to ramp up difficulty with the long term needs of your base

Griftlands - deck building game with a charming plot and interesting mechanics.

Each game they output is truly unique and interesting experience with some really clever design choices, but I think the point they became my favourite studio is when I read their article on Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic rewards to appreciate how well thought out their games were.

Haha. Glad you enjoyed it. Really great game that I think deserves more attention.

I’d recommend “in stars and time”. It is a turn-based RPG with loveable characters. I think it is best played blind so I’m hesitant to tell you more, but if you like games like undertale then I think you would like it.

You get over 3/4 inches with the other plushies. Obviously everyone is on the look out for the best value, by keeping on top of the doll per dollar rate.