In Belgium publishers are obligated to send a single copy to the national library, so in that case the only public funding that is wasted is the extra storage space, which would be rather minimal. I don’t know if Japan has similar rules, but I wouldn’t call it a “massive” waste compared to some other places where public money is spent.

I studied some courses on archival, so I am probably biased. I think preservation is important, and even in this case I would prefer for them to be archived too, as the box and box art are also part of the piece and of cultural significance.

This is a great question! A few from the top of my head:

The original Assassin’s Creed: I would never have the patience to play something like this on my PC. It is too repetitive and basic for me to enjoy while the rest of my PC is available. On Steam Deck though, I loved playing this in bed as a way to turn my mind off and just enjoy a simple story / game. I had a similar experience with the 2008 Prince Of Persia reboot. I 100% completed both, something I would never do on PC or TV console.

Undertale I also enjoyed way more during my second playthrough on Steam Deck. I think it has something to do with being fully immersed and again, playing from the comfort of my bed.

Also Slay The Spire, I got reasonably into it on a pirated copy on PC, then played it for hundreds of hours on the switch, then finally got a steam deck and it was the first game I bought for it, now sitting at 700h on Steam alone. So I went from piracy to actually owning the game twice :).

Any visual novel like Steins;Gate, Zero Escape series, Danganronpa… I would never be able to complete these games on PC or console.

What I notice, is that longer games mostly only work for me portably, because of the way you can sneak in extra hours on a portable machine. Time spent playing on TV or PC is always quite scheduled, and I often feel like I don’t want to waste it on a single experience for too long.

I find this so strange, because it is often the friction / mystery that compels me to keep playing. See Blue Prince, Sifu, Soulslikes, Outer Wilds…

I have a playthrough going on of Bravely Default on my 3DS, but I got stuck on a difficult fight and never finished it. I wonder if I should go back, but it’s been a while and I’m unsure if I remember the story.

Tied with The Outer Wilds as my favorite game of all time.

I was playing Peak with my friends groups and one of us suddenly just said: “Is this the golden age of online Coop multiplayer?” And I have to agree.

We’ve been playing together for around 10 years. We’ve played legendary games like Left 4 Dead 2, Vermintide 2, overcooked 2, Portal 2 (a lot of sequels in this list), but lately had to search harder for similar quality experiences. Then we bought and installed Lethal Company on a whim and from the first second we were having so much fun. Something about the first person camera combined with directional voice chat makes this game incredibly immersive. We almost never roleplay, but in this game it only took a few minutes for us to start inhabiting our characters and screaming / joking as if we were them.

After playing this for tens of hours, our eye fell on R.E.P.O., a game with a similar conceit and fantastic reviews, and the added bonus of moving mouths. We took the jump, and again it was a slam dunk. Just checked and have been playing it for 18 hours already, and it seems like we just started. A similar feeling was had with Peak.

What all these games share, is an incredibly well designed gameplay loop that leaves enough freedom and space for creativity while still giving you a clear goal to work towards. In all cases everything is extremely immersive and tactile, forcing each of you to become your character in a way that other games fail to achieve.

They might seem basic or simple, but each successful case is so because of extremely intelligent design decisions. We’re looking forward to the new innovations still ahead of us in this space!

I am the only one here thinking that Steam should have cracked down on incest themed porn games a long time ago?

Just to be clear, the title of this post is referring to porn games, but in actuality it is about games that literally feature incest (not the step-relative stuff that is so popular everywhere online). All major actual porn sites have rules against incest, but the biggest gaming marketplace on PC should allow it?

Just to make it clear, I find it detestable that this is done because of Visa, especially if this trend continues and suddenly other stuff becomes blocked, but in this case I feel it should have been done way earlier.

Yes, just default Mineclonia as I am totally new to this game and scene. Just wanted something fun to do with my server as me and my friends stopped playing Valheim :).

Fair enough, you’re of course entitled to your interests however you see fit ;).

Death Stranding is a weird one. It has some of the most stupid writing in video games, but also has some really strong themes and moments too. I am talking about the first one as I don’t have the budget to buy the sequel at release prices. But Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 3 are masterpieces in my opinion, and the strange Eastern interpretation of Western spy / military culture is part of what makes it so interesting to me :)!

Metal Gear is one of my favorite series of all time, and that’s an Eastern developer’s take on Western culture. Another series that comes to mind is Resident Evil.

I don’t see why this is necessarily a problem? Ghost of Tsushima already tells a rather loose story that borders on the fantastical, it never even attempts to be a historically correct depiction.

This is the way :). I sadly lost my previous run. Was good enough to get to the boss of act 3, but Time Eater decided that was enough.

Yeah, only Nintendo comes to mind as a company where employees often stay for their whole career.

I have 600 hours in Slay the Spire and still want to play more. Heck, why not play a run right now…

No, I’m sorry. The point was specifically to use a free and open source project so anyone can enjoy it. It is close to Minecraft feature wise, but is still a separately developed thing.

I had no intention of doing so, just a fun side project that spun out of a previous post here a while ago.

I prefer performance mode if it is decently implemented. For slower games I go for quality mode if the difference is obvious enough. Recent examples that come to mind are Somerville and Forspoken. Forspoken is a strange one, as it is actually a really fast game, but it looked horrible on performance mode and actually worked quite well once I got used to the 30fps. I play on base PS5.

I had exactly this issue at times! Sometimes it felt like Kratos just wasn’t fast enough to react to my inputs, almost felt a bit over animated or something. I’ve dabbled in souls games (only finished Demon’s Souls though), but there the movement and reaction always felt instant and fair.

The first one on PS2 or the version from 2018?

It was the cutscene where Kratos hurls a gigantic column if anyone remembers.

I think Kratos does this in just about every game. I was playing Ragnarok 5 minutes ago and he was hurling pillars at enemies left, right and center :D.

As for 2018: it’s a game with a big focus on combat, exploration and character driven storytelling. I can understand feeling burnt out on the viking aesthetic, but the game feels way more fantastical than historical to me.

Nice to see some more GoW3 love. I adored this game from beginning to end and loved the variation the different weapons brought to the table.