That stuck out to me as well. Disney probably made 50k USD in the time it took me to write this comment. This feels more like sending a message than trying to avoid a costly payout.

I’m sure they want to discourage lawsuits, but I’m worried they did this just to try to set a precedent on EULAs being the end-all-be-all.

I just hope they get enough bad publicity from this move to cost them more than the payout would have.

The fact that Disney is asserting that whether a EULA has been read is irrelevant and that a EULA signed five years prior for an unrelated use is still enforceable feels more than insidious.

I hope Disney’s claim gets thrown out because I worry about the precedent this could set for EULAs going forward.

I’m definitely a little late to the party to comment on this thread, but it blows my mind that any organization would pick a flight with SAG-AFTRA at this point (or the WGA, though that’s not relevant to THIS issue).

SAG has already proven they will hold out pretty much indefinitely and the effects of the joint SAG/WGA strike are still being felt in Hollywood now.

Is the siren song of AI so alluring that companies are willing to die on this hill? At its peak hype, I could see executives salivating at the potential savings; but my understanding is there has been pretty substantial pushback to projects made with AI (or tech with AI in it). I can’t imagine that these large studios think their potential savings would outweigh the potential losses in sales; but I guess that’s why I’ll never be a Fortune 500 CEO…

I wish SAG-AFTRA nothing but the best in their endeavor for protections against AI.

I can’t say I’m surprised to see Gamepass get a price hike; it always seemed like it was in the loss leader stage to try to grow market share.

I wonder what the reasoning was to institute the hike now, though, since I’m not sure how strong their market share actually is on it.

My theory is that either:

• Microsoft is tired of footing the bill and expects results now
• Microsoft/ Xbox think they have enough market share, so it is time to stop cultivating and time to start harvesting

My understanding is they are still releasing new Series S models, which are basically just Gamepass machines; so I would expect they are not happy with their current market share (though corporations literally never are), which makes me think it’s the former option, not the latter.

All that being said, I wonder how much the price can increase before the value proposition of Gamepass is moot. Right now 20 USD a month doesn’t sound bad as long as you’re playing at least one new game a month, but I wonder how much more room there is in the price before the number of games you would need to play becomes unreasonable.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the Gamepass model since I like owning my games physically (it’s the main reason I prefer console to PC), so I don’t have much of a horse in this race; but I will be interested to see what becomes of Gamepass in the long term.

That’s a really good point about their business model potentially being unsustainable, but I still question if adding gambling is the answer.

Things that get me to go out (and I know that is anecdotal at best) are things like trivia nights, theme nights, stand up comedy, etc. I don’t think I would be very tempted to go out by the opportunity to be hustled in Angry Birds.

I agree that Dave & Buster’s needs to develop a more novel niche to not get erased by home entertainment, but I would be shocked if this was the best way to do it.

I remember when this news first leaked, people online were joking about getting into fights over a 200 dollar bet on a kid’s game if skeeball.

While I’m not sure how common that type of phenomenon would be, I have to agree with the author of this article that I would certainly think twice before bringing a child to a location where gambling is encouraged (especially in conjunction with drinking).

At this point, I’ve lost count of the number of times Elon should have been let go. I recall him recently saying that dosing himself with cat tranquilizers was cool and a good business decision actually.

That’s not even getting into turning Twitter into a Nazi bar (and throwing out its extremely valuable branding) or pushing for the cybertruck that cuts its passengers, looks like a dumpster, and corrodes if you look at it funny.

The fact any board of directors considers this man employable at all is mind boggling to me.

Honestly, that’s my main hope as well; that all the charging team talent will disperse across the market and help other chargers spread as well. The article mentioned Tesla having 60% of the fast charger market, so hopefully we will see other companies fill the gap.

My concern is that if no companies pick up the ball Tesla just dropped (or more accurately angrily chucked over the fence), that this could set the EV charging network back significantly; which would definitely be a problem for mass adoption of EVs.

When this news dropped a little while ago. I saw a lot of speculation that basically Elon got mad that a woman said he was wrong and laid off possibly Tesla’s biggest asset in a tantrum.

Honestly, at this point, the most surprising part of this situation is how unsurprised I am at that being exactly what happened.

Hopefully, this will not set back a widespread EV charging network (Tesla or otherwise) too much; but it definitely sounds like damage has been done.

Microsoft has certainly made games based off IP they owned without the original developers. But the only examples of that I can think of is Halo, which I don’t think was highly regarded.

Similarly (though not at Microsoft), when Shu Takumi took a break from the Ace Attorney franchise to do Ghost Trick, the quality of the franchise was widely regarded to have a dip as well (though now he has returned for the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the quality is considered to have returned). Ghost Trick was considered to be a very high quality game as well.

While IP is valuable; as an outsider to the industry, the skilled game devs seemed infinitely more bankable. I was certain that Microsoft wanted Bethesda for its quality devs, but clearly I was wrong.

You don’t sack the team responsible for your best regarded game in years, if you’re concerned with making good games.

You’re probably right. Microsoft is probably not worried about the quality. People will still buy their favorite IP, even with a notable quality dip

Honestly wild they would close Tango, of all developers, after they delivered maybe Xbox’s only coveted exclusive (though it has since gone multi-platform). Redfall and Starfield were both duds, and I’m not sure if Xbox has had any other exclusives at all (coveted or otherwise).

Having said that, it’s pretty bad that Xbox is closing these studios regardless of if they have put out a hit recently or not. As Arkane Lyon chief Dinga Bakaba points out:

You say we make you proud when we make a good game. Make us proud when times are tough. We know you can, we seen it before.

Microsoft certainly has the money that they don’t need to be making these cuts. This is clearly the result of Line-Go-Up syndrome, and will only hurt them in the long run.

PlayStation is already eating Xbox’s lunch since Xbox has no console selling exclusives. How are they going to make any good exclusives after cutting so much of their staff? (Also as a side note, I find it wild how much Microsoft spent on Bethesda just to cut so many of those studios.)

Overall, a cruel and short-sighted move from Microsoft.

It really does feel like that’s what happened. Is WBD going to can something every time they lose an expensive bet?

To add insult to injury, I don’t think anyone was clamoring for an online-only looter-shooter version of this game. If they had just let Rocksteady do their thing, it probably would’ve been a hit. WBD (probably) meddled hard with what would’ve been a solid game, and now a bunch of smaller developers are paying the price…

That does not feel like a good way to build brand loyalty. Especially because no artist is going to want to give their work to a corporation who will throw it in the trash first chance they get.

I think you can download it from Deery’s website (Link)(Archive link)

So I think (/hope) it’ll be available indefinitely-ish…

It’s honestly very sad how corporations can just throw their work in the trash if they think it will make them more profit there. I’m glad Deery was able to release it on his own for free so the game won’t be lost, but it’s unclear if all the developers will be able to do that.

I can’t imagine how frustrating and disheartening it must be as an artist to create something to share with the world only for it to be essentially buried underground because someone decided they could make a little extra money if no one ever sees what you made…

That’s pretty cool. Does it let you pause games indefinitely while playing other games, or does it just initiate a pause while you’re on the home screen, etc?

The sleep function is pretty nice, but I like to swap games relatively frequently; so being able to save frequently is still critical for me. Plus at the time, I was just playing on my personal computer, so I couldn’t leave it running, even if I wanted to.

For P5R, I suggest only playing for an hour or a two at a time; I think it helps keep the game from dragging. For me, it helped keep the exploration aspect fun since I didn’t have to rush to the end since I was probably not getting there in this sitting anyways.

I can’t really compare too much to P4G, since I never got very far in it (I missed the QoL improvements).

I think being able to save in safe rooms let them expand the Palaces/Dungeons, which I could see making the game drag for some. Personally, I enjoyed the safe room mechanic since it meant that I could play for short times if necessary, which let me “pick up and play” much easier.

P5R was my first introduction to the series, but I’ve heard the characters in P4 are much more fleshed out. Is that your issue, or would you say it’s the game mechanics that are bugging you?

I’m not saying that the game would’ve been kept off Eidos was still at SE, but I’m so tired of big corporations acquiring companies just for their IP while killing their projects and laying off their staff.

Embracer has a long history of acquisitions, and I am kind of wondering how long it will take until they decide to just “loan” out the IP they’ve bought instead of putting out any games at all.

If this is to be trusted (which is a big if), it’s very interesting Nintendo would not continue with the OLED screens. I’ve heard people theorize Nintendo is choosing to keep the OLED screen for a mid-cycle refresh, which I would believe; but would consumers be happy with the graphical downgrade?

Either way, assuming this is legit, it sounds like Nintendo is likely keeping the Switch form factor if they are still using small (ish) screens for the console. If this is the case, I wonder how likely a Wii U situation would be (where customers think it’s the same console they already have and don’t buy it)…

It will certainly be interesting to see how this film turns out given the oft-cited point that Link does not traditionally speak during the games (though I think he did in the CD-i games).

It’s also worth noting that video game based movies rarely do well. I’m not sure what the general consensus was on the Illumination Mario movie, so maybe people are more optimistic for this movie if they liked that one. Personally, I didn’t love the Mario movie, so I’m still a little uncertain of the potential quality of this movie.

I certainly hope this movie does well, though. Then we can finally get the Chibi-Robo movie we’ve all been waiting for.

I’ve never been one to play competitive online games since I have the hand/ eye coordination of a house plant, so I can’t weigh in on the advantages of blocking controllers that are “unfair”; but as someone who hated button mashing “A” in Animal Crossing, I can say that custom controllers can definitely have a place with a console.

In my opinion, this feels like Microsoft simply wanted more licensing money and is doing it under the guise of fair online play. It reminds me of Apple locking faster charging and data transfer on USB-C to their own proprietary USB cables.

Hopefully this does not negatively affect too many people.

I remember hearing about “Pebble” for the first time about a month ago when it showed up in an article in my “all” feed (https://pawb.social/post/2688668).

Its name before its rebrand was already questionable as I think T2 already has strong associations with the Terminator franchise; and its new name was not any better. “Pebble” is too generic a term to get people to understand the platform’s concept and in the tech space, I think everyone would think of the wearables first.

All this to say I am zero percent surprised they went out of business. I’m only surprised it happened so shortly after their rebrand (though at this point I’m starting to think that must have been some sort of Hail Mary).

Anecdotally, I find I get better discussions on posts if I include quotes from the article I find particularly relevant or poignant. I also like to comment my own feelings on the article in the comments as well. I don’t think the issue was the title of the article necessarily.

In this case, what sections did you wish people were discussing? To me, the section about the exclusives did not feel particularly engaging since the number of exclusives mentioned was actually pretty high since most games on a console trend to be third party.

If there is an argument being made you would like to highlight, I would certainly be interested in seeing it.

As someone who has always been skeptical of “AI,” I definitely hope corporations dial back their enthusiasm on it; but I think its value has never been commercial, but industrial.

“AI” was not designed so consumers could see what it would look like to have Abraham Lincoln fighting a T-Rex without having to pay artists for their time. “AI” was designed so that could happen on a much larger enterprise scale (though it would probably be stock images of technology or happy people using technology instead).

With this in mind, I think “AI” being a money pit won’t dissuade corporations since they want the technology to be effective for themselves, they just want consumers to offset costs.

Oh, exactly. I’ve hit a point where I could buy nice clothes on occasion if I had a reason too, but with expensive clothes being just as quality errant as low end brands, I find myself having very little reason to upgrade my wardrobe.

If I could find a reliably quality brand, I’d certainly be more inclined to start changing out my closet.

As it stands right now: I can basically throw out any polyester clothes because I never wear them, even if I like the pattern.

I think a lot of people have noticed clothing quality going down for a while, especially if shopping fast fashion brands; but I thought it was especially interesting how the decline in quality permeated through the high end brands as well.

When I saw the Ben Schwartz photo referenced in the article, I had assumed it looked worse since it was probably not as nice a brand as Billy Crystal’s sweater. I was surprised to see it was likely a 400USD sweater that looked like that.

As the article notes at the end, it is still possible to find fully natural clothes, but I wish they were easier to locate.

A couple of key highlights:

The proposal is a gambit by Meta to navigate European Union rules that threaten to restrict its ability to show users personalized ads without first seeking user consent—jeopardizing its main source of revenue.

It would give users the choice between continuing to access Instagram and Facebook free with personalized ads, or paying for versions of the services without any ads, people familiar with the proposal said.

Under the plan, Meta has told regulators it would charge users roughly €10 a month, equivalent to about $10.50, on desktop on a Facebook or Instagram account, and roughly €6 for each additional linked account, the people said. On mobile devices the price would jump to roughly €13 a month because Meta would factor in commissions charged by Apple’s and Google’s app stores on in-app payments.

Privacy-conscious users in the U.S. shouldn’t expect to be offered the option to pay for ad-free Instagram or Facebook soon. Meta’s proposals have been pitched specifically as a way to navigate demands by EU regulators to seek consent before crunching user data to select highly personalized ads.

It isn’t clear if regulators in Ireland or Brussels will deem the new plan compliant with EU laws, or whether they will insist Meta offer cheaper or even free versions with ads that aren’t personalized based on a user’s digital activity.

This feels like Meta is just attempting to play at Malicious Compliance. There’s no way they make that much off each user per month, this feels like they are intentionally making it cost-prohibitive to have the ad-free version just so they can say they are meeting EU regulations. I certainly cannot see many users shelling out ~€17 a month for Instagram and Facebook.

As noted, though, this may not be enough to pass the EU regulations.

I think we all knew this was coming when Nintendo discontinued being able to purchase 3DS and Wii U games on the eShop, but it is still very sad to hear.

Many 3DS and Wii U games have been ported to the Switch over the years, but there will be several games that will likely never get ported because they were incremental series games. Why would they port Super Smash Bros Wii U when they already released Super Smash Bros Ultimate?

A lot of people will probably not care much being on the newest console, with the newest games, but it is truly sad to know that you will never be able to revisit these games again in a few years when you’re feeling nostalgic, or if you just like the old version better.

I can only hope that homebrewers figure out how to spoof their own servers to keep online functionally for these old games.

The trick is to make sure you’ve checked everything else off on your list before getting to that one

I suspect it’s because they left the tech sector alone for too long and now major damage control is needed.

It seems like laws and politicians are always a little late to the game with regulations on new technology because they don’t fully understand a new technology or its implications until it’s been on the market for a while.

Unfortunately, that means by the time the technology’s implications have been determined, a lot of damage can have already been done.

I think, similarly, politicians were not examining the tech sector closely when it came to acquisitions; but they realize, now, that they let it fester a little too long.

Hopefully the FTC continues to break up any monopoly it can identify (tech or otherwise), but there’s certainly a lot of work to be done.

The interesting thing about this to me is it sounds like HYENAS was already very far along (being in an open beta quite recently).

I wonder if SEGA is giving it the Batgirl treatment, where they cancel it just for a tax write-off; or if it had serious structural issues that would have actually been very costly to rectify.

I’m pleased to see some Gerrymandering being undone, and I’m very surprised not to see the Supreme Court block this. Hopefully more Gerrymandering can be undone in other states as well.

That’s a fair point. It really feels like nothing is protected in perpetuity. It seems like everything is only protected for the time being. It honestly makes everything feel a little less stable, and I wish some protections could be codified to make them a little more robust.

Fingers crossed that we get Net Neutrality back. If I’m being honest, I’m less than optimistic; but I would certainly be thrilled if this went through.

This move seems absolutely wild, and I think Match knows it; which is why it’s only available to such a small segment of users.

If too many users have this feature (and who knows how many that would be?) it’'s going to scare away all the regular users. What’s the point in swiping no if that user can just veto your decision anyways?

This move reminds me a lot of what I’ve heard about mobile gaming. The 500USD/month users are whales, but the whales need regular people to play with or they’ll get bored and leave.

Right now, keeping the number of whales to a minimum is important to keep the regular users happy, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future some cost/benefit analysis shows that they can take the hit on regular users to squeeze out a few more whales.

It also seems like a bonkers move to pay 500 dollars to talk to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you, too. (But that’s a different issue.)

I’m glad to see SAG is standing up to the video game industry, which is notorious for mistreating its workers.

Hopefully, after seeing the damage from the WGA/ SAG Hollywood strike, the video game studios will take this threat seriously and negotiate in good faith enough to not warrant another strike.

I also hope that SAG standing up for themselves may inspire other game development employees to unionize and stand up for themselves as well.

This is quite surprising to me as Kamiya co-founded Platinum Games, and I always considered it to be largely under his influence creatively.

I have no idea why he would leave the studio that was already largely under his control. Based on the quote at the end:

I have a sneaking suspicion he’ll pop up soon somewhere else, perhaps funded by a Chinese company.

I have to wonder if he wanted to sell Platinum Games to Tencent some time back when they were having financial troubles but he wasn’t allowed to, so he left on his own to have more financial stability for his games.

Platinum Games has a problem of putting out solid games but rarely owning the IP themselves, so by leaving Platinum, I guess Kamiya is really only leaving Wonderful 101 behind (IP wise), and I’m not sure how likely he was to revisit that anyways. (Though Platinum did jump through a few hoops to secure the rights to it, so who knows?)

This move is quite perplexing to me, honestly.

It seems like Twitter is really trying to find a value-add for Twitter Blue, but I can’t see this enticing anyone.

What is the overlap between people you met on Twitter that you want to have a video call with that you don’t trust with your phone number/ other contact information?

This feels especially value-less when you remember you would only be able to call people who are also Twitter Blue subscribers (approximately 1 in 550).

That reminds me of when the GTA remaster collection came out and Rockstar had to delist the original (and I think they might have started C&D’ing some of the mod developers too).

At the end of the day, a direct port (or a cheap AI upscale in GTA’s case) does not have a lot of value add. This is especially the case when classic consoles (and the Nintendo Switch) can be emulated at an even higher resolution than native.

I understand why developers don’t want to actually remaster the game (or remake it, if they want to get really intense). It’s a lot more resource intensive, and it’s not a good guarantee of return on investment. Plus, most people who would buy a remaster would probably buy a straight port, too; so there’s really no financial incentive.

But having said all that, I simply don’t have much interest in playing direct ports. As far as I can tell, they’re really only useful if you don’t feel like doing the requisite tinkering to get an emulator working; but as you said, you’d probably still have better results on the emulator if you’re willing to put in the work.