That said, they’re not likely to license an already made AI for their projects either, which is also nice.

If they’re just scraping tweets, it’s probably looking at mentions of a million and one regular guys in the US named Sam Fisher and not the character.

Then they come up with the rating system whose only enforcement is on the AO rating, and don’t bother to actually clean up their shit. As the post above yours mentioned, the problem is lack of enforcement anywhere outside the AO rating or even anyone involved actually caring. Devs and marketing teams push for M if they want to actually sell a game to kids above 7 years old, retailers will sell anything to anyone lest they lose out on the money, and parents who ask about it will just ask the kid who wants to buy the game and will lie about what the rating means. We can crab about movie ratings all we want, but at least most studios and theaters actually enforce the MPAA’s rating and parents know what movie ratings mean. Game ratings are basically like TV ratings, so irrelevant you wonder why they even bother.

Sounds like the community of every competitive (or coop campaign) multiplayer game I’ve ever been in. I prefer just to not play online multiplayer, I don’t have the time (or disposable income) to “git gud” enough to be able to even stand a chance against all the obsessed people who pour hundreds of hours into it in the first month and drive everyone else out.

Even the ESRB, another example of gaming industry self-regulation, hasn’t stopped gaming companies marketing M-rated games to kids or really slowed down sales or access to such games to underage players at all. If anything, they use the M rating as a direct marketing tool to kids: “your parents wouldn’t want you to play this so you totally should”.

EDIT: autocorrect is dumb

Right, it would be the place he was rescued from (if a previous owner) that abused or neglected him.

Not to mention the triumphant cry from the cat in front. 😂

Most people don’t, or only throw something like 5 bucks at games like that here or there. But some F2P games are pushing 10 years or more in existence, so somebody’s paying to keep the servers running. The backbone of that industry is the small population of “whales” who spend their life’s savings to get the superior rare new cosmetic or in-game currency to gamble their life away to maybe pull enough copies to max out their waifu. Then they’ll use said cosmetic or waifu for about a month before the next super-ultra rare amazing once-in-a-lifetime hat or weapon comes along, or another waifu who totally eclipses their original one is released, then it’s rinse, repeat ad infinitum until the whale is flat broke and their life is ruined. But at least they maxed out their waifu and got to the top of the rankings in the leaderboard.

Yeah, at least some in-game currency is really the least they could have done if you’re gonna pay money to just get the base game to begin with since it’s F2P (pay-to-win) otherwise. Complete waste of money even for people who play and regularly spend money on these types of games.

I’ve been a part of two different friends’ attempts to quit addiction to MMOs. A high school friend had a problem with Everquest back before WoW. His brother recruited us friends to help give him alternative stuff to do like movie and other game nights. We succeeded, and he was able to put the game down. Some college friends and I were not so successful in pulling one of my roommates away from WoW. Activision Blizzard have it literally down to the science of addiction.

I think I still have one of those. It was Logitech. I thought it was good unless I wanted to use the thumbsticks or triggers. I always thought the Sony design of putting the thumbsticks down in the lower-middle was really awkward, and for some reason, using the triggers on the Logitech controller sometimes felt a bit painful.

Aside from Microsoft selling it as one, there’s a reason the 360’s contoller design is basically the de facto basis for most PC controllers. It’s the most comfortable one I’ve used for 3D games by far. Everything you need is easy to access. Nintendo lifted essentially the same design for their Wii U and Switch Pro controllers.

That and Math Blaster. Good times.

A Rugrats game in 2024. Certainly didn’t have that on my bingo card.

There were popular MMOs before WoW, such as Runescape and Everquest. WoW just took a popular genre and rocketed it into the stratusphere.

Legend of Zelda OoT followed up with popularizing a targeting button (good ol’ Z-targeting) to focus on one object or enemy in a 3D space and move around it or fight/otherwise interact with it. Such targeting has been a standard feature of 3D action-adventure games ever since.

My Switch hasn’t seen any playtime in the past couple weeks 'cause I’ve been watching the Olympics, but I have one more chapter to go in Paper Mario: TTYD remake that I’ll probably go back to once the Olympics are over.

I did dust off my 3DS one afternoon and finally continue some progress in Fire Emblem Echoes. I’m almost through that game as well, and then to complete my playthroughs of the 3DS Fire Emblem games I have both versions of Fire Emblem Fates waiting on the docket. I’ve generally heard Conquest is better (for gameplay at least) between the two but both are something of “black sheep” in the series. Since the eShop shut down I won’t be able to play Revelations, but from what I understand that’s a good thing, lol.

The original had a release to quite a limited geographic area (IIRC just Japan and Scandinavia) so it’s a bit of a “holy grail” for retro collectors. Interesting that they’re making a sequel.

I think some other threads on similar subjects have said that’s basically because of the Elden Ring DLC.

Working my way through the Paper Mario TTYD remake, just got through chapter 4 (Twilight Town) in about 2 hours after taking 5-6 to get through the Glitz Pit. Granted, despite getting the Yoshi the Glitz Pit is my least favorite part of the game (it really tends to put the game to a grindy halt for a while), so now it’s more fun from here! 😁