781–790 of 800 posts
I wanted to show my gf the halo 1 campaign, so I downloaded the 30GB Masterchief Collection via steam. When I launched it, I was greeted with a black box. After 1 Minute it was a microsoft login screen that looked eerily like a browser inside the game. Since I couldn't do anything else, the game was stuck at a sub 720p resolution. I said fine Ill just create an account. Yea so mail, firstname, lastname, birthday, cou…
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Ignoring anticompetitive behavior, Windows is the only thing that works on most computers and is usable by most people. If you buy a computer, and it's not a MacBook, Windows is the only option.
I'm not convinced this is true in any sense at all anymore. Can you name a piece of hardware that isn't supported by Linux? I was gonna suggest maybe the surface tablets, but a quick googling suggest even they run it just fine. 20 years ago hardware support was a major concern for us Linux aficionados. 10 years ago it was a minor concern. Today I think you may have some issues with newer apple hardware, but it's not…
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I looked into it and apparently just the launcher itself is 16GB because it's filled to the brim with extremely oversized videos and sound files, on top of an already overweight base. All this is supposed to be the peak of game dev prowess. We've had like 50 years of game dev just to evolve to this. It's not just huge launchers - almost everything AAA that's made today feels like it was designed to appear flashy at f…
I mean yeah, just wait until you hear about Ark survival ascended: A game with a single 188gb ucas file extracts itself during update, taking over 400gb just to patch 2gb and then rezips itself.
E.g. OpenWrt's massive toolchain at least compiles down to tiny binaries to make up for itself.
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> Libraries and archives are able to keep digital copies, with limits imposed on how they may share them Share them by bundling them with DRM[1]? Like archive.org does with books and games that you can't download, but only virtually borrow to watch in your browser (trivial to work around, but it's there nonetheless). DRM-free in a word with current Copyright isn't the solution unless you want to wait 90 years to be a…
Your discourse assumes two things: piracy will maintain the archival part without fail and that universal access is the natural end goal. None are true. Counting on piracy means we will lose stuff. By definition, piracy has adversaries whose job it is to stop it. We cannot count on pirates never to lose any single cultural artifact because their existence is adversarial. Archives and libraries do something legal, the…
That's a little more than a trade off, it means nobody alive today will ever experience those games. And those people 90 years in the future, probably won't care. There is no culture kept alive here, burring it all in a landfill would do just the same.
DRM-free by itself really doesn't help here. DRM-free ala GOG doesn't even allow used sales, as your game ownership is still tied to an account and can't be relinquished or transferred. And buying DRM-free games from random people without ownership track record, ain't exactly a desired good to begin with.
As far as I know, there is no used marked for DRM-free games.
You need a proper copyright reform to actually addresses all of this. Or step outside the law and go the pirate route, which actually keeps old games alive and playable.
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This is the same effect of wanting to watch an old film... If you want to do it the legit way, you will have to face all kind of hurdles, starting from finding a service provider that might have the film, then forget about all the modern audience "edits" they put on these things, at times the quality isn't even good, the audio tracks are messed up... So you either give these jackals at least 30 to 60 minutes of your…
The streaming service is a Cathedral: You've paid your tithe to the temple of HBO Max? Marvelous, please come in, my child and gaze upon our wonders! What? James Cameron's True Lies? It is not in our collection, please remain here and we can watch Commando together! It's just as good! The digital copy is a Bazaar: You wander the booths of Prime Video, iTunes, and... Fandago!?! They assure you their copy of True Lies…
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You don't get in the locked box in the first place. That's the whole point. A day may come where it is the only option. In which case, personally, I will still advocate for not getting in the box. If they're going to hold "music" and "movies" hostage tell them to go fuck themselves. It's your money they're using to lock you in. And the day that I have nothing left that can play MP3 files is too far in the future to b…
With the planned death of physical media for games, it will soon become impossible to do so. Like, Sony literally plans to stop making discs starting in 2028, and all games you buy will have to be digital only. GTA 6 is just giving a code in a box. It's really the end of times for physical media in a few years, maybe something can change if consumers push back but they likely will not if we are being realistic. https…
Consumers are actually pushing back. Consumers show that even an 35 years old console and 90€ games can sell easily if it comes in a big beautiful box and with the assurance you'll be able to play in 15 years.
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...huh, do the online license checks only happen if you have the cartridge sharing stuff enabled? Wondering when/if I would run into this, I haven't yet. But I never use their "virtual game card" system, I only have one Switch and I think the whole thing is overcomplicated and too limited.
i have flaky internet and i am always able to play my virtual cards. I've never had an issue with wifi off, either. I just assume it needs to phone home because everything does, but it doesn't need to phone home to play right then. Now, i got my kid another switch and he decided he wanted his own account tied to the family nintendo plan and now i am learning what a pain the virtual cards are. If he had just let me pu…
I know 3+ Switches sound like a lot, but Nintendo was pushing the Switch Lite like the latest Gameboy. Maybe you concede and decide to buy the same game multiple times to avoid all of this. Well, there's no gifting. You need to enter your billing details into your kid's Switch and buy it there. Assuming you don't want to leave your credit card setup in their Switch, you get to go through this whole dance every time you buy something.
Virtual cards let you avoid a lot of this nonsense for two weeks. You'll rapidly get annoyed having to keep the original Switch and the new one in close proximity to do the exchange, but it'll work. But, it's nowhere near as nice as Steam Family or the iOS Family Sharing.
Gaming is heading in the same direction that TV, movies and music are. It’s a shame. I can invite my friends over, boot up my GameCube to play some Mario Kart Double Dash. As long as the console and disc are okay, I can (hopefully) do that until I pass away. These days? Not so much. I’ll never be able to be sure I can play GTA VI in twenty years. It just sucks not owning anything anymore. I know why they do it, it’s…
Optical media capped out at 4 layer blu-ray (~128gb) which I'm not even sure that consoles can reliably read. So my theory is that GTA 6 is somewhat larger and they really didn't want to invest into engineering a solution for multiple-disc or something when ~everyone downloads their games nowadays anyways. So in some sense, the true physical release "can't" exist. This doesn't apply to most anything but GTA 6 is the…
Metal Gear Solid did this 1998
I encourage folks with a PlayStation 5 (or 4) to participate in the blackout by unplugging their console for the week of August 23 at 7:00 PM your local time and run to August 31 at 7:00 PM your local time. Hopefully that helps send a message. We should irrevocably own our games, not rent a revokable license. And we should have price competition from multiple store fronts.
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>extremely aggressive bundle pricing I mean it's a good deal. As you say, when a company goes above a certain size, it does not make sense to pay for GSuite + Slack + Zoom + RMM/MDM + Zscaler Windows is still good for gaming PCs, and it will now handle and update itself reliably. No I don't need to hear anecdotes, I work in the IT desktop space. IT janitor monkey if you will. There is no way an enterprise will conver…
The Windows updates have become so unreliable and broken so many laptops that my org switched to Linux and it's been smooth sailing ever since. Can't believe the amount of frustration we put up with using Windows for so long. Maybe for a non tech company yes they cannot navigate anything better due to user expectations, but in my experience those companies usually have support for Mac and at this point I'd rather hav…