It’s definitely making their job harder on the face of it, but it also differentiates them from other ad companies, so I guess they’re betting on that being a draw for potential clients.

Advertising isn’t going anywhere, so investing in/supporting ways to more ethically serve ads without harvesting private data seems like a good thing?

what usually gets lost on people is how Mac tended to have had things first, like everything has Bluetooth now, but Mac OSX had it long before Windoze did

That’s just not true - in fact, Apple is well-known for repeatedly releasing ‘new’ products/features that already existed elsewhere, but acting like they invented it. That goes all the way back to the original Macintosh.

Or, to use your example, everything I can find says MacOS added Bluetooth support in 2004, while Windows XP was patched to support Bluetooth in 2002.

MacOS is good software, but let’s not pretend Apple hasn’t built their entire empire based on pinching other people’s ideas and marketing them better.

Start paying attention to the top new & trending Spotify playlists in genres you’re interested in.

I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but I don’t see even a single mention of cloud gaming in the article?

This is about studio closures and a disconnect between MS’s actions and the types of games they say they want.

Mostly agree, except I’ve never liked the dpad on the 360 controller. An XB1 or Series S|X controller is a noticeable step up IMO!

The return on indie games (if there even is a return) is already vanishingly small for 99% of releases - printing and distributing physical copies would just be pouring even more money down the drain.

Lake

And yet that’s exactly how they operate!

Valve: How going boss-free empowered the games-maker

… But you’re right that it is often considered the cause of many of their problems: Valve’s unusual corporate structure causes its problems, report suggests

It’s easier to rant about a boogeyman like SBI than to engage with any of the actual issues facing the industry, unfortunately

Each to their own, but I personally can’t imagine having to replace a faulty product 5 times and still wanting to use it

only because it generates engagement - The Algorithm often favours negative content

Definitely a mix for me, depending on what I want to play and how I’m feeling, but primarily PC (massive GOG and Steam libraries), Xbox (I have a series X and adore the backwards compatibility), and an Evercade handheld for portable fun and the occasional exclusive, like the Duke Nukem 1 & 2 remasters.

I’m really not a fan of the trend for really long video essays, especially since it’s almost always padding and repeating similar points.

Anything up to 25 mins is usually fine, but 35+ is in the realm of ‘I’ll add it to Watch Later but never bother watching it’ and over an hour I’m just going to keep scrolling

I bought a big box copy of Quake 2 on eBay many years ago, and was surprised to open it and find not only Q2 inside the box but also a full retail CD of the original Quake. I’d never played the non-shareware version before, so I got two great games that day!

I don’t think we need an article to figure out the answer: Slay the Spire was a megahit and it’s a copycat industry.

I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way either; there’re always plenty of devs finding interesting new angles on the current hot genre and creating genuinely interesting new games in the process, but also a huge number of devs that end up just chasing the trend and releasing something uninspired/derivative.

Sounds like you need to play more adventure games! Point & click had it’s heyday in the 90s with outstanding story-based game series like Monkey Island, Broken Sword, and Gabriel Knight, but there’s been a resurgence in recent years through games like Gemini Rue, Machinarium, and Deponia.

If you’re enjoying Syberia, definitely start looking at more point & click games - there’s a ton of variety!

How would you say it compares to the original, since I can see you played both recently?

Since people have already covered the modern games, I’ll offer two classic suggestions: Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat Armageddon.

“I talked to at least five small teams, like 35 [members] and under, during GDC, and they’re like: Cuts, cuts, cuts, funding canceled, talks that were going on for a year, canceled,” said Casey Yano, the co-founder of Slay the Spire studio Mega Crit. “It sounds like it’s shit. We’re definitely very privileged to be able to self-fund. [Otherwise] I’d be very, very, very scared right now.”

If these deals didn’t exist, lots of games simply wouldn’t get made. You can hate on the platforms all you like but the deals are one of the only sources of funding for small & solo developers.