Random Gaming Talk Thread

[Raist]

Why did you expect the drive to work in rest mode dude :/

Because that would make sense! At least if you're installing a game.

But the point of rest mode is basically being a low-power mode with just a couple of things potentially running in the background.
Spinning a disc isn't really compatible with that...?

[HardcoreRetro]

I read the giant post. It was bad.

I have no clue what he was talking about. There's like a bunch of subjects in there, but nothing coherently wraps up.

Get an editor.

[Rufus]

Your sacrifice is appreciated.

[team filler]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/sonys-ps4-exclusive-horizon-zero-dawn-is-coming-to-pc-this-year-sources-tell-kotaku.165134/page-85

Alright.

Time to break it down.

The following has been stewing in my mind for quite some time now and it's a big topic but I'm gonna go crazy so I'm just going to sit down and talk about how otherwise perfectly rational, normal people reach this silliness.




Okay so, I want to start this on the right tone. This is not meant to lambast or demean anyone, but rather analyze. So, first of all I'm gonna admit. I understand it. I'm not going to defend it. I think it's dumb as hell. But I get it. I have that gut reaction sometimes.

Oh who am I kidding, I have that gut reaction a lot. I'm an emotional guy. I understand and identify with all of the silliness that Playstation fanboys may be feeling all the way to expressing loudly or wherever on that spectrum they may fall.


Gonna break it down one point at a time. Originally when I wrote this I'd said simple. Uh...this isn't going to be "simple" as in "short." But hey yeah maybe someone who actually is seriously doing this will read this and get it about themselves.

And I don't think I'm a genius for explaining any of this; I just don't see any other break down posts that aren't just reductive or insulting. So I want to explore this.


In the end, and I promise this is not a slight or meant to demean anyone, but surprise, I know, none of the behavior or concern in this thread is purely logical, but instead at its heart, sheer sentimentality. Though I think this particular brand of it is worth exploring. Like, Shocker! I know, I know, wow Chettlar so insightful it's just feelings. But whatever I want to explore this.

Video games are emotional experiences for us as human beings. But emotion is not as simple as the present feeling someone is experiencing. Emotion is a vast sea of experience. It is informed very much by headspaces we inhabit. Video games are incredibly good at creating those headspaces, and when you get consoles associated with those emotional recipes and the unique flavors they produce, the emotional attachment gets really, really strong. Really strong.

Video games are so good at creating these headspaces because they affect so many things that other art mediums do at one time. I mean, a song alone can create this wonderful emotional landscape that can move people to tears, cause them anguish, turn their day around, give them resolve, change their minds on unrelated topics, and in some rare cases literally turn their entire lives around. Even wordless songs can do all this. It's kinda crazy. And this is just ONE aspect of what games do. Games are so total in how experiential they have the potential to be. They are engaging, engrossing, and immersive, if not in one respect, like suspension of disbelief of an immersive world, than in another, like the total engagement in a competitive online match for example. A lot of idiots (I was one of these idiots at one point) want to argue that some games are just pure logic and appeal to them because they are just logical people. Mostly these people are self impressed adolescent nerds (like me hi). Some of these self impressed "adolescent" nerds are in their 30s and 40s. But really, while they may indeed enjoy the logic they are engaging with, them enjoying it is already a bunch of emotional trails running at once. You can't separate out emotion form any part of human experience.

Everything you experience serves to create that emotional landscape which then informs the context from which all emotions experienced within are formed. UI Designers are no less important than any other designers for this very reason. The Gestalt of the experience you have in a game is, well, Gestalt. It is everything that exists to creates that experience for you. The sound of pressing your console's power button, the sound of the hard drive engaging, the start of a chime or melody or chord, the bleeps and bloops of the menus — these all serve to create an emotional reference point for everything that happens after. And this itself always has a point of origin inspired by whatever your impression of what a video game console and what it can provide you might be. When a console is new, our brains, with the expectation of fun and excitement however we got that expectation, usually as kids and/or absorbed in some way from society around us, lap up every bit of it, even if consciously we do or don't pay direct attention ourselves.

This is easier when we are young too, hence nostalgia. I've seen it observed that when I miss an old game, I am not missing the game alone, but really what I miss is being a child. I think this is close to the truth but not quite. Being a child was way different and kinda sucky in a lot of ways. Really this is just trading one simple misconception for another. What we miss is our abstract idea of being a kid, and that idea is often the left over remains of those headspaces we remember most. Oregon Trail is, for me for example, an emblem, or a mental icon of that entire headspace I was in while a kid. That head space was so powerful because as a kid it was more relevant to me than it ever could be now as an adult. There was little else to compete with it. I was a kid soaking up everything around me. Of course every emotional landscape I created would be so visceral, so potent.

As an adult, it isn't so potent. Not the headspaces my mind continually creates, and not the headspaces I remember and sometimes try to relive. I know that I still create these emotional experience schema type things because they are what replace the old ones. Every time I've gone back and played an old game, the experience I had with a kid is briefly remembered more strongly than my memory, and then often snuffed out by my new, present experience, and yet not totally. That experience still is a part of me, and has informed who I am and the experiences I can have that have come after.

For some of us, as those experiences become less visceral and our adult brains become less plastic and less prone to soaking up experiences and creating new powerful emotional landscapes to exist in (which again crazily, we some how often seem to just, not realize are there), we begin to miss being children, when the world was so much bigger and brighter, and our emotions were so much stronger and less bogged down by real life and our more set thoughts that come from being a big old boring grownup. And yet, we continue to have these associations. Maybe they aren't as strong, but they exist. It's just that often they are more strongly informed by their ability to appeal to those we most fondly remember.

I have no overwhelming preference to Xbox or Playstation or Nintendo, or whatever other games, because growing up for me personally, I only had some point and click games and a lot of educational games all on an old office computer. Some hunting games too, which I enjoyed exploring nature in. So for me, exploring in a game for example remains a lot of fun. That said I know for me that the experience of playing on an xbox 360 is a bit stronger than playing on a PS3 because that was the beginning of my experiencing all of modern gaming. It was where I experienced games that changed who I am as a person to this day. Anything that references those feelings will continue to be compelling for me, because it will help remind me of those headspaces I most heavily associate with playing and being emotionally invested in a video game. Or at least it's a major part of that for me. Humans are complex. (That said, PS3 was also the place I experienced Journey and Demon's Souls for the first time, and is the more recent place I played NieR, all in my later teens, so, say, that beginning orchestral tuning when you turn one on will continue to be powerful for me as well).

To sum this up as well as I can, experiential context is an inextricable part of what creates the emotional landscapes through which we "enjoy" video games, or even more accurately, what that enjoyment basically is.

(And to add. The people designing these things know this. Why do you think they design those beeps and boops? Why do companies so strongly contest their rights to their branding and imagery? They only control part of that puzzle, it is important to keep in mind, but it still is a part.)

Alright, so how is this stuff that all probably seems like stuff you generally sorta know maybe didn't really think about but kinda noticed relevant?

Well, so think about how powerful all that is. Like I really hope I've communicated how important this stuff is. Everyone experiences it differently, but everyone, to some degree, has SOMETHING that affects how they experience video games, a lot of it honestly probably too difficult to really accurately totally and completely enumerate. And for so so so many of them, understandably the thing they most powerfully identify with enjoying a video game is the console upon which they play. There's always many many more aspects — like for me the computer room in which our couple little office computers were housed on the side of our basement's big room — but I'd wager it's a huge component for a lot of people. It's a bit silly, but everyone has something that sort of engages their gamer brain and all the emotional ..."baggage" has too much negative...baggage associated with it, but you get what I mean. My point is that everyone has various things that to them create that emotional landscape context, and for many people to some degree, the console is a major component. This is true for PC gamers too. Again, it's a universal human trait. I mean, as a curiosity to observe at very least, why do people adorn their gaming PC's with "gamer" aesthetic? If you are not one such person, you are not "above" needing some sort of physical or aural or luminous or in some other way emotional trappings of experiential context. It's just that you associate that garish aesthetic with adolescence or obnoxious "gamer" behavior, so they are not a part of what creates a headspace you enjoy. For others, they just might. All sorts of things could be for a PC gamer. Maybe clicking on the discord icon is a little sparkle of flavor as part of the ritual the begins your gaming session. Again, not something you consciously think about unless you happen to notice, but nevertheless a part of your experience. Heck, while I'll be the first to criticize Epic and the EGS, it is impossible for me to deny that there absolutely is some sentimentality in one's preference for a Steam only experience. That is not ALL of it, but that is a discussion for another time. Suffice to say it is impossible to ignore that that experience does exist to flavor any perhaps logically sound or petty discussion on the subject.

So how does this apply here?

Well, when a lifelong playstation gamer moves away from playstation to PC for example, that is all gone. It's just gone. Worse than gone. PC might already have its own associations in their heads that are decidedly negative for that person.

It isn't as if they can't enjoy video games any more. It isn't as if this isn't something that can't be adjusted. Like I said earlier it absolutely can and is continually adjusted. All your memories are just memories of the last time you remembered something anyway. People are plastic. Maybe in some ways less as we grow older, but still essentially plastic. But we can't deny the fact that context and headspace for which people enjoy a given thing, especially if that is an emotional thing, like, oh I don't know, a video game, are not always easy to let go of.

This manifests itself in different ways. It's why you will never convince, with logic, sound as it may be, a person to change their mind on something that was not born of logic in the first place. The fact is if Joe Gamer associates gaming with his Xbox, and his PC with the office, then an Xbox game being on PC, even if the experience is so much better on a PC, and he could make a cheap gaming PC with more options if he wanted to, you aren't going to change his mind. Heck, even Self Aware Joe Gamer may not change his mind, because you can't just fix a deeply rooted emotional association with logic. Not that easily and never completely. Now, part of just allowing yourself to grow as a human being is recognizing those limitations and realizing you can change them and experience new and different things. But also part of being understanding and emotionally intelligent on the other hand is recognizing that emotional association and this specific concept I've referred to with the shorthand of "headspace" and "emotional landscape" so far, are all part of what make us human beings. It's okay to let them be how they are, and learn to both expand them while also taking advantage of how powerful they are if indulged. If you truly love video games as a medium, both are valuable skills to develop.

The trouble we get into then here is when people attempt to rationalize their emotional experiences down to very simple point of interest. They associate mentally a noticeable thing with a noticeable emotion, and here's where it gets kind of funny but interesting, then create an emotional attachment to the idea of that noticeable thing ex post facto. So maybe a given sequence in a game was subconsciously extremely immersive for someone, but also there was a thing that happened in that sequence that they associate with that feeling. They will then try to convey that that thing they associated with the feeling was really really good and definitely was the source of that feeling they got, even if someone else who was not immersed in that experience can point to all the flaws in the thing that happened and how that thing isn't so great because it didn't affect them in the same way. You can say "well it's all subjective," but that is rather lazy.

Sorry if that was a bit confusing. Maybe for example, all sorts of things you do but probably mostly don't notice leading up to and including a given sequence in a game create a feeling of great pathos for you, and so then you are more receptive and ready to accept something as sad or moving. So a scene happens that you find really sad and moving. Then someone else points out to you how crappy and poor the writing was and how silly it sounds. That person didn't experience the same things as you to create that experience. You did, but didn't realize it. So for you, you point out an awkwardly and unrealistically written but earnest scene as something that created a moving experience, when really it was the whole of that gestalt leading up to that moment that enabled you to be receptive to that scene and not notice that ordinarily you'd find it silly. So when someone points out to you that the dialogue is silly and not realistic at all, you are incensed. How could they see that dialogue as silly? Well, it's pretty simple. Essential aspects that lead up to that experience didn't work for them. Just as equally they have probably experienced and enjoyed something you found silly because various things did not work for you. Heck, even if you both enjoyed the scene, different things may have been what did it for each of you, even if in English you'd list the same basic reason you enjoyed it, ANDDDDD, you could both be wrong in whatever simple thing you are ascribing the experience to. Most of what makes a game well beloved then is, I feel like it's pretty logical to conclude, is when it is so effective at nailing everything that everyone is able to experience what it sets out to experience for them.

SPOILER:

(Heck, this failure is exactly what causes that really awkward moment when a teenage boy tries to show some girl a cool fight scene from this anime episode #2489 where goku uses his 9.38 million power chi to suplex the pokemon demon master Doki Baka Kun. The fight scene, I hate to break it to you 16 year old m- uh you, but that fight scene wasn't that cool. But that doesn't make it bad either! And it doesn't make you silly for experiencing the power conveyed by that scene. It's more complex than that. The scene itself isn't the thing that made you feel that way on its own. In this case it's the entire 2,488 — oh okay we all know episode #1433 is not canon any more I GET IT CHETTLA- I mean you, okay fine the entire 2,487 — episodes that preceded this glorious fight are the source of your emotion.

And there is no way this cute girl who is pretending she doesn't know you should have showered like at least one this week because she likes your dorky enthusiasm can ever, ever feel the thing you want to share with her, because nothing you explain will convey the full power of what you have experienced. At best it could encourage her to go experience that herself if that sounds exciting to experience. Sure the episode was an emotional release for you, but you are ignoring a lot of flaws in it and how badly animated it is and how actively it takes some people out of the experience by how very average it is, because for you personally that wasn't enough to override the emotional experience you had).

My point is, that often we can mistake the things that really create experience for us for silly oversimplifications. That thing we ascribe it to might not even have anything to do with the true source of that experience. Even those of us who scorn intellectual analysis as boring and ruining the fun and magic of art and video games do this. Because all of us want to feel justified in feeling the way we do.

That's really what it comes down to. Our self image is threatened when the things we most deeply experience are trivialized. We have to justify our experiences because anything we deeply enjoy is reflective of who we are as people. I am not Chettlar because I find Viva Pinata delightful, and me being Chettlar isn't really accurately the reason I enjoy it; neither really totally begets the other. The fact is me being Chettlar is now for the past 7 years or so me being the guy who enjoys Viva Pinata, at least to a small degree. That's...kinda what people mean when they say art is a part of who they are, in my opinion. When I write music I show the world a part of me I can't express any other way. When I enjoy someone else's music, that is me responding to that person, and creating something else. An experience. A..me..unit sorta. That which I call my identity is amended whether I like it or not. Why else do people even lightly interested in a various piece of media adorn themselves either with avatars or memorabilia? Part of our identity is what we enjoy. When I justify why I enjoy a thing, I am justifying ME. And at some point somewhere with some thing, you reading this do that too. If you've read this, I've affected you whether you like it or not, whether you think I'm onto something or just an over-intellectual sycophant (I mean, I just used the word sycophant). As I talked about earlier, video games are some of the most involving of all mediums. Sure this combines with video games being enjoyed and created in huge part by anti-social nerds, a lot of whom never had to grow past being children and so reflect this reality in unfortunate and sometimes horrendous ways. But video games were always going to have such a strong effect on the people who play them, because by their nature they touch so many parts of us at once.


Alright.

Sooooo

..

Let's plug this all in then. I get the previous part may have been a little boring, but I gotta make sure I establish some common ground here so I can get to the juicy bit. Hopefully the emotional headspace I created for you, lol, wasn't just "who is Chettlar and why has he assaulted me with this skyscraper of text?" I'm trying okay? It's a large topic.


Alright, well.

A lot of Playstation fans, whether they want to admit it or not, and not all of them, but many of them to varying levels, have used exclusives as their preferred means of justifying their being fans of the brand. Not just their purchase, but of the brand. Playstation. What that means for them. What emotional sparks that might gently but maybe imperceptibly begin to flare. I think for some of them, they view themselves as intelligent, discerning and logical people. To support this, they have to believe that the games they play are the best games ever made, or at least top notch in general. A few crappy games they dislike can serve as the sacrificial lambs to demonstrate to themselves and others that they are not mindless fanboys, of course. (Psst, this is not me implying that Sony games are all trash. But the emotional need some may posses more than others to place these exclusives at the very top of the medium is very much related to this. If you find yourself starting to feel defensive right now at that very implication, uh...maybe think about that for a minute. Because I've not even said whether I like Sony games. Actually that's not true, I already have. I mentioned Journey earlier as a hugely impactful game for me, because it truly was for me.) And this isn't to diminish the fact that these games, on their own, have created emotional experiences. Sony makes some quality titles. What I am saying that there is an emotional need to elevate them into the stratosphere that you might not be as immune from as you might think, even if you don't even like Playstation games and you're interests lie elsewhere.

This is why you have a number of journalists comment that they receive a lot of their death threats (if not due to them being anything other than cis male because of that whole big thing gamers™ have a problem with, but that's another topic) most often in relation to, you guessed it, their views on exclusive games. Not just Playstation games. This happens with Nintendo fans and xbox fans. But right now the topic is Playstation, so I've been using that specifically. Plus, let's not pretend that Sony's marketers are totally oblivious to their identity as a brand that builds major impressive cinematic experiences. They're pretty vocal about it honestly. So if you are profoundly affected by that marketing because all marketing in all of the world of branding of any kind is designed with the intent of validating that identity you've created, well, it's working.

Again this is not to specifically attack Playstation fans. Every person has this happen to them, because we are emotional creatures like I discussed before. I'm not even attacking capitalist marketing. Cults do this, states do this, small clubs do this, movements do this — anything and everything that has an interest in existing as an institution in your life does this. And it always will.

But the er, unsavory side of it is Playstation fans being ugly up to and including sending death threats to websites who didn't give Uncharted 3 10/10 reviews before they had even played the game themselves. That behavior didn't come out of the blue. It didn't just come from some aggressively mislead slaves to the marketing of Uncharted 3 who just believed foolishly that the game was great before it was on store shelves. It didn't just come from the black magic power of branding alone. It came from fans whose identity relied on Playstation being a brand of prestigious perfect video games. I will point out, meekly, but frankly, that the forum that was the precursor to this forum, was home to a lot of that senseless ugliness. Maybe not the worst of it, but some of it. But again, it's not senseless really. It's not reasonless most certainly. It's just a result of a lack of self-awareness of how deeply and profoundly the experience and identity of being a Playstation fan, even among those who didn't specifically identify as Playstation fans per se affected these people's views. Again, we all are affected by our emotions even in what we feel are our most rational moments. This is an example of how that applies here. Marketing was part of it, but not even close to all of it. It cannot create this out of nothing.

I feel strongly that trying to dismiss these people as corporate slaves is foolish, I need to note. It is an oversimplification that tries to distance the one making it from their behavior, trying to shift the blame to a system rather than acknowledge the human source of, and life factors leading up to, that behavior, be it as it may that that marketing did play its part in accentuating or accelerating that behavior. I really feel that much of what begat that behavior was something universal to us all. That maybe you reading this aren't so immature as to act in that way, but you are nevertheless affected by your favorite brand of video game, or your favorite happy video game place. It compels you to act the way you do, whether you've taken the time to see it or not.

Hopefully I've kind of shown some of the beautiful and ugly sides of what emotional identity and the headspaces we inhabit, that are so intimately tied to that identity, can be.

When you take away a Sony fan's rationale for defending his identity as a rational, logical, intelligent human being who enjoys Playstation because he is such, you lay bare and naked the fact that his love of Playstation was never truly rational, logical, or intelligent.

Certainly there were rational, logical, and intelligent reasons that may have got him there, but his love in the end comes from a humiliating and simple human reality. He loves his beeps and boops, his whirrs and start-up tune, his click of a face button and clack of an analogue stick. He loves the feeling of the couch under is butt. He loves the dim lamp light. He loves the logo that pops up and tells his lizard brain, "Game time! Fun time! Relax! The physical place you are in only serves along with the lights and sounds and trinkets to create the mental place you so enjoy. We all exist to simultaneously create a sanctuary and catalyst for what you love most." To explain to him his rationale is not, at least entirely, rational despite the part logic may play in it, the reason he loves Playstation, is humiliating, because it eats at, even if he doesn't realize it, the idea that he isn't who he thinks he is. He's a silly, lizard brained animal just like anyone and anything else. And his love for these experiences is inspired in huge part by silly things. And he wants to feel that it comes from intelligence and superiority. It's banal and boring insecurity, regardless of whether he's even ever been conscious of it.

He doesn't want to admit that at the heart of it, the reason he's a Playstation fan is for reasons he probably has already subconsciously written off as humiliating or silly. (He may have, in an ironic lack of self awareness used such an explanation to humiliate someone else and diminish their experience specifically to prop himself up. That isn't necessary at all, but if he's a jerk maybe it's happened. You don't have to be a jerk to have blind spots. We all do.) And he doesn't even have to have gone through ANY of these thoughts either. It probably just manifests in a vague fear of being threatened, his subconscious warning him that this person pushing him to recognize the very banal source of his identity is actually just an asshole, and he shouldn't think about it, but instead be mad at the asshole, or the person responsible. He tries to come up with all kinds of badly thought out rational reasons to defend his position and why his essentially selfish desires shouldn't be exposed as the petty things they are.

And you, the reader, probably do this with something, somewhere, in your life too. Maybe it's more serious, maybe it's more tiny. But that's your business to examine what silly things your pride doesn't let you accept. My point is that this is a human thing. Not something playstation fans do because they're dumb dumbs for some reason.

And the funny thing is? The cure to this is not that complicated. It's like, really simple. Accept that your lizard brain likes the beeps and boops and that the idea of what playstation is to you is in the end, just an emotion. Accept that you aren't any smarter than anyone else because of the games you enjoy. That your reasons for the way you game the way you do aren't super intelligent because at the center of it all, you are playing games to have fun, which is nothing if not the definition of emotional experience. You are going to do what you are going to do to engender that experience. I mean, really games are deeper than fun. Some of our favorite games we love because they were very seriously emotional, and not really the typical colloquial definition of fun, now that I really think about it. The fact is you are going to, subconsciously or not, do what you need to do in order to create those experiences for yourself. And that's okay. It's definitely good to explore the reasons why this happens. But analyzing your reasons for enjoying something is an intellectual pursuit of curiosity, not an appropriate avenue for justifying your identity, and certainly not an appropriate thing to use to deprive others of enjoying more things in the way most effective for them. If analyzing why something happens is not allowed to humiliate you or if it makes you feel threatened in anyway, well sucks to be you buddy because fact is you are a mortal imperfect human being and analyzing the reasons you are the way you are are going to be compromising in some fashion. I really don't know what to tell you other than to move past it, because you are seriously limiting yourself to some awesome opportunities to learn and grow as a person. I don't care if you're 15 or 50 or 31½.

The fact is, humiliating as it may be, you fancy the things you fancy is because they tickle your lizard brain and help create an emotional cocktail you enjoy.

If you don't recognize that, you won't realize how utterly silly it is that you are essentially arguing that someone should compell you to spend more money. Like, really at the end of it, it's an extremely illogical, silly fear of missing out. You've created a really silly idea, dress it up however you like, that you are missing out on something. If a game comes to more platforms, well clearly an exclusive has been deprived of you. You've got a silly animalistic instinct of valuing scarcity. You feel that if a game comes to more platforms, it's not special any more. So then it's not as special. But you've not lost anything, other's have gained something. But the FEELING of it being special is gone, so you feel that objectively something is missing. Well buddy sorry to break it to you but there is nothing logical about that, no matter how you want to dress it up. So much for being rational. Yes, games are created to sell consoles, but if a company moves to making those games for more platforms, you have not lost anything. You just feel like you have because the emotional puzzle piece that has disappeared from the equation if the feeling of scarcity and exclusivity everyone finds at least a teeny tiny bit alluring on some level.

More related to the general point of this entire post, you also fear missing out in a way that really is actually, funny enough, self imposed, and leads you to do silly things like, as I said above, imply that you WANT to be compelled to spend extra money. The fact is you want a rational reason to get a video game console and have the whole experience it provides you. If you don't have an exclusive game to justify that experience, then you are left facing that horrible, humiliating fact we talked about.

You don't want the console for rational reasons. You want the console because you want the emotional idea of that console. You want the console because of the emotional landscape it creates within you. Because you are a human being who needs things you don't want to recognize to exist in order to facilitate the fullest enjoyment of a video game possible. Exclusives helped justify that for you in a way that seems tangible and rational.

Your silly emotional and not-well-justifiable reasons for spending hundreds of dollars on a console aren't enough for you. You need to feel reasonable, rational, and intelligent for wanting what you want, even if you don't personally think you care. If you really didn't care, you wouldn't be asking someone to make you spend hundreds of dollars on electronics that in all essential ways do all the same things as the electronics you already own. You want stuff, and now you can't justify it, and that's humiliating to recognize how silly you are.

Thing is though...like, really the way to make peace with this, like I kind of covered, isn't that hard. Like, okay, I like silly things. Why care? Are video games not just a bunch of bleep and boops? They still create amazing experiences for you. If you want to spend $400 to feel better about yourself, spend $400 if it makes you happy. It was just as silly an expenditure when it had exclusives, because at the heart of it you are just indulging your emotions, and that's what these big toys are for. It is no less and no more a silly expenditure in a way that really, truly matters now that it doesn't. If all your games come to PC, you are still someone who enjoys themselves on your playstation or your xbox or switch. Go play your playstation or xbox or switch and be happy. You are a silly, irrational human being. Don't take yourself so seriously. Don't be an idiot with your money, but if what makes you happy is owning a box with a big X or a big P or lopsided face looking thing on it to play your games on, then that's what makes you happy. You're wasting so much energy trying to preserve your ego, and honestly in the end hurting yourself most of all by limiting your ability to grow as a human being.

Yeah, you are still a child. You like big toys. You like car go vroom. You like head blow off. You like sparkles shiny wow. You are depriving yourself and others of joy by insisting you are so superior to that. You're not intelligent by trying to make yourself appear intelligent or rationalize and justify your self-image. Ironically you're...kinda bein' stupid. So what. We're all stupid. Quit taking yourself so seriously. Go play video games you big dummy.

Jesus F. Christ

[Svejk]

Supposedly, Pascal's Wager (app store) is a complete, direct rip-off of Dark Souls in every way. (In a good way)  Shame it's only app store.  Am curious about it, but fuck Apple.

[Trent Dole]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/sonys-ps4-exclusive-horizon-zero-dawn-is-coming-to-pc-this-year-sources-tell-kotaku.165134/page-85

I'm gay

Jesus F. Christ

[Great Rumbler]

[bork]

https://twitter.com/oirandrive/status/1219623001295114250

[HardcoreRetro]

(Image removed from quote.)

Damn, even the NeverDead guy made an appearance in that Konami poster.

[D3RANG3D]

It's a shame Konami pretty much doesn't make games anymore.  :'(

[Chooky]

they went out of their way to include like every damn major character ever, and yet all of this is for a dead legacy lmao. at least start releasing some more comprehensive game collections ffs.

[Akala]

They started but no one bought them.

[RyoonZ]

(Image removed from quote.)

Suikoden front and center 

[benjipwns]

Damn, even the NeverDead guy made an appearance in that Konami poster.

You said this and then I was looking for the guy who lost his head at the infamous E3 conference, not the actual character.

[demi]

New PS1 translation - Brave Prove

IDK what it is but it looks cool

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/5340/

[bluemax]

Description says some kind of action RPG. Readme says this:

This is a complete English patch for Brave Prove
translating the game from Japanese into English.
This product is a hardcore action rpg which could
probably be recommended to those who love the Thor/Oasis
and Alundra franchises. Lush cartoonish worlds,
catchy soundtrack and "not a mediocre" difficulty
with tons of attack combos will be familiar for all
those who witnessed the onset of the genre back on
Sega Mega Drive.

[benjipwns]

At the time of E3 in 2004 The Apprentice was a top five show on TV and the highest rated new show since American Idol. The ratings would begin to collapse that fall and as the second season went on, but in mid-2004, using Trump himself for dumb promotional stuff like that was bigger than ever. For a couple years he was believed to be making more off the show and his sponsorship of the various associated brands than his traditional Trump businesses.

[HardcoreRetro]

Damn, even the NeverDead guy made an appearance in that Konami poster.

You said this and then I was looking for the guy who lost his head at the infamous E3 conference, not the actual character.

One mirrion troops, one mirrion troops. Wow! One mirrion troops, love you guys.

Extreeeeeeme! Extreeeeeme hack and slash titre.

If you press XXXYYY you will be sucked.


Now you can move your fat body freery!

Probably the best E3 conference ever.

[bork]

Damn, even the NeverDead guy made an appearance in that Konami poster.

You said this and then I was looking for the guy who lost his head at the infamous E3 conference, not the actual character.

One mirrion troops, one mirrion troops. Wow! One mirrion troops, love you guys.

Extreeeeeeme! Extreeeeeme hack and slash titre.

If you press XXXYYY you will be sucked.


Now you can move your fat body freery!

Probably the best E3 conference ever.

Needs the video:

[benjipwns]

[MMaRsu]

[Nintex]

https://playfulstudios.com/a-message-from-playfuls-founders-on-changes-at-the-studio/

Xbox did not want to buy this

[Coax]

Widescreen support for SNES emulation is nice leap. Seems, as expected, that character sprites outside the original aspect ratio aren't visible while backgrounds are but I'll still take it. Haven't touched a SNES game in ages, wonder what would hold up.

[Bebpo]

It's neat but enemies just popping out of the air would bug me too much.

[EchoRin]

@213372bu

Ah interesting. I haven't gotten a chance to play Automata yet (no PS4, ancient laptop). But I imagine that even if one didn't play any Drakengard game they wouldn't necessarily be missing out on Automata details. Like more along the lines of "oh I know what that is referring to" if you had played D1 or 2 (maybe 3? Not sure how Drakengard 3 fits as Nier 1 is pre D3 after all), but still just as sensible even without having any Drakengard knowledge?

For what it's worth I did watch some Drakengard video essays or tidbits a long time ago. So I knew about the music thing you were talking about. And... really that's the main thing I remember as it really has been so long and I never had an urge to play D1 or D2. I do have a copy of Drakengard 3. Bought it purely out of my Nier fandom. But my PS3 Grill edition broke before I was able to get around to playing it (and I left all my PS3 stuff at my parent's place so it's not something I would be playing any time soon).

----

Really at this point it would be great to have those Cavia games ported to the PC for the sake of preservation and easy playability access.

I read the wiki summaries and maybe watched 1 video on Drakengard after I beat Automata. Didn't feel like I needed it to enjoy the game.

Oh I likely won't be playing D1 regardless at this point. Eventually, once I do play through Automata I will have a look at one of the vids 213372bu referred to, as a sort of bit of extra lore.

Absolutely, I would just jump into Automata. If you really like, track down Nier. Let other people play drakengard for you at this point.

Not sure if it was directed at me, but yes I have played Nier 1. 

--------

Didn't want to leave this in the VGM thread as I think it's enjoyable even for people who don't visit that thread



wtf at 9:19 

[MMaRsu]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/stardew-valley-has-sold-over-10m-copies-worldwide.166348/

wtf is with this thread? Reads like an advert for jason schreiers book

[Great Rumbler]

[Tripon]

[porkbun]

Xavier rocking the Up/Down shirt.  That's a cool barcade, you can get a six pack of tallboys and $25 worth of tokens for $20 on Sundays.

[nachobro]

Fuck yeah, was the highlight of a night out in cold as fuck shitty minneapolis. cheap good beer plus the pizza there was hella good.

[bluemax]

(Image removed from quote.)

Damn, even the NeverDead guy made an appearance in that Konami poster.

Yeah but did they remember the game that I posted about on the Bore that got Konami's lawyers after me? R O C K R E V O L U T I O N!

I think not.

[MMaRsu]

[team filler]

trihex seems p cool  I mostly watch thebeast, barbarousking and ryukar for smm

[MMaRsu]

 

2:45 on 100% nightmare bossin

[Akala]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-01-26-report-konami-has-two-new-silent-hill-games-in-development

please be good.

[Raist]

If you listen carefully you can hear Capcom lawyers drafting C&D letters.

[Nintex]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-01-26-report-konami-has-two-new-silent-hill-games-in-development

please be good.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories HD for Nintendo Switch
Silent Hill: Pachinko Slots OH MY SCARY SCHOOLTEACHER Vol 1.

[bluemax]

https://gamasutra.com/view/news/357108/GDC_State_of_the_Industry_Game_devs_shifting_focus_to_nextgen_consoles.php

The survey compiles responses from nearly 4,000 game developers, and this year's results suggest devs are showing heightened interest in developing for next-generation consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

The data also shows an uptick in interest in VR game development, which was potentially spurred by the release of Oculus Quest, as well as rising confidence that game devs can and should unionize.

While the majority of respondents said their current projects are being developed for the PC (56 percent) and/or mobile (39 percent), 11 percent of survey respondents said their current project is being developed for the PlayStation 5, and 9 percent said they’re currently targeting the next generation Xbox Series X (still known as “Project Scarlett” at the time our survey was conducted).

We also checked to see how many were currently working on games for Google Stadia and Microsoft’s Project xCloud, two high-profile game streaming services which made waves in 2019. 6 percent of respondents said they’re currently targeting Google Stadia and just 3 percent said they’re aiming to put their current project on xCloud, suggesting that dev interest in making games for these services remains nascent.

As you might expect, dev interest in targeting next-gen consoles increased a bit when we asked respondents what platform(s) they expect to launch their next project on. 23 percent said they expect their next game will launch on PlayStation 5, while 17 percent expected it would come to the next-gen Xbox.

The most popular platform for future projects was the PC (52 percent), followed by mobile (39 percent) and again, the PlayStation 5 (23 percent). Only 19 percent of respondents said they expect to release their next game on the Nintendo Switch, while PlayStation 4/Pro and Xbox One/One X tied with 20 percent of respondents targeting each for their next game.

We also saw a slight uptick in dev interest in game streaming services for future projects, as 8 percent expect to launch their next game on Google Stadia and 6 percent are targeting xCloud.

With new consoles from Sony and Microsoft on the horizon, we checked in with our survey respondents to see whether they’re developing their next game exclusively for these next-gen platforms. Just 5 percent said yes; 34 percent said they’re targeting both current and next-gen platforms, and 22 percent said they’re exclusively targeting current platforms. However, the largest share (39 percent) admitted they don’t know whether their next project will be exclusive to next-gen platforms.

VR interest is back up thanks to the Quest. PC and mobile still dominate (lower barrier to entry to develop for these platforms, plus you can make games today without worrying about the hardware of tomorrow). Only a few crazy people are targeting cloud streaming services as their lead platform.

[Don Rumata]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-01-26-report-konami-has-two-new-silent-hill-games-in-development

please be good.

Ito said he's working again tho, so happy for him.

[Raist]

Can't wait for Silent Hill Royale

[D3RANG3D]

[bork]

[benjipwns]

he is making me nervous with his eyes

[nachobro]

trihex seems p cool  I mostly watch thebeast, barbarousking and ryukar for smm

trihex is cool just cause of the tech he uses on his stream imo. he even has eye tracking so people watching can see what he's looking at in puzzle levels to correct him or to see his method for clearing speedrun stages

plus he encourages pushups/jumping jacks and other mini workouts for the fatasses who watch him and as a "make good" for if he has a skip a stage on a long run.

[benjipwns]

I hope someone remakes the first Soldier of Fortune. 

Soldier of Fortune too. Dat dismemberment 

game is currently on sale for $2.50 on GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/soldier_of_fortune_platinum_edition

SWAT4 is $5: https://www.gog.com/game/swat_4_gold_edition

[D3RANG3D]

I hope someone remakes the first Soldier of Fortune. 

Soldier of Fortune too. Dat dismemberment 

game is currently on sale for $2.50 on GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/soldier_of_fortune_platinum_edition

SWAT4 is $5: https://www.gog.com/game/swat_4_gold_edition

Bought. 

[Svejk]

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/1222135952321269760

VR compatible or no deal.   

[MMaRsu]

[Rufus]

Ha!

I just bought one of those chips. 12 threads for 100€? Gimme gimme. 

[Akala]

Apparently Warcraft reforged is out but no one talking about? Completely blanked on this coming out.

**seems it's no longer a remaster, just better models/UI? 

Also the new WoW xpac looks pretty  .

[eleuin]

damn... this looks like absolute garbage!

[Don Rumata]

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/1222135952321269760

I liked RE7, but i'm not a fan of first person, besides, the second half of that game got real fucking lame (thought that's kinda true for RE2remake, too).
Still, maybe this time VR won't be a fucking exclusive. 

[Nintex]

Game revenue down 21% at Microsoft as Xbox hardware sales slow

Software and services revenue down 11%.
Hardware revenue down 43%.
Subscriptions are up.
Overall gaming revenue down 21%.

Time to buy some more studios. 

[Raist]

Their HW revenue can't possibly be more than 500 bucks at this point.

[nachobro]

dean takahashi really killing it in this doom eternal demo reuploaded cause he deleted the original

[Rufus]

Surprised he still does video after the Cuphead fiasco.

[Nintex]

He's really missing out his chance to be the 'TERRIBLE GAMER' on YouTube or something.
He'd legit get tons of views playing very difficult games like Super Mario 3D World and Need for Speed: Heat and failing at them.

[Joe Molotov]

I could almost believe he's just pretending to be bad as a joke if he didn't keep taking his videos down.

[Great Rumbler]

dean takahashi really killing it in this doom eternal demo reuploaded cause he deleted the original

[benjipwns]

kinda cool that they added a Metroid Prime control scheme to the game, though he should use the lock on more