Thworted

Seriously? Facebook is basically the worst part of end-stage capitalism; you could build the bad guys in the next Bond movie around them without changing anything but the name. They’re not getting a penny from me, but I can still be angry that they’re locking up exclusivity on games I would otherwise like to play.

Well, I guess I’ll just add this one to the big list of otherwise-great VR things that Facebook has ruined forever. Thanks?

Verge just published another NFT article by the same guy who posted about Axie a while back, and again comments are turned off over there. Might be because it’s "co-published with" the guy’s "independent newsletter"? Anyway, again, the dude is fully bought-in on the blockchain Kool Aid.

Everybody’s experience is going to be different. Any time there’s a post about Stadia, for example, a bunch of people show up to comment about how great it is, and a bunch more show up to comment about how it’s terrible. I don’t think either side is lying, I think it’s just that some of them live in a place or have a connection where one service works great, and some people have otherwise-decent ISPs that happen to work poorly with a particular streaming service.

It’s possible that if you complain to your ISP, they might be able to make some improvements on the backend…

I bought 3 years of Gold for $150, then paid a dollar to upgrade. I just finished my first of those years, and I’ve already played a lot more than $150 worth of games, even at sale prices. If you spend even a moderate amount of time playing games every month, it’s a pretty crazy amount of value, when you buy in advance.

I wouldn’t put it so simplistically. They were created for a reason, but I think intelligent people can disagree over whether they’re currently used a) as they were intended to be, and b) in a way that actually benefits society. I don’t think that allowing a design patent to be used to prevent people from making replacement parts — not even replacement technology, just a dumb hunk of plastic — benefits society.

I’m not planning to make any changes to my PS5 regardless, but it occurs to me that maybe these would void the warranty? Sony made a huge deal about how much time and effort they put into designing the case airflow, and these guys went and punched a big hole in the plate right over a fan. I assume that’ll completely change the way cooling works, and if it were for the better, I like to think Sony’s engineers would have figured that out for themselves. I really hope we don’t have an article about thousands of PS5s succumbing to heat damage in a couple of months…

They aren’t claiming copyright infringement, they’re claiming infringement on a design trademark (patent? Pretty sure TM). As another commenter pointed out, this would be like Ford suing somebody for making aftermarket F150 bumpers that look like the original. Really bad precedent for right-to-repair…

You don’t need an NFT to fund a game in advance, Kickstarter has been around for over a decade. Both are a pinky-swear promise from the dev to backers that this content is gonna be great, you guys, I mean it. The game can fail to materialize (or at least provide what they promised) whether the magic blockchain backs it or not.

(You also don’t need NFTs / blockchain for users to "monetize time spent" — we’ve had online gambling and gold-farming for as long as we’ve had online games.)

The irony is that they’re banning them based on potentially having value outside the game — but the core concept of game NFTs, that the developers "don’t have control over them", is actually a complete lie. NFTs prove that you own a digital thing, but the developer doesn’t have to incorporate the thing you own in the game. The dev writes the game engine, they can make it do anything they want. If your NFT says that your little blob does 10 damage, the game can take that number and decide that on your account it does 5, or zero. If you don’t like it, you can take your ball and go home.

Not only was it shockingly irresponsible coverage, they had comments turned off. It really feels like it was sponsored content, but doesn’t say as much in the article. Really, really gross move from Verge.

GBA had at least a little overlap with the N64 lifecycle, and individual GBA games are currently available on Wii U Virtual Console for $8. You can buy the 3DS remake of either N64-era Zelda game for $20 direct from Nintendo. Given that, I would expect an "un-remade" N64 Virtual Console game to sell for around $10.

I’d still rather at least have the option of buying them once, to keep.

I hadn’t considered this angle. I have two kids who each own a Switch and a copy of Animal Crossing. If I upgrade our family plan, that’s actually cheaper than buying two copies of the DLC. (Of course, after the first year, if you downgrade I assume you lose access, but what are the chances they’ll care at that point?)