It gets worse, actually. On top of everything, those big box businesses pay less people less money to work there, cost more, and pay less in taxes to the point that it actually costs cities money to have them. The cost of maintaining infrastructure for a single business in such a massive parking lot with nothing else far outweighs the tax revenue. The buildings aren’t designed to last more than 10 years, either, so they can’t be repurposed long term without tearing down and rebuilding.

Man, a while back some friends and I saw a game on steam that was multiplayer and sounded cool. We all got it, and joined a completely empty lobby so we could figure out what we were doing. Someone joined that lobby and began losing his mind that the one friend of mine on his team wasn’t playing optimally. He was a huge dick about it and did nothing to help anyone learn the game. We talked mad shit on him, until he dropped the gem “What did you just see a game on steam, think it looked cool and start playing it?” Like, yeah dude. That’s exactly what we did. Are we not supposed to support games you like?

I must admit, I bet games with private player run servers would be more excited to introduce fresh blood to their beloved games. Might have to try that next time.

Let me know if anyone has private server game recs in the vein of the post

I will say, placeholder SHOULD be more than basic featureless textures on cubes so it can’t make it to a playtest without knowing about it. You know, like this. Placeholder kittens are always distinct, in my book. Plus if something subtly gets through, players will think it’s a hilarious easter egg

It wouldn’t astonish me if this were a semi-deliberate act by microsoft. While they’re trying very hard to expand to every platform, non-windows pcs seem to be the exception. Linux and OSX have the game gamepass support as your phone.

Okay dank I had no awareness of proton, this is very encouraging! Thanks!

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve used a linux distro for personal use, but I’ve got a laptop that probably needs to move over. That being said, I would still LIKE to play some windows exclusive games on that machine. Is wine still the go to for fudging compatibility? How good is it? Will I be able to download windows only steam games with relatively low effort for such uses?

It is illegal in the EU. This was announced specifically for the US

Tell that to the long haul truckers being arrested for not speaking English.

I had some mixed thoughts on the narrative, though at the end of the day my opinion is positive. I think they might have been able to dodge a lot of the ill will towards Abby by having us play as her FIRST, on a stated quest to avenge her father’s death. Showing us who he was, without making it obvious who he was in the context of TLoU1, and getting us on her side before we get the stomach drop moment of finding out just who her father’s killer was. Maybe dropping some hints the warier might pick up on, but never saying the name Joel.

As for the gameplay, I was a big fan, and was very thankful a friend told me to play the game a very specific way, based on who I am and how I play games. In short, it was "play on the hardest difficulty (below grounded, iirc) for everything except resource rarity (just one notch lower, to allow me as a player to engage with all systems of the game consistently in my first run) and setting ally fight engagement to easy. This meant that while the game was threatening and challenging, the presence of companion characters became pivotal to the experience. Being with someone felt like having an ally and companion, not just someone to bounce dialogue or one liners off of. It felt like someone had my back in a world that was exceptionally threatening. Meanwhile, any time you are alone became doubly hostile, threatening, and isolating. It reinforced that no one could have done any of it alone, that even in a world where people are more threatening than monsters we still need one another, and made Ellie’s failure to learn her lesson, time and again, all the more painful to watch, knowing you had relied on those around her every step of the way.

This isn’t even that big of a step from before. Went abroad with a white passing friend named Alejandro YEARS ago. When we came back, it was made clear that US customs had a quick line and a brown line, and my friend was in the latter. I was through in 10 minutes or less, wondering what happened to my friend, who was told he wasn’t allowed to use his phone, for the better part of an hour

As a reminder for those you in the comments. “Climate change is real, but it’s too late to do anything” is the new “climate change is real but it’s not man made,” which was the new “climate change isn’t real”

Danger to pedestrians is why they’re illegal in the EU, no?

Agreed. Let’s not let perfect be the enemy of good. Even if it ONLY makes bribery more expensive, is that not a good thing?

I don’t think I agree on them going all in for TES6, I think oblivion and the upcoming fallout 3 remake (confirmed by court docs ages ago) are probably going to lean into monetized mods, just like skyrim has been for the last decade. Skyrim’s creation club made it a pseudo live service game, where they can maintain bethesdas tiny team size (Relative to most AAA devs) and still get ongoing payout for a decade or more, letting players generate new content to buy into. Optimistically this means they’ll have plenty of funding for TES6 to hire some decent writing staff and put together something great that’s presumably been at least thought about the last 14 years since Skyrim, but it might just be going into Microsoft’s coffers.

You should be able to zoom in/out by scrolling up/down

I know the guy who made this! He distributed it among acquaintances and I lost 6 hours of my life going “this is too much, but I can’t stop”

It’s hysterical how he compares the US to a department store, a kind of store that is all but dead in 2025.

The simpsons got it right decades ago with Dems: We’re incompetent and can’t govern Reps: We’re evil! But Seriously, the biggest problem the Dems have in 2025 is that they’re ANCHORED in establishment. Those in the lead now are not there because they’re capable, intelligent, or popular, but because they waited their turn. It’s a commitment to fairness and rules to the point of self sabotage. Tell Schumer and Pelosi to take a hike, put AOC, Booker, anyone else who has a plan and is committed to actually FUCKING DOING SOMETHING in charge, rather than telling them to play nice with the party and wait their turn behind the wheel when current leadership dies.

Just give me high speed rail, dude. I want high speed rail SO BAD.

Given that Win10 is getting deprecated this year and Win11 has specific hardware requirements, I think 2025 could be the year of the linux PC. I’ll be curious to see how massive corporations for which this would mean millions or billions in hardware upgrades to stick with Win will square that circle.