pappafost

I thought it was decent, but the shooting parts in 2 were very silly to me. He's just going to town with 9mms, with a perfect killshot every second, for far too long. Perhaps the best way to describe it is "overly choreographed."

What I worry about is people pinning all of society's problems on video games, the easiest scapegoat around. Why are school shootings happening? Video games. Why are our children messed up? Video games.

Our society is has complex problems that will require complex solutions to fix. It's easier just to reach for something easy. The perfect example is Prince Harry wanting to ban Fortnite. Or the Chinese government banning PUBG. It's something easy to do that will have no real effect on society's complex problems.

Sony's marketing (and perhaps Microsoft's too) always runs ahead of what it can pull off. Perhaps the TV division gently suggests it? PS3 claimed 1080p gaming. It was a 720p/30 box. PS4 Pro claims 4K gaming. It's almost a 4K/30 box. Hopefully the PS5 will be a solid 4K/60 box. In the PS5 interview, Cerny had the gall to drop the word "8K". Make sure you can actually do 4K before you utter the word "8K"! I don't care what you can render your menus at. What do the games output at? My 2011 Macbook can output a 4K desktop resolution. That doesn't mean it's a 4K gaming machine, LOL.

My perception of video game development has been somewhat tarnished the last few months. You're either looking busy for the boss on Sunday (Rockstar), getting sexually harassed as a woman or ball tapped as a man (Riot), on call at your friend's wedding after a full shift (NetherRealm), spinning your wheels because no one can make a decision (Bioware), or allegedly physically assaulted by your boss (Gearbox).

Did I forget any? It's a miracle that games ever make it to release.

Randy Randy Randy. They say there's no such thing as bad press. THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU ACTIVELY CREATE IT!

I see Steam as very lethargic and complacent, which is a symptom of their unchallenged success. They issue policies that sound like they came from a Youtube video comment section: "Everything is allowed that's not illegal or straight-up trolling." It's a policy that sounds like somebody scrawled it on the back of a napkin. It's also the bare minimum lowest bar possible for a retailer of any kind.

They also try to automate their way out of problems that their automation created in the first place: Histogram graphs on user reviews, for example, or arbitrary "off-topic" review periods.

They can be better, but have no incentive to change if they're rewarded for staying the same. So a strong competitor like Epic actually stands to wake them up.

It's such a silly argument. Why would a past-time need to have some benefit to society? The only requirement it has is to be fun, relaxing, and ideally inexpensive.

The side benefit of a game with worldwide popularity is you can argue how much trouble it is keeping the bored 'mischievous' youth out of. (These kinds of folks do worry about those 'youth'.) When Fortnite is banned, all these bored kids will form street gangs for all we know. You gotta think of the bigger picture Harry! LOL.

I think I'm correct in saying that people only value their own past-times, and don't really understand the past-times that others value. Prince Harry thinks Fortnite is dumb, and many Fortnite players probably think his recreational activities are dumb. He can think it's dumb all he wants but wanting to BAN it? Come on! I wonder what past-times Prince Harry values? Does he make sure they are 'valuable to society'?

Take these other recreational pursuits for example:

Golf - You're walking around in the woods hitting a ball for no reason, wasting a lot of land and irrigation water in the process.

Bird-watching - What are you accomplishing? You're not a scientist.

Wood-working - You wasted 8 hours building a worse table than you could have bought online.

Building model trains - You wasted 300 hours building a small model town on a table in your garage? For what benefit?

Going to the beach - You drove all the way to the beach to sit there and get skin cancer. What a waste of fossil fuels!

Conclusion:

The real reason Fortnite and all of the things above are valuable to society is that they are stress relief for the person doing them.

I'll come back IF Claptrap dies in the first 5 minutes of the game.

I think stuff like this is very good to scrutinize. The physical retail market makes gaming more affordable than it otherwise would be, and it helps drive prices down.

The Google WiFi controller is a fascinating idea. It seems like the best way to skip a huge set of problems. By doing only WiFi they are skipping the Bluetooth latency problem entirely. They are side-stepping all the traditional problems of connecting a controller to phones and tablets. Just DON'T even try to connect it. I don't know if they can pull this off but just think of the sheer AUDACITY of it. A WiFi internet controller?!?