To preserve a right to ownership. But you knew that already.

Simple, you buy competitors’ products and you vote for policymakers that commit to regulatory policy.

I’ve always been a PC gamer, but for a long time there, consoles were affordable enough to put in for just a few exclusives. Then I gradually went from a couple consoles to one, and then I started skipping generations and now it’s at the point where my last participation in the console market was getting a used PS3 at the far end of its life and getting a Switch gifted to me a couple years ago. I was expecting to skip PS4 and get a PS5 after the price dropped, but yeahhhhh. I’m definitely still interested in exclusives (the Shadow of the Colossus remake, The Last Guardian, Bloodborne, and now Intergalactic), but at this point, there’s no viable scenario were I’m in the Sony ecosystem in the foreseeable future. Fumito Ueda’s next game being announced for PC was shocking to me.

Even if we’re talking marginal cost differential for used games, a lot of consumer psychology is just feeling like they are getting a good deal. PC gaming is on the rise–and I don’t mean that in a cute, Lemmy Linux gaming sort of way, it’s genuinely a market shift shown across multiple indicators–there’s growing hostility towards walled-garden ecosystems, and Nintendo’s still going strong. Sony needs some sort of carrot, sheesh. Woof.

Now that PC gaming is at feature parity with console gaming, I think it’s particularly important to tell people how available DRM-free gaming is. No, it’s not going to be common in the AAA segment of your library, but it’s a lot of games. And you’ll never have to worry about it being pulled from your library.

The price of hardware is a pain point for sure, but if you’re able to see past that, you’ll be spending less over a generation on PC than you would on a console between not having to pay for online service, dramatically cheaper gamepad/accessory options, and a massive library of quality games at $30 or less.

Other than PC, the SNES probably had my most favorite games, but the breadth of the library on the DS was fantastic. Once I got an R4 card and was able to stop carrying a dozen carts around, I was on it all the time.

230m copies is an insane bar to clear, even for this juggernaut. I’m sure Rockstar’s expecting some headwinds on the price, but nothing major.

That’s just the Windows gaming storefront. It’ll also be out on Steam in any case.

Ah cool. One of my friends just did Bloodborne, so it might be time to knock these two off the list finally.

Yeah, EGS isn’t ideal, but this actually being available on PC was the best news of the month for me. I thought sure it was going to be exiled to PlayStation again. I still haven’t been able to play The Last Guardian.

The Outer Wilds. Completely not for me.

I’m not big on puzzle games in general and I found the ship controls infuriating.

I mean, if I didn’t have a standing appointment to watch game showcases with some friends, I could definitely see a scenario where I missed this. It’s not the kind of thing that would pop up at all in my regular gaming feeds.

The funny thing is that I was genuinely tired of seeing it at every single State of Play for however long it’s been now. It was heavily marketed within a specific media channel, and didn’t stir up any controversy or buzz that reached my eyes or ears.

It happened again in the newest game, too. I was so disappointed. Thought we were past this 😭

I think that’s just the hardcore raiding crowd everywhere. I’ve seen it across multiple MMOs. When you’re that highly invested in something, any changes are going to get under your skin. Especially so if competition for seats is involved.

What I wish was more universal was the dungeon etiquette. It’s been a few years since I was in World of Warcraft, but the pick-up group dungeon experience there had the most toxic people I’ve ever seen in gaming by a long way. And I’ve solo queued in League of Legends!

Based on years of experience moderating a public Discord server:

• Weirdest - Trails. Unfortunately, this is weird in the problematic way; think Pragmata. Some of the most well-known names in the fandom are that kind of weird. The series doesn’t do itself any favors leaning into it a bit, too. Adding to it is the perception that series fans are gatekeeping when they tell you to play the series in order when in reality, yes, the developers are insane enough to keep building a continuous narrative that’s gone 20 years, One Piece-style. Hard to convince people of that when video game series just don’t do that.

• Nicest - Stardew Valley. I agree with the others here on that.

• Meanest - Fire Emblem. I’ve seen some wars, holy hell. Aside from general fandom insularity from out-groups, there are intense, internecine wars going on within the fandom over the newer parasocial elements in the series. And then there are waifu wars on top of that within the part of the fandom that’s embraced the parasocial stuff. It’s a fandom crucible.

You’re welcome to join us over at Seventh Heaven. It’s a generalist JRPG server but we do have a small cadre of Trails fans.

That said, Trails was going to be my vote for weirdest, heh.

Nice! I hear some familiar soundfonts in there, I wonder if Japanese composers back then had a lot of the same ones.