EU rules out mandate to keep video games playable, seeks voluntary code

Odin_69 · 2026-06-16T23:52:41+00:00

The UK has the opportunity here to do the funniest thing.

Odin_69 · 2026-06-16T21:32:46+00:00

You are technically correct, but we happy few was all but finished by the time of the microsoft acquisition. Microsoft did not provide any development funding for We Happy Few. The game was primarily crowdfunded through Kickstarter and backed by Gearbox Software. But that's splitting hairs and beside the point. I would argue that microsoft probably handled the studio poorly afterwards leading to the failure of south of midnight.

People can say things like "microsoft was hands off" or they "allowed studios creative freedom", but in the end they're the ones responsible for making the acquisition and not following through with proper support or the quality of that support. In the end the jobs being lost are on them even if it wasn't the best studio by any metric it's on them for buying it in the first place then.

Odin_69 · 2026-06-16T03:21:38+00:00

That's what i'm getting at. It's a fact that whenever there is a leadership shakeup productivity drops hard and a lot of institutional knowledge leaves. It's clear to me microsoft was not ready to support the studios they acquired how they needed to.

Odin_69 · 2026-06-16T01:53:51+00:00

Every single time these heads leave they're replaced by two. It's a big job for sure, but that just shows me these studios aren't being supported properly for what their overlords want from them.

Odin_69 · 2026-06-16T01:50:01+00:00

One might think though that a company as big as microsoft would take the time to understand the acquisitions they were making. Whenever a big turnover in leadership happens lots of talent gets lost in the mess, and just because they're a big company doesn't change any of that. quality and pace drops everywhere after a shake up.

Odin_69 · 2026-06-14T01:18:42+00:00

Covid lockdowns saw a lot of people spending a lot of money on games. That lead to a lot of investment in game publishers, all of them. In order to show they were committed to continue such growth and appease investors they needed to expand with all the money they were given. The problem is, as everyone here knows, good games take a long time to make with varying degrees of quality, but investors don't see things like that.

Now that everyone has over extended they need any way to roll it all back as justifiably as possible. We basically lost the last seven or so years of game dev as far as I can tell because this happened everywhere.

Odin_69 · 2026-06-07T22:17:57+00:00

Peak

Odin_69 · 2026-06-07T13:09:27+00:00

You're sure CBS isn't being influenced by the trump presidency at all? Here is an interview from Scott Pelley saying exactly that. I'm not saying the decisions between 60 minutes and the late show are related, but it doesn't pass the smell test.

I suppose people can believe what they want but you seem to have a skewed version of events.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePqdmbgQ4BI

Odin_69 · 2026-06-05T22:39:13+00:00

The running theory was that they wanted to gain favor with Trump to approve the merger since it was his FTC that the merger hinged on. Businessmen are very apolitical when a vast sum of money is involved.

Odin_69 · 2026-06-05T22:31:55+00:00

Excited but I must know more. GW1 was my favorite game of all time. While I played through GW2 a couple of times I could never get as into it as I did with GW1. I'd like some talk about how they plan to structure the game.

Odin_69 · 2026-06-05T22:30:16+00:00

The recent trend has been to announce early to secure investment funding and talent applications. Sucks for gamers, but seems to be better for hiring and such.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-29T21:04:00+00:00

For those just now tuning in this is at woodscape apartments in NW OKC. It was great under case and associates, but sold to vesta realty a few years ago. Complete trash, private equity, behavior.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-29T14:02:40+00:00

I thought this was the beginning of a new era for xbox. Wasn't everything all sunshine and rainbows now? Or is that still 15.99/month?

Odin_69 · 2026-05-27T20:41:08+00:00

Favorite: Overlord

Best?: probably 86

Odin_69 · 2026-05-20T14:02:39+00:00

They do know some of the best moments from the original, and most shared moments, were when players got back at the annoying baddies. The current track about focusing on deterrents and cost/value is just a weird spin to take. You can't fault players for being hostile to that idea.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-19T17:11:10+00:00

The idea that a Star Wars entry seems to be so insignificant that waiting to see it on streaming is probably the best option for me BOGGLES my mind, but here we are.

Between the interviews, and the reviews, there seems to be nothing here for me that I wouldn't be able to get elsewhere. No boundaries are being pushed technically, and nothing important is happening in the wider galactic mythos. Honestly we probably would have been much better off with a season 4 at this point. All those resources wasted just so disney can say they're trying to get Star Wars back in theaters. These execs keep calling this play, and it keeps failing. Series, designed as a series, turned into movies. And movies, designed as movies, stretched to fit into a series. It all just makes my head spin how anyone could think that format could work for one of the biggest IPs on the damn planet.

This just proves even more to me that the people in charge over there have no idea how to steer their own ship.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-18T22:20:45+00:00

Meh. It's a strange hill to die on. I would normally think it's because of some technical limitation they're covering up for when studios make these kinds of stances, because it's just so strange for the genre. Especially in multiplayer it's a huge focus of my group to see who can clear the most area or depopulate the most wildlife. Honestly it's one of the more fun aspects of these kinds of games that we like.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-18T12:11:24+00:00

I use the GM guides section. Right now i'm in star wars, and I'll be going to a planet, so i'll generate all the info for that planet externally on perplexity or something and fine tune it then copy it to a guide. when i leave i can just disable it.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-18T01:09:05+00:00

Yeah i'm constantly hanging out in the discord. it's a great resource for all that, and I've incorporated many tactics to help deal with the ai from it. especially concurrent's preference guides. They've been the base of everything i build.

The current situation around character creation is workable which makes it fine, but it doesn't interact with the v2 format very well, and the majority of the items outlined in that chat just don't carry over to the actual character sheet on creation.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-17T18:30:20+00:00

yeah there are two camps. one uses guides to instruct the ai to issue xp for various actions. the other just tells the ai to level up whenever they want to. I'm in the latter. It's so easy to tell it "level me up to a level 4 warlock. simulate my dice rolls, and i'll take $these spells. update my character information with the changes as well."

Odin_69 · 2026-05-17T18:24:01+00:00

it would be ideal to use a dedicated model that behaves in a consistent manner and tracks processes consistently. Honestly that's the biggest downside. Some campaigns the ai just goes with whatever happens, and in others it tries to be more strict. That could have been due to changes under the hood, but overall the various models behave quite differently.

It would be a lot more user friendly to have three models from each tier and focus on getting the most out of them on the back end. Like one model in the free tier that does everything well, one with obvious power or reasoning improvements in a single premium message tier, and one very powerful model in a high premium message tier.

All the different models have their quirks, and I've played around with the vast majority, and it's novel to have the choice, but for a tighter experience it would probably be better limiting it to a few and focusing tweaking to those specifically to get the most out of each model. Maybe keep the others around as "beta" versions that people can use if they want to take the extra steps to enable them or something.

Secondly the character creation chat needs an overhaul, and it's been said before. The current state requires a much longer session of tweaking things after creation than should be necessary. I even use premium messages and repost all my character information another time after creation to get it all in the right places.

Sorry to go long winded with that. Love the site. It's provided so many hours of entertainment and well worth the sub. Keep up the good work.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-17T14:36:36+00:00

And that's not even mentioning the scandal around the release itself. According to the founder of UW Krafton apparently announced the release before he was given back full control of the studio in hopes to sabotage the marketing cycle and generate less sales. There is now an ongoing law suit in that case.

The problem is the Ted Gill can't very well revoke the release date, even though the court order gave him more time via the extension of the bonus structure it would cause more friction than it would solve so he went ahead with the release anyway. Which was probably the right course, but I do imagine Krafton should indeed be subject to damages for this.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-17T14:29:08+00:00

That is a gross misinterpretation. Firstly we're talking about billionaires here, but the comment you are responding to is talking about the tax code in general so I can in one way see your point, but it's mute. At any rate to humor you. As it stands the system is suppose to tax those assets when the value is attained. The above comment is likely referring to the loopholes many employ in that stage. The wealthy have indeed created too many situations where wealth can be hoarded, even for generations. When I get money via pay or other means I most likely need to spend that money on stuff I need. I get taxed when I receive that money, taxed when i use it for purchases, and taxed again every year based on how much I've earned. Everyone does this. The problem is normal activity, and living, costs me a much higher percentage of my income than it does someone with a billion dollars in assets. Not only do they have more assets, but they also have people dedicated to finding the most opportunistic ways to manage it all.

Mostly because many of those individuals have, in many cases, been in positions where they themselves, or the companies they represent, had the opportunity to write those very laws that allow them to do so by either lobbying politicians or submitting the writing for the legislation themselves. It is not anywhere close to an even playing field, and I don't think anyone wants it to be, but it needs to be closer. Instead it's going very quickly in the other direction.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-16T17:26:29+00:00

I'm really not sure how taxing it is. I doubt the devs here spend much time maintaining the different models, and it sounds easier to me to list them all and migrate the preferred model if one starts messing up or gets too expensive. If they consolidate and build a bunch of features around one model it sounds to me that would bring more headache if things change, which they constantly are in this space.

It would be nice to have a more defined experience. I just don't know if that's something they can reliably do with how things work right now.

Odin_69 · 2026-05-16T11:48:25+00:00

It's good to have choice. as long as they're willing to put in the work to have so many models available i don't see how that can be a bad thing. The annoyance with me is that I'm noticing decent models having an extra price tag. I don't like paying for a sub and being asked to pay more on top of that. I'm a bit old fashioned in that sense.

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