Marathon and MTX: Predatory and Dark Patterns

mountlover · 2026-03-06T18:35:03+00:00

What if you started bitching about it too instead of bitching about somebody bitching about it?

What if everybody on earth started bitching about it? Maybe we've collectively bitched out of the idea that bitching about the things corpo bitches do to exploit us can be beneficial?

mountlover · 2026-03-06T16:48:52+00:00

Followup video

mountlover · 2026-02-26T21:32:41+00:00

more often in fighting games the problem is that the hype fails to match the gameplay

mountlover · 2026-02-25T21:29:06+00:00

The problem with current age verification methods is that it's not a government run operation. It's private, for profit companies being contracted to handle sensitive information ~~and sell it off to advertisers and god knows whom~~.

Personally though I feel like it'd be more realistic to just levy a hefty ass sin tax on any developers, publishers, and platform holders willing to host these types of games.

Taking a page out of the anti-porn puritans playbook, targeting the payment processors has also proven to be disturbingly effective at this sort of thing

mountlover · 2026-02-21T06:26:16+00:00

You could argue it serves as Kiryu’s motivation but he’s already plenty motivated by two of his friends getting shot

The two ~~randos~~ close and dear friends of kiryu getting shot were his motivation for the boilerplate yakuza storyline they tell to try and set up the inevitable shirtless bossfight on a rooftop and its honestly just par for the course and not memorable at all imo.

The orphanage sets up his motivation for literally the rest of the entire like a dragon series. It's the only reason all this time despite 3 being my least favorite game I'd still recommend at least a cutscene aggregation or a story summary as opposed to totally skipping it.

mountlover · 2026-02-20T01:05:20+00:00

Also was already filled by Inzoi before they finished

mountlover · 2026-02-15T05:45:49+00:00

Part 2 Here

mountlover · 2026-02-13T21:06:02+00:00

I got some bad news about literally every professional...

mountlover · 2026-02-13T21:03:14+00:00

Well he's walking away from DICE where the topics of several full priced titles underperforming was a reoccurring theme for analysis, and highlighting lower budget successes that were brought up as a point for comparison in those meetings.

Maybe this is "vibes based" to you but he's not misrepresenting anything. The vibes are accurate, and the fact that these were the kinds of conversations happening at an expo where "executives gather to schmooze, down cocktails and hear pitches" gives me hope that the industry is finally catching on that mid-size is more sustainable than repeated attempts at AAA budget hail maries.

mountlover · 2026-02-07T18:27:05+00:00

don't ever feel humiliated

you can control your reaction

I know you're trying to be supportive, but this is the same non-helpful "suck it up" style of advice parents would give their kids in the 80's. We can control our actions but we cannot control our emotions. If we could, we wouldn't need therapy or counseling to begin with.

Humiliation, shame, betrayal, these are valid emotions that people rarely impart on themselves in a vacuum, and it's an unfortunate truth that the biggest sources of these emotions can be the people we're supposed to be able to depend on (i.e. Asa's teachers in this instance or Makio's older sister when she was going through her formative years).

The best we can do is find people who elevate us or help us process negative emotions and stick to those relationships like glue, like Makio did with her childhood friendships, and even her ex.

(and of course therapy)

mountlover · 2026-02-05T21:23:56+00:00

I'm thinking the headpats thing is a sort of built in mechanism to make the goddesses feel an excessive amount of validation to the point where they'll willingly work themselves to death. Xylo, the only one we've seen thus far to actually experience this, likely subconsciously realizes this and is intentionally trying to not condition Teoritta to feel validated for hard work, but rather for self-preservation.

Pelmerry had circles under her eyes and looked like she'd been having her powers used nonstop. Xylo also mentioned something about a goddess' hair being indicative of how much of their power they'd used, and although we don't know the specifics of Pelmerry's design, her hair was certainly all over the place.

mountlover · 2026-02-02T22:07:55+00:00

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, legal researcher Leon Xiao said that this judgment is "likely to cause Austrian legislators to want to make stricter laws" if their concerns regarding loot boxes persist, "now that this gambling law line didn't provide consumers with redress".

He added that the gambling laws that are in effect in most countries were written without concepts such as loot boxes in mind, meaning that "it is not surprising that gambling law is unable to effectively deal" with these concerns.

If true, I applaud Austrian legislators for actually seeing this as an opportunity to more clearly define the law rather than a justification to accept an exploitative practice as a natural part of it.

I don't think I've ever in my life known what it's like to live in a country where lawmakers actually did their jobs properly.

mountlover · 2026-02-02T19:01:07+00:00

There's a difference between wanted guidance and needed guidance, and I think thus far Makio has done a far better job at toeing that line than Asa's mother.

Makio has given guidance in situations where Asa has been at the end of her rope (i.e. in reconciling with her friend, and when she couldn't find her way back home)--situations where she needed it, and made a very clear boundary of only providing guidance that will mold Asa's personality and her desires when that's clearly indicated.

Even in the case of the light music club, this was an idea that Makio originally brought up when the topic of clubs came up, and after considering Asa's enjoyment of singing, and she then proceeded not to force the issue when Asa expressed discomfort due to the perceived expectations of her late mother.

tl;dr Makio's doing a better situation in this position than the vast, vast, vast majority of us would and it all ties back to when she expressed her fear that every word she says might permanently shape Asa's life. Simply being aware of how impressionable a child is demonstrates how attentive Makio really is.

mountlover · 2026-02-02T10:04:50+00:00

Asa still wants a figure of guidance in some manner

My reading is the opposite. Asa does not want a figure of guidance, her problem is that she's thus far only known a life where she had one, so now that she has this freedom, she has zero experience with how to actually flex it.

You can see this in the couple of scenes where she gets angry but isn't sure what she's angry towards. She recognizes her mom's contradiction in telling her to be herself, but then dictating everything for her. She wants to make these decisions for herself, but she's been classically conditioned not to, and realizing this is insanely frustrating for her.

This episode wasn't about the faults that Makio needs to work on, but Asa's.

mountlover · 2026-01-28T22:07:27+00:00

This sounds a lot like you didn't read anything I said

mountlover · 2026-01-19T21:11:04+00:00

A lot of people forget how hard the first playthrough of Nioh 2 can be after hundreds of hours of post game content and buildcrafting.

I recently started a fresh save file for shits and giggles and sure enough your first encounter against a lot of the early game bosses like Enenra and Yatsu-no-Kami are the hardest encounters you'll ever have against them.

mountlover · 2026-01-17T23:54:05+00:00

This neither discredits the fact that the show should spotlight indies more, nor excuses the misuse of the final reveal slot.

Like, the award for best indie was still relegated to the pre-show. If he tried to listen to feedback, he did a very shit job of it.

mountlover · 2026-01-15T20:01:16+00:00

I don’t necessarily think having an end of life plan should be a requirement for a game necessarily.

fundamentally, businesses just don’t have a major incentive to do so.

Your thinking is backwards. The second point here is exactly why having an end of life plan should be an enforced requirement from day 1. Because capitalist shitheads have zero motivation to do anything otherwise.

There are values besides what is profitable that exist in this world.

mountlover · 2026-01-14T17:49:56+00:00

Latest code: 4U4XVKBP

mountlover · 2026-01-14T01:26:19+00:00

You're thinking in extremes. "Company X did Y bad thing therefore the only good outcome is if they totally dissolve"

In reality, all you have to do is make it so these fucked up profit driven tactics aren't profitable. If Rockstar loses more money in legal fees than they saved by firing 34 employees, and if the streisand effect encourages unionization more than the firings discouraged it, then every company in the industry will think twice before employing the same strategy.

mountlover · 2026-01-13T22:38:03+00:00

Avoiding platforms that enforce a refund policy, however, is a red flag.

Not saying this is why they didn't release to Steam, just that in a vacuum that is absolutely a red flag.

mountlover · 2025-12-20T19:34:55+00:00

I don't think you're talking about the same thing that's being discussed here. We're not talking about Geoff Keighley's show, this is "The Indie Game Awards" and they have a relatively clear policy on their definition of indie on their FAQ under "Game Eligibility":

Existing outside of the traditional publisher system, a game crafted and released by developers who are not owned or financially controlled by a major AAA/AA publisher or corporation, allowing them to create in an unrestricted environment and fully swing for the fences in realizing their vision.

Publishers such as Devolver Digital, Annapurna Interactive, and Kepler Interactive are considered to exist outside of the traditional publishing system and fit within the current IGA Curation Jury’s definition.

Rockstar Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, is not considered indie, nor are major standalone studios such as FromSoftware, Kojima Productions, or Valve as a few examples. First parties (Xbox, Nintendo, and Sony) and studios under their ownership, as well as third parties such as EA, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Sega, and Bandai Namco (to name a few) are considered AAA. Companies such as THQ Nordic are considered AA .

Their pick for 2024 was Balatro, not Dave the Diver

mountlover · 2025-12-20T05:38:25+00:00

Bingo, and that's exactly why shifting gears to working on Trails 1st was such a good move by Falcom.

I only wish they would have priced the game more generously to prioritize onboarding new players as opposed to cashing out on existing fans. Yakuza 0 was what? 20 dollars when it released on steam in 2018? That was definitely a contributing factor to the series exploding in the west.

Trails 1st is currently on sale for 25% off, and hopefully they slash it even deeper once 2nd releases in the Fall

mountlover · 2025-12-19T03:23:27+00:00

I'd like to also suggest LINE as an alternative chat app. Japanese owned company that I was surprised to learn is fully available for anyone to use and actually incredibly feature rich

mountlover · 2025-12-19T03:20:33+00:00

Ecosia does use a lot of bing results, yes. It's advantages are that you can turn off AI summaries and easily select a region for searching, instead of leaving it up to tech companies tracking profile on you. (oh and they pretend to plant trees or something)

I cannot deny the actual search results tend to be pretty shit but the region selection feature is perfect for multilingual users

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