Rich people don’t have authority. They just have money. For example, a high-ranking government official in a socialist society can have you imprisoned or executed for speaking out against them. A rich person in a capitalist society cannot have you imprisoned or executed for insulting them.

Capitalism doesn’t result in authoritarianism because capitalism doesn’t need to be enforced by the government. Socialism does. People aren’t naturally inclined to share the fruits of their labor or turn down opportunities to improve their own life. The government has to force them to and if you want to be excluded…

The general idea behind socialism is that everyone contributes equally and receives an equal share of the output. It deemphasizes the individual in favor of the collective whole. It sounds great in theory.

It’s really not that complicated. Would you rather live in a real-world socialist country (or one that used to be socialist) or a capitalist country? I’m pretty sure 99% of the world’s population would rather live in a capitalist country (which is why socialist countries tend to rely on heavy censorship to keep their…

Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft aren’t the only successful live service games. Not even sure Minecraft counts as live service. Do the developers even make new content for it anymore?

There will definitely be another Fallout. Bethesda/MS would be insane to just abandon the IP given how popular it is. Since BGS is going to be busy with ES6 for the next 5 years or so, I’m hoping MS gets another one of their studios to work on FO5 (or a FO spinoff). Maybe even make it a multi-studio affair. A Fallout…

Some other notable releases:

It’s difficult to overstate how volatile it is to be an independent studio in a shrinking work-for-hire market with ever-growing development costs. “Independent” is actually a bit of a misnomer, as studios like TFB will still rely on external funding. Without any safety buffer, all it takes is one commercial failure…

On their own terms..? Not sure what that even means. If they shutter as an independent studio, it’s because they aren’t generating enough profit to keep the studio afloat. That shuttering would be the result of market realities, not independence.

Is it smart, though? There’s a reason they accepted a buyout in the first place. Over the past 20 years, the work-for-hire market has shrunk considerably and it’s become exceedingly difficult for mid-to-large sized studios to survive independently. That’s why so many studios accepted buyouts. Hell, Bungie, one of the…

I do play a lot of open-world games so HZD doesn’t do anything I haven’t already seen when it comes to structure, progression, etc. The hunting (i.e. using ranged weapons and traps vs robots) is cool and definitely carries the game. Unfortunately, the game forces you to fight humans too and that’s where the experience…

Curious as to how this will actually benefit Gearbox. They accepted the buyout because they wanted more financial security. Going independent only reduces financial security, particularly since the work-for-hire industry has shrunk considerably over the past 20 years.

Bizarre. Might be the first case I’ve heard of where the unfinished game is better than the finished one. Wonder if Aspyr screwed up and used the wrong build for the gold master.

Games have been getting canceled for a long, long time. You just don’t hear about most cancelations because they happen to unannounced games that have never been leaked.

EA hasn’t really excelled at FPS in recent years. Titanfall 2 was a commercial failure, BF2042 had a disastrous launch and Immortals of Aveum was a mega flop. Making a AAA, single-player FPS is considered risky these days. The failure of Immortals of Aveum and likely Avatar probably raised some red flags so when it…

Weird, I could have sworn I already replied to this. Maybe Kinja ate it or something.

I generally find criticism of capitalism to be kind of pointless because there have yet to be any superior alternatives. Capitalism obviously has downsides but when taken as a whole, it produces better results (i.e. stronger economies resulting in higher QoL for the average person) than the alternatives.

I’ve put about 30 hours into it or so. I’m in the desert area now. I’m 90% sure I know what the plot twist is going to be but even with that aside, I’m just not finding the story very compelling.

I believe the word you’re looking for is “overrated.” I’m playing HZD now on PC for the first time and I’m not really understanding all the hype. Yeah, the hunting stuff is pretty cool with the locational damage and all but everything else is mediocre at best. Quest design is super formulaic. Open-world design is…

Sure. Look at the countries that have attempted some form of socialism: China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, etc. Now compare their average QoL to those of capitalist countries: U.S.A., France, Switzerland, Germany, England, etc.