Let’s get this straight. In order to prove the conspiracy that the Black Lives Matter and Antifa movements are violent and hateful, he set fire to his own property.

First, that’s not what you said. You said one can’t be addicted to gatcha games. Now you’re moving the goalpost and saying you can, but there’s no solution to the problem, so we should just forget it.

You don’t get microtransaction money from games you don’t support.  Content has been anemic from the get-go.  It’s like they never had any interest in making the multiplayer successful.  

The whole thing just makes you wonder why they bothered. RDR2 was a bar-setting single-player experience with huge interest built into the brand. It didn’t need a multiplayer component to sell. So why spend the time and effort implementing one you never really intended to support in the first place?

Peter Thiel is an individual. Gay people are a minority.

Gender dysphoria isn’t something you “work” through. You don’t just come to “accept” being the gender you’re not, any more than you could simply choose to change your own gender identity on a whim.

Here’s one now.

Show me what life threatening thing needs surgery that only a trans person has.

You can become addicted to anything that triggers a dopamine release because what you’re actually addicted to is dopamine. It’s a chemical dependency like any other.  You learn to push whatever button triggers the happy chemical.  For some it’s gambling.  For some it’s sex.  No reason it can’t be gatcha games.

I didn’t hate it, but I think there should be a way to mitigate it.  Like a blacksmith or something you can find that will allow you to temper a weapon and make it permanent if you find the right crafting materials.  That way if you find something you really like you can invest in it and make it last long enough to…

Oh, for sure. It’s no different than the movie industry. Corporate consolidation and a more and more intense and shortsighted focus on ROI of individual products over long-term innovation to sustain the industry has lead to a creatively stagnant atmosphere where the people writing the checks insist on going back to…

I think the two things you bring up here go hand in hand. People working on remakes aren’t working on something new, and the community’s constant demand for remakes is inspired largely by a lack of anything new that interests them, and a desire to recapture the magic of a previous era.  Remakes sell, but they sell…

And nearly any compulsion can rise to the level of an addiction. You’re splitting hairs. If gambling can become an addition there’s no reason any other behavior stimulating the same psychological triggers can’t.  

For a long time no one did environmental storytelling as well, or at as large a scale, as Bethesda. These were worlds you could get lost in and feel an actual sense of place and adventure. That’s fairly common now (though not as much as you might expect 11 years later) but it was borderline revelatory in the era…

What do you mean by “customization?” Like, game types and custom rules? Or cosmetics?

Neither have you.  And you aren’t interested, so have fun with your mental masturbation.  I’m done being your Rubix Cube.

Fair point, but I still think the distinction between that scenario and the revoking of an entire single-player stand-alone game after it’s been fully paid for is a real and meaningful one, simply because buying into a live service game is buying into a living, changing experience rather than purchasing a single…

I didn’t say anything about reaching truth... I’m talking about reaching for it.

I’ve encountered this argument before where babies are people... but not really... which sounds an awful lot like the things racists would say about black people in our disturbingly recent past.

Not in a way the mother does. Not in any way that should prioritize it over the mother’s bodily autonomy, no.