This game just sucks.

Juding by the number of “lone ghosts” in the game’s social space now vs. the number that were in it during the beta, yeah.

I edited the post - I’m not a regular Twitch viewer and am confused about the whole monetization and follow/subscribe model for how streamers get paid. Is it true that these subscribers are actually paying for access?

What I don’t get is why followers are unsubscribing in such significant numbers in response to an absence. It’s less effort to just leave your sub list idle and watch someone else if your favorite streamer isn’t active.

Maybe I should have disclosed this, but I’m not a PC gamer and view “video gaming” almost strictly through the lens of consoles - not that I never play legacy RTSs or sims from time to time on my laptop, but I would never see myself playing a traditional AAA multi-platform release on anything other than my Xbox One X o…

The games that you can get on PS4 that you can’t get on Xbox One are better (though not light years better) and more numerous than vice versa.

My point overall is that PRC looks at this as a binary situation - not firing that Hearthstone player for his statement would have been tantamount to Bobby Kotick tweeting #FreeHongKong.

Actually as I write this I’m watching this YouTuber who read off tweets from the Epic CEO saying he did more or less say that (in response to a question) so apparently you’re correct that they’re not afraid of Tencent

Interesting... But did Epic say “We support Hong Kong democracy” outright?

Good point, but you missed an important additional detail: Tencent, a Chinese mega-corporation (and as such basically an arm of the PRC government) owns 10% of Activision Blizzard - So it’s not just the mainland Chinese market they’re afraid of losing, their stock price would crater too if Tencent dumped their share.

I’m not a gear hound, I found the buffs and guns that work best for my long and mid-quarters combat style to get me to 500 GS months ago and have stuck with them ever since - same happened in the first Division once I found a loadout I liked. The state of guns and gear seem to drive the vast majority of conversations…

I meant here as in what’s listed in the article - I got the Expeditions expansion (locked off for some reason currently, only has one location), but nothing on the scale of Underground or Survival in the first game, both of which I believe had been added by this point 3 years ago.

Great take, though I have to caution you to remember that Destiny 2 has had two years of ups and downs - not to mention a complete change in business model - to find its footing. From what’s been chronicled on this site (haven’t played since the first Destiny, dropped it in favor of the first Division), I understand…

What’s unclear to me is what it is here I actually spent an extra $40 on to get the Year One pass besides those Classified Assignments (which I found the previous ones to be kind of boring). Everything else you mention here appears to be just timed content.

I just wish it were more like Wildlands just in a different setting. I really miss the mortar strikes, and squad sync shot, and what not - the stochastic terrorism that makes open-world Ubisoft grindfests so much fun.

I’ve been arguing, mostly unsuccessfully, to other readers here that Ubisoft’s microtransactions setup of late is benign compared to other major publishers - pay-to-win is confined to single-player, cosmetic-only in PvP, limited loot boxes, etc.

That’s a brilliant summary. He nails it - I particularly love the breakdown of how Fortnite is so fucking overrated.

The premium currency can be found in both FC5 and New Dawn, in fact with FC5 I acquired about $20 worth of it in a 40-50 hour playthrough - also if I remember correctly none of the items were strictly premium anyway, and they could be acquired through grind.

I think we’re kind of past the point where the existence of MTX in an AAA title is worth getting worked up over as opposed to the ins and outs of how they’re implemented within a particular title.

Which game in your opinion has the more obnoxious hammer-wielding enemies - Super Mario Bros or The Division 2?