I think that Overwatch’s lootboxes are where it’s at: nothing that affects gameplay, and you get them from playing the game naturally anyway, and there’s an in-game way to purchase specific skins if you don’t wanna wait for random chance (and IIRC, you can’t convert real money to game money).

…I wasn’t sure how to digest three games’ worth of lore before Diablo IV came out.

i’m not sure mobile gaming is really the problem at this point—clearly the issue is the F2P, overly-monetized grind. Mobile wasn’t the first platform to feature free games loaded with microtransactions—that would be the PC with its army of F2P MMORPGs.

The intended audience doesn’t change that these games are predatory. You make it sound like criticism regarding the exploitation of whales is somehow platform dependent.

Not surprising. Only a small slice of players for a given game actually write reviews, and an even tinier slice do so on Metacritic. Even Steam tends to only get about 5% of purchasers to leave a review at best.

Shawshank should have won Best Picture, so the Tarantino Stans can still suck it.

Perfectly acceptable that the film won Best Picture.

You do have to admit, Mr. Hanks is a pretty smart guy. From the New York Times interview:

To be fair, that’s kinda the entire necromancer look.

How people didn’t realize it in real time is staggering. Like, are you at all concerned that you might be mocking a woman discussing her sexual assault history for the whole world to hear?

can’t wait, at least we don’t have to wait 20 years for a lot of people to already recognize how fucked up and misogynist all that was.

:sigh:

I had the pox when I was a kid. Not looking forward to shingles.

Will politicians be arrested over this? Maybe not but they probably won’t be able to run for office any longer.

During my time growing up, I’ve had a bunch of random health issues that people might laugh at. I had alopecia where I had random patches of my face that didn’t grow facial hair and random parts of my head that lost hair. I have an eye condition where I am legally blind. I’ve had nerve issues where I have lost feeling…

Think of this less as “chicken pox” and more “shingles”.

Don’t forget that he’s Canadian. From what I can find, they didn’t start routine vaccinations for chickenpox until 2000. It’s not unlikely he caught it before then.

A lot of parents don’t bother until their kids actually catch it to begin with. If Bieber didn’t get it young, that’s likely why he never got vaccinated for it.

You can still get chickenpox even if you're vaccinated. 

Not so fast. People have been charged and arrested. We haven’t seen anything like this before so no precedent has been set. Will politicians be arrested over this? Maybe not but they probably won’t be able to run for office any longer. I think you’re jumping the gun.