It took you 10 days to reply... with that?  That had nothing to do with what I said.  In case it still isn’t clear to you, it is idiotic to say it’s easy for someone to play a console at work for the purpose of listening to music.

Wait, was Bon Clay non binary? I thought he was a crossdresser that still preferred male pronouns. Granted I’m no expert on the exact meaning of okama.

So, am I pushing my western propaganda lib agenda just by mentioning that Ivankov is a character that exists in One Piece? A character who’s both trans and has a small army of trans followers?

His main point, the actual headline of the article is that we’re all ‘exploiting’ Blizzard by playing these games for free. No, it doesn’t work that way. Playing these games for free still plays into the system. And increasing the playerbase does not help out whales, quite the opposite as it gives whales more…

I don’t think that was the implication.  They’re saying that whales like to spend their money on games that are more active.  No one wants to gamble on shit in a game that’s dead.  But if a game has hundreds of thousands of players, that’s much more appealing to spend money on.

There’s a big difference with the alcohol comparison. Alcoholics make up a small portion of overall alcohol sales. With games like Immortal, the vast majority of the sales come from whales. It makes a huge difference when a business is dependent on addiction to make it’s money.

I just don’t understand how people playing the stuff that comes before all that bit, and then quit, are making a difference to those end-game whales?

If I play but don’t pay, I’m encouraging someone else to pay colossal amounts of money that they wouldn’t pay if I weren’t playing?

“Most people can just get some fun here and don’t need to be so violently judged for it.”?

The free players basically give the whales something to make them feel better about spending money.  When you spend money and eventually get better gear, you can compare yourself to all the people who don’t spend money.

And that’s why so many people are worried, since this monetization model is so successful at exploiting people.  Why sell good games at a decent cost if you can make so much more profiting from addiction?

If you’re paying money, you’re paying not to push the button on the Skinner Box. You’re paying not to have the Diablo experience.

You only have to spend money if your only reason for playing the game is to see numbers get bigger.

Uh, taking 10-20 years to get the same gear that whales are getting in a small fraction of that time isn’t upgrading ‘as much as possible’. that’s upgrading as slowly as possible. This type of game genre focuses on optimization, it’s why seasons have been such a big thing in Diablo games.

So, that’s not what pay to win refers to. When games allow players to spend more money on microtransactions that give gameplay advantages, that’s pay to win. Trying to gloss over the P2W monetization that exists in the game and how it targets whales IS shilling for these games. You think the gameplay’s fun and that it…

But the fun in Diablo games is usually in upgrading your character as much as possible.

Not saying they don’t have a lot of connection and investment, but I wouldn’t say it’s more than Sanderson’s situation with WoT. The guy is very obviously one of the biggest WoT fans ever, and he actively worked with Harriet McDougal who was Jordan’s late wife as well as editor.

You literally began your tirade here with “What about...”, and then went on as if worrying about racist arrests was mutually exclusive with worrying about other injustices. How is that not a false dichotomy?

By chance have you heard of a false dichotomy?