When pay is basically non existent is there a reason to be on spotify? Or is it for “exposure” in hopes of finding new fans.

I uninstalled chrome. Stopped logging into YouTube. And moved to freetube on desktop. Newpipe on Android.

I’ve never watched game awards. I don’t even know if there is even a main one. Watches speeches is boring which is why I don’t watch award shows in general.

Only goty I care about is the goty edition where the game releases with all the DLCs bundled at a discount.

But it’s $1600 Apple. Not the cheapest Mac book air.

When I saw Alan Wake 2 was an epic exclusive my immediate thought was I can just wait for a giveaway like they did for Control.

I’m surprised since I’d assume most people don’t care where games are from and just buy it from whatever launcher. At least that’s what people claimed throughout the years.

They started out pissing off Steam users with Metro Exodus going exclusives and pulling it from Steam. Not a great first impression and a lasting one at that. Not everyone will care and will buy from epic, but alienating a whole bunch of Steam’s core users off the bat is probably going to ensure they’ll never win them over.

I claim games from epic and have bought from even origin and uplay, but I’ll probably never spend any money at epic.

It pushed me more towards degoogling. Was already using newpipe on Android and ignoring the YouTube app, and now I’m on freetube on desktop. No need for Google account anymore to look at the feed I want.

Short attention span leading to doing gaming in short bursts. Sometimes I lose interest in games for months and get more into the mood to watch TV shows and movies. Then lose interest in that and move to reading then lose interest in that and going back to gaming. Rinse and repeat. Has helped me avoid the whole not having fun with games anymore threads that I’d see a lot, since my focus just naturally shifts back and forth to keep things feeling fresh.

That’s awesome news. I love these old games getting pc ports and quality of life features.

I feel safer with F-droid.

I grew up with people who didn’t smoke, but later picked up the habit after vaping. So it’s why I was wondering about studies over anecdotal evidence whether it be yours or mine.

I don’t care what people choose to do with their bodies. More curiosity over in market shifts and what type of new consumers are emerging.

Also, smoking had been on the down trend among newer generations? So vaping is a potentially good hook to lead to cigarettes among newer generations. Will be an interesting study on the impact of newer generations as opposed to the older ones who are using it as quitting aids.

Great reason why ad blocking should not be disabled on the internet. If these companies keep trying to guilt people into disabling ads blocking then they should also be held liable for advertising that harms users whether it be malicious sites or harmful targeted advertising like gambling ads to addicts.

Old habits die hard from reddit of coming for the comments than the article.

Yeah, it is interesting that with the exception of GPUs, PC parts like SSDs, hard drives, CPUs, and so on actually have felt like they haven't increased in price in comparison to phones. If anything prices have dropped and capacities increased and speeds gotten faster for SSDs for example. Same with televisions and monitors where stuff like resolution and hz has seen improvements while being cheaper than in the past.

Game industry is bigger than movies and music combined which was not the case back in the NES era. Game industry has become a juggernaut with a huge consumer target base, and lower barrier to entry that allows for even random people being able to publish games instead of a few larger companies. Rise in production costs has been one that has been self imposed the way some studios go for big special effects blockbusters because they are targeting billions. Meanwhile like with movies you get these indie 2D and last gen 3D looking games being hits right alongside these billion dollar company attempts.

I guess one area you can look at is how niche products get priced lower like mechanical keyboards, and then once productions starts ramping up and things go mainstream suddenly these niche expensive ventures with a few fans becomes more affordable as larger quantities are now being distributed.

You same thing with tech like SSDs and hard drives actually falling price over time while capacities offered grows. Lot of PC parts actually with the exception of GPUs.

Because famous figures or organizations are the primary draw for the mainstream audience over random users. And many use it because they themselves hope to use the huge platform to promote or try to become an influencer.

Waiting years has been my new normal for games because I’m cheap, and it helps save on hardware costs too due to pushing back the time frame for when I start needing a more powerful system to play them. It’s a win win.

Only good I see is pc ports, but then I see Microsoft having Nintendo shoving in mtx and potentially less quality Nintendo titles so overall bad.