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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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  • I mean, gaming exploded over the pandemic. Anyone who thought that was going to become some kind of norm was an idiot. Have we shrunk below pre-pandemic levels? Or is this just idiots who thought they could keep skimming free oil off the surface once the leak was fixed?

    Also, I disagree with the idea that AAA games are performing poorly. Bad ideas in AAA games and chasing “easy money” in AAA is performing poorly. Helldivers 2 seems to be doing well, whereas Suicide Squad isn’t. Baldir’s Gate 3 killed it while Starfield kind of flopped. Final Fantasy 16 didn’t meet expectations, but we know Square Enix regularly sets expectations too high anyway.

    Are people tired of the same Call of Duty games over and over? Are people full up on live service games and looter shooters? Yes and yes. But are people crazy excited for the new Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth? From the communities I’m in, very much yes. Did Alan Wake 2 release and sell faster than any other game from that studio? Pretty sure I saw that headline recently, yeah.

    So when Diablo 4 dies on impact, was that the fault of the gaming landscape? Or was it because Blizzard execs pushed the team to maximize systems and balance they thought would bring in easy money but actually ended up alienating their core audience and reviewers?

    I’ve seen this before when working in mobile. Execs want to chase the whales so badly that they don’t allow designers and devs to make the game actually fun to play. Doesn’t matter how “well” you monetize your shitty game if nobody wants to stick around to play it.








  • If you don’t mind the feeling of having ear plugs or earbuds in your ears, I have found that the Flare Audio “Quiet” earplugs really take the edge off the world. They don’t prevent you from hearing in general, but rather they dramatically reduce frequencies above some pitch (I forget), which my brain often interprets as pain or like I’m being attacked.

    Not spending my day under constant “assault” by the sound of fans or my young child’s high-pitch excited voice REALLY helps me to not get overwhelmed so easily.

    I had several days in a row recently where I’ve gotten really panicked and close to snapping because of feeling overwhelmed, and I started wearing these again and it made it much, much easier to come down from that feeling.








  • I rip all my CDs to FLAC so I can listen to them easily while working or driving or walking or otherwise where having headphones and a phone is easy but carrying a book of burned backups and a CD Walkman would be hard.

    But I also have a humble collection of vinyl because I actually really like the ritual of placing the stylus and listening and turning the record over when I want to just… hear the music and enjoy it for itself.