I don’t really agree that gamers should be blamed for this. Especially when it comes to lootboxes, battlepasses, gatcha etc. Those mechanics are tailor-made to exploit common psychological weaknesses in humans. The companies using these tactics and the lawmakers not stopping them should be blamed, not the people being exploited.

Going back to simple price increases, it’s not true that these always work out well for the companies or result in record sales. Remember the 3DS Ambassador program? Nintendo has already faceplanted pretty hard with their pricing strategy before. Since the Switch 2 isn’t even released, we have no idea how well the more expensive games will sell.

Switch 2 isn’t even out yet. We have no idea how the raised game prices will affect sales numbers.

As expected the industry is following Nintendo lead thanks to gamers.

What do you mean by “thanks to gamers”?

theoldnet.com has some of that and also works on really old systems and browsers.

Yeah, but I don’t think the nutters make up the full quarter of the voting population currently willing to vote for them. Lots of them are protest voters who are just vaguely “against”. Besides, I don’t think it’d be the deportations making some people reconsider, but the sheer economic stupidity of the Trump government as well as their attitude towards Europe. I fully expect Americans to be far poorer and more miserable in 2-3 years and that might do wonders to dispel the myth that the far-right could “fix the economy”.

From my European perspective:

• Countries are finally starting to push for independence from the US when it comes to defence etc
• The UK and Canada moving closer to the EU, increasing political and economic cooperation
• Brain drain from the US leading to American academics moving to Europe, bolstering our economy and research
• Hopefully seeing how fucked up the US is will eventually lead some people to reconsider voting for the far-right in Europe

The fact check is probably about the fact that Marcus Aurelius didn’t say that.

The original cheap price is just as artificial though, as the Chinese government puts massive subsidies into its EV industry.

Of course it wouldn’t arrive via an official approved update channel, but a backdoor. Easy to implement and hide when you write the software. Even VW put manipulated software in their cars before to fake lower emissions. Regulators didn’t notice for a decade. That’s even though it was being actively used, unlike a killswitch that would lie dormant until it’s too late.

I’d like to buy from democratic countries if possible, especially with such a large purchase. Not a huge fan of my money funding China’s regime.

As for exploding on command, that’s highly unlikely. Although it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for China to push a little OTA update that just turns all the cars off if we ever went to war against China.

VW will always have the advantage of being from Europe. Tesla’s decline has shown how much politics can influence people’s purchase decisions. I know many people wouldn’t consider buying a Chinese car, myself included, even while acknowledging that they’re pretty good from a technical perspective.

Could you give us an example of such a location please?

Russia, which is blocked from other international payment systems. Or any other authoritarian country where you might not necessarily want the government to know where you donate your money to.

Whataboutism fallacy.

We’re still throwing around fallacies like it’s 2010? Okay, I cast fallacy fallacy!

When talking about whether a dopnation button should have a specific payment option, it’s relevant if the alternatives it offers are better or worse. Otherwise, the argument might as well be to not have a donation option at all.

Depending on where users are located, it might be the only realistic option they have if they want to donate. Besides, traditional payment systems like PayPal, MasterCard, Visa etc are all problematic in their own right.

I don’t really get the need for a term like this. People are attracted or not attracted to all kinds of aspects of other people, so do we also need hyper-specific terms based on hair color, ethnicity, body size etc as well?

For me, as an individual, I don’t think the cultural relevancy of my generation matters at all when it comes to getting involved in society.

Nothing in particular? I don’t see how my cultural relevancy would affect my life in any way.

Berlin is the only place in Germany where I sat down in a restaurant and was approached by the waiter in English before switching to German.

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I see no practical reason to build one on earth. It would be prohibitively expensive to build and maintain and there isn’t really any point to it. On planets without a breathable atmosphere, maybe, but I don’t see it happening within our lifetimes.

You think that big-breasted witch is… a young boy? What are you smoking?