Candescence 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Rovio Delists Last Paid ‘Angry Birds’ Game Because The Free Version Is More Profitable

    Candescence ( profile ), 28 Feb, 2023 @ 06:13pm

    The problem with this is that "free" games on mobile tend to be filled to the brim with bullshit predatory microtransactions. Rovio's games are no exception. Mobile gamers can and will pay for predatory garbage, it's why the mobile gaming ecosystem is filled with free-to-play trash that inexplicably makes money. It's very much a monkey's paw that makes me vastly prefer just paying a premium up-front. There are good free to play games with actual value to stuff you can pay for, but those are extremely few and far between on mobile. And don't get me started on 'gacha' games, which are basically just games with almost literal gambling included.

  • On the post: Current Classified Document Scandals Show The Government Is Still Classifying Way Too Many Documents

    Candescence ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2023 @ 09:24pm

    Also both Pence and Biden did the right thing and notified the right people when the documents were discovered, and Biden's been actively making an effort to clear out his home and anywhere he's worked of classified material. Trump, on the other hand, actively played hardball and his lawyers lied about handing over all the documents when the government came to collect them, resulting in the raid, and considering documents were found in places he regularly worked, one can make a good case that he wasn't ignorant of the fact he still had them.

  • On the post: Elon Promises A Free API For ‘Good Bot Content,’ Again, Demonstrating He Has No Idea How Any Of This Works

    Candescence ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2023 @ 06:23pm

    Can you actually come up with anything Musk did that was actually unambiguously good for the site so far? Anything that outweighs the capricious and incredibly dumb stuff he's done? Or do you consider the fact that he's dragging the site towards the right with all the misinformation and hate speech that comes with it to be a net positive, nevermind opening the floodgates to stuff like CSAM?

  • On the post: Capcom Kneecaps Fan Remakes Of ‘Resident Evil’ Games The Company Isn’t Planning To Remake

    Candescence ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2023 @ 08:50pm

    Capcom and Sega are generally just fine with fan games, but there are occasions where they will clamp down on specific remake projects. Sega went and shut down the Streets of Rage Remake project (though not successfully, that one is still widely available and has been getting unofficial updates), for example, though in that case it's believed that Sega did not want unsolicited competition for their eventual compilation re-release on Xbox Live. In general those two companies are usually chill, but they can be weird on rare occasions.

  • On the post: After Dumb Lobbying Delays And Ample Watering Down, NY Passes Landmark ‘Right To Repair’ Bill

    Candescence ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2022 @ 08:14pm

    Yeah Hochul is being stupid and corrupt and probably pissing off her own party again by not reading the room. Quelle surprise.

  • On the post: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile Could Dodge Millions In Location Data Fines Thanks To Industry Attacks On FCC Nominee Gigi Sohn

    Candescence ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2022 @ 02:00am

    If there's one silver lining, it's that it'll be a bit easier now for Biden to have her appointed now that the Democrats have 51 senate seats and the House is basically irrelevant to this whole process anyway. Biden can afford to lose one vote when it comes to nominations. Still easier said than done, but the administration now has a better chance of getting her nominated.

  • On the post: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile Could Dodge Millions In Location Data Fines Thanks To Industry Attacks On FCC Nominee Gigi Sohn

    Candescence ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2022 @ 01:54am

    Ah, here comes the bad faith arguments from Matt. Geez, who pissed on your breakfast today, mate? Here's the thing you're neglecting to mention - the end of net neutrality didn't immediately wreck the internet because 1) ISPs were on their best behavior because immediately indulging in their worst impulses would've immediately proved that throwing out net neutrality was a bad idea, and 2) several states like California stepped in to institute their own net neutrality rules anyway thanks to the Trump FCC shooting itself in the foot by accidentally making itself incapable of preventing the states from regulating ISP behavior by abdicating its authority over broadband consumer protection, which meant ISPs didn't have a blank cheque to do whatever they wanted - in fact, the California law went further than the original FCC net neutrality rules in killing zero rating, which is good because zero rating is anti-competitive garbage. ISPs should not have the power to screw over customers and websites/services on their own whims or for profit. Full stop. The ISP industry in the USA is already a duopolistic nightmare as it is. There is literally no reasonable argument as to why net neutrality is a bad thing, especially considering ISPs literally cannot be trusted to act ethically in the interests of consumers. I think that covers it. I look forward to seeing what kind of nonsense arguments you conjure up from your keyboard, presuming you even respond at all.

  • On the post: Lobbying, Corruption Stall Landmark NY Right To Repair Bill

    Candescence ( profile ), 24 Dec, 2022 @ 09:09am

    Hochul is just as bad as Cuomo, really. A huge chunk of the New York Democratic Party are a bunch of corrupt, incompetent idiots, they're a big part of why the Democrats lost the House in the midterms. I wouldn't be surprised if nonsense like this, along with Hochul's other idiotic decisions, result in a primary challenge from a progressive challenger for the governorship and pressure from the national Democratic party to force the New York Dems to get their act together.

  • On the post: Klobuchar’s Link Tax Is Back… And Somehow Even Worse? Helps Trumpist Grifters Get Free Money & No Moderation From Google

    Candescence ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2022 @ 07:19am

    On the bright side, these changes are likely enough of a red flag for the Democrat majority to kill the bill entirely. It'd certainly be in character for them to.

  • On the post: You’re Living In The True Golden Age Of Television. Enjoy It, Because It’s About To End.

    Candescence ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2022 @ 09:58pm

    Okay, fair enough, those two are flailing, but... Did anyone really consider them important players in the streaming space in the first place? There's also various niche players who focus on specific types of content, and I don't think that space is imploding.

  • On the post: You’re Living In The True Golden Age Of Television. Enjoy It, Because It’s About To End.

    Candescence ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2022 @ 10:30am

    To be fair, while streaming has problems, the vast majority of them right now can be summed up as "David Zaslav is burning down Warner-Discovery for the tax money". And speaking of Zaslav, he's the one man you absolutely don't want running any kind of entertainment business if you care about the actual content - he utterly smashed Discovery's integrity in the name of chasing profits, turning it into a cesspool of reality shows and pseudo-scientific garbage. I think he might also be a hardcore Trumper, but don't quote me on that. Look, the point is, everyone who's been around the block in this business knows what Zaslav is all about (unlike some alt-right idiots who think he cancelled Batgirl for ideological reasons) - making as much money as possible, regardless of what happens to the actual quality of the content. He's going to completely burn down Warner Bros. in the pursuit of saving a few bucks, and I wouldn't be surprised if creators with any ounce of integrity start fleeing Warner in droves for potentially greener pastures, because, well, why the fuck would I want to work with a company that's suddenly willing to literally erase its own content (even content that hasn't even come out yet) in the name of cost-cutting and tax writeoffs, nevermind one with a scummy CEO in general like Zaslav? From rumors, Netflix is apparently meaningfully re-evaluating how it handles its shows in the face of active competition, including ditching the "release a whole season at once for binging" model, as it seems traditional weekly episodic releases is significantly better for word of mouth and maintaining relevance over a longer period of time, nevermind keeping people from dropping their subscriptions immediately after watching what they want to watch. Everyone else seems to be doing fairly well for themselves by comparison. But at this point I really think every show should have a dedicated "buy it permanently" option. To be fair, a lot of shows already have that option via iTunes, Amazon or Google Play/Youtube, but yeah.

  • On the post: Denuvo Returns To Block Some Nintedo Switch Games From PC Emulation

    Candescence ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2022 @ 08:22am

    Yeah, Switch emulation has been around for some time. The two notable ones are Yuzu and Ryujinx, though I've tried only the former, which updates fairly regularly. I personally just prefer to buy and rip my games using homebrew on my Switch, if partly because it's actually easier and less of a hassle than looking for actual working downloads that aren't riddled with sketchy ad bullshit putting hurdles in your way.

  • On the post: Denuvo Returns To Block Some Nintedo Switch Games From PC Emulation

    Candescence ( profile ), 31 Aug, 2022 @ 06:05am

    Denuvo neglects to consider a couple of problems with this approach: 1) If it's based on emulator accuracy, all it takes is for emulator developers to just... Make their emulators more accurate, which they were doing anyway, to defeat the checks. 2) Backwards compatibility when it comes to future hardware. There will be a Switch 2 sometime within the next two years, if the DRM is based on existing hardware, and developers neglect to patch their games to run on new and revised hardware, there's a good chance games with this DRM will be straight up incompatible, which Nintendo won't be happy about. This is just Denuvo trying to make a quick buck, I struggle to imagine that Switch piracy is such a big problem considering how much Nintendo has been aggressively trying to stamp it out themselves.

  • On the post: Netflix’s Gaming Offering Is Being Largely Ignored By Customer Base

    Candescence ( profile ), 09 Aug, 2022 @ 08:08pm

    Netflix is just really, really bad or lazy at advertising their stuff.

    From my own experience and from anecdotes from other people, it feels like Netflix's main problem is that they cannot be arsed to actually do the legwork to properly advertise their stuff. Most of the time something I'm looking forward to on Netflix gets released with minimal or absolutely no fanfare or lead-up to the release and I am completely blindsided when I finally find out. Case in point, the Usagi Yojimbo animated spinoff, which I didn't know had actually released until I remembered it was a thing and decided to check up on any news of it.

  • On the post: 76% Of U.S. Voters Don’t Know Congress Passed A Huge Infrastructure Bill

    Candescence ( profile ), 29 Jul, 2022 @ 10:06pm

    Not that she will be re-elected. She's so toxic that she got censured by the Arizona Democrats and is gonna get primaried into political oblivion, the Democrats want her gone by any means necessary come 2024 for bullshitting her way into becoming a Democratic senator and operating completely in bad faith afterwards. Everyone hates her, even Manchin negotiated the new reconciliation bill without her input because he knows she doesn't act in good faith.

  • On the post: The Metaverse Could Change The World, If We Could Stop Getting In Its Way

    Candescence ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2022 @ 10:41pm

    Yeah, two of the big problems with VR is that you need devices that have a reasonable cost for the end consumer and use case that wouldn't make more sense with just a simple flat interface. Part of why the Quest is so successful is because it's entirely standalone and fairly cheap for a VR headset. You've also got Sony's PSVR headset, which is connected to a gaming console that a lot of people already own, and there's a good chance the audience of PS4/PS5 users might overlap with potential VR players. There's also the cheaper WMR headsets if you want to go even cheaper and have a decent computer to plug them into. I actually got my first VR headset (the original Acer WMR headset) free via a deal when I got my previous laptop. That being said, VR tech does still have a long way to go, and I feel that, for the most part, until you can get hand controllers that provide a decent facsimile of touching and holding things, we will still need buttons to provide a proper viable interface in virtual worlds. Also, VRChat doesn't need a VR headset to play, you can actually play it the regular flatscreen way, which isn't as immersive but still significantly more accessible.

  • On the post: The Metaverse Could Change The World, If We Could Stop Getting In Its Way

    Candescence ( profile ), 18 Jul, 2022 @ 10:29pm

    Maybe there should actually be some genuinely good things to come out of "Web3" first.

    Let's face it, everything that's come out of "Web3" has been an absolute garbage fire. Cryptocurrencies and NFTs have almost universally been a scam, a grift and a collection of ponzi schemes. The crypto sector is so utterly mired in fraud that calling it legitimate is a stretch. Neither cryptocurrency or NFTs have any provable positive application that can't be done by anything else, and everything else can do those applications more easily, more efficiently and with less downsides. The "Metaverse" has the potential to be really good, but it's been pushing by assholes who really want to turn it into a capitalistic hellhole. Horizon Worlds is basically Second Life, VRChat or Tower Unite but so bland and sterile, it's literally sexless (which makes the fact that a female user claims to have been raped in Horizon Worlds to be all the more "impressive"). Nevermind that it is also completely and utterly mired in the aforementioned crypto bullshit. Horizon Worlds is basically what Facebook/Meta believes is an "advertiser friendly" virtual world, but HW is not what people want. Here's the thing about users - they prefer efficiency and ease of use over "immersion" if they don't see the real benefit of the latter. If a simple menu can get the job done, then they'll just use that over something more immersive but requires more work and effort. For the "Metaverse" to succeed, it needs applications that give users a reason to invest in the virtual space rather than just tap some menus. Ease of use is also why the most successful headsets so far have been ones that are, on top of being relatively inexpensive, also easy to set up and have minimal wires or none at all (though I personally am not a fan of the relatively lackluster tracking capabilities of standalone headsets compared to the perfect tracking of Valve's VR devices, camera tracking just simply does not currently hold a candle to the lighthouse method in terms of precision, accuracy and tracking range). For the most part, VR and anything tangentially related to the "Metaverse" that has had any kind of success has entirely been entertainment-based stuff and/or immersive socialization. The "Metaverse" moniker as Facebook coins it is pretty much a buzzword to try and bring in clueless investors. Basically, Web3 is mostly illusory at this time and the people trying to make it a thing aren't doing it because it'll be a huge step forward for the internet, the real reason is because they stand to make a lot of money if it works out. Right now, for the most part, it is functionally one big scam. If you want to see the glimmers of potential, at least in the Metaverse, look at smaller less corporate efforts like the aforementioned three games - Second Life has been around for ages, VRChat has exploded in popularity and Tower Unite, while perhaps a bit more niche, is still really fun, provides a ton of opportunity for creativity and has a bunch of fun mini-games, including a full-fledged kart racer. Sure, it's just a taste of what might be possible, but it's better than whatever nonsense Zuckerberg is trying to force down everyone's throats.

  • On the post: China's Regulatory War On Its Gaming Industry Racks Up 14k Casualties

    Candescence ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2022 @ 07:33pm

    This means that the Chinese government is coming off less like a socialist nation and more akin to something like the Taliban, where strict control over culture is seen as some kind of spiritual requirement.

    To be fair, this isn't remotely new for the CCP. Also, the CCP hasn't really been 'socialist' for years for the most part (to the point where they've increasingly been under fire from actual hardcore communists), they're increasingly more like Nazis, especially considering they're literally a step away from doing Holocaust 2: Muslim Edition.

  • On the post: The Next 'Elder Scrolls' Game Will Be A PC, Xbox Exclusive

    Candescence ( profile ), 26 Nov, 2021 @ 02:33am

    I mean... Eh? So?

    I mean, kinda sucks for Sony diehards, but let's be frank, the Elder Scrolls series only saw, what, two games on Playstation systems? (Those being Oblivion and Skyrim.) This isn't a repeat of the Final Fantasy shift from Nintendo to Sony systems or anything like that.

    Besides, Sony players always got the worst versions of every game. Skyrim's Playstation 3 version was notoriously terrible (partly because of the PS3's notoriously difficult to develop for hardware) and the PS4 version of Skyrim had the second worst mod support (the Switch doesn't have modding, but I suppose that's a tad more understandable because storage space and whatnot) because Sony is suddenly the most ass-backwards console maker now in many respects, including cross-play and backwards compatibility.

    Again, I get it, it sucks for Sony purists who don't play on PC, but at least Microsoft is still putting out their games on PC day and date of release, whereas Sony is trickling out older games. Unless Bethesda really steps up their game post-acquisition, PC will always be the best platform to play their games on, if partly because the modders are around to fix the numerous inevitable issues that occur.

  • On the post: Rockstar's GTA Retro Games Was Completely Broken And Support Was Ghosting Everyone

    Candescence ( profile ), 17 Nov, 2021 @ 09:51pm

    You should've mentioned how poorly the remasters have reviewed.

    It's not just the shitshow with the PC version, every version is seeing <60 metacritic scores. The entire project was farmed out to a mobile developer without the care or dedication of Rockstar themselves, and it shows. The games are buggy as hell, character models are terrible, there's missing music tracks (because somehow Take-Two and Rockstar can't get the licenses for certain music tracks despite having basically all the money) and the rain effects are dreadful.

    And despite all the shit T2 has done to screw over the modding community, they're still fixing some of the aforementioned problems.

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