Hello friend.

This seems like a good time to inform you that you have the option to communicate in such a way that you don’t make yourself look like an asshole.

Yeah, mine has it. I have to go into the app once a week and manually delete it.

I am really, really glad I replaced my PC’s a year ago.

This is insane. I’m kinda sorta rooting for the crash now. These unregulated billionaires are ruining all the things.

It can be like that for sure. I accidentally called a trans skater ‘she’ three years ago, and they got over it and understood it was a mistake, but one of the refs in the league still won’t talk to me. So petty and stupid how people can be.

It’s true.

I’m lucky to have a lot of friends via the roller derby community, but I’m a white man in a largely liberal and activist community, so my mantra whenever any controversial topic comes up is: “I don’t feel it’s my place to speak on that” or “I don’t know enough to have an opinion on that”. (Which in a lot of cases is probably true.)

Those friends end up being surface-level in a lot of ways because I love the sport and can’t risk accidentally saying something that offends someone and risk losing my access to it, because if you say the wrong thing, malice is always assumed and there’s simply no grace given for error.

Yeah, and even among your people there may be some measure of discomfort.

I really miss how friendships and socializing used to be before social media.

100% it is.

And you don’t have to deal with your awful family feeling entitled to your time and money.

It’s just fan speculation at this point, but yeah. I’ll be thinking about it before I buy, if I do.

Yeah, feels like an overreaction to me, especially given the economic upheaval affecting the world since 2018.

Devs gotta eat and the game is not only good but fairly priced already.

Apparently in 2018 the devs stated publicly they’d never add paid content to the game. At least that’s what the fans state. I dunno.

I bought it a year ago, played it for ten hours. It’s a fun little game.

I don’t buy a lot of the big company games anyway, but if this becomes commonplace, what’ll happen is I’ll buy my big-company games second-hand so the benefit to the perpetrators is lessened.

I heard the new Game of Thrones game is using LLM’s to generate some of its content. Pisses me off.

Yeah, I only use my tablet to read e-books and stream video, so it’s pretty cheap too. No need for anything more.

Same. Plus you’re upcycling.

If you turn your phone off at night and just leave it unplugged the majority of the time, it will last for many, many years.

So why in the actual fuck, would I bother doing it if I don’t have to? AI? No thanks.

Hell yes.

Yeah, the games I’ve spent very little on I’ve put a ton of time into, like Vampire Survivors, Noita, and Dungeon Defenders.

Oh definitely. I’ve enjoyed the experience of helping devs mold a title into something better in exchange for a lower price.

That’s fine. I don’t agree with you.

My rule is I’m only willing to pay a dollar for every expected hour of play, so you can imagine I buy few things at full price.

The last two games I paid full price for were Elden Ring and Mandragora. I am far more likely to pay full price for an indie title that I’m excited about than anything else, because as an artist myself, I fully understand the impact of a pre-purchase on an indie studio.

Probably a fair point. Thank you.