HeyListenWatchOut

  • 0 Posts
  • 17 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 16th, 2023
  • HeyListenWatchOut@lemmy.worldtoProgrammer Humor@lemmy.ml•Child labour with 10 years of experience, 'AI-native' accepting 250k lines of Cursor codeEnglish
    36·
    1 month ago

    The democratization of technology is a double-edged sword.

    For every improvement in UX and lowering of a once impassible barrier of entry, we seem to inevitably gain a massive number of “eXpErTs” who can suddenly stand upon the now much lower skill floor.

    Shortly thereafter seems to be a destruction of the general reliability of whatever field these “eXpErTs” flood - usually a field which used to be inherently cryptic and had complex prerequisites just to begin operation within, let alone master.

    Like… it makes me almost miss when “using a computer” meant you had to understand how to browse a directory in DOS…

    Because at least then you literally couldn’t begin to operate in the field unless you could wrap your head around understanding the basics of syntax.

    Now you can just have an entire legion of dullards misspell or misspeak 30% of a malformed question to some random free LLM that still has trouble telling you “how many Rs are in the word strawberry,” and have it confidently fart back out a wrong answer that they will then copy-paste into a paper or article which will then be added to the pile of growing misinformation currently stuffing a frighteningly expanding part of our collective knowledge base.

  • HeyListenWatchOut@lemmy.worldtoGames@lemmy.world•Has Xbox Considered Laying One Person Off Instead Of ThousandsEnglish
    4·
    3 months ago

    True that no matter what - Phil IS a CEO, which means he’s not a good dude… but I guess I just look at it as shades of gray.

    I think Microsoft decided it doesn’t want to do ANY kind of hardware, because of how poorly they did both in the X era, and in international markets like Japan…

    And like you said - if Xbox becomes a brand rather than an actual piece of hardware, then there’s no reason to buy an Xbox. I had a 360 starting right before Halo 3 came out in 2007, but with every single one of their games being fully multi-platform with ZERO exclusives I never had a reason to get any of their systems after my original Elite.

  • HeyListenWatchOut@lemmy.worldtoGames@lemmy.world•Has Xbox Considered Laying One Person Off Instead Of ThousandsEnglish
    21·
    3 months ago

    Don Mattrick left Xbox in 2013. It was more than a decade ago. He may have ruined the XOne launch, but Spencer has had all the time and money in the world to rectify his mistakes and, so far, has only worsened them to the point that most doubt that a new Xbox will exist at all.

    Xbox’s brand was one that gained all of its clout basically as a result of Halo for the original console, and then pretty much almost the entirety of the 360 era. Damaging a brand is easy to do, and the consequences are long-standing. True that plenty of time has passed… but I still think that the main issue is that Microsoft is still pulling the strings that damage the Xbox brand.

    Nintendo was on the brink of disaster after the Wii U, and managed to turn their fates around in half the time and with a fraction of the money. Why couldn’t Spencer?

    Because Nintendo is completely independent, and is controlled wholly by their own CEO… they are not a division of a larger shitty company interested in Copilot and Window 11 subscriptions.

    In all these years, Spencer’s legacy has been of failed deals, shutting down/letting go multiple studios, and moronic attempts at building AAA and GAAS games on the back of seasonal contractors. We should stop blaming Mattrick for things that happened a decade after he left the company.

    I’m not blaming Mattrick DIRECTLY for anything that’s happened in the last 10 years… but I AM blaming Microsoft as a whole probably forcing Phil’s hands, based on the interviews I watched with both Mattrick and Phil back in the day.

    I really do think Phil likes games and is basically having to fly a plane that Microsoft keeps taking away parts from. I don’t think someone who actually worked on games like Phil did early in his career wanted to close the studio that made HiFi Rush.

    Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d love to see some evidence showing Phil coming across as even half as bad as ANY interview or stage presentation with Mattrick.

  • HeyListenWatchOut@lemmy.worldtoGames@lemmy.world•Has Xbox Considered Laying One Person Off Instead Of ThousandsEnglish
    199·
    3 months ago

    I may be in the minority here, but I still like Phil Spencer… I feel like he’s a good dude who has been hamstrung by Microsoft from a larger overall management angle.

    He’s certainly better than Don Mattrick, but admittedly Xbox has continued to suffer even after Don left.

    Every time I saw an interview with Phil, he was amicable, seemed to actually understand game dev and the challenges, and he pushed to do things like Game Pass which have largely been successful.

    Meanwhile Don was the guy who tried to copy off Nintendo’s motion gaming, pushed for making the Xbox do TV shit moreso than be a fun gaming console, and essentially said “get a 360” when people complained about lack of reliable internet access potentially preventing their ability to play any XB1 game.

  • HeyListenWatchOut@lemmy.worldtoGames@lemmy.world•Palworld confirms ‘disappointing’ game changes forced by Pokémon lawsuitEnglish
    8623·
    4 months ago

    I’m a little torn on this.

    On the one hand, let’s be real - clearly PalWorld takes more than a little “inspiration” on a bunch of different Pokemon IP. The illustrations, modeling, and just visual style overall matches in many ways almost perfectly for many of the creatures. They are like off-brand versions of Pokemon with the exact same eyes, mouth types, etc. in many cases as if they were illustrated by Ken Sugimori himself.

    Additionally, the game involves using handheld ball devices thrown at wild world-roaming creatures you capture after cutting down their health by some amount to increase the catch percentage and different “grade” balls have increased chance for capture.

    There is also a nefarious organization competing with you for capturing these wild creatures like Team Rocket.

    But on the OTHER hand, the leveling up, breeding, base-building, the various ability tech-trees, item crafting, and just overall engine complexity is VASTLY superior to what appears to now be an almost EMBARRASSINGLY behind set of game design mechanics in the actual Pokemon games… it’s sort of a Saints Row vs GTA IV situation here where they were an obvious copy off, but improved in enough ways that ended up being a fun game in itself.

    Copying off exact art asset styles is one thing you shouldn’t do… but taking Nintendo’s gameplay ideas and expanding upon them vastly and being told to remove said mechanics as if they stole code is asinine and sets a bad precedent.

    Every time there’s been a popular game, there are a thousand copies off them that twist and evolve those mechanics until something else comes along.

    Nintendo came along with platformers after Pitfall on Atari. Sonic copied 2D platforming basics from Mario like running to the right and jumping on enemies but changed so much. Final Fantasy copied off Dragon Quest, which itself was a digital idea based off of Dungeons & Dragons. Doom to games like GoldenEye to Halo to Call of Duty to PUBG to Fortnite to APEX Legends…

    This feels like taking advantage of grey area in the realm of visual IP similarity to shut down someone making their gameplay design mechanics look antiquated by comparison.

    Really embarrassing for Nintendo to be doing this, when clearly what Nintendo should be doing is doing like what Fortnite did when APEX came along and added location / enemy / weapon call outs and just STEALING the mechanics they weren’t clever enough to think of on their own and implement better versions in their own games… but clearly they’d just rather have a monopoly and continue lackluster work.