That would require real ownership which is unlikely to ever happen. Company failures more likely just means loss of any library from them.

There’s no way a game that people have been waiting over a decade for is ever going to live up to the hype.

Honestly 20 different companies would probably suck for the consumer. That’s 20 different storefronts to compare, 20 different libraries to manage, potentially 20 different sets of logins, 20 sources of data breaches. It’s unlikely they would adopt an open standard to allow a shared library. Maybe you have a 21st company that makes a product like heroic launcher. You’d likely run into regionality issues where a particular store is unavailable, so you may not be able to play purchased games. You would have all sorts of odd exclusive dlc and pre order bonuses so a cosmetic item you like could be locked to a store you haven’t used. Multiplayer likely wouldn’t be global cross play between all companies, you likely get some set of 20 companies working together for multiplayer. Some games may develop a good scene available to a single store, requiring a game to be repurchased. Exclusives or timed exclusives would be annoying to track, as each store would likely have different catalogs.

That’s far to generous to other companies, they were far more like the WiiU.

The big subs were full of bots, but for some it didn’t really matter. It a post was a bit but it was still funny on memes or funny then it’s fine. I don’t care if karma farming bots were the majority of posts so long as it’s still good content. The content does seem to be significantly worse now though.

It’s absolutely a generic open world game, bit that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The formula is fun if it’s done well, which I think it is for Horizon Zero Dawn. The combat style is also uncommon and provides a satisfying loop of stealth and bullet time mechanics.

It think it has to be 2007 just because there are games that didn’t crack the top 10 that year that would be goty in other years. It’s also a huge year for multiple platforms, pratically every major franchise had a good release that year.

You don’t own gog games either. Not using drm doesn’t grant ownership.

They absolutely were heading that direction with both windows and Xbox until the massive backlash from the public forced them to tone down their plans. It’s still the same company that tried to kill used games on consoles, and they basically have with the creation of game pass. Valve built an escape hatch to Linux for gaming, which has forced them to be a bit nicer on the PC front, but that’s not a sign of Microsoft being good.

Unless games become something we truly own, steam is going to stay dominant. It’s more like a utility than a storefront. If you want to remove the dominance of steam you need to force a way to move libraries of games to other platforms.

Steam also got their monopoly the honest way by simply being the most consumer friendly option.

Microsoft tried to flip the switch years ago to kill anything outside the Microsoft store. That’s when steam released the original steam machines. Combined with general negative response to the messaging Microsoft has backed off, but they absolutely want to do it still.

Do you happen to have ADHD? That sounds like some pretty severe executive disfunction, which is common with ADHD. You might need more than random Internet advice.

People like to support their choices. It’s not a ton different than sports. There have been periods where console and PC have had the advantage over the years, but it’s now become more of a choice of what you want your computer to look like. Mobile is generally universally hated because of the effects it had on the industry as a whole by accelerating the rise of micro transactions and loot boxes to an industry standard.

The biggest plus for anime is that even though it’s targeted for younger audiences, it expects the viewer to be more intelligent than a lot of recent western media. Even with the tropes, it’s enjoyable to watch.

Not sure I can go that far. Lego is vastly superior quality to other blocks. Though they have been heavily reliant on licensed IP over original sets.

I can’t really speak for what it is like in Europe, but there’s basically three big buckets that US Christian religion falls into.

• Catholic, was (might still be) the plurality of Christians in the US. Not terribly different than the European version. Some may focus a bit more on different points, but the high level is the same. Gay is a sin, no birth control, male priests only, drinking is acceptable, forgiveness tends to be prominent.
• Protestant, this would be the Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, etc. The only thing they really have in common is that they are Catholic BUT one or two major differences. It depends on the specific organization, some take more hard line approaches, some are far more accepting. National bodies are a bit more loose than Catholicism, but still consistent. There’s a mix of reasonable and crazy people in this bucket.
• Evangelicals are the totally unhinged group. Churches in this group are non-denominational, though some may have started as a Protestant sect. They may have loose ties to other churches, or be a mega church. While there is variation here as well, it tends in the more extreme direction. Biblical interpretation tends towards the more literal and cherry picked stories instead of the relative interpretation that traditional branches have reformed to use. Grift is super common in this section. Condemnation of non followers is also common instead of outreach and forgiveness. Young earth creationism is a common belief. This group started growing rapidly with the advent of televangelism in the 70s.

No it’s like praising a dealer that will buy back some drugs as well as sell them.

The casino is honest about what they do compared to say Genshin Impact.

Valve has one for the few lootbox systems that you can actually get value back out of outside the game. While they deserve all the same criticism of every lootbox game, they probably also deserve some praise for that.

They could have deals with rental companies that make the rental cheaper to them. It could be a way to save money as people won’t bother with the rental and since it’s violating company procedure, they don’t have to pay mileage reimbursement. It could be a way to funnel money to a rental company rather than directly reimbursing employees.