ranandtoldthat
@ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org
- Comment on Steam is basically a PC gaming monopoly, so why isn’t anyone mad? 2 days ago:
They’re not beholden to public investors. If they go public or sell to a public company it will change.
- Comment on The Case Against Gameplay Loops 6 days ago:
Honestly, I think there is proper Art in the deep exploration of gameplay mechanics through repetition.
There are so many games that explore this in unique and interesting ways. The exploration of the game mechanic itself is beautiful to me. Examples include Celeste, Braid, Hades, Baba is You, The Witness, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Super Meat Boy, Outer Wilds, Against the Storm… I could go on.
- Comment on The Case Against Gameplay Loops 6 days ago:
Agreed. To me, this blog post felt like a elevated rant. There’s not much meaningful analysis or substantive criticism of actual games or game design. There’s some comparative insight that is worth thinking through, but in the post it’s all wrapped up in rants about how one side of the comparison is bad and doesn’t really hone in on the nuances of the comparisons.
Notably, the discussion of game length (a key point of this post) is thin, especially when discussing the comparison to film and music.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course. Overall, for the comparative insight, it’s probably worth reading for people who like to think about these things, despite the issues within.
- Comment on The blue light from your phone isn't ruining your sleep 1 week ago:
9 minutes less sleep nightly sounds pretty significant for a single cause. That’s about 2%. If anything I think this article demonstrates that blue light does affect your sleep.
- Comment on Android: sideloading blocked and open source updates withheld to twice a year 5 weeks ago:
Not to defend Google, but they have said they will leave a way for people to sideload. Still sucks that they feel justified in making it more annoying androidauthority.com/google-android-17-sideloadin…
- Comment on FAA launches flying taxi pilot program spanning 26 states 5 weeks ago:
Civil engineering and aerospace engineering almost always use Z axis to represent the vertical.
- Comment on Volvo invented the three-point seat belt 67 years ago; now it has improved it 2 months ago:
It’s an article published on ars technica, written by a journalist with more than a decade of experience writing about the automotive sector. Sometimes a story about a product is just a story about a product.
- Comment on Heroic former PC Gamer writer creates a script to banish all the AI features from Google Chrome 2 months ago:
Duo enforcement, for example. It’s pretty robust and hard to spoof. Some companies are willing to pay a lot of money to control their employees.
- Comment on Heroic former PC Gamer writer creates a script to banish all the AI features from Google Chrome 2 months ago:
Some workplaces require chrome, unfortunately
- Comment on Ian's Is Still The Best Site For Tying Your Shoelaces 2 months ago:
I’ve recommended Ian’s site to so many people over the years. Such a great resource for such a simple task.
Personally I like Ian’s fast knot. Took me a few days to master but I’ve been using it ever since.
- Comment on Don't call it a Substack 4 months ago:
Yeah it’s a blog platform that has a variety of functionality built in, including their big one: newsletter-style email subscriptions. Everything can be optionally paywalled by the blogger.
- Comment on The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement 4 months ago:
Let them fight.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 months ago:
Less clickbait and more reblogging, but yeah it’s not a good piece. It attempts to set a little context but overall fails miserably to explain the complexities around this and fails to evaluate how much credence should be given to the original poster.
- Comment on DarkPattern.games » Healthy Gaming « Avoid Addictive Dark Patterns 4 months ago:
I just found a recent video from Chris Wilson that does a much better job distinguishing dark patterns from game mechanics some people might enjoy and shared it here: beehaw.org/post/23297295
- Submitted 4 months ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 0 comments
- Comment on DarkPattern.games » Healthy Gaming « Avoid Addictive Dark Patterns 5 months ago:
The core problem here is that the author(s) don’t seem to consider that not every game is intended for everyone, and instead seem to imply that if they’re not for everyone then some of the reasons they aren’t is a “dark pattern”.
I really cannot be exhaustive because there are so many problems. But I will try to give a few examples. Fair warning: As I wrote the below, I began to get a bit irreverent because reading the text is pretty upsetting so I needed to lighten my own mood. I guess maybe the authors here are using some sort of dark pattern? /s
“Some games have special events that occur during specific times. If you want to participate in the special event, you must play during this time window. Players who work or travel may be unable to play during these time windows and will miss out and feel stress.”
Many ARPGs that have fixed-length events that occur over a period of hours, days, or months. Some games (eg. Grim Dawn) even have these modded in by players. Are those players modding in a dark pattern? Maybe the author of this personally doesn’t like the idea that some people may be left out by work or travel requirements, but like, can’t the rest of us enjoy our game without being effectively told that work and travel come first, so therefore it’s a dark pattern?
“Some games use the time of day to change aspects of the game. Maybe certain items can only be collected at night. This forces people to play the game during times when they might not otherwise play.”
Like, don’t play a game during a time you don’t want to? There are game developers that would like to experiment with this type of mechanic.
" Some games use a mechanic called “Harvesting” which can be implemented in many ways, but in general the player starts an action that will take some long time to complete. The player must return to the game at some specific time in the future to collect the reward. Sometimes, the reward is lost if not collected in time."
Welcome to almost every city builder, management game, automation game, and so on. It’s perfectly fine if some people want instant gratification in your games, but some of us really enjoy these types of mechanic.
“Another way that developers implement an Infinite Treadmill is by continually expanding the game and adding new content. It might be possible to complete everything in the game right now, but soon the developers will release new levels and extend the game.”
So adding new content to a game is now a dark pattern? This is just way too general.
“Additionally, if someone is already bored with a game and a new event is announced, the player may stick around to see if the new event rekindles their enjoyment in the game in which they have already invested significant time and money.”
Oh no, boredom, we can’t allow people to be bored in the hopes that they find newfound enjoyment in an old favorite game.
“This is often combined with the Playing by Appointment dark pattern. For example, the team may have a raid or other event scheduled for 10:00am. Because players don’t want to let their team down, they may rearrange their schedule or play the game when they should be at work or doing something else important. A player on vacation may be desperate to find a WiFi connection so they can login and support their team.”
Oh no, some gamers treat their games like a social hobby with meetings and events, this must be a dark pattern.
"If the game allows you to share resources, trade items or send gifts to your friends or other players then it may be using the dark pattern of Reciprocity. The person who receives your gift may feel a sense of obligation to return the favor. They may not have resources to share, and so they may feel bad that they gave something valuable away, or they may feel shame or guilt if they do not reciprocate. These unwanted negative feelings make the game less enjoyable. "
Oh no the game encourages… sharing digital items? I don’t know where to start.
And then, the whole section on competition is a mess. Like yeah there can be problems with competitive games, but again it’s just so overly general. Oh no a kid who lost a game of basketball wants to play more to get better?
"For people who collect things, the collection can have significant emotional value. It may connect them to something that they enjoy or feel strongly about. Some people collect for the thrill of the hunt, others may collect because it gives them a sense of security or control. Others may derive great satisfaction from having a complete set and feel anxious when they are missing a piece of a set. “All of these psychological effects contribute to making you keep playing the game, even if the “playing” of the game is not enjoyable anymore.”
This reeks of “you’re not playing it right”. I’m not a huge fan of collection games, but I am close with people who really enjoy that style of gameplay. Thats WHY they enjoy them. Not because of some other “playing” the game, but because collecting things is playing the game for them.
I’m going to stop there.
- Comment on DarkPattern.games » Healthy Gaming « Avoid Addictive Dark Patterns 5 months ago:
I was pretty intrigued by this, because I actively avoid games that try to push me into doing things I don’t want to.
Unfortunately, after reading their descriptions of the various “dark” patterns, I am quite worried that this site could do more harm than good if it gets broad traction.
While it has a few notes here and there disclaiming people’s preferences and fun, mostly it heavily over-identifies “dark” patterns. It doesn’t make it clear enough to the non-gaming friends/spouses/parents of the gamer that these patterns aren’t by default “dark”.
It over-classifies many forms of difficulty, mastery, complexity, routines, socializing, and more as “dark”. I hope this website doesn’t gain traction in its current state, because if it does it could further a moral panic around many games that people enjoy. Based on their descriptions, this panic would likely be even more focused on games that neurodivergent people enjoy, because of course…
Moral panic about video games in the past has been an excuse to bully people, often kids in the past, but more and more adults as well.
- Comment on How Fortnite Friday Grew From A Bit Into An Institution That Could Pull Gavin Newsom [Aftermath] 5 months ago:
He was a decent mayor. Ran as a centrist in SF and pretty much governed as an SF centrist. He legalized gay marriage before it had clear majority support. He’d never make that type of move now. He was less terrible on homelessness as mayor than he is now.
- Comment on They Fell in Love With A.I. Chatbots — and Found Something Real 5 months ago:
Never expect journalism from NYT. They exist to manufacture consent for the oligarchs. Have since the Iraq War days. Probably longer.
- Comment on TheGamer website suffers widespread editorial layoffs 5 months ago:
Valnet is a scourge on hobbyist media
- Comment on Sony accuses Tencent of playing a 'shell game' with its Horizon-like survival game, seeks a preliminary injunction against it 5 months ago:
Do you have an example of a piece of intellectual property that was blatantly copied?
- Comment on Sony accuses Tencent of playing a 'shell game' with its Horizon-like survival game, seeks a preliminary injunction against it 5 months ago:
The fact that anyone is taking Sony even remotely seriously is absurd.
- Comment on Framework under fire for Omarchy/DHH/Hyprland support? 6 months ago:
When I criticize a fascist I can criticize that individual. When I want someone who advocates harm to be stripped of power, I can mean that person specifically. We absolutely must treat these people as individuals, but individuals can do bad things, they can be wrong.
Just because the powerful encourage hate speech and violence does not mean that it’s okay. Don’t forget the solution to the paradox of tolerance: don’t tolerate intolerance.
- Comment on As Xbox raises Game Pass prices, former FTC chair says it warned Activision deal would ‘harm gamers’ | VGC 6 months ago:
It’s meant to refer to the FTC.
- Comment on Scientists say X (formerly Twitter) has lost its professional edge — and Bluesky is taking its place 6 months ago:
They do still tend to ban hate speech. I didn’t mention it because it’s been like that since the start.
- Comment on Scientists say X (formerly Twitter) has lost its professional edge — and Bluesky is taking its place 6 months ago:
Couldn’t there be an association of professional societies that runs their own mastodon instance and can control membership and federation?
- Comment on Scientists say X (formerly Twitter) has lost its professional edge — and Bluesky is taking its place 6 months ago:
They banned a bunch of people including Jessie Gender (now reinstated) for mild criticism of the Harry Potter author.
They banned people for posting old (public domain) short films for fictional violence.
There was another ban wave when people were criticizing the hateful words spoken by that one guy who was violently killed.
There’s an explicit promise of an upcoming wave of noncon artists. (I’m personally not a fan of such art but don’t think they should be banned)
Some people have been reinstated, but the explicit focus on limiting speech has a real chilling effect.
I’m positive I’ve missed some from longer ago.
- Comment on Scientists say X (formerly Twitter) has lost its professional edge — and Bluesky is taking its place 6 months ago:
For real. They just can’t stop banning people.
- Comment on Parents outraged as Meta uses photos of schoolgirls in ads targeting man 6 months ago:
They’ve intentionally maliciously set up systems where “carelessness” leads to these malicious outcomes.
It’s not fail safe, nor fail secure. It’s fail evil.
- Comment on Comcast Executives Warn Workers To Not Say The Wrong Thing About Charlie Kirk | 404 Media 7 months ago:
Billionaire oligarchs