Endymion_Mallorn
@Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
Just a nerd who migrated from kbin(dot)social.
- Comment on After More Layoffs, Unionized IGN Workers Are Done Picking Up The Slack: "We feel greatly understaffed and undervalued" 3 hours ago:
I've already paid for it. I bought a TV, a radio, multiple computers, and I pay a subscription (much to my chagrin) to access the Internet and the Web. And yes, I have looked into the cost of a single-purchase backbone, but it didn't work out in my favor.
- Comment on After More Layoffs, Unionized IGN Workers Are Done Picking Up The Slack: "We feel greatly understaffed and undervalued" 5 hours ago:
Oh. Good for them, I guess. I've never heard of them. Heck, the only one of those i ever heard about was Giant Bomb, and what I knew was that they died and got rebooted.
I guess it's a good thing that some people are willing to whale for media figures. I won't bother, because I don't give enough meaningful data to be part of a valuable product in the older world - then again, I also still watch TV by antenna and listen to terrestrial radio most of the time.
- Comment on After More Layoffs, Unionized IGN Workers Are Done Picking Up The Slack: "We feel greatly understaffed and undervalued" 6 hours ago:
Like the Spartans said, "If."
- Comment on After More Layoffs, Unionized IGN Workers Are Done Picking Up The Slack: "We feel greatly understaffed and undervalued" 6 hours ago:
I've never heard of that company. What's their quarterly ad revenue? I don't mean their minor hobby nonsense on Patreon or the scraps they get from Google & Amazon, I mean direct ad rev from studios or the like. Also, what's their average visibility on Metacritic? Do they get counted as a "professional" outlet with pull quotes, or are they in a category that doesn't count?
- Comment on After More Layoffs, Unionized IGN Workers Are Done Picking Up The Slack: "We feel greatly understaffed and undervalued" 9 hours ago:
I have a very dim view of their content and that of their staff past and present. That's just a note to begin with, so my own bias is clear. IGN isn't an independent reviewer, they'll gladly say anything that gives them ad rev - and the few times that they don't need to cozy up to a certain publisher, you get scores like their infamous God Hand review, which is wildly inaccurate. They're in the business of marketing and advertising, not meaningfully independent journalism.
I believe that they're big enough that the games industry executive teams believe they're too big to fail, and they will continue to receive ad rev as long as they keep Metacritic scores where the publisher wishes them to be. I believe that the "AAA" studios are deluded into thinking that there's any relevance to review scores that aren't the Steam reviews from 6 months after the game releases, or the appropriate storefront page per platform. That group of greed-driven suits are their real audience, not the people who aren't paying. Remember - if you aren't paying, you're the product.
I do believe that they will be able to have a contractor write a prompt along the lines of, "Write a 1500 word article in the style of IGN's game reporting based on [game press package], which will lead the reader to consider a score of [x] to be justified.", yes. And as long as it keeps the Metacritic score where the publisher is happy, the ad rev rolls in.
And that's all that matters to them. Only if the ads stop selling will they even begin to take notice.
- Comment on After More Layoffs, Unionized IGN Workers Are Done Picking Up The Slack: "We feel greatly understaffed and undervalued" 14 hours ago:
You're probably right that it's weird. I think most of my amusement comes from the way that those of us who are powerless delude ourselves into believing that we can be powerful - but no matter how you count it, zero times two is still zero. And I've just realized, they probably won't hire that many contractors, they'll test out LLM slop first. If it sells ads at the same rate, they'll "phase out" the human side over time. The corp ideals will put profits over people, always. They'll take the obvious path, because they care about one metric: profit.
- Comment on Anon is a fact checker 14 hours ago:
My parents had church when they were my age.
There's the thing I think many of us have been missing. I expressed to my group of gamers that our multi-table Friday night one-shot group was our version of church before the pandemic broke out. We don't have a community and we don't trust the greater institutions, and it's driving us mad because we are fundamentally social creatures. We need that time together in a shared experience. It doesn't matter what you're doing together, but it's what we live for. Sports, church, board games, art, it doesn't matter in specific. What matters is the community.
- Comment on After More Layoffs, Unionized IGN Workers Are Done Picking Up The Slack: "We feel greatly understaffed and undervalued" 15 hours ago:
Okay. so it'll be amusing when IGN decides to pivot to 1099 contractors and terminate these employees as well.
- Comment on The Techlords and Their Ideology Are Mortal Enemies of Humanity 16 hours ago:
Techlords? Wait I've heard this before.
No, wait, that was the Teklords. But they're still evil enemies of humanity that need to be destroyed.
- Comment on What is "human husbandry" called 1 day ago:
Eugenics and slavery.
Note that those are widely considered bad things.
- Comment on Anon is a fact checker 1 day ago:
Fair enough, but I'm sure there's an alternative.
- Comment on Anon is a fact checker 1 day ago:
I don't really have a way to deal with that. I have my own issues, but I do fight past them to try being social whenever I can. The biggest thing I can say is to find groups who do voice & video chats more often.
- Comment on Anon is a fact checker 1 day ago:
That's the hell of it, but if you feel lonely at a base level, I suggest you try to find or start community events. You'd be amazed how effective Meetup is.
- Comment on Anon is a fact checker 1 day ago:
Yup. the sexual loneliness epidemic is easing up, because we're all fighting back to 'normal'. But ask most men this simple question: how many non-sexual friends do you have in your life that you communicate with more than once a week?
- Comment on BEAR MODE 3 days ago:
Rachel deserved better.
- Comment on The average age of Disney princesses is 505y. 4 days ago:
The avalanche definitely ups her count some.
- Comment on The average age of Disney princesses is 505y. 4 days ago:
Then Ripley should count too.
- Comment on The average age of Disney princesses is 505y. 4 days ago:
Okay, but Kidagakash skews the average so sharply that she's proof of the need for weigthing.
Also, are Alice & Jane actually considered princesses? Jane is Lady Greystone and I could accept her for that, but Alice is just a kid. And if direct adaptations count, why not Wendy? Why not Tiger Lily (who counts if Pocahontas does)? Or Dejah Thoris, the titular "Princess of Mars"?
- Comment on What’s even the appeal of Linux? 5 days ago:
It's free and runs stuff good.
- Comment on Sony is raising all PS5 console prices in the US by $50, starting tomorrow 1 week ago:
Then decrease the demand by reducing what you buy and the lifespan you demand of the hardware and software.
- Comment on Sony is raising all PS5 console prices in the US by $50, starting tomorrow 1 week ago:
I mean, there's that too.
- Comment on Sony is raising all PS5 console prices in the US by $50, starting tomorrow 1 week ago:
Getting into that case also gets into pedagogical theory, because giving kids primarily analog entertainment compared to digital seems to be beneficial. I was talking about those of us adults who are already doomed. We have computers. We already have machines. We don't need the new one.
- Comment on Sony is raising all PS5 console prices in the US by $50, starting tomorrow 1 week ago:
Quality is exactly what we need in games machines.
Not meaningless iteration and oppressive corporate greed. The 2600 was a quality machine - you can still find working VCS consoles in the wild - and when they fail, it's usually something that can be fixed by the owner of the console. It doesn't die because software tells it to die, or because of a known manufacturing fault where a simple fix was ignored because it wouldn't have been profitable. The same can (mostly) be said of NES, SMS, MD/Genesis, SNES, and even TG16/PC Engine.
Beyond that, I expect that 32-bit machines and forward should still work, even if disk rot is affecting the ones that weren't cartridge based.
- Comment on Sony is raising all PS5 console prices in the US by $50, starting tomorrow 1 week ago:
My PC is not a "gaming" PC. I play games on it. I have access to a nearly 50-year library of games. Just because I don't have the newest and shiniest doesn't mean I don't have tons of fun games available. And I said 'if you need a console at all'. If you are determined to play video games and you don't want them on a PC, phone, or tablet, then fine. There are thrift stores, there's eBay (though that's loaded with scalpers and scum even more than the thrift grifters), there are many ways to buy a used console. But I also stand by the thought that if what you have is working and being fun, keep using it. If the corporations have made it not fun, either go to older hardware they can't do that to, or get homebrew set up.
Don't just keep it on a shelf "in case". Don't store it. And for the love of anything good, don't just discard it.
Reduce. If you think you've reduced "enough", find something else to reduce.
- Comment on Sony is raising all PS5 console prices in the US by $50, starting tomorrow 1 week ago:
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Reduce comes first for a reason.
You do not need a PS5. You don't need a new console - if you need a console at all.
- Comment on Discoverability is the industry’s "Achilles’ heel," marketing survey finds 1 week ago:
I will highlight the existence of shareware, freeware, and other indie physical distribution channels. Both IBM compatibles and other PCs had "homebrew" scenes, not dissimilar to the "indie" scene today. The Amiga is still noted for the PD offerings it boasted. Many of the big companies now started as Indies. So, no.
- Comment on Discoverability is the industry’s "Achilles’ heel," marketing survey finds 1 week ago:
Almost like things were better when we bought physical goods, instead of slop inside a program.
- Comment on Permian Park 2 weeks ago:
That would still be cool.
- Comment on Permian Park 2 weeks ago:
I would genuinely be more interested in seeing animals from before The Great Dying.
- Comment on If suffering is good because it gives life meaning, wouldn't it follow that hurting people is good? 2 weeks ago:
Yes, that's what a lot of rich people think. They're helping people build character by acting like monsters.