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reddit: nico_is_not_a_god pokemon romhacks: Dio Vento
- Comment on Capcom isn't worried about PlayStation and Nintendo shrinking the physical games market: "90% of our unit sales are digital" 1 week ago:
Piracy is the most consistent and solid form of preservation, definitely. Well technically piracy is a subset of “DRM-free software” which is the true holy grail. To preserve software, it must be able to be copied instead of tied interminably to something perishable like a disc or single hard drive. And piracy needs to be happening during the release windows of the software, not “be respectful and wait 5 years” - the only reason retro console libraries are as well-kept as they are is because people were dumping games to play for free back in the day.
Those Wii redownloads are tied to specific console IDs, and those console NANDs are just as vulnerable to damage or deletion or loss as normal physical media is. They’re even worse than account-based DRM’d media since account-based media at least tolerates hardware damage or loss (but not account bans or service EOL). Thankfully, every digital purchase on Nintendo platforms other than Switch 2 is fully preserved and made available. This would be impossible if Nintendo’s anti-piracy measures had ever worked for an entire console generation. Switch 2 games, on the other hand, are currently “loseable”. You might be reasonably sure that Nintendo will never delist DK Bananza until (insert threshold where you think it’d be acceptable here) but game preservationists also care about game versions.
- Comment on Capcom isn't worried about PlayStation and Nintendo shrinking the physical games market: "90% of our unit sales are digital" 1 week ago:
Game key cards (and discs for update-reliant or online-focused games) are in a weird place. The main reasons people claim to care about physical games are “preservation” and “used games” and those don’t actually overlap.
From the preservation standpoint, GCKs and discs that don’t have the whole game are both pretty shit. There’s an argument that buggy broken v1.0 is better than nothing and that’s objectively true, but neither of these things provide actual software preservation in the face of (for example) storefront closure or account banning. GCKs and all discs are useless for preservation of online games, of course: what are you doing with that Highguard or Concord disc? A further argument is that even a complete game burned to a disc that relies on DRM isn’t truly preserved as it won’t outlive the death of the DRM boxes themselves, when every Nintendo 3DS dies you’re not going to be able to play that pristine physical copy of Pokémon Moon.
A completely different appeal for physical games is simply the ability to resell. Your gaming budget goes a longer way if instead of spending $60 three times to play three games, you’re spending $45 three times and also selling the games for $30 after you’re done with them. You could play ten first-party single player Nintendo games legally on the Switch for $0 if you always bought used and sold the used copies for the same price you bought them for. Game-Key cards and discs for incomplete/online-only games do facilitate this perfectly, though GCKs lose all value when the CDN of the storefront closes and discs only lose most value in this situation.
- Comment on Capcom isn't worried about PlayStation and Nintendo shrinking the physical games market: "90% of our unit sales are digital" 1 week ago:
That assumes every single disc buyer becomes a person that doesn’t ever buy capcom games. Given the margins lost on each physical sale (licensing fees, manufacturing, shipping, the retailer’s own markup), as long as half of those disc enjoyers become digital purchasers Capcom has already lost nothing.
Additionally, how many millions per year are spent on used Capcom game discs? If literally every used Capcom buyer stopped ever buying Capcom products, Capcom loses $0. If any percent of those used game buyers becomes willing to pay full price (or hell, digital on-sale price), that’s more money in Capcom’s pocket to offset losing true physical media diehards.
- Comment on Capcom isn't worried about PlayStation and Nintendo shrinking the physical games market: "90% of our unit sales are digital" 1 week ago:
For a console storefront operator like Sony, there’s more nuance because “Sony games” and “exclusives” aren’t direct value generators. The value they generate is in getting “give sony money for monthly subs and non-sony games machines” in customer’s living rooms. Taking the losses inherent in physical/used copies makes financial sense if it drives platform dominance. For Capcom, who doesn’t operate a storefront or platform, it’s just about how many sales, how much money per sale (changed by platform fees, disc manufacturing costs, and DLC postpurchases). A used game without DLC is $0 for capcom but is a sale. That’s worse than a pirate being $0 for capcom but would maybe have been a sale.
- Comment on Capcom isn't worried about PlayStation and Nintendo shrinking the physical games market: "90% of our unit sales are digital" 1 week ago:
“Voting with one’s wallet” isn’t an action you take. “Gamers as a whole” have been voting with their wallets against disc games for over a decade. On PC, there was barely an outcry as brick and mortar stores stopped being part of the games experience. On consoles, people have been installing the games on HDDs since the Xbox 360 since actually running the game off a disc incurs atrocious load times. Gamers have accepted and paid for DLC. Gamers have accepted and dealt with day-one patches that render the data on the physical disc obsolete.
Hell, gamers as a whole chose to purchase the discless PS5. Gamers as a whole subscribe to PS+, Switch Online, Xbox Live, Gamepass, etc enough that it’s shifted the value model of the medium. “Not buying a product” isn’t nearly as much of a political statement as the wallet-vote drumbeaters think. Not buying the product is the default. Am I “boycotting” ubisoft when I haven’t purchased a Ubi game since Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time on the Gamecube? Sony’s Playstation 4 and 5 never appealed to me as a platform or product. There might be a shakeup or protest where people that do regularly give Sony (or whoever) money stop doing so, but that’s always going to be a drop in the bucket. Hell, the customers that buy physical (especially used) games for PS5, don’t buy digital and don’t pay for Plus are the least valuable customers for Sony anyway. Sony makes $0 a year off that guy where they make hundreds a year from a dude that literally just pays for ps+ and the newest COD.
The “wallets have voted” and the result for Sony is overwhelmingly “yeah, you’re gonna do just fine without disc diehards”. Games preservation purists already aren’t console customers because modern consoles are designed exclusively as anti-preservation ecosystems. The remaining reason to care about discs is the used copy trade, and that’s the same as piracy when it comes to the company. Worse, even, since there’s an entire industry and market surrounding “how to play zelda without paying nintendo” legally.
- Comment on Capcom isn't worried about PlayStation and Nintendo shrinking the physical games market: "90% of our unit sales are digital" 1 week ago:
Aside from attaching DLC to the purchase, a used-game buyer is “supporting” Capcom as much as a pirate is. It’s even worse than a pirate because a lot of pirates would have never bought the game anyway but a used game buyer clearly signals a willingness to spend money on the product. Just, yknow, less money. Turning a dude who would pay $40 for your thing into a dude who’d pay $60 is a lot easier than turning a dude who’d never pay a dime above $0.
- Comment on Capcom isn't worried about PlayStation and Nintendo shrinking the physical games market: "90% of our unit sales are digital" 1 week ago:
I voted with my wallet hard enough years ago that I’m no longer part of this “wallet vote”. I haven’t purchased a console game since Animal Crossing on the Switch, and haven’t purchased a physical one since Mario Odyssey - the only reason I did that was to dodge updating the console, so that I could do things Nintendo very much does not want a user doing on their console. I’ve never owned a Sony console except for a ps2, and never Xbox since the 360. My preferred platform, PC, has been used-games-free and physical-copies-free (CD keyed installers are not physical copies for any definition other than “is pretty on a shelf”) for decades.
If the glorified DRM key for accessing the digital game (in the form of day 1 patches and postlaunch content) finally dying is what raises awareness of consoles being a hostageware platform, so be it.
- Comment on Capcom isn't worried about PlayStation and Nintendo shrinking the physical games market: "90% of our unit sales are digital" 1 week ago:
Margins exist on physical games, especially as a third party. Capcom probably takes home some ~$25 per $60 disc game for PS5, less for a $60 Nintendo cartridge, and $42 per $60 digital game on PS or Steam. Lose a full half of those 10% of players but turn the other half into digital buyers, you’re barely short of breaking even. Then consider how many used game buyers you turned into people that actually pay Capcom for Capcom games.
Plenty of customers buy physical because hey, at the same price why not? That doesn’t mean they’ll stop buying Zelda or GTA or Resident Evil when Capcom/Sony takes the option away or Nintendo makes the download cheaper than the physical object (as it always should have been).
- Comment on PSBLACKOUT (boycott of PlayStation) 3 weeks ago:
1: nobody’s going to do it
2: this is completely boneless. It’s not even calling for people to cancel their PS+ subscriptions.
- Comment on MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls appears to block SteamOS / Linux 3 weeks ago:
They can Tōkon deez nuts.
- Comment on MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls | Open Beta Trailer 4 weeks ago:
Tōkon deez nuts
- Comment on Sword Art Online being a primarily single player series 5 weeks ago:
I mean, if it’s actually an MMO the kind of person that likes SAO won’t be able to have fun being the only overpowered god tier main character in the entire universe.
- Comment on Kernel Anti-Cheat Is an Overreach 1 month ago:
Right, now get it “generally doable” on a device with phone level specs and universality (plus a three cent cable) and watch online competitive gaming crash to the point where there’s genuinely no rational argument for installing spyware.
- Comment on Kernel Anti-Cheat Is an Overreach 1 month ago:
This is why I hope that cheats end up being MITM attacks with ai slop in control. LLMs can easily do basic pattern recognition, so a device that can “look” at the screen for you and click on people’s heads would be trivial to produce with no software running on the actual game device. Get that popularized and the only excuse for rootkit anti-cheat evaporates. I’d rather live in the world where people cheat at video games than the world where the average gamer has 5 rootkits on their system just to protect “competitive integrity”.
- Comment on Am I just bad at games??? 1 month ago:
That ten minute boot time is not normal. Something’s very wrong with your PC, especially if other games or programs have minutes-long launch times.
- Comment on Game Reveals kind of suck now .. 2 months ago:
No point in watching the ad parade when 80% of the games are hat stores or GAAS slop and 90% of the remainder are remakes and remasters. The games worth your time and money are ones you’ll hear about when they’re released.
- Comment on "We're determined to win justice for the 31 fired workers" - Rockstar Games workers publicly launch union, as legal battle with the GTA 6 maker rages on 2 months ago:
If any workers in the games industry have the power to disrupt, it’s the GTA6 guys. This game is industry-warpingly big, other multimillion dollar projects are being delayed or rushed just to “not have to compete” with GTA6 and GTA6 isn’t even launching on all platforms. Threatening to cause another delay if demands aren’t met could actually work if they stick to their guns.
- Comment on Destiny 2 is dead: "active development" ends next month after one final update, but Bungie says the MMO will still be "playable" 2 months ago:
Yeah that’s kind of the point with dark patterns. That’s not a term I made up either.
- Comment on Destiny 2 is dead: "active development" ends next month after one final update, but Bungie says the MMO will still be "playable" 2 months ago:
Dark patterns are dark patterns, even if “the community” is more or less happy. Just means that it’s working. Being owned by Tencent actually does give them the freedom to “just be profitable” instead of squeezing each player for more and more revenue YOY, but the game still uses every retention mechanic in the book and leverages fake value by putting the MTX currency on “really good sales! Look how good the limited time deal is!!!” to keep people shelling out.
Tencent is diversified enough that they’ll probably never feel the need to tighten the screws on the Warframe studio directly.
- Comment on Destiny 2 is dead: "active development" ends next month after one final update, but Bungie says the MMO will still be "playable" 2 months ago:
Both chicken and egg situations say the same thing: live service GAAS is unsustainable at best and garbage at worst
- Comment on Slay The Spire 2 Getting Review-Bombed Again After Latest Update 3 months ago:
They made Slay the Spire 1, right? They pushed the anti-infinite changes to main after getting review bombed for a beta patch, right? I’ve seen some people say that the readjustments in the beta are “compromises” to placate the whiners, but it’s much more likely that they used their experimental weekly beta patch to “overnerf” and “overbuff” so that dialing in the final changes becomes easier. If the right number for some value in your game is a 7, you find it faster by changing the 10 to a 5 and then buffing it than you would by incrementally nerfing it one by one.
- Comment on Slay The Spire 2 Getting Review-Bombed Again After Latest Update 3 months ago:
We can have nice things because mega crit doesn’t need to care about steam reviews at all.
- Comment on Anon misses flash 5 months ago:
If you like these narrative driven games especially Disco, you owe it to yourself to check out Esoteric Ebb and Many Nights a Whisper
- Comment on Anon misses flash 5 months ago:
If you browse on itch.io by popularity and go down the list until you find one you’ve never heard of (or never played, if you want easier standards) that’s where the “newgrounds culture” is nowadays. Plenty of stuff that works in browser for free.
- Comment on ‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront 5 months ago:
Yeah, but if you can remove negative reviews text but not the contribution to “mostly positive” or whatever, the audience has to take it on faith that you “only censored the racists don’t worry. We’re getting brigaded”
- Comment on ‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront 5 months ago:
This solves the current problem but reintroduces the one that steam reviews exist to solve: giving the game’s developers control over the most visible discussion channels for the game allows for removal of negative reviews or user backlash. Think about how bad subreddits can be about “removing toxicity” after a GAAS cranks the monetization dial up when the devs are on the mod team.
- Comment on 6 months ago:
Cloud saving people is a pretty core mechanic of FF7
- Comment on How Are You Guys Handling This? 7 months ago:
You trusted your ability to play games to a subscription service that’s now a scam at $20/mo. The thing is, it was also a scam at $10, or $5, or “first three months free with Discord Nitro”. Your options post-Gamepass are to buy your games or pirate them. Being on a Mac exclusively, with no access to Windows/Linux based hardware complicates things further. This is the consequence that subscription services and proprietary vendor-locked software have on the hobby. It sucks that you’ve been personally enshittified on, but there’s no “answer to your question” other than “mac kinda sucks for native gaming, and cloud gaming is a scam”.
- Comment on How Are You Guys Handling This? 7 months ago:
Never paid a subscription in the first place.
- Comment on PS5 ROM Keys Leaked: Sony’s Unpatchable Security Nightmare (2026) | The CyberSec Guru 7 months ago:
Ps5 pro, ps5 slim, ps5 digital edition? Nintendo Switch (Erista), Nintendo Switch (Mariko), Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo Switch Lite?