Useless gaming news & chatter

[Rendakor]

I keep pronouncing it 'poke' (not 'pokee') and giggling because it's a sex joke. Like, mentally replace 'poke' with 'fuck'.

Going to hit up a couple fuckstops on my way to the fuckgym.

I'm 8.

It's actually pronounced Poke-ay-mon.

[Fabricated]

One of the main Youtuber type people who called WB out on this shit was TotalBiscuit of all people.

Also again, weird game to shill for. Shadow of Mordor was actually really good and I enjoyed it a lot.

[Soulflame]

Nintendo to release a NES, preloaded with 30 games.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/07/surprise-nintendos-next-console-is-the-nes/

[HaemishM]

And apparently it will not allow you to add to those 30 games ever. What the fuck is the point of that?

[koro]

Especially when a thumb drive of essentially any size can get you the entire library of every single console released up until the PSX, and isn't particularly hard to get onto a TV.

Edit: That said, if we didn't live in a world where accurate emulation of consoles made before 2000 was completely trivial, the list of titles included with the thing is actually pretty decent. It's missing the best Mega Man title (III) and doesn't have a Dragon Warrior, but it's not bad.

[ezrast]

Someone's going to figure out how to use that thumb drive to replace the console's ROM within, like, a week.

Although these days I guess it would be easier to just gut the whole thing and stick a Raspberry Pi in there.

[Sky]

"Nintendo to release a NES case for Pi"

[Merusk]

You all assume far too much technical knowledge and "give enough of a fuck to do it" motivation on the part of the public.  $50 to relive your youth with no additional effort on the part of the purchaser. They're going to sell like hotcakes.

Atari did the same thing several years ago and THOSE sold like hotcakes. You can run Atari games on your goddamn mouse's processor if you really wanted to. That's the thing though. Nobody want to put in the effort, we only want the product.

[Sky]

Now we got fukkin robot mice!?

[Kail]

It's really maddening to me to see Square and Konami licensing stuff like Final Fantasy and Castlevania out to this shit when we STILL don't have a legitimate way to get them on the PC, where emulation is so easy people are doing it for free as a hobby.  I kind of assumed Nintendo was doing this to it's first party titles on purpose to keep people buying DSes or whatever, but like 80% of their catalog isn't available there either, last I checked.  For that matter, I'm not sure how the margins on manufacturing and distributing this $50 tchotchke are going to be that much more than just tossing an emulator on Steam for like $15 that they can sell for as long as Windows exists.

Like, I don't WANT to pirate your stuff, guys, but I am not hunting down a thirty year old copy of Battletoads plus system plus cables and adapters and then going through the effort of hooking all that shit up just to relive some nostalgia.

[MahrinSkel]

One of the main Youtuber type people who called WB out on this shit was TotalBiscuit of all people.

Also again, weird game to shill for. Shadow of Mordor was actually really good and I enjoyed it a lot.

I actually just started playing it (Steam sale), and it is awesome. But with budgets hitting 6 9 figures routinely, you can't expect marketing to leave this stuff up to chance, they'll do any and every thing they think they can get away with.

--Dave

EDIT: My innumeracy has dyslexia

[Sky]

Has nobody mentioned the Tell Tale Batman game that's coming out soon? Seems like if they stick to the detective side it could be really nice.

[Yegolev]

Or QTE hell.

[Margalis]

So one of the CS Go gambling sites that had to shut down apparently took all the money / skins people had in their accounts and made off with them, then changed their web page to be a link with instructions on what to do to recover them that leads to a YTMND-style page that plays the "How could this happen to me" song with some crying face emoticons.

[Falconeer]

New Kojima Productions logo movie.

Subtle.

[Falconeer]

So one of the CS Go gambling sites that had to shut down apparently took all the money / skins people had in their accounts and made off with them, then changed their web page to be a link with instructions on what to do to recover them that leads to a YTMND-style page that plays the "How could this happen to me" song with some crying face emoticons.

We haven't talked about this before, but I feel like it's time. Or if anything, it's time that someone enlightens me about what the hell is going on there.

My problem: some skins are bought and sold for more than $1000. What the hell, and why? Sure, I can answer myself about humans being fucking idiots and crazy and all that, but this seriously confused me, maybe because it's about one of the most popular games in existence and yet it isn't discussed or known too much. Like, everyone has heard about it but so many don't really have a clear idea of how big this is. I remember when people were (rightfully) outraged by the MechWarrior $500 gold skins, and in the meantime people are buying and selling skins more expensive than Star Citizen's ships. I don't have a point and I am not bashing on anyone (certainly not Valve as they are not the ones making the prices if I got this right), but this skin, for example, is traded for around $1500. Or this one-of-a-kind knife, reportedly sold for $23000. Why, why, why? Why humans, why?

We have often discussed stories about people dumping money into Star Citizen. I am curious, do you know anyone who bought some expensive CS:GO skin? I want to talk to them.


EDIT: Found this video answering some of my questions.

EDIT 2: Building the Content that Drives the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Economy, by the Valve employee responsible for the skins.

[apocrypha]

humans being fucking idiots and crazy and all that

Watching that video that was the only conclusion I could come up with. Young humans particularly.

"My M4 looks nicer than yours so I'm cooler than you" and "This kid wants something I have and he can't have it, so I feel better about myself". Sad, damaged people. Counterstrike was right there at the dawn of mass internet gaming and look what it's become. Tawdry, tainted, exploitative.

There's a Karl Marx quote, that I can't remember exactly and my Google-fu is failing me, but it says something like "Every human endeavour, whether for work or recreation, becomes corrupted and twisted by capitalists in order to extract profit from it somehow". Every hobby and pastime can become about money somehow, about how to extract as much of it as possible from rubes, CS:GO and Star Citizen being the thin end of that wedge at the moment.

[Cyrrex]

About a year or two ago, one of my boys lucked out a little and got a semi-rare knife drop, which he managed to sell for something like 175 dollars on Steam.  He then proceeded (against my urging to the contrary) to it blow every last dollar on more of these fuckstupid crates full of bullshit, and got absolutely nothing of value out of it.  The whole thing was mind blowing to me, and that was relatively small value shit.  I am so glad none of them are playing CS:GO anymore, what a goddamned nightmare that period was.  It is kind of like scratch tickets for kids, but it is even worse because of the pressure of having cool stuff to show off.

[Merusk]

If it exists, someone will collect it. If it's rare more people will want it, just to possess it. Humans are kind of broken that way from a modern society standpoint, but it's deep-rooted behavior that's not going anywhere. Best defense you have is to be aware of it and teach kids about it.

With regard to the actual gambling sites, they've been going on for quite some time. Valve only released the C&D a few weeks ago, which makes me think someone alerted the government after the brew-up about the guy pimping his site on his very-popular YouTube channel. At that point they had to do something, or else be complicit.

The fact they let it go on for so long, AND that they provide such idiot 'rarity' mechanics proves what bad actors Valve are in general. I get that they're loved but they're a pretty terrible company in the way most tech companies always have been.

[apocrypha]

The fact they let it go on for so long, AND that they provide such idiot 'rarity' mechanics proves what bad actors Valve are in general. I get that they're loved but they're a pretty terrible company in the way most tech companies always have been.

See this is the thing that confuses me the most about it all (and other issues). As you say, Valve are a terrible company. They regularly turn a blind eye to questionably legal practices that revolve around their business - the huge credit card chargeback fraud being another example. They make wild promises and never deliver on them, eg. 'We will improve our customer support!', what 2 years ago now and silence since then. Paid mods, Steam Machines, Half Life 3, Greenlight, their history is littered with failure and bullshit, and yet Gabe Newell is revered like some kind of bloated, glistening god.

People love themselves some corporate hero worship I suppose. It's like a shitty, fatter Steve Jobs kind of deal.

[Sky]

I don't get the Gabefan stuff, but honestly Steam is the best thing to happen to PC gaming. So I give them a break on the other nonsense, most of which doesn't affect me.

[Margalis]

It is kind of like scratch tickets for kids, but it is even worse because of the pressure of having cool stuff to show off.

Japan passed regulation of video games that use gacha mechanics. It will probably come to the US at some point.

Tons of games now either have a gambling mechanic worked into their core gameplay or as a separate reward layer on top. Not just a randomness mechanic, but a gambling mechanic that encourages real money spending.

In Valve's case they also provide APIs and such to make trading and turning items back into real money fairly easy, which is why where are so many CS Go betting sites. And Valve knows exactly what it is doing - they have smart people who fully understand the consequences of their actions.

Twitch and esports are the new hotness, but these are also super shady. A lot of esports teams are sponsored by shady people, team up with shady advertisers. Big streamers support gambling sites, grey market key resellers, bullshit ping-improving software, totally unregulated paid fantasy sports sites, etc.

When I look at big mobile game conferences they are like 30% gaming and 70% gambling oriented, and the language they use has little do with with traditional game making. It's all about identifying whales, developing optimally addictive reward schedules, etc.

[Falconeer]

That's the thing about Steam and Gabe Newell: 99% of the things Valve is doing wrong do not affect 99% of Steam users. Hell, they don't even know about it. Steam is a product that brings a lot of joy and very little problems. To the vast majority, Gabe is a great man because his creation is all they wanted and needed. Apple much? Not really as this is a product that did not exist before and has no valid alternative at the moment so the appreciation is not mystical, it is based on facts.

[MahrinSkel]

There are a lot of small game companies that wouldn't exist or survive without Steam, which translates into a lot of well-regarded and active members of the video game business that don't want to see Valve in general or Gabe in particular taking any hits.

--Dave

[Trippy]

That's the thing about Steam and Gabe Newell: 99% of the things Valve is doing wrong do not affect 99% of Steam users. Hell, they don't even know about it. Steam is a product that brings a lot of joy and very little problems. To the vast majority, Gabe is a great man because his creation is all they wanted and needed. Apple much? Not really as this is a product that did not exist before and has no valid alternative at the moment so the appreciation is not mystical, it is based on facts.

That looks like English but I have no idea what you just said.

[schild]

I don't know what's happening here, but Steam is the most important thing to happen to gaming besides graphics companies deciding "drivers might be important" at some point in the early 2000s.

Gabe is a fucking mess and so is Valve. But Steam is excellent.

[Merusk]

Nobody's harping on Steam. The sentiment of ire was aimed directly at Valve as a company.. then Falc felt it was about Steam, somehow.

IDK. Crazy town.

[Falconeer]

Not really. Probably not in my best English, but if you dare to read my post again you'll see that I used Steam to explain why Gabe (and Valve) is liked by the masses. And that was a reply to Apocrypha's and Sky's messages a few posts above mine.

People love themselves some corporate hero worship I suppose. It's like a shitty, fatter Steve Jobs kind of deal.

I don't get the Gabefan stuff

[Rishathra]

That's the thing about Steam and Gabe Newell: 99% of the things Valve is doing wrong do not affect 99% of Steam users. Hell, they don't even know about it. Steam is a product that brings a lot of joy and very little problems. To the vast majority, Gabe is a great man because his creation is all they wanted and needed. Apple much? Not really as this is a product that did not exist before and has no valid alternative at the moment so the appreciation is not mystical, it is based on facts.

That looks like English but I have no idea what you just said.

Thanks for the update to my sig, Trippy.

[Sky]

http://marvel.com/news/video_games/26503/sdcc_2016_marvel_ultimate_alliance

Re-releasing MUA 1&2 for PS4/XBone/PC. Possibility of MUA 3 hinted.

[lamaros]

Valve only shut it down because they got sued. It was a sad indictment on them and on a lot of people involved in "professional" CS:GO.

[Merusk]

As I suspected. It wasn't them being made aware it was a "shit we need to protect ourselves" move.

[Kail]

I dunno, it seems like kind of a tough position for Valve.  If they run around and shut everyone down preemptively, they're the Big Evil Corporation pissing all over their own customers who aren't even doing anything wrong.  If they wait, they're the Big Evil Corporation who doesn't care that their customers are being taken advantage of until the lawyers get involved.

[lamaros]

I dunno, it seems like kind of a tough position for Valve.  If they run around and shut everyone down preemptively, they're the Big Evil Corporation pissing all over their own customers who aren't even doing anything wrong.  If they wait, they're the Big Evil Corporation who doesn't care that their customers are being taken advantage of until the lawyers get involved.

Because shutting down the ability of illegal gambling sites promoting to children to trade skins via steam would be wrong, right?

Fuck that, it was a moral disgrace, illegal, and they should be deeply embarrassed they facilitated it and didn't step up to do the right thing until someone threatened to take them to court over it.

[Kail]

Because shutting down the ability of illegal gambling sites promoting to children to trade skins via steam would be wrong, right?

Fuck that, it was a moral disgrace, illegal, and they should be deeply embarrassed they facilitated it and didn't step up to do the right thing until someone threatened to take them to court over it.

I don't know enough to speak about morality or legality here.  But I am pretty sure that if they'd shut these sites down three months ago, there'd be no end of wailing from the people who DID use them about how Valve was just throwing it's weight around for no reason and now their fun hobby has been ruined by greedy corporate control freaks.  Or something.