Quoting: GuestAlthough I was never interested on Harry Potter, I'm split on the issue of boycotting writers that are racists or biggots. Cuz if you follow that rule, that some ppl call it "cancel culture" you have to wipe out the majority of recent and not so recent writers and artists sadly.
I guess that if a new lord of the rings games is released I would personally buy it. I'm my book the first book we should start burning is the bible and other religious books, that's the number one problem causing more wars and injustice more than anything else. Since that won't happen ever.. I will pretend JK Rowling or Tolkien are normal persons and carry on .

It isn't just about not reading a book because the author is or was a bigot. JKR actively campaigns for harmful policies, so giving her money to spend on making your and your pals' life worse is... not great. She also uses the popularity of her works to prop up her platform, regardless of whether the stories on their own are bad. We are talking about someone that had previously won a human rights award for writing beloved children's books, and then had it withdrawn for her bigoted campaigning.

It is quite different from discussing long dead authors, or even living authors that express some bigoted opinions in their private lives or in an interview but don't use the works to advertise a platform of hate and ignorance.

It also doesn't mean everyone's positive feelings and personal experiences with the fiction are invalid and you must hate it or else. Nor that the works must be forgotten and never read again. But knowing these problems is important, so it must be discussed, and it is more than understandable that people whose lives are made meaningfully less safe by the author will have strong negative feelings about it. It doesn't make them book burners or anything like that.

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Another increase? They were already dead to me since the previous one, so I guess whatever. CK2 is still plenty good and Paradox can burn for all I care.

Again, in case someone doesn't already know: exchange rate has shit all to do with purchasing power in different places, so no regional pricing isn't people getting the game "cheaper". Nor is the decision based on either of those (exchange rate or purchasing power), but rather on maximizing revenue (sales times price) - so they just figured they would make more money from the extra price than from the lost sales. For digital distribution, cost is not an issue. Indies would do well to stick with Steam's recommended regional pricing, as Steam definitely has way better marketing data than they, but AAA usually have their own.

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Damn, those are some great looking games, in a lot of different visual styles. Wishlisted a lot of them.

And they also have a great variety of genres and types of gameplay; besides the obvious retro RPGs, roguelites and platformers (obvious because they are all the rage in the indie scene, nothing wrong with it), there are strategy games, city builders, rhythm games, card games, pong... 2d and 3d games and even VR. Really good to showcase Godot.

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Quoting: bepopOne sale event less is better for consumers? Since when? Do you like paying more for games?

It is not less events, it is more evenly spaced out events. Instead of having the big sales on November, December and early February, it is now November, December and late March.

I expect there will still be a minor sale in the same date, just as often there was some sort of spring sale but it was not as "good" as the big seasonal ones. But they flipped which is the bigger sale.

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I have to admire EA. I didn't think they could make their stuff even shittier, but clearly there is no limit to how much engineering effort they can put into their UX (user exasperation).

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Quoting: scaineI think I've mentioned in previous posts about DLC - I actually think Paradox gets this mostly okay. Sure, there's TONS of DLC content for their previous games - hundreds of pounds worth in fact (although only about 5 so far for this title). But no-one is forcing you to buy these, and the model allows you to buy only the bits you think you'd love.

Paradox surely isn't expecting anyone to download every pack. So provided that the packs you ARE buying are good value, then I think that's a pretty nice way to get more play time from a game you obviously love.

Maybe I'm just used to the board game model. These DLC packs are about giving you extended value from the initial investment, rather than making you wait years and then fork out for Crusader Kings 4.

I strongly agree. I always put up with the high price because it was just honest - I liked most of it enough that it was worth spending a fair bit of money, and when I didn't (say, the EU4 expansion Mare Nostrum, which I just can't see the point of) I ignored it. Some DLC was annoyingly bad or badly priced, but I can live with that. And I liked the granularity, even back when portrait packs and unit packs and music packs were separate. xD

Quoting: scaineIf you don't think the price hike is justified, you don't buy it. I don't get the hate (like comparing Paradox to the likes of EA or Blizzard). This isn't an insidious gambling ploy, like loot boxes. It's definable content you get to play for a price, which extends the value you get from the original game.

Sure, argue about the price (or value), but we can't compare this to gouging.

Now on this, I think increasing the price post-release is a bit deceptive - you buy into the game with a certain expectation, and then the cards change. Because part of the "honesty" of the model is knowing roughly what to expect: you know they are going to put out a large amount of DLC, which means a certain amount of replayability at a certain cost. Making the future DLCs more expensive certainly made CK3 less appealing for me, and if I had bought it I would have been at least annoyed.

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I'm overjoyed that it seems to be coming to Linux after all.

Though with the price I'll wait not just for a 75% sale but for a humble bundle with all DLC. Paradox games are expensive enough on the long run without the base game being this expensive.

Apparently it is mostly their new, fucked-up regional price, as it is still US$50 same as CK3 - but in BRL it 75% more expensive than CK3 was on release (R$165 vs R$94) and 37% more expensive than CK3 after the price increase (R$120). So... ouch. I'd rather get half a dozen good indies (at least) for the same cost.

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For games I think it would not be sensible, but I wonder if this could be the solution for people that need Microsoft Office on their machines and would want to migrate. It is "work" software where unreliability can be catastrophic, and people who are already willing to pay for an office suite might be willing to spend an extra money to... well, to not use Windows.

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Hmm, I had heard the news second-hand and was wondering why the heck a chat app needed anti-cheat. Seems like a really dire situation.

Of course, there must be a better solution so that people can use mods - ideally a better infrastructure so that people can use whatever compatible client without causing the problems, but if they just implement a modding system that is comprehensive enough it should be alright. But I can see why they needed an immediate solution, even one with severe downsides.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeMagic the Gathering 100% ruined all deck building games for me. Then again, I am still waiting for the INWO one to release...

CCGs and deckbuilding are very different things though - a "deckbuilding game" is a game where adding and removing cards to your deck is part of the game, not just a game where you build a deck out of your collection and then play with it.

It comes from boardgames like Dominion, but on videogames roguelite deckbuilders became a kind of new genre after Slay the Spire. Deckbuilders usually have you go through your deck several times, don't have a minimum deck size (in fact, removing cards to make the deck more consistent is a big part), and you are usually given a pick between limited options rather than "your entire collection" - and those often cost an in-game resource, as opposed to having a "meta-game" (it's as if you bought cards with mana instead of money, because it happens in-game...).

Not that this bundle seems to care, as neither Gwent or Cultist Simulator quite fit (for different reasons). But when people mention "deckbuilder", don't expect anything at all like MtG.

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