Relatedly, he may also try and chase the RPG market. Apparently he got
pissed off by the badmouthing Gygax got in a book about the making of
Dungeons and Dragons that painted early RPG material as anti--woke.

D&D was wholesome (despite attacks from the Satanic Panic). It didn't need to be trashed by anyone.

So, as you may already know, I have a Steam Deck which I bough in order to play non-steam games. Yes, I am a weirdo, I know. In any case, a friend of mine told me that since I finally have a gaming computer (of sorts), I could start picking up freebies from Epic.

For those who don't know, Epic is a videogame store that is known for giving free videogames away quite often. By this, I mean that usually they hand a videogame away per week, and on special holidays they might hand out one every day. They are paying game publishers so they can offer the game in the handout programs, just because they want to entice players to register an account with the store.

Am I the only one who thinks this is bonkers?

Most free games offered through these programs are quite mediocre, but even if you only get a good game every two months, you can build a respectable videogame library and play to your heart's content without paying a dime ever again.

This has made me realize the videogame industry seems to be in a sharper decline than I thought. Publishers are willing to accept scraps from Epic - probably because they don't sell that much - and Epic will rather buy users and lose money because otherwise they would not get any.

It is starting to look like the book industry, in which a small number of people makes an actual profit and 95% operate at heavy loses.

Thoughts?

I don't keep up with the industry, but I will say that all of the video games I still play came out in the 80s and 90s, only a few in the early 00s. I don't even remember the last time I actually purchased a video game. Anyway, my point is, I'm not doing my part to help the situation.

2024-12-27 00:43 from zelgomer
Subject: Re: Freebies, and the sustainability of the videogame business

model.

I don't keep up with the industry, but I will say that all of the video

games I still play came out in the 80s and 90s, only a few in the early

00s. I don't even remember the last time I actually purchased a video

game. Anyway, my point is, I'm not doing my part to help the situation.

If you want to be truly hostile, you should get that Age of Rifles match going XD

So, I have been playing Fallout 3 at today's videogame orgy with friends. For those of you who don't know, Fallout 3 is a videogame about nuclear war survivors trying to make the best out of a nuked America.

There is a side quest in which a guy, who is building up a museum of American History, tasks you with finding the Declaration of Independence. It turns out it is located in the National Archives, which has been overtaken by radioactive supermutants. Once you mop the floor with them, if you manage to access the security vault, there is a very nice surprise awaiting for you.

It turns out the Declaration of Independence is being guarded by pre-war
robots, leaded by a robot who believes himself to be Button Gwinnett himself. Their first reaction is to try to crush you because they believe you are filthy Brittish, but soon you can formally talk to robot Gwinnett and establish some negotiation talks.

There are many dialog options to carry the negotiations. You can try convincing him that you are Thomas Jefferson, for example. What we did was convince the robot that King George was after the Declaration of Independence and that we could foil his plans if we made a false copy and sent it instead. He bought the plan alright and we somehow ended up convincing him we were an agent from the Congress.

That part was cool because after the robot hands you the false Declaration of Independence, he asks if there are new commands from Congress. You can tell them the Congress have ordered them to self destruct, and all my friends wanted me to pick that option. I told them instead "The orders are to protect the Declaration of Independence." The answer was "Now they will only take it if they pry them out of my cold dead hands."

The whole thing was so cheesy MAGA it was epic. The museum guy took the fake none the wiser and was so happy about it.

"This is no mere scrap of paper, sir. This is the doctrine laid down by my fellow members of the Second Continental Congress. It absolves us of the tyranny of King George the Third of Great Britain. It is perhaps the greatest symbol of this free nation."

Last time they tried to launch a patriotic videogame here they shut it down :(