“Typically, when a customer purchases a hacked console or the circumvention services, Defendant preinstalls on the console a portfolio of ready-to-play pirated games, including some of Nintendo’s most popular titles such as its Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid games.”

Yeah, that’ll bring the hammer down every time.

We can argue about the legality and morality of mod chips all day long, but building a business on distributing pirated software (and software that’s still being actively sold, at that) is a legal slam dunk.

In a just world, your friend would be able to create as much art as he wants without having to worry about who is paying the bills.

Anyone who works in games development or publishing can tell you that the success of any given game is largely down to luck.

It’s perfectly possible for a dev to make all the right decisions and still lose, and in fact that’s what happens the majority of the time.

Yes Hollow Knight is a great game, but I guarantee there are dozens - if not hundreds - of games that are just as good but only sold a handful of copies and are doomed to languish in obscurity in the dusty corners of Steam.

Yes, there’s less in terms of there being fewer overall discussions going on. Proportionally, though, I’d say Lemmy feels very similar to Reddit in terms of hivemind circlejerking and hateposting.

A previous press release says they have the licenses for TNG, VOY, and DS9, and they plan to ‘deliver a deep, story-driven game that puts players into the captain’s chair’ 🤔

I think the sad reality of so many recent games being locked to the meta store is because meta are one of the only remaining publishers still willing to throw money at vr games, in exchange for exclusivity of course.

Because it’s impossible to get the execs to approve a 23-episode season of almost sitting these days, let alone sci-fi, but one of the (many) criticisms of Discovery was that it was lacking the more offbeat episodes and character pieces that helped define Trek’s golden age.

Rock and a hard place.

Feels like we’re a few moments away from someone unironically suggesting Steam start allowing people to just mail them cash.

Much like Rick Berman

Doesn’t something similar to this happen in one of Jack Vance’s stories?

I can’t imagine a way of remaking DA:O for modern audiences without losing what made it special to begin with.

Directed by Frakes too!

Speaking from experience: in many cases, they’re cliche because project managers, producers, and execs insist on writing achievement names & descriptions instead of letting the writer(s) do it.

It’s happened on almost every game I’ve worked on.

They get a kick out of having a tangible contribution to the finished product, and in most cases seem to believe they’re actually being funny and original. It’s easier to just let them have it.

Tell that to all the smaller studios that have already been decimated and forced to close because of their publishing/funding deals falling through over the last couple of years.

You don’t hear much about it because they’re smaller and/or working on things that hadn’t released yet, vs the occasional big media splashes from companies like MS doing more layoffs, but indies and AA are being gutted too.

It’s comforting to believe that only the biggest companies are struggling, but the industry as a whole is currently in active collapse from the inside out.

The approach isn’t what became a joke, it was the absolutely unhinged way in which it was presented in that famous Ballmer stage appearance.