If cloud gaming is all that’s available, read books, go for walks, hang out with friends instead. Do what we did before the internet. Do not let them win, stop using it.
I said the same for Amazon (personally ordered 1 item from Amazon, received maybe 5 items from Amazon as gifts, I otherwise do not use them but I am 1 insignificant point well outside the graph) and expect the same results
Certain hobbies just aren’t supported locally anymore. And if they are they’re at ridiculously inflated prices. I always check nearby first but 90% of the time I end up ordering online. Half the time when I do, the place I order from charges 10-15 dollars for shipping, or redirects to Amazon to complete the order anyway.
I put a lot of work in to not using Amazon, and frequently find myself with little else in the way of choice. I fucking hate it.
I feel you there. I have said this from the beginning but everyone said I was overreacting and here we are, and they are in it up to their eyeballs. Even my gf orders a ton from there, thankfully I have few needs and am a bad capitalist
read books, go for walks, hang out with friends instead
Still time to learn.
You of today can’t help being illiterate today, but you can make it so you don’t stay illiterate. Unless you’re like blind or something, in which case get rekt by us deaf folks
But how will they ready this uplifting message?
Dunno, how they on a text based site?
You wouldn’t be suggesting they’re a damn dirty no good liar, would you? :P
I just have questions…
They can’t understand what you’re saying
Remember, things got this shitty because most people were fine with Big Tech gradually making things shittier. I look back and realize I’ve been waiting for the One Enormous Dealbreaker for over a decade, but consumers keep moving the red line.
I don’t think it’s just the ignorance of consumers. Big tech knows a lot about how to activate our endorphine centers. Things seem to be great and then gradually enshittify. It’s a bit like the metaphor of the frog in hot water.
Oh, most definitely. They have teams of people with degrees in psychology for this exact purpose.
For everyone being all fatalistic and the whole ‘there is nothing you can do’ approach. Vote with your wallet. No money for them means no power for them.
We are the customer, not their bitch. If they don’t provide value, they receive none in return. They go broke and someone else will provide the service we all want.
No way the junkies will quit playing early-access AAA titles at any point, no matter the cost.
So there remains a market for that content, just like there is a giant market for free low effort mobile games with micro transactions.
Can still seek out and reward passionate projects that clearly actually care about their output. Those projects may not get the same obscene revenue, but they frequently get a viable amount and consistently get recognition for just how well done they are.
Steam is cool and all but I think I’m going to go with GOG a lot more going forward.
And I’ll never stop buying discs for consoles
I wonder what percentage of disc-based games for this console generation are unplayable without at least a one-time Internet-connected update.
11%-49% depending on platform and qualifiers https://www.doesitplay.org/
Don’t forget a good chunk of them are borderline unplayable without an internet update.
Many of them are just a key to download the game.
The only reason you should ever cloud gaming is building your own cloud, e.g., with Moonlight, Steam Link.
Im a late 80s early 90s gamer so I don’t know what any of that means
Imagine accessing your own PC remotely from a different machine like tech support does occasionally but instead of fixing stuff you do it to play games. That way you can use your gaming rig in another room or on the go without physically moving it as long as you have fast internet on both ends.
Think: X-Server forwarding over LAN
Can run on a tiny computer, all your games and saved on local disk, compatible with retro achievements org, save state hotkeys, use basically any USB controller, etc. I use it more than any modern console I’ve bought in years.
I’d rather play only board games and TRRPGs for the rest of my days.
I miss having people that I can play board games with
What happened to them?
most of them have spouses and kids now.
Can you pull off the thing where families interact commonly? Like close family friends or whatever?
I know making friends is hard, but that’s all the more reason we should work hard to keep the ones we’ve known for a long time.
My biggest regret is going with 32 of instead of 64GB of DDR5, when I built a new Ryzen 7000 PC in 2022 to replace my aging 4th gen i5.
But what I don’t regret is ignoring everyone telling me not to do all sorts of unspeakable things to snag a $1600 4090 at launch, especially given that it was never sold that cheaply ever again. It’s a beast of a card and I’ll easily get a decade of gaming out of it. Saw 4090s going for over $3K used on eBay lately, so yeah I’m happy with making what was a dumb decision at the time.
I also regret going with 64GB 3200 instead of 128GB 3600, which I thought I would just save up for.
GPUs were already hardly available.
Unfortunately, 4090 is already going into the obsolescence by power cable fire hazard territory. Keep your eye on it as it ages.
It’s been over 3 years now and I haven’t had a single issue. I made sure to plug in the 12VHPR cable all the way and avoid bending it. I also made sure to buy a top tier PCIe 5 PSU.
The issue was vastly blown out of proportion. Don’t be an idiot and you have nothing to worry about.
As a fellow owner, that’s what they want us to think. Feel safe, but then out of nowhere your house burns down and then you have to buy a new card.
There’s a couple of nice safeguards you can buy for your 12VHPWR connection now. There’s even load balancers. I just wouldn’t leave my PC on and unattended with one of the new cards.
I can’t lie, I saw some eBay listing for 4090s when the 5090 came out for like 1300 and was tempted.
IMO the only thing the cloud is useful for in this context is maintaining and syncing saves. Other than that I want my games running locally, thank you.
There’s more old, retro and indie games out there than you could ever finish. If the situation will get worse people will start sharing install files on offline media like decades ago with movies. Don’t worry, it’s going to be great.
Imagine paying some rando to rent their computer. You can totally trust them, right? They’re not in the Epstein files, right?
Before we even say what company, I know I’m not betting a single penny that they’re not.
If there is no ownership then there is no stealing/pirating by sailing the high seas.
Meanwhile me playing on linux
The death of Stadia was so enjoyable for me
Buy your games on GOG and own them forever. You can also buy a cheap, slow as hell external drive and backup your installer files, too. You can still buy games on Steam since most of them don’t have DRM. For now, Steam is also great, but a decade from now they could enshittify.
If you only do console gaming, buy physical cartridges and discs as much as possible. You’ll keep most of the game and can play whenever you want. An example of being able to play “most” of the game applies to games with legacy activation servers, such as Splinter Cell Blacklist and Watch Dogs 1. Most of the game is playable, but anything that requires a connection to that activation servers no longer works.
Finally, scour Craigslist, flea markets, and yard sales to buy old game consoles from before this DRM mess. All those old games still work great. If you buy Wii U, 3DS, and Switch 1, make sure to boot your console and every single game at least once every few years. Yes, every single one of your games. Due to NAND volatility, this will protect your games and console (Wii U) from NAND failure and increase longevity.
Edit: removed Nintendo DS from the list I provided. Nintendo DS does not use NAND; rather, the DS uses mask ROMs which does not have the limitation of NAND volatility.
Wii U, DS, 3DS, and Switch 1
Pretty sure this didn’t apply to DS
Confirmed, my comment above is inaccurate as the Nintendo DS game cartridges do not use NAND; rather, Nintendo DS cartridges use mask ROMs.
Edited my comment above to remove that misinformation. Learned about this stuff years ago and I must have lumped DS into the mix.
