“it was not sexual in nature”

Censors

That’s basically blending it…

That said, we do know that water bottles sitting in the sun (i.e. heat + UV) causes leeching so I wonder about things like soda cans (not just the bottles). I would imagine that with tea bags with plastic present, boiling it and steeping for a few minutes would likely result in some contamination.

Which really makes one wonder… just why would you include plastic in something that will be ingested.

They used to have these for star wars and similar games. May not have come with a screen though

It definitely could be, it just seems like there’s a pattern of fallen leaves surrounding EA. Also, EA is great to work for, that’s why they are so bad. I know that sounds silly, but I mean that in the sense of they offer the developers so much and all the dev needs to do is add a little MTX here and there.

Then all they need to do is do it again, but maybe follow something that’s trending. Then see if maybe the full game could be cut into pieces, to sell as DLC. Then see if you can implement more MTX, maybe this time add some smoke effects that you can pay to change the color of.

That said to your point, NFS Heat has MTX that were so bad and hated that EA again like with SWBF2 got the message and didn’t include MTX in Unbound. I wouldn’t really actually mind them too much in a way but it’s also somewhat more of a core aspect to the game that having it is just so… Odd.

But that’s the thing about EA. Why did it happen again. Why didn’t they keep the message they got the first time from SWBF2. Or Andromeda with $100 payment options for a lootbox system to get you to spend more.

These were all before Heat released, and EA still was fine with doing it again.

And don’t even get me started on The Sims. They have broken and killed so many copies of sims games for people that there are cracks specifically to circumvent patches. They don’t want people playing older games so they delist them, release a patch to break it (I’m not even joking, The Sims Medieval), and the user has to move on or never the game they paid for again. It’s cruel.

So maybe a tree is just a tree. Or maybe it’s a pattern that’s ebbs and flows and EA toes the line of what they can get away with nickel and dimeing players before they throw a fit, all while leaving studios to rot while the IP they bring to EA is marionetted every 8 years, 3 if it sells well.

Not only does this behavior always return, but it encourages other companies to follow suit – and moreso when you learn that all these executives just swap between companies and EA owned 20% of Ubisoft for a edit:decade wasn’t deleted before I posted 6 years ('04-'10).

So those are some examples of what EA does, and I’m critical because they are good to work for, and their force in the gaming industry should not be the monolith of MTX but the big stick that delivers AAA games instead of junk that destroys a developers vision and standing with the gaming community while we beg for EA to get it through their thick skulls that games are better when you put passion into them. Anthem having flying be the best part of the game suggested by EA is like the bare minimum of what a leading studio should be accomplishing.

One last point that should indicate EA’s behavior is how they treated Star Wars games. When the mouse was breathing down their neck, they came out with Star Wars Squadrons without a single hint of microtransactions. The mouse was so peeved from the SWBF2 that EA wouldn’t dare add MTX.

And yet they don’t give that respect to their small studios. Bioware doesn’t get that pass. Dice doesn’t get that pass. Respawn doesn’t get that pass.

Anyway, hey: https://gamejobs.co/MTX-Software-Engineer-Intern-Apex-Legends-at-Electronic-Arts

EA has been hiring for Interns looking for Software Microtransaction Engineers. Still leading the charge in battle passes!

Sorry if this comes off as rambling. I’m trying not to.

This is what happened the first time around in 2016.

Bioware cancelled Shadow Realms because Mass Effect and Star Wars MMO was more profitable.

"Today I’m sharing some important news about Shadow Realms and our BioWare Austin studio. We’ve made the decision to not move forward with development of Shadow Realms. We fully recognize that this news is disappointing to some of our fans, so I want to explain more behind this decision.

"While the team did amazing work on the game concept and we got lots of great feedback from our fans at events and through other game testing, right now there are other projects for the team to work on within the BioWare studios for the coming year and beyond. We’ve got an incredibly talented team here at the Austin studio, and they are excited and already deep on new projects within the BioWare family, ones that will make some great BioWare games even better.

"These include additional ongoing enhancements to the award-winning Dragon Age: Inquisition, as well as the next game in the Mass Effect series and other new IP. But the biggest focus for our team in BioWare Austin will be on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. As every Star Wars™ fan knows, this is a massive year in the Star Wars universe. We have some great plans for expanding this epic game this year, and look forward to sharing the news about those plans with our players in the coming weeks.

Read between the lines. EA canned it so the studio would give us Andromeda and more Old Republic. Oh but sure, “it wasn’t EA’s decision”.

Big stick.

Are you familiar with the US foreign policy proposed by Theodore Roosevelt? “speak softly and carry a big stick”

EA may speak softly, but they carry a big stick. Bioware has clearly catered to EA, intentional or not, and their games have suffered from it.

Mirrors Edge was not a success either, btw.

DICE marketing director Martin Frain initially projected Mirror’s Edge to sell a total of three million units be sold across all platforms.[56] According to Electronic Arts, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions had combined sold over one million units by February 2009.[57] In October 2010, a court document pertaining to the legal conflict between Electronic Arts and Edge Games revealed that Mirror’s Edge had sold over two million units, with over 750,000 of those units having been sold in North America.[58] EA revealed the game had sold around 2.5 million units by June 2013.[59]

It took them 5 years to reach their initial projected sales, and that’s after combining every available edition. That’s a commercial failure.

They did still chase it with followup games, btw.

This was followed by Mirror’s Edge 2D, a browser game adaptation by The Fancy Pants Adventures developer Brad Borne.[41] A prequel to the game, also titled Mirror’s Edge, was released for mobile devices in 2010.[42]

Catalyst was going to be included, as it was shown at E3 in 2013 and 2014. And delay, delay, delay, all the way into 2016. Catalyst was quite literally EA chasing the money, because Mirrors Edge has only really gotten recognition long after its release – in terms of sales, and it’s availability on Steam really helped solidify it’s presence as a cult classic. The game of course was received well, it just didn’t sell (not much marketing and it’s not a game of the era, so to say, it is not an action heavy shooter game). So now after 8 years of letting this IP rot in development hell they said oh we can add some MTX and make another one, hm, let’s make it open world that’s what gamers like these days. It was actually decided in 2015 that it would be open world, since that wasn’t seen in any of the 2014 promotional. So 1 short year, since June 2016 is the games release.

Nah, I enjoyed parts of Catalyst but it’s a shell of its original. Dying Light and Ghostrunner are almost closer spiritual successors in regards to expanding on mechanics. The gameplay was the same but without any actual dynamics (gunplay wasn’t great in ME but it breaks up and gives variety), the writing was predictable and just really not that great, and that leaves new additions… Which you just avoid because it’s an open world and you only have running tools at your disposal. The mechanics of the game are horrible as well, inputs get dropped all the time it’s a huge problem. There’s just so little about the game that’s designed well, which is insane, because the game still accomplishes scratching the itch of Mirrors Edge, just very poorly.

No, what made Mirrors Edge great was the passion. It was a tight knitted and mechanically rewarding. These levels so carefully designed. Catalyst’s paths do not have the same care, they are just rushed together and it shows during the gameplay and how one path flows and the others are just ways you can go. There’s no depth and attention.

The developers freedom to pursue that passion was the very same thing that allowed Bioware to create the games they wanted to make (and like Bad Company 2’s story with DICE before dropping it entirely for multiplayer only).

BF3 may be a fine game, and 4, but you surely understand that they are copy pasted formulas that explicitly are not impassioned. What made Bad Company beloved was its improvements over the previous iteration along with its differentiation from MW2, on top of having a fair single player story. What made Mirrors Edge beloved was its direction and its gameplay. For both of these, these IP’s to EA became no more than how many zeroes they can generate. It’s a pattern with EA, from Mass Effect to Need for Speed to sports games to Battlefield. Once you have a formula you wait for it to be profitable to sell it again.

Mirrors Edge was received well but sold poorly. They tried to profit on some spinoffs, failed, 4 years later sort of began development and turned Catalyst into another open world microtransaction game without any of the heart that made Mirrors Edge work. Battlefield was mediocrely received until it did something better than CoD, then they focused on repeating that over and over, leading to BF3 and 4 and 2042, with the only “unique” Battlefield even available now being Battlefield One. Before Battlefield, it was Medal of Honor.

EA is a plight. I don’t know how you can say it’s not that bad and shift blame to the developers, that their games are their decisions. It’s just unequivocally untrue. Of course Bioware doesn’t have execs breathing down their necks, the execs are selling the game Bioware pitches to them - Mass Effect now with MTX. In that interview they literally even say, “EA wants to buy a company to do something well, if they ruin Bioware then they won’t get money. We make the games we want to make. They give input absolutely but we make our game.” Oh, and he mentions games, Shadow Realms, which never even came out because it was cancelled in 2015. And this is a video from 2013, so it may not have even been 2 years before this video with the timestamp you like is literally proving the point of the person asking the question (Q: Will Bioware be affected by EA’s acquisition; A: No, Bioware makes the games we want to make, EA wants money, EA gives input, Bioware makes the games we want to make) 2 years later, EA: Yeah, you can’t make that.

All that aside, I’m not really sure what the point of the video is supposed to prove… These people don’t even work there anymore if I remember right (head Bioware all jumped ship, no? I may be misremembering)? EA has the big stick. If you devs don’t follow them, you won’t be a dev at EA anymore. The devs at EA are inherently trapped because you cannot expect your game to be made unless it is within the expectations of the publisher, and thus you see the problem. When you pitch to EA, your creative work is already compromised. You think Bioware made the game they wanted to make with Andromeda? Anthem? Psh, Shadow Realms?

EA bought Bioware in 2007/8. EA killed Bioware in under 10 years and is now playing with its corpse. Literally 5 years after the acquisition is this video, the game of which he’s referencing 2 years later is cancelled and 2 more after that Andromeda releases. I really, really think you have mischaracterized EA and their relationship with their studios. EA is very hands off, yes. But they speak softly to you. And they carry a big stick.

You, too, would compromise your passion when working for this studio. It is actually impossible not to, by design.

I lived near EA’s SF studio for many years, that’s really honestly the main reason I even bothered to reply with something this lengthy. I know many former devs part of studios both made with and acquired by EA. It’s insane, they would be a great company to work for in so many ways. But their business practices ruin all of that. The last 20 years of EA being awful are true, just because you can point to BF2BC and say how could they be bad, you can also point to Madden Fifa and SWBF2. EA perfected this practice of seeping out the creatives from the studios long, long before Bioware was bought out.

Tbh I haven’t had windows updates break anything for about a decade now. It’s been really stable, the only instability has been Window 11 looming in the distance.

I’ve been playing Marvel Rivals since it came out and I’m hooked, lol. It’s such a good blend. I put a lot of time in Paladins but it’s been a long time, so it’s nice having a little group of friends to play with again. Solo queuing also has been pretty good overall, but once in a while there’s a team that is clearly better and it’s just a stomping ground for 5 minutes.

It’s also funny how heavily it’s being compared to overwatch when it’s just hero shooters as a whole, and OW is hardly the closest match lol

Marvel Rivals, because it just came out so it’s fresh in people’s minds, it’s a free to play game with a popular IP and it does a good job as the game it wants to be.

Mostly kidding, that just seems to be the state of games these days lol. Whatever games release at the beginning of the year seem to falter to recency bias of games released later in the year.

Dev = working on game

Dev = game developer

Dev = whatever fits until further clarification is needed based on context

Game development requires writers, artists, coders, so they’re game devs. Could it be more specific? Sure. Does it always need to be? Certainly not.

You may as well have typed this in 2009 or 2015.

It used to be that people argued that it’s worth getting the new game console because “better graphics”. The console wars hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s just expanded.

In any case, in regards to just installing a game and playing it, no, not really. When I was playing games in college in 2012 it was still a time when you would open a game and go to the settings menu to adjust settings.

Sometimes it was just turning off motion blur, but there was always settings to change to try to reach a stable 60FPS.

Nothing changed, it just expanded. Now instead of 60FPS it’s a variable 60-240FPS. Instead of just 720p-1080p resolution, unless it’s portable, it’s 1080p minimum otherwise variable up to 4k. Instead of “maxing out” we now have raytracing which pushes software further than our hardware is capable.

These aren’t bad things, they’re just now 1) slightly marketed, 2) more well known in the social sphere. There isn’t anything stopping you from opening up the game and going right away, and there’s nothing stopping other people from wondering about frame timings and other technical details.

Sure, focusing on the little things like that can take away from the wider experience, but people pursue things for different reasons. When I got Cyberpunk 2077 I knew that there were issues under the hood, but my experience with the game at launch was also pretty much perfect because I was focused on different things. I personally don’t think a dip here and there is worth fretting over, but some people it ruins the game for them. Other people just like knowing that they’re taking full advantage of their hardware, hence figuring out the utilization of their components.

There’s one last aspect not mentioned. Architectures. 10 years ago games would just boot up and run… But what about games from 10 years before then? Most players not on consoles were having to do weird CPU timing shenanigans to be able to boot up a game from (now 20) years ago. We’re in the same boat now with emulation, which while emulation is faring better, X360/PS3 generation games that had PC ports are starting to have issues on modern Windows. Even just 5 or 6 years ago games like Sleeping Dogs wouldn’t play nice on modern PC’s, so there’s a whole extra aspect of tinkering on PC that hasn’t even been touched on.

All this to say, we are in the same boat we’ve always been in. The only difference is that social media now has more knowledge about these aspects of gaming so it’s being focused on more.

The one thing I do agree with though is that this is all part of software development. Making users need better hardware, intentional or not, is pretty crazy. The fact that consoles themselves now have Quality vs Performance modes is also crazy. But, I will never say no to more options. I actually think it’s wrong that the console version of games often are missing settings adjustments, when the PC counterpart has full control. I understand when it’s to keep performance at an acceptable level, but it can be annoying.

Toxic behavior being normalized leads to other people acting similarly.

I mean, “haha screaming so funny, I do same thing cause I want to be funny”

I agree with the other user who said it’s a writing problem e.g. choosing the immediacy of end of the world plot device. Unless it’s done with very specific circumstances, like Overcooked 1 where the first level is the Spaghetti Monster Apocalypse and then you jump back in time through a portal. I think Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a good example of this exact problem the article raises though. It’s a relatively short game, but there is no end of the world. There are 2 major events, your destiny as the Arisen to fight the dragon that killed you, and the in-world politics of a government and some corrupt individuals working to prevent this event for their own plan.

I mention this game primarily because it uses a mechanic that many completionists tend to dislike - there are “timed” quests. Not all of them, usually ones that make sense to run out of time on (but again, not all of them.) So for example, at one point there is a quest to attend a masquerade ball, which is a permanent main story quest until you choose to attend. This is the exact issue the premise of the article brings up, where time is infinite until you decide to continue.

And yet, at the same time, there are a few quests where you may encounter a random NPC who is asking for help for someone who goes missing, and if too many in game days pass by, well… They die.

Ultimately I had other pacing issues with the story, but I did really enjoy how it goes about “solving” urgency when an in-game world timer exists. I’ve never been the biggest fan of time-managed items, (for example, raw potato, ripened potato, rotten potato over the course of 1-3 days), but Dragon’s Dogma 1 and 2 both did it fairly well since the items that do expire 1) make sense, it’s food, and 2) are in fair abundance. It helps solve the hoarding of your items, gives you a little extra money if you sell it as the right phase, and allows for varied item combinations as well (raw+item = curative, ripe+item = stamina, rotten+rotten = oil for lantern or status effect combinations).

I think really the issue just comes down to what is fun gameplay mechanics? Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu for PS2/Gamecube had timed levels, a mechanic that makes sense for a game centered around saving people before they kill hostages. Star Ocean had an in game timer matched to clocks, so the only way to stop the timer was to turn off the game. After (24?) hours, it’s game over. Quite frankly… timed mechanics are usually seen as gimmicky and are not very popular - they may have moments of appreciation, but I’m not sure if it’s a beloved mechanic.

Which in turn results in, “I have you now Spider-Man! In just 8 hours my bomb will blow New York to high heavens!” And then the player goes to help every child get their balloon back before the main story progresses.

I know what you mean, like Twitch emoji Pepe’s.

I think because of the time that has passed, there’s a demographic that uses him without knowing and I think the stickers definitely are part of that. However I don’t think that removes culpability, it’s just how different generations interact with different words, or in this case meme.

And really I think what it comes down to is when meme becomes tied to identity. Sad Pepe is relatable, feel a connection to the character, see what other memes he can do, before you know it your discord emoji Pepe is a pipeline to normalizing political extremism.

Like how some subcultures create a pipeline to fascism, like cottagecore and tradlife. It’s not necessarily that all Pepe, all tradlife, brings you into the path towards fascist ideology, but that many of those with fascist ideology are drawn towards Pepe and tradlife, which then make engaging with content surrounding those subjects suspicious.

Pepe in abundance is just something to be wary of. I don’t think it’s wrong to use him on discord or twitch chat, but I am more suspicious of people who identify with him heavily and I keep an eye out for the type of memes and rhetoric that they use. Chances are high that it’s innocuous, but given his history I’d say it’s better to be aware than to think nothing of it.

Last thing, for me it’s mostly just odd because when I look up Pepe memes, so many of them are terrible. Not just bad memes I mean, like hateful and awful. Sad Pepe is pretty much the exception here, as in normal meme I still see him and it’s used pretty in-line with what you would expect from normal memes.

Tl;Dr - sad Pepe or Pepe emojis on twitch/discord = probably okay. Identifying with Pepe or making Pepe memes = maybe I’ll be keeping a closer eye on what exactly you’re trying to say

Whereas IMO Valve should make it very clear that swastikas will be reviewed, and any Nazi swastikas will result in an immediate ban, whereas use in the legitimate meanings will not be (and that they will take context into consideration, i.e. user location, other profile info, past handles, discussion comments, etc etc).

The only thing I worry about this is then the de-legitimization of the cultural ones. All this would do would get fascists to start putting their profiles from the country’s where it’s deemed acceptable. I have no numbers for this but I feel like the number of people who have a cultural swastika are vastly, vastly outnumbered by the number of people who use it as a symbol of hate.

Pepe was a neutral meme. He is not anymore.

https://beehaw.org/comment/4105872

The sad reality is that he is a politicized figuredhead for fascism. You can try and use him, but you need to be aware of how others use him, and it will end up reflecting more poorly on you than it will help reclaiming him.

I suggest looking the links on my comment linked, but at the very least on your own look up, “Pepe meme Putin”, and “was Pepe at January 6th”. People are using him to storm the capitol and dressing him up in an iron cross to assassinate political figures. That’s not just casual memes :(

I say this as someone who grew up with his era of memes (my first memes were icanhazcheezeburger which was the precursor to RageFu). I remember his good days too man.

But Pepe got Alex Jonesed. He got assaulted by the MAGA cult and they put him on a cross like Jesus and now he’s dying for their sins. I don’t think we can save him.

I feel like you had to be there. Frankly, the pepe symbol was co-opted so whether you like it or not, you should be cognizant of its history and how people choose to use it.

Every point the other user is making - the iron cross, the swastika, the SS, people know even if they weren’t there because of how apparent the symbols were and why they were used.

Then there are dog whistles when it became wrong to hold hateful beliefs and people started using combinations of the numbers 1488 or two H’s simultaneously. Pepe was co-opted and used as 4chans alt right mascot and spread out beyond it, into internet campaigns for fascism (not just pro-Trump). That’s the thing about co-opting symbols, fascism doesn’t care what they stand for, if they like it, it’s very difficult to keep it safe. A prime example of this is the fictional, known cop-killer Frank Castle, The Punisher, being co-opted by cops and white supremacists. His logo should instill fear into the fascists heart, instead his logo has been the conservatives wet dream since the 1980’s, and was seen in 2017 during Charlottesville.

Pepe’s usage dying down because people were getting sued doesn’t mean that it suddenly stopped being used by shitty people, it just means it’s swept under the rug with all their other dog whistles. Post 2016 Pepe was abducted and reused just like every other hate symbol. Fascists are never creative enough to make something of their own so almost every single symbol that’s currently tied to the ideology has been stolen.

I would say that you are right that post 2016 Sad Pepe isn’t 100% alt-right, but to be honest these style of memes do not last very long. Each generation of meme lasts about 3 to 5 years and they only really last in that generation of people who enjoyed them. That is to say, kids on the Internet now don’t know Pepe’s history. Would they use him? Maybe, except definitely not because they don’t use memes like that, Gen Z and Gen A do not use TopText BottomText memes, character memes, old RageFu memes.

Memes of today have variations of GigaChad and the anti-NPC (they don’t know I’m ____, or crying behind the mask) which are developed RageFu characters. Pretty much only Sad Pepe exists in this sphere and isn’t entirely co-opted, but even then, Sad Pepe is also commonly used on boomer Facebook for posts when men hate their wives.

I agree that it sucks to lose something to fascism. Pepe didn’t deserve it. But like all memes, his history ran its course and he won’t be used in many new ways anymore. The people who are still using him are using him for specific reasons beyond just nostalgic meme. But who knows, memes cycle. Maybe he will be brought back with a new vigor for anti-Nazi memes created by leftists. Until then though, all you need to do is just look up various events and “Pepe” and you’ll see a whole new side of Pepe that maybe you hadn’t realized. Pepe and Elon, Pepe and Trump, Pepe and Putin… Okay I went to Google that last one myself out of curiosity and literally an Iron Cross Pepe sniping Hillary Clinton. I WISH I WAS MAKING THIS UP.

I suggest, “was Pepe meme at Charlottesville 2017” and going to images. Another good choice would be “was Pepe meme at January 6th”.

Pepe was not present in 2017, but it shows you the type of memes he’s used in. Pepe however, was present in D.C. on January 6th. Sorry for the BuzzFeed article but it had the image.

You can defend Pepe all you like, I know that in his heart he is not a hate symbol. But Pepe is being used as one, so you need to be critical of when you see him and why. It might be completely innocent, but you must know that the chances of that are low. At least now hopefully you aware of his history and why others are skeptical and critical of his usage. Other meme characters don’t get dressed up to play political hitman. Other meme characters aren’t as heavily used by conservatives

Sadly it’s like that for pretty much any game.

On the bright side, a lot of them are bots just trying to influence real people. Unfortunately, it is people who made these bots who probably do have that hatred. And of course, not all of them are bots…

Remember to check the discussion board posts themselves (each comment), if there is a mouse icon, it means they own/play the game. If there is no mouse icon, they do not.

With this in mind, you’ll notice the bot propaganda posts 90% of the time have not played nor own the game. At least on Steam, they may have pirated the game to play it, then decided to post on discussion boards about how empathy and recognizing of othe- sorry, “wokeness” is killing gaming.

It’s so stupid how hatred stifles discussion. Ironically hating the things just makes them focus on it more.