I’d love to see more developers with this attitude.

Atmosphere? Love it. Dread? Great! Darkness? Tolerable. Jump Scare? No thank you.

Jump scares are like the fart jokes of horror. Cheap thrills, low craftsmanship, and turns people off of the market.

And that’s not to say I don’t appreciate the occasional jump scare. They can be tastefully made, or used sparingly. Less is often more with these, and it helps add to the tension knowing it might come up again. But if they’re just non stop they lose their payoff quickly.

I agree that it’d be nice if they depreciated in value like in the days of physical media.

In those days though, the store only has a certain amount of shelf space. So in that sense it makes sense that they depreciated because a new game is always going to have a higher perceived value.

Digital storefronts don’t have that problem. The game can be shared infinitely without accruing a ton of publishing costs. There’s always more shelf space.

In this sense, there’s no financial motivation to depreciate. And we all know the social responsibility of big companies will be to only do what they’re forced to do.

We often feel games ought to depreciate because that’s how it’s always been. But just because that’s how it’s always been doesn’t mean that’s how it always will be.

Battlefield is an interesting case though where each game in the franchise is highly derivative of the previous game. So if each new game is essentially an upgrade of the previous one, then I’d agree that there should be an expectation that the older version is less expensive.

The same could be said about many of the giant titles. Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, and most major sports games come to mind.

One final thing to think of is that many games have continuing development. It’s basically the early access model (a whole other can of worms), and you could argue that many of these games appreciate in value. Some notables have - Factorio comes to mind.

I don’t think Battlefield 2042 falls into that category though

Discounts on games creates a sense of urgency in the buyer, as most discounts are temporary. Since discounts are often shown on the front page of a storefront, it gets a lot of eyeballs on it. If someone’s wishlisted the game then they’ll even usually get a direct notification.

Another way to look at it is that the game is always available at the full price. But if you’re a patient gamer then you can expect to get a lower price eventually.

Depending on how much discretionary income you have, you might be forced to wait for a sale. Or the difference in price might be no object to you. Or you may have to hoist the black flag.

Something else to consider is that the perceived value of the game differs from buyer to buyer. If I’m a big fan of a niche genre, I might be willing to spend more on a weird game than the average user. A $30 game might be worth it for me, but you might only think it’s worth $20

And more to that point, it’s extremely difficult to nail down the exact value of a game. What honestly separates a $12 game from a $15 game when they both offer a unique experience?

Anyway, all this to say, I don’t think having sales on games is strictly a predatory thing. Sometimes a discount is the only way you’ll get eyeballs on your game, or a way to reach more of the market that wouldn’t have otherwise bought your game.

I do agree that modern AAA prices are out there. I don’t pay very much for games now, and usually AAA prices me right out of the market

Did anybody else have parents who made too much money to qualify for student loans, but never put away money for college?

I’m feeling similarly about Sinking City 2.

The realities of game development are already fraught with risk, and that’s before you add violence to the equation. It’s pretty sad thinking of the games that won’t ever get made

I’m fighting for my life here, I need my payday to look as fancy as possible

Paycheque: Arrives

Bills: Yoink!

Yeah, my city has street sweepers and gardeners, so I wouldn’t imagine this would be a huge problem.

They could even put out compost bins like public trashcans. I wouldn’t mind cleaning up a couple of fruits here and there as I walk by.

If it’s in a public place in front of businesses and such, then the business has an incentive to keep things tidy. So all in all, I think it’s a fairly easy problem to solve.

Woe betide the child that jumps off a cliff with a bucket of water

Why ask for permission when you can ask for forgiveness?

Y’know, I think the only silver lining to deepfakes is that if my nudes get leaked I could just brush it off and say they’re fake.

Of course, that’s easy to say until you’re slapped in the face with your own bits

People used to tell me that I should smoke weed for my anxiety.

• Smoke a lot of weed - more anxiety
• Smoke for a long time - more anxiety
• Quit smoking - believe it or not, more anxiety

I’m still pro-weed, but I wish I had known about all that before I started smoking

Big Dick only costs tree fiddy? What a bargain!

I like the whole “skeletons of animals without bones” thing. I’ve got an octopus, a spider, and a frog, haven’t seen a crab yet though.

(I know frogs have bones, I just like frogs)

Who’s at index zero?

The boss asked us to take the dog out, where did we go wrong?

I’ve heard about the milk thing before, it’s quite common in poison control.

It used to be that the number one thing people knew to do when poisoned was to induce vomiting. However, poison control only recommends that for some poisons, and many others vomiting will make things worse.

I haven’t heard of drinking milk as being explicitly bad for anything, so maybe this will become the new main tip.

I once played this game that was styled as a museum of lockpicking mini games throughout the history of games. Super niche, but I’m in game dev so I eat that stuff up.

In four different places the curator mentioned that the lead developer Daniel Vávra is a terrible human. But they also acknowledged that the lockpicking was unique and interesting in that game. It read something like I imagine a museum with an exhibit of the Nazis enigma machine would - innovation spurred by terrible people.

If you’re on the fence about the game, know that the lead dev is a gamergate chud. But if you want a whitewashed and misogynistic game with a thin veneer of “historical accuracy” then I guess the game is on the cheap right now.

I heard the original ending they filmed had Peter’s new boss at the construction site telling him to come in on Saturday. You can see him walking up in the closing shots.

I hope you get your happy ending.