Watching an ad would earn players another block of ad-free play time, called a "credit"

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[–] 205 points 1 month ago (2 children)

good thing they patented this shit, it can die with them now

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  • [–] 75 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    If Microsoft lets the patent sit idle and refuses to license it to others, it would be a very good thing for a few years. Let's see what happens, though.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago*

    This is the time for the usual reminder that tech giants obtain something like 3000 patents each a year, by patenting everything under the sun. For the sole purpose that if one of them sues another for the violation of one such patent, the other can dig up a hundred of them to countersue.

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  • [–] 154 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Please drink verification can.

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  • [–] 143 points 1 month ago* (14 children)

    Put ads in my games and I’ll stop playing your games. Simple as. Plenty of indies out there are more deserving of my time.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Indies, romhacks, fangames, recompilations, mods, etc can extend the life of any game nowadays.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago

    I remember feeling bad about how the original PvZ was absolutely wasted on EA, who made sequels that are just mobile slop. Relatively recently I found out that a huge community exists to make more of the good stuff and it’s legitimately overwhelming how much community stuff there exists for this one game alone.

    The other obvious example is Minecraft which for me has basically just been a platform for individual mod packs that are basically their own games. And of course, Skyrim. I’ll get back to that one day.


    Am I turning into those people I used to see all over forums when I was a kid talking about games from the 90s that didn’t seem that compelling to me?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    There was Prototype, which experimented with in game ads a while back. They sold ads on the billboards in NYC in the game. They seemed less obtrusive

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Football manager have always had "let's kick racism out of football" and other NGOs represented on their banners - Because they had no clue what to do with it, I'm pretty sure there's a settings option to replace them with real paid ads now

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  • [–] 52 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Why does this feel more relavent suddenly

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  • [–] 48 points 1 month ago

    DRINK VERIFICATION CAN!

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  • [+] 41 points 1 month ago (4 children)
  • [–] 21 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    It's your 30th boss run. As you fuck up your sixth dodge roll in a row, the Troll picks up your character. He roars over the screams of your avatar as he crushes it's ribs in its massive fist.

    Then, as he raises you high over head, and opens wide to chomp down on your head, the actions stops. The Troll turns to the camera and smiles, showing off brilliant pearly whites. "Colgate is recommended by 9/10 dentists.", the troll effuses over the screaming.

    A text box appears.

    'To proceed, type the number of dentists Colgate is recommended by, followed by this random number "N".'

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  • [–] 40 points 1 month ago

    Most people would count Black mirror as a dystopian science fiction nightmare. Microslop on the other hand saw “15 million credits” and pitched it to their shareholders.

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  • [–] 37 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Oh good. I was only 98% sure I was done buying consoles forever. It's good to really know.

    I might make exceptions for consoles/devices that run linux off the shelf. (I want to get a steam frame, ok?)

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    The patent seems to be for PC games though I’m sure it would apply to both.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

    Microsoft don't have a distribution platform for PC games, even when they did no one used it. So they will only be able to introduce this in games that they are the publisher for, which is actually not that many games.

    I'm very sure steam already prohibits in-game advertising. So Microsoft would have to distribute these games themselves and the moment that any publisher decides to go their own route they immediately decrease their revenue, even if nothing else has changed.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    Just get an emulation handheld. With Steam offering ARM support through a translation layer, a strong one can even run a surprising array of PC games these days. My Retroid Pocket Flip 2 isn't even that nice as far as these things go, and it plays just about any 2D game I've tried and a lot of 3D from the '00s and early '10s, later if they don't press limits. You can also attach them to TVs and use normal controllers, including multiplayer.

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  • [–] 35 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    Maybe Microsoft is patenting it so nobody will do this in the future. They have the best for the gamers in mind. /s

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Wait, someone should make a gaming organization that just thinks of the most outlandish and ghoulish things to patent them so the big corpos can't.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    Truth be told, that actually might be a neat thing to do. Imagine trying to think up really scummy ways to inject advertising into games, create new forms of mtx, etc. just to patent them and sit on those patents.

    I feel like it would do a bit of the Streisand effect since by patenting them you're making them known, but that could be a bit better than letting someone else figure it out and get exclusive use of that patent for years. Either way anyone checking gaming patents can learn about it, but in one situation it's used for the duration of the patent and in the other its not.

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  • [+] -7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    You think Microsoft has consumers best interests in mind? Are you serious? Like are you genuinely caping for Microsoft or am I missing something here?

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  • [–] 94 points 1 month ago (14 children)

    Watching an ad would earn players another block of ad-free play time, called a "credit"

    As a millennial, I’ve watched the rise and fall of many things. Never thought I’d see the entire fall of gaming and so soon following its rise.

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  • [–] 113 points 1 month ago (10 children)

    Indie games are booming lately, if you think you're witnessing the fall of gaming you're simply looking in the wrong place.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    and those indie companies will get bigger, become corporatized, and continue the cycle.

    Just like the ones before them did, just like the ones after them will.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    The good thing is that creating a game is a task a person or a small team can accomplish even with non-AAA money, and there are many people out there who want to create something. So even if some of those indies become corrupted, there will always be more people out there who want to build their vision.

    And tbh, if from this moment on only crap came out, we already have decades of great games to play - i for my part would never run out of games until the day i die even if i stopped adding stuff to my library - i am sitting on ca. 37000 titles at the moment. If the average time to complete is around 20 hours, that's around 83 years of continuous gaming, much more than my estimated remaining lifetime.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    yeah, anyone can make a game. that game will probably be a slop generic asset flip game, but still technically a game.

    to make a good game takes years, and money, and either knowledge or time available to be spent pursuing that knowledge..while also working an actual job to actually pay for all the bills for everyday life, in addition to what the game needs.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yes. That's how art works.

    Most musicians, including many bands that fill stadiums and go on world tours, pay the bills with regular full-time jobs and do all of their band stuff in their spare time. It's similar for artists, authors, etc.

    A really good game takes years of hard work. It can take surprisingly little money; a small team driven by passion can be very efficient. But it does take effort. And sure, not everyone can be Tynan Sylvester or ConcernedApe or Pixel or Team Cherry; most tiny indie games aren't genre-shaping mega hits.

    But they don't have to. There's plenty of small games out there that are just good and that's good enough. The idea of even just a hundred people playing one's game and being entertained is enticing enough for thousands of developers to sink hours and hours of their spare time into.

    Will there be a bazillion lame asset flips in the future? Yes, just like there have always been lame derivative bands, shitty overhyped artists, terrible indie movies, and drivel-slinging hack authors.

    Just like there have always been shitty AA and AAA games, for that matter. 90% of everything is crap. But that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of gems hiding in between all the chaff.

    (And while I'm at it: While making a game does requires a lot of knowledge, that knowledge can be acquired along the way. The original Cave Story was a one-man project and Pixel certainly didn't start out as a professional programmer/artist/composer/screenplay author. Learning how to do all that is part of the fun for some people.)

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    Just like there have always been shitty AA and AAA games, for that matter. 90% of everything is crap. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of gems hiding in between all the chaff.

    Just wanted to add: and by the power of the incredible force called "taste", in many cases one mans trash is another ones treasure.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    I think it's just the fall of the industry as we know it. I don't think gaming is going away anytime soon. But I do think we are about to see a very different industry in a few years. It probably won't look like it ever really has before. A massive indie space, with sparse few AAA titles.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago*

    Wealth doesn't trickle down, but losses do. Sadly, AAA studios collapsing will affect indies' abilities to get funding , so expect to feel some pain there too.

    This is already being felt these last few years as many gaming publishers shifted to funding AI.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 month ago

    THIS is what the new head of gaming came up with to save xbox? Lol.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    lands the final hit against Margit in Elden Ring

    "Tarnished... Have you heard about Burger King's new Loaded Jalepeno Whopper? Now only $6.99."

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Is this an ad for Steam? /s

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago* (3 children)

    Sometimes I think due process should have its limits. When people suggest ideas that are so grossly enshittified, we should be able to beat them with sticks.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago (21 children)

    Imagine coming up with this idea and presenting it to your superiors instead of being so disgusted with yourself that you immediately splatter your brains all over the ceiling.

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  • [+] -23 points 1 month ago (20 children)

    they need to make money, i don't feel it wrong to try to milk every possible angle

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    Your mother's corpse had teeth, right?

    Some teeth have fillings.. some fillings are made of valuable metals.

    The Disney corporation should exhume the corpse of your loved ones and sell their teeth on eBay - they need to make money... right?

    It's the only way to be sure every POSSIBLE angle has been milked.

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  • [+] -7 points 1 month ago* (6 children)

    You're comparing a non-consensual crime to a voluntary consumer product. Unlawfully exhuming a corpse leaves the victim and family with zero say in the matter.

    A video game gives you complete choice, if a developer milks a game with ads, you can choose to uninstall it and give them zero dollars. Try making an analogy that actually deals with voluntary choice, because grave robbery isn't it.

    Why not use a realistic analogy? Like how some car companies tried charging monthly subscriptions to activate built-in features like heated seats or remote start. BMW eventually killed that feature specifically because subscription sales were so extremely low. That's a real example of consumer choice driving corporate decisions, not grave robbery.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    Laws (and crimes) and consumer behaviors are governed by popular concensus of what we, the body politic, are willing to tolerate - neither are absolutes, and both are subject to change.

    A realistic analogy would make my point less clearly than an exaggerated cartoon.

    If the consumer market, or the corporations that govern it, decide that grave robbery is to be tolerated as a for-profit adventure..

    well, we've very few tools with with to oppose them.

    (See also: the collapse of the biosphere)

    Fortunately, in America at least, It's likely your loved ones lacked the medical insurance necessary to cover the cost of dental fillings.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago*

    Laws (and crimes) and consumer behaviors are governed by popular concensus of what we, the body politic, are willing to tolerate - neither are absolutes, and both are subject to change.

    You're right that social norms shift, but fundamental legal protections don't evaporate overnight, especially in democratic nations with institutional checks. Suggesting that society will casually normalize grave robbery for profit within our lifetimes isn't realistic.

    A realistic analogy would make my point less clearly than an exaggerated cartoon.

    Admitting that your argument relies on an "exaggerated cartoon" proves that your logic isn't realistic. Video game ads are a voluntary consumer choice, but grave robbery is a non-consensual crime.

    If you want a realistic corporate greed analogy, look at a company intentionally polluting the air and then selling clean air filters to profit off the damage. At least that deals with actual market behavior instead of shock value crime scenarios.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I might agree that it's not morally wrong for them to add advertisements to milk more money out of people, but it's definitely artistically wrong in that they are hugely compromising the thing they are making just for extra money.

    And one might further argue that it's morally wrong in that adding the advertisements is going to make the world a more frustrating, enshittified, dumbed-down place, just by a little bit.

    Maybe a more apt comparison than "what if a Nazi killed you" or "what if somebody stole your mother's teeth" would be what if you owned a food company and filled your food with sticks and rocks to save money. People would not be obligated to buy it, but it's definitely wrong and doesn't do anybody any good.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Didn't you just prove my point? If nobody buys food because I put rocks and sticks in it, I go out of business. That's exactly how consumer choice forces bad ideas to fail

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago*

    I think they were trying to make an argument regarding ethics and morality and didn't do the best job by throwing in a strawman argument. That being said, television networks literally do it every day. That they're doing it is arguably unethical, but if you're expecting ethics and morality from a megacorp, especially Micro$oft, you're a fool.

    Everything else you said stands. Don't use the product. Don't give the company your money. Nobody's forcing you to consume the media. If you do, don't complain, you're the fool who bought a game with ads.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    People like you are the reason everything is getting worse all the time. Keep your worthless opinions to yourself.

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  • [+] -8 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    Why? Because I accept that businesses exist to make money, not out of the goodness of their hearts?

    If you think a system or game is predatory, the solution is simple: stop supporting it. If enough people actually vote with their wallets, companies are forced to change because it hurts their bottom line. Throwing tantrums online doesn't change basic economic incentives, consumer behavior does

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Why? Because I accept that businesses exist to make money, not out of the goodness of their hearts?

    Yes, there's no reason you need to carry water for them. These dipshits shouldn't be able to find a single comment online supporting their behavior. They should feel shitty and worthless about what they're doing every second of their miserable existence. Companies can make plenty of money without enshittifying every single aspect of our lives.

    If you think a system or game is predatory, the solution is simple: stop supporting it. If enough people actually vote with their wallets, companies are forced to change because it hurts their bottom line. Throwing tantrums online doesn’t change basic economic incentives, consumer behavior does

    Sure, and I have a lower threshold for it than most but these companies will keep tightening the screws forever because there will always be new people coming in where the current level of bullshit is normal and they can push those people even further. My resistance to it alone accomplishes nothing.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    Your point about normalization and the domino effect actually makes sense, and i agree with you on this

    My main reason for leaning so heavily against that original post was that they were telling people to off themselves just for wanting to make money. Corporate monetization might be annoying, but suggesting suicide over it is way out of line.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Oh, I just realized you're the original commenter XD

    Why didn't you lead with a reasonable argument in the first place, rather than suggesting self-harm or dismissing other points of view? I actually agree with you on the domino effect, even though it doesn't really change my core view that businesses naturally try to milk it

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago

    Well, shoving adverts in front of gamers under the flimsiest of excuses will definitelly turn around the trend of game companies going bankrupts when Microsoft purchases them ...

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  • [–] 20 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Additionally let's not have video game characters say any swear words or bad words like "kill" to make it more advertiser friendly.

    Quest: "Unalive 10 cave troll's and get your reward from Dr. Pepper"

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Just don't play those games.

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