Unconfirmed, but the rumor I'm hearing is that AdHoc submitted one universal binary for all regions, and it's CERO who won't allow this content in Japan. FWIW, the JP version of Cyberpunk is also censored, but it's separate from the international release.
It's also worth noting that the JP PS5 version just launched alongside it, separate from last year's international version. Haven't been able to find confirmation on whether that version is censored too, but if it is then it's definitely CERO.
How would you define oversaturated then? Since you counted them up and said seven isn't a lot, is there a certain number that's a cutoff?
Oversaturation should be relative to what the market will bear. They're absolutely right that the time commitment is what really matters here. You might not think seven sounds like a lot, but no one's committing to grinding battle passes in seven live services at once.
If we were talking about something like visual novels, seven isn't a lot because you'll finish one and move on to the next. But seven live services is a lot of live services, because it's more than what people will play.
I feel like hero shooters, and many other genres, have players swearing allegiance to one game and hating on all the rest. The FGC is a unique anomaly for having this shared space where the only way we can make our offline events sustainable is to put them all under one roof and encourage players to support as many games as possible.
That's something you don't see in any other genre, even the idea of a HSC sounds laughable. I think that's why in other genres it's saturation, only in the FGC is a rising tide lifting all ships.
People say they're sick of live services, but the successful ones are still doing hella numbers. Execs have seen how much money Marvel Rivals is making and they want a piece. I think the real problem is that they've become so saturated. Most gamers already have one or two live services they're hooked on, and these games demand so much of your time that they're not going to fit another into their rotation. Do people truly hate live services, or do they just hate the ones they're not currently playing?
Live services also come with an expectation that they have to be a massive megahit overnight or else they're dead on arrival. All or nothing. With the budgets that get poured into these games, the only way to get a return on investment is to hit it big big big. I have a lot of opinions the way gamers throw around the word 'dead' to describe any multiplayer game with a less than Fortnite-sized playerbase, argumentum ad SteamCharts has done irreparable damage to gaming discourse, but it is a sad truth that a lot of modern multiplayer games can't just find their niche and be comfortable with that.
And I say all this as someone whose favorite multiplayer games have a matchmaking system that consists of just pitting you against whoever's available, or even a Discord server where you ping a matchmaking role and hope someone responds. A modest little indie game can sustain a tight-knit community that way, but it'll never fly for a big budget live service. I have games I love dearly that I can't actually recommend to people because getting matches can be a chore that I doubt most of you want to deal with.
This then leads to this self-fulfilling prophecy where a live service with this kind of anti-hype train is what seals its grave. Live services are an investment to get into, but it's already been pronounced dead, so don't sink any cost into it because no one else will. I have games that I've enjoyed but couldn't justify putting money into because the future looked too uncertain, which is exactly how they ended up dying.
Maybe there's even a bit of us vs. them, because market saturation has made the fight for an active playerbase so cutthroat, people don't want to see a competing title risk siphoning players away from their preferred game. I've even been there too, my favorite game of all time dropped off because another game came in and split its playerbase.
But mostly, I think a lot of people just like shitting on the new target of the day without even thinking too hard about why. Making fun of a flop has always been a popular gamer pastime. I've seen this sort of thing happen all time time, dating back before we even had the term 'live service'. TORtanic is the one that immediately comes to mind for me, the one people made such a big deal out of that they had to come up with a funny name for it. Anyone remember that?
Out of all the features Steam offers, the most useful is probably just automatic updates. Much better than having to go check for an update myself and maybe even redownload the whole game every time instead of just the changes.
Also Steam Workshop, multiplayer (if it goes through Steamworks), controller fixes, screenshot and recording functions, chat, forums, etc.
Again, if your reaction to a comic pointing out that these atrocities have gone on longer than just the two latest killings is to take it personally and get defensive over it, if your reaction is "Well fuck me, then", I think that says more about you than it does about the comic.
Sure, some people have been upset already. But the difference in volume before and after the most recent killings shows that quite a lot of people are just now getting upset. If that isn't you, good, but then why are you acting like this comic is a personal attack on you?
Nowhere does the comic say that any victim doesn't matter. Nowhere does the comic say you shouldn't be upset. Quite the opposite, the comic says you should've been upset a long time ago.
I think the fact that you're reading the most aggressive interpretation you can think of into it in order to find an excuse to be defensive says more about yourself than it does about the comic.
Why do you see it as divisive to point out how many more victims there have been? If your immediate reaction to this comic was to get defensive, I think you should take a minute and do some introspection.
I'd love to see it being used by enemies so they're challenging without cheating, though.
This is a different sort of problem that's outside the scope of generative AI. Making a computer opponent that can kick a human player's ass is technology we've had since Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997.
The problem isn't actually making a computer that's challenging, that's been solved. The problem is that it won't be any fun for the human if the computer is actually allowed to go all out, if Kasparov couldn't win in 97 then you sure as hell aren't winning today. But it also won't be any fun if you nerf it too badly, low level chess bots are weird. The sweet spot isn't just a matter of difficulty either, the nearly unsolveable part is getting it to play in a way that feels like a realistic human opponent.
And that's just from a turn-based game, kinda the closest thing to a level playing field humans were ever gonna get. For any game played in real time, the computer is able to treat it like it's being played at 60 turns per second. Is it "cheating" for the computer to have perfect reflexes, but otherwise still be following the rules of the game perfectly? How would you even try to take this away from the computer to make it see games the way humans do?
Generative AI doesn't have any kind of solution for any of this. ChatGPT famously can't play chess, at all. It's a different type of AI that really can't have any useful application here.
Attempting to actually explain away how food disappears and how he can make his clothes disappear felt a little silly. But I suppose it's a silly show to begin with, so I'll allow it.
I like that they didn't go the obvious route of pairing up Jarashi and Daichi. Now that I think about it, it's rare to see a queer couple outside of explicitly yaoi/yuri works, just as secondary supporting characters that don't need to be the focus.
It's how you cut through the prison bars, obviously.