Games Industry Consumer Advocacy and Commentary | Systems Engineer | Proud Dad X2 | Rothbardian
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Joined March 2010
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Remember that rationality is easily teachable whereas irrationality is easily manipulated.
Would you rather learn and grow into your own self-sufficient individual?
Or be used by others and discarded like worthless pawn?
Pause, take a breath, and be 10% more rational each day.
I'm an AI evangelist in my workplace, but I support AI disclosures because it's info that consumers want to know whether I like it or not
The purpose of a business is to meet the demand of consumers, not tell consumers what to demand. Ad firms for y'all backwards on that fact.
The worst read in the gaming industry RN is the hate on @TimSweeneyEpic .
He fought platforms like Apple charging 30% fees which cost gamers and devs. This includes steam who BANS Developers if they offer their games cheaper on other stores who take less cut.
He buys forests just to turn them into nature reserves.
Epic store is not NEARLY as good as steam yet. But they take WAY less money from developers and literally hand out free AAA games each months. Does it need time to expand features? Yes. Are any of those factors something that is motivated by 'evil' no.
And MOST of all. He's 100% correct that its not 2016. Like it or not AI is existing. And the reason you only see the 'anti AI' comments are because the 95% of developers who ARE using it RIGHT NOW are just scared of the backlash.
This doesnt mean they're just vibe code 1-shotting games. They're utelising it to create workflows that streamline otherwise time consuming (and ultimately not 'player experience' defining factors). Stupid 1-shot assets/entire code bases are not what AI is actually being used for. But there are thousands of talented developers using it in a very thoughtful, structured way which gives them full creative control.
We all are 'scared' by AI - and what it means for jobs, creativity, and creation as a whole. But it DOES NOT change the fact that Tim sweeney isnt wrong.
He's just the person with the balls to actually say what is true.
For anyone curious, Sweeney doesn't actually care about AI disclosures. Epic even requires them on some tools.
Sweeney is grasping for anything Valve is doing that he can spin as being a bad thinh. And its pathetic how far he's reaching here.
For consumers, more info is better.
Tim Sweeney is criticizing Valve again over Steam’s requirement for developers to disclose their use of generative AI.
The Epic Games CEO called the policy “abhorrent,” arguing that developers are being forced to make a “political statement” that could be used against them by a “hate mob.”
Sweeney has been criticizing the policy since 2025, previously comparing the disclosure to a “Scarlet Letter” and arguing that AI will eventually be part of almost every game production process.
If you remove the consequences for failure, you also remove the incentive for success.
In other words, if you caught the subtext, get ready for BioWare to be even worse when it's "too big to fail".
The devs aren't dead; They can work elsewhere. No need for government meddling.
A Canadian political leader is calling for the government to help BioWare developers buy the studio from EA and run it themselves.
NDP leader Avi Lewis says the developers should get the first shot at taking control, with government support.
“The developers at BioWare know how to run the studio. They know how to make the games we all love.”
He also criticized corporate ownership, arguing that Canada should keep control of major game studios in Canadian hands.
Those who know me know for the last decade I've been an outspoken critic of modern BioWare and their closure was no surprise to me.
However, one studio that looks like it could carry on the Golden Age BioWare legacy might be this one. I'm cautiously optimistic. Fingers crossed!
There's a criticism of private equity, but this isn't it. Let's get real here: Private equity already controlled EA for the past 20 years. The real problem is that, when PE financing is nearly free for a decade, activist investments start insulating businesses from profitability.
This is private equity, this is what it does.
Buy up businesses, run them into the ground, and rip them apart for short-term profit.
The developers at BioWare know how to run the studio. They know how to make the games we all love. They should be given the first opportunity - and the federal support - to buy it and run it themselves.
And if we want to avoid the Mass Effect effect in Canada, we should be keeping private equity out, not welcoming it in.
pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/…
It's sad to see, but the BioWare I loved has been dying a slow death for 15 years. We were never going to get another BG2, KotOR, Mass Effect, or DA Origins within the corporate structure of BioWare.
Now the devs can move on to new studios making new games that we can all enjoy.
I noticed this trend... Every new console generation, we have these online debates about how graphically powerful the new consoles will be, with claims always exceeding reality.
And it never matters because most PC gamers don't care about console graphics for many reasons.
RTX 6060 might not arrive until 2029, and could potentially be weaker than the PS6, according to hardware leaker KeplerL2.
KeplerL2 claims NVIDIA could delay the lower-end RTX 60-series cards because of ongoing supply constraints:
“6060 will launch much later, and based on recent trends I doubt it will match PS6.”
“When there’s a supply shortage NVIDIA tends to really drag the release of lower end cards. There’s a good chance RTX 6060 comes out in 2029.”
For comparison, current PS6 leaks have placed Sony’s next console around the performance level of GPUs such as the RX 9070 XT or RTX 5070 Ti, although those comparisons remain speculative.
Ignoring the fact that, in the best case scenario, the PS6 graphics will be outpaced by PC hardware in a year (most often it launches at least a GPU gen behind).
From what I hear from PC gamers, graphics is in the top 10 reasons to play on PC but generally not in the top 5.
Based on the timing here, seems like Epic's big marketing push about launcher speed was simply trying to preempt a Steam beta update that rendered it moot, hoping that Valve wouldn't announce their improvements.
Seems like Valve has a corpo spy and Epic is as scummy as ever.
Let's skip the fearmongering. It's simply a tailored library of actions that AI can use. Your AI agent, specifically, if you have one.
It is only activated when called, so even if you leave it enabled it'll do nothing by itself. It's for us that leverage agents for automation.
The latest NVIDIA App update (version 11.0.9.565) adds an AI agent MCP server, enabled by default, runs locally and lets AI tools interact with the NVIDIA App.
It can:
• Check the current game
• Start/stop recordings
• Take screenshots
• Control Instant Replay and Highlights
• Toggle RTX Dynamic Vibrance
• Show performance stats
• Find and launch games
• Check NVIDIA drivers
• Change game optimization settings
• Adjust Battery Boost and Whisper Mode on laptops
Turn off that shit
Fair warning: It doesn't take much research into history to realize that government regulation is like a Monkey's Paw wish... There's always second and third order effects that often make the government "solution" worse than the original problem it was meant to solve.
A U.S. congressman wants to change how we legally “own” video games.
Rep. Ritchie Torres has announced plans to introduce the Power To The Players Act, a bill that would direct the FTC to create rules protecting consumers who buy video games.
The proposal would give players three basic rights:
>The right to own the games they purchase, rather than simply receiving a revocable license
>The right to keep playing games after online servers are shut down, through an offline mode
>The right to transfer or resell games they own
Torres argues that if a company can take a game away simply by shutting down its servers, then the consumer didn’t really buy the game in the first place.
Torres also hopes the legislation could eventually establish a precedent for ownership rights across other parts of the digital economy:
“If you pay for it, you own it.”
Another example: Instead a vague rule giving company's multiple paths to consumers being able to play an online game once it reaches official end of life (private servers, offline play, etc), instead the government might mandate the company keep servers online forever. What then?
I'm genuinely convinced that Epic is developing their launcher based on competing with Steam from like 15 years ago, because that's the last time I remember anyone caring about the speed of the Steam launcher.
Maybe trying listening to CONSUMERS on what things we care about?
We vibe coded the Epic Games Launcher to be faster than the other guy.
Don't believe us? Test it out for yourself in Preview:
launcher.epicgames.com
You'd be surprised at how often load times are used as a benchmark for software builds, even when the actual user never notices. Because it's easy for execs to understand.
Of course, I'd certainly hope the EGS client loads faster, given that it has a faction of the features.
Epic Games is getting cooked after announcing they “vibe-coded” the new launcher to be faster than “the other guy” ( Steam)
They say that makes Epic’s launcher 46% faster in this test.
Gabe Newell keeps doing nothing and winning, people are not using Steam because it is faster.
Holy shit, these companies really don’t listen to gamers.
So, this will rile people up a bit, but these numbers are *potentially* deceptive:
1. Refund rate is double the average.
2. How much higher are the sales by being on Steam vs other platforms?
3. What costs did the publisher front? Dev salary, marketing, etc?
4. Fuck taxes. 🤬
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I'll be honest here, because EA wasn't concerning themselves with revenue as much as the illusion of growth for investors, I'm pretty sure BioWare, of all studios, was given plenty of room to breathe by EA.
The problem is what BioWare was breathing was it's own flatulence. 🙄
Former BioWare lead Mark Darrah says Dragon Age: The Veilguard flopped because of years of development problems and EA’s push for yearly releases.
Darrah says the game was constantly delayed, but never given enough breathing room:
“The team always was quite close to its current release date.”
Because of that, the devs never had enough time to properly step back, rethink the game and make major changes.
“There was never a time when the project was way in the future.”
“Annualization was what slayed the beast.”
