All the good phones are dying. I still quite enjoy my 1 IV, and honestly the Xperia line would probably be my choice in a couple years when I am ready to upgrade if they are selling them in the US at that point.

I’m hoping Fairphone gets US support at some point because they seem like the best option.

It really feels like design peaked a decade ago. Headphone jacks, micro SD card slot, removable batteries, front-facing speakers. Everything good has been removed and the phones are 5x more expensive. The few phones left with some of those features are the cheap weak models for people who only use their phones to call and text.

I keep seeing this same website posted on Lemmy and it’s always the same thing. A click bait title that makes unnecessary connections between two things attached to an article that just regurgitates basic concepts without adding anything. All the paragraphs are one, maybe two sentences so the whole thing feels like reading a series of tweets instead of an actual article.

Maybe it would bother me less if this was poised less as the opinion of the authors and instead was just objective reporting on SKG. SKG has press materials available for that purpose that The Conversation is choosing not to use. Heck, they could even include some statements from game publishers or government officials. It’s still a good thing that they are spreading awareness of the movement, but I’m really confused as to what kind of person consumes and enjoys this website.

It’s frustrating because I largely agree with their sentiments. I support Stop Killing Games, and I support worker’s rights, but this article is just… Bad. It doesn’t even make a connection between SKG and the working environemt- it just makes a claim that such a connection exists and leaves that claim unsubstantiated. Such a connection DOES exist, these authors just fail to communicate that.

https://fedia.io/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/2531490/-/comment/11832636

You might be living in an echo chamber. Most Americans use AI at least sometimes and plenty use it regularly according to studies.

You literally are right here accusing me of being in an echo chamber for thinking Americans view AI negatively, then when I back that up with a source you are now… Claiming that the article says that.

Except that the whole “most demographics are positive on AI” piece that you toss in counters your own countering of my disagreement. You’re talking in circles here.

It’s also worth noting this article is using a sample size of 700 and doesn’t go all that heavily into the methodology. The author describes themself as a “social computing scholar” and states that they purposefully oversampled these minority groups.

The conclusion is nothing but wasted time and clicks. You’re in this thread telling people to “read the article” and I’m in here to warn people that it’s not worth their time to do so.

And this is part of a trend I’ve noticed on Lemmy lately: people posting obviously bad articles, users commenting that the articles are bad, and usually about 3-4 other users in the comments arguing and trying to drive more engagement to the article. More clicks, more ad revenue.

We could argue all day over who is experiencing reality or who is in an echo chamber.

Pew Research found that US adults who are not “AI Experts” are more likely to view AI as negative and harmful.

The thing is, EVERYONE hates AI except for a very small number of executives and the few tech people who are falling for the bullshit the same way so many fell for crypto.

It’s like saying a survey indicates that trans people are more likely to hate American ISP’s. Everyone hates them and trans people are underrepresented in the population of ISP shareholders and executives. It doesn’t say anything about the trans community. It doesn’t provide any actionable or useful information.

It’s stating something uninteresting but applying a coat of rainbow paint to try to get clicks and engagement.

Is Microsoft’s new strategy just to cancel every other game so everyone has nothing left to buy but Call of Duty?

For the most part they trusted me. It helped that my step-dad played videogames before he met my mom. It probably also helped that I never gave them any concerns. I was a fat nerd who never got into fights or showed any signs of violence. My parents were concerned about me spending too much time indoors and not getting enough physical and social activity, but never concerned with the content.

I also was a smart enough kid that I knew the limits of what I could ask for. I wasn’t going to ask them for Leisure Suit Larry or BMX XXX, for example.

There were a couple of exceptions where my mom heard things about specific games through the media. I remember the marketing campaigns for God of War and GTA3 really leaned into the controversy. Although I did end up getting GTA3 eventually.

Ironically, there was only one case where I felt like I was allowed to play a game before I was ready, but it wasn’t one I asked for. My step-dad bought Twisted Metal Black. I had played a bit of the Twisted Metal series earlier, but preferred the much more whimsical Vigilante 8. I still remember getting nightmares about getting my head locked into a mask like the one character (I think her name may have been Dollface?). As I am remembering it now I realize it was probably a metaphor about identity, but as a middle schooler I was just freaked out about it.

https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#517324be3d78

Just within the top-25 I see Jensen Huang, Mukesh Ambani, Carlos Slim, Changpeng Zhao, Zhong Shanshan.

White people are over-represented in the list, but there’s plenty of non-white billionaires that are just as problematic as their white counterparts. The vast, vast majority of white people are not billionaires. Racial division is a distraction that serves the billionaires.

From the comments, it appears as though OP may have originally posted a picture with Linda Lovelace, then changed it to Lisa Ann after reading this comment.

I’m not sure what you are saying here?

Are you saying that Valve and Itch did not respond to Collective Shout? Well, so did I… My comment was saying they were justified in doing so.

Are you saying Collective Shout are not religious nutjobs? That’s an easy mistake to make because their website and branding does a really good job of trying to hide it from a casual researcher, but the founder Melissa Reist is pretty obviously a devout Catholic- she gives interviews with Catholic organizations, appears at Catholic youth camps, and describes herself as a “pro-life feminist”, which is of course an oxymoron. She’s definitely a religious nutjob.

Yeah Louis’s situation seems pretty unique. Not on the same level as someone like Epstein or Weinstein. He didn’t do anything with his own employees or underaged fans. Sarah Silverman has been a big supporter of him and confirmed that he was always like that going back to when there was not a power disparity in their early club days together. His apology statement is one of the best I’ve ever seen.

But… There’s still some red flags, including some in just discovering as I am refreshing myself on the details now. If the 5 accusers, it looks like the first 2 were from an incident in 2002 at a festival where they escalated to to event organizers… And nothing happened. Then Rebecca Corry in 2005 on a TV show set who declined and reported the incident… And nothing happened. I can’t find when the other incidents happened, but like… Surely after these first 2 cases someone would have communicated to Louis how this was bad, right?

And Dave Becky, Louis’s manager at the time, sent letters to the victims threatening them to try to silence them. He later apologized and dropped Louis as a client, and Louis later publicly supported Becky and apologized to him as well. I’m not sure what to make of the whole mess, but if Becky was threatening victims that kinda feels like it should be worth some jail time, and if Louis ordered him to do so… Yikes.

Also I don’t think there’s an objective answer as to whether he should have retired, or how long he should have stayed out of the spotlight before returning. If I were him I probably would have just retired, but at the very least I would have spent a few years out of the spotlight. The initial article with the accusations came out in November 2017, and his next public appearance was August 2018, not even a whole year. And there was no easing in with less controversial material - he jumped into School shootings. He has since released a special called “Sorry” where he didn’t apologize but instead kept getting more controversial and used the F slur.

He’s also very good friends with Dave Chappelle, a certified piece of shit, and Jerry Seinfeld, famous for dating 17 year-old high school girls. And I get it- he got his break early on by opening for Seinfeld, but ya know maybe just tone down how public that friendship is given the circumstances?

I don’t feel the need to break out the torches and pitchforks for Louis, or pretend like none of his earlier works ever existed, but i’m also not in some huge hurry to defend him and restore his career either.

As they should have. Why should Steam or Itch.Io have to respond to every tiny cult of religious nutjibs making ridiculous requests?

I know Luis CK has gotten a bit problematic for other reasons, but I always liked his take on this in particular.

Apologies as I couldn’t find an original video, just this weird channel animating the original audio. But every time my wife and I are in a car and see someone cross multiple lanes to get to an exit they almost missed we look at each other and say “but that’s their FAVORITE way!”

Okay your first two paragraphs are just ad hominen attacks at this point. You aren’t refuting anything by just claiming I’m backpedalling on… Something? And just assuming the other people didn’t read the article when in fact it seems they did and are also making great points that you’re also just refusing to talk about. Like… Why did you even post this if you didn’t want to actually talk about points, methodology, potential explanations, etc?

Xbox is just plain doing badly. They’ve tried a lot of different approaches to change that over the years: leaning hard into alternative control schemes with Kinect, trying to push Xbox as a general multimedia machine rather than just a videogame console, pushing hard to develop small indie studios, then pushing for mega-acquisitions of publishers and developers. I’m not even sure which “old model” you’re talking about because they are constantly, desperately pivoting to something else. They seem to be terrible at predictjng what consumers want or how markets will react to their decisions. So I’m still waiting for you to explain why copying them is a good idea. As I said earlier: they have always had less focus on exclusivity because their hardware sells at a loss, and they haven’t changed that.

Nintendo is coming off the 3rd best-selling console of all time, the best-selling console in 2 decades. The Switch 2 not only had the best 1st week on history, but the best 1st month too. I suppose it is still early and totally fair if you want to wait for the first full year to make a judgement, but it seems to me like Nintendo produce a unique and innovative product that people want back in 2017 and are continuing that success now. That product is in a very different market than the Xbox, and uses a very different business model where the hardware itself is profitable. They’re the only one of the 3 that hasn’t shut down studios or laid off employees lately. So, once again, the idea that thinks he knows better than them seems pretty far-fetched right now.

There’s something else that’s been bothering me…

He’s done this job for a long time, and people trust and respect his work

I’ve been following the videogame industry for decades and I’ve never heard of this guy. Which is not all that outlandish on its own. But I also have never heard of The Game Business- it seems like a new website just created this year. And you seem to be incredibly defensive of this guy- completely ignoring any discussion of the industry and binging your entire argument here on his credibility. Are you Mat Piscatella himself on a burner account?

I didn’t backpedal on anything at all so I’m not sure why you think that. My initial statement was that he did not provide enough data to reach his conclusion and seems to be drastically oversimplifying the problem to reach his conclusion, by focusing on the unit sales of singular pieces of software in a vacuum and assuming that games are fungible. I pointed out how different videogame companies operate with different business models that are more or less condusive to exclusive 1st party titles. None of that has changed, and the only thing you’ve said to try to dispute any of it is “this consultant said in an interview that he thinks exclusives are bad”. No attempt at discerning causation or explaining it, no attempt at even refuting the arguments I present, just “you should trust this guy, who also happens to be selling a product”. If I wasn’t bored killing time at work I wouldn’t even bother responding because this isn’t really a conversation, you just keep going “nu uh”.

Not just me: You’ve spent this whole thread arguing with myself and everyone else who are pointing out the obvious and glaring holes in what he’s saying.

One of my favorites is this one. Xbox has failed to make a profit throughout the entire history of the company. They’ve spent the last few years shutting down studios and laying people off, which has led to a lot of industry speculation. Insiders have reported rumors that Spencer might get pushed to resign or even fired. There’s been speculation that Xbox might be considering exiting the hardware side of things entirely, in part because of their own marketing campaigns. I am not saying I believe that, but these are strong signs that Xbox is doing badly.

Nintendo, by contrast, just had the single best launch week 1 in the history of videogame consoles. Pretty much every way you look at the Switch 2 sales numbers they are breaking records. And this guy saying that Nintendo should copy what Xbox is doing. That is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence for me to take seriously.

And while anecdotes are pretty useless, I agree with you that many publishers have trended towards multiplatform releases and I said that earlier. I’m not disputing that: I’m disputing his comments about 1st party publishers.

If he was lying about any of this, competing firms or their business partners would call him out.

Well first of all, this interview was published today so the only people who have had a chance to really respond to this are the general public on the internet. Beyond that, it is not safe to assume that any of their competitors would have any reason to respond to this publicly at all. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, and maybe that decision has more to do with wanting to either keep up with Circana or differentiate from Circana than anything related to the truth. That’s kind of the problem with dealing with bias in sampling like this.

People have been saying this exact same thing for decades and it hasn’t happened yet.

And I’m all in favor of the end of exclusivity. Exclusivity is harmful to consumers, and to society as a whole from the perspective of preserving culture and history. But just because I want something to be true doesn’t mean I’m going to believe some consultant casually speculating while promoting his company.

If he provided data and outlined the methodology of projection they used them we could at least have an interesting conversation about this. But right now he’s just about as credible as the 3rd grader at recess whose uncle works for Nintendo and says the next Halo is coming to Switch.

That still doesn’t include most of the data necessary to reach this conclusion, and furthermore the bigger issue is that THE ARTICLE ITSELF DOES NOT CONTAIN ANY. It is an unbacked claim that we cannot verify. If he can’t share the data because ris propriety, he shouldn’t be making the claim publicly.

He’s looking at software sales in a vacuum, and he is probably correct that any singular piece of software would sell more units if it were released on more platforms. That’s not new or interesting: that’s obvious.

What he’s missing, even in the screenshot of claimed data he has, is everything else.

Consultants like this are not trustworthy sources. They’re trying to sell their own product.

Does he have access to the proprietary sales data of Nintendo, Xbox, Sony, Valve, and Google?

I’d be shocked if he did, because those companies are all big enough to have their own in-house departments for that. He’s trying to sell consulting services to smaller publishers. Consults don’t get paid for saying "well I don’t really have enough information to say that for sure*, they get paid for making executives feel smart.

He’s backing it up by misusing data. He’s lumping games together and assuming that they all would hypothetically have the same market characteristics, then extrapolating that to other games.

As an example he brings up how the Pokemon Company has released basically the same software on both Switch and mobile platforms. Which is true, but that does not mean it makes sense for Nintendo to release Tears of the Kingdom on mobile. We can already see that Nintendo knows this because they maintain Mario Kart Tour separately from the console versions. They’re entirely different business models, control schemes, and experiences.

I would argue that a more complicated analysis is required than just saying “multiplatforms are better than exclusives”.

He also just briefly glosses over what is the main BENEFIT to manufacturers: the profits made on hardware sales. There is not a lot of publicly available information, but we do know what each company tends to do. Nintendo prices their hardware above cost, so for them the additional hardware sales could offset the reduced software sales. Xbox prices their hardware at a loss, which explains why they valued exclusivity the least and have finished last in hardware units sold every generation since the original Xbox. Sony usually sells PlayStations at a loss to start the generation, but through hardware revisions and scaling ends up turning them profitable after a few years- a more balanced approach. And we see this reflected in their approaches to exclusivity: Nintendo is super-exclusive, Xbox is loose, and Sony is somewhere in the middle.

You also need to factor in how exclusives impact the ecosystem. The marketing budget for Mario Kart World Tour is not merely helping them to sell the game, but also to sell consoles. And not just consoles, but controllers and cases and branded SD cards and the USB camera and extra docks. It also encourages more software sales: the same person buying Mario Kart World and a Switch 2 might also buy other Switch 2 (or Switch 1) games. Even if they buy 3rd party games, Nintendo is still getting licensing fees. So if they release these big games on other platforms they might gain some revenue, but they lose out on a lot, plus they have to pay licensing fees to Sony/Xbox/Google/Apple/Valve to sell on those platforms.

If we were just discussing software sales in a vaccun then this would be accurate. Any 3rd party publisher has a much easier equation to determine which platforms to release on. Will the additional costs (development of a port plus the fees and asded marketing) be less than the revenue from additional units? It’s a bit complicated because some consumers have multiple platforms and will choose just one to buy the game on. This also helps explain why Sony delays the PC releases: they want to sell as many units overall as possible, but they also want anyone choosing between PS5 or Steam to be pushed to PS5 where their margins are higher.

The author doesn’t have anywhere near the data required to do any of this analysis, so he’s reaching a fundamentally flawed conclusion.

This may just be me, but I see delayed exclusives as basically being equivalent to multiplatform releases. Especially for single-player games.