I’m a former player, but played continuously from release for 11 years. This is undoubtedly ridiculously expensive, but the convenience of having your mail and auction house anywhere in the world - the value to certain players is immense. I think if I played still today, it would probably be a struggle deciding whether this limited time offering was worth jumping on - I certainly don’t need it even a little bit, but when I want it, this thing would be incredibly convenient to have. Maybe that would just be the addiction talking. But when you spend all your free time with one game, you do feel a sense of good value relative to things like drinks at the bar or a movie or buying 1 or 2 full priced games a month.

But truly, the utility this provides for you and your guild is immense and impossible to replicate. They definitely shouldn’t be selling mounts on the shop for $90. That’s fucked. But compared to some of the video game devs selling weapon or character skins for as much or more, there IS at least a unique value proposition to the player. I guarantee there will be people with it the second it releases, for better or worse.

I was pretty sure manifest v3 had already happened - but when I knew it was coming, I went ahead and switched ahead of time. Came with the extra bonus that now I’m ad free on mobile too! Mobile websites are absolutely filthy with popovers and 2 sentence paragraphs with an ad between every paragraph. I’m sick of it. And unfortunately I spend so much more time browsing the web from my phone these days than my desktop - so when I swapped on pc to Firefox, it was such a relief to have browser extensions on my phone now too.

Did people get bitchy on the internet when they released the PS One, the PS2 slim, 5 generations of PS3, or the PS4 Pro? Or the Xbox One X, Xbox 360 E, the Switch OLED, 2DS, DS lite, Gameboy Advance SP, Sega Genesis 2, Sega Genesis 3, Sega Saturn 2? I certainly don’t remember this much discourse back then. It’s like every gamer on the internet has collective amnesia about mid generation refreshes and how they have existed since the dawn of console gaming.

Just as always - it’s probably not meant for you if you’re perfectly happy with your base model.

And just like all those multitude of prior examples - no, they certainly will not release games that ONLY work on the mid cycle refresh device. Because that would be a really poor financial decision. And can you imagine the discourse if you had to buy a $700 console to replace your $500 console so you could play all the newest first party titles? On a device that has likely 4 years max before it is subplanted by the PS6? That would be a far more justified upset in my opinion.

Thanks, Disney.

Better than 5x at 16h I guess. 😅

And then if it doesn’t sell well, they’ll use that as an excuse to discontinue private server development; and when they cancel their live service, it’ll be dead forever.

You’re absolutely right, ~80% of Mozilla’s revenue is from Google’s paying to be the default search engine in Firefox - and the US is going after Google for it’s anticompetitive behaviors as we speak. Ad blocking aside, Mozilla is going to need help pretty soon anyways if Google gets their monopoly broken up.

Having ublock on mobile is such a breath of fresh air. I wish I had made the transition sooner. I knew this was coming and completed my transition a few weeks back so I could abandon Chrome on my own time table and not on Google’s. Other than a little headache trying to find extension replacements for pc, I’m LOVING it.

For some reason, some developers get away with it… But that practice is specifically prohibited by Apple. Maybe the exception is for app developers that had a pre-existing deal before the rule went into effect or something, but directing users out of the app and into a web browser will get your app update denied. If Patreon were in a position to make that deal, they probably wouldn’t be catching hell like this from Apple in the first place.

The main shows definitely that is the case for me as well - but there are also Patreon exclusive audio releases that don’t go out on the rss feed for Morning, Somewhere for instance. I also follow shows with exclusive video releases on Patreon that don’t ever go to YouTube and I still get the benefit of a dedicated media app with background play.

Background play of exclusive podcasts for one thing. I suppose that might be possible in a browser but playing media from a media player app instead of a browser is certainly going to be a better experience.

They have to clarify this, because their CEO said that was something she wanted to make. What they’re actually doing is covering their asses because of all the negative sentiment they’ve stirred up now. It’s actually just a lie to say they have no plans.

Well, they would presumably develop premium subreddit features to reach parity or develop an otherwise useful feature set. As it is now, you’re certainly right.

I can’t tell of you’re just joking or not - so no, just straight up as a replacement for both, Patreon+Discord. You have a creator you like on YouTube let’s say, and so you sign up for their premium subreddit to support them. You get the community on reddit as a replacement for how creators use Discord, and then if they integrated Patreon-like features such as a host for members only videos or premium podcast feeds from the creator, and giving the creator a place to upload and share members only photos or polls. Meanwhile it operates just like any other subreddit operates for community discussions. No need for multiple services integrated, if reddit offers an all in one solution.

Totally. This could be reddits premium answer to a Patreon community with an exclusive Discord server.

They know my tax liability based on the income reported to the IRS by my employer - but you’re right that something they don’t necessarily know is the variety of valid deductions you might be eligible to take. Part of the process of filing is also calculating your tax liability though - and that part of it they know precisely and rather than TELLING you, you’re expected to determine your own liability and heaven help you if it’s wrong.

They also know precisely how much we owe in taxes, but instead of telling us and we pay it, they allowed a multi billion dollar industry to pop up around it and dictate tax law.

What do you think corporate shareholders expect of a publicly traded company? Especially when in most industries, labor is their number 1 expense?

Sounds an awful lot like a discontinued Diablo III feature on the surface - wonder if the modern gaming landscape will tolerate this now.

And the real concern is that with a headline like this one, it isn’t always immediately clear which one is the subject.