We’ve had an R18+ rating for video games since 2013, so not sure why Hotline Miami 2 wouldn’t have been able to receive classification.
Funnily enough, I own the game on Steam, so at some point Valve also made the same mistake. But at least they won’t pull the game from my library.
This is useful for countries where the Steam Deck is unavailable but other handhelds aren’t. Here in Australia, Steam Decks are only available as grey imports, and that makes warranty issues a potential headache, but you can walk into most electronic retailers and buy a ROG Ally off the shelf.
That said, I personally wouldn’t buy a handheld that didn’t have touchpads, so I bought a grey import and have had no issues.
I don’t think that’s their goal at all. Otherwise we wouldn’t see any sequels released on PC, that would be a much better strategy for converting players to console. The only reason publishers require their own logins in games, at least for single-player titles, is data collection. Data is very valuable.
They’re referring to Sony’s stance that all their PC releases should require you to have and sign-in to a PSN account. That’s separate to PS+, you don’t need to pay a sub.
A lot of publishers include this requirement on their PC releases, regardless of whether they’re single-player or multiplayer, and I think a lot of people are fed up with having to have so many different accounts.
That probably would be a better solution. Particularly since the rating system is pretty easy to ignore. And if they do start slapping the R18+ rating on games that don’t really warrant it like Mario Party, people will be more likely to simply dismiss the entire system.
I would hope that the government and ratings board wouldn’t be that stupid, but look at how long it took to give us an R rating for video games in the first place.
I think the government could definitely be doing more, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to force companies to clearly disclose the nature of their products so consumers can make informed choices.
I think the major difference between the two is that in video games, the cost of the loot boxes is deliberately obfuscated through the use of whatever single-use currency the publisher has dreamed up, and made worse by the fact that the currency is only purchasable in select denominations, meaning you’re always spending more than you’re going to use.
You’re not wrong that there are plenty of examples of physical “loot boxes” marketed at children, but at least with those you know exactly how much it costs straight up.
I wish our government would look into the actual predatory practices that these publishers are using in these games, but this is a good first step. At least the EU is looking into it.
Just want to point out that it might not be OP’s fault. The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, not the one folks in the US will be used to) has a habit of switching the headline depending on whether you’re viewing on mobile or web. I wish they wouldn’t, the clickbait headlines can be a bit of a distraction from otherwise generally high-quality articles.
Just make sure your family has a way to access your account. I very much doubt that Valve or most publishers will care that your kids have access to decades-old games after you’re gone. Although I could see Ubisoft trying to take action out of spite, but that’s only if they’re still around by then, they’re on pretty shakey ground at the moment.
Better option if this is an important issue for you is to only buy DRM-free. You’ll have to wait for most AAA games, but most AAA games these days are increasingly not worth it anyway.
This is my thought with every single one of these. I was pleasantly surprised to see them on the new Ayaneo Kun, making it the only alternative to the Steam Deck I would consider. The lack of trackpads is too much of a limitation for PC gaming.
It also means avoiding any future craziness in the name of “anti-cheating” from both Microsoft and publishers. It’s bad enough that publishers are forcing kernel-level access now, but once there’s a workaround for those applications, what’s the next step?
Just wait until some oil baron says that sloth-dug tunnels is the way to “deal” with climate change.
The real conspiracy is that there’s only one recognised holiday per year for most species on the planet, except for humans that get several per month. Seems to me that humans are trying to keep other species from having enough free-time to plot the revolution.
Trebuchets aren’t really a tool for defence. They have tremendous range and aren’t exactly speedy to load, aim, and launch.
Unless you meant defence in the same way that a country’s military operations are known as “defence forces” regardless of intent, in which case carry on.
I’m not fundamentally opposed to nuclear. The country’s power needs are only going to keep growing, and I could see an argument for having multiple options for sourcing that power. It’s a very expensive argument though, and one that’s hard to swallow when all the experts are saying renewable is the way to go, and I haven’t seen any projections that show that we’d necessarily need anything other than renewables in the foreseeable future.
The thing I’m strongly opposed to with regards to nuclear is rerouting funding away from renewables to pay for it. It’s an expensive technology that won’t be ready for decades, so I just don’t see the need to pivot to it. If we’d started the transition to nuclear three decades ago things would be different, but the LNP was strongly opposed to the technology back then, funnily enough.
And it’s absolutely absurd to then announce a cap on renewables spending as part of their plan to get to net zero by 2050.
The whole thing is a farce, and the LNP hasn’t given any good reasons why nuclear is the way forward over renewables. They haven’t said much of anything other than shout about it being the better option, but then that’s been the LNP’s go-to political strategy for as long as I’ve been old enough to vote so no surprise there.
I think PwC should have had to return whatever they’d charged the government for consultancy, as well as a massive fine on top of that. Governments around the world need to start giving penalties to corporations that actually deter them from doing the wrong thing.
I’m playing through New Vegas right now. I have one of the back buttons assigned to quicksave. I also changed the default camera button to one of the back buttons, because I don’t use it often enough to warrant it being on the bumpers. And I have just assigned one to toggle collision, because sometimes you need that when playing something built in the Gamebryo engine.
Hifi Rush is in Humble Choice this month, and I noticed they have a redemption deadline which is a bit out of the ordinary. So it’s possible it’ll get delisted, or maybe Humble is just playing it safe with the keys they have.
I haven’t played Starfield yet, but from what I’ve read it seems to be the next step in the procedurally generated games that Bethesda is heading towards, and I really hope it makes them rethink things for their next game.
While I’m sure that there are people out there who enjoy the fact that there are infinite fetch quests in Skyrim, it’s hardly a feature that anyone really raves about. In fact, the Minutemen quests in FO4 were often the subject of ridicule when the game came out. But at least in those two games, the Radiant quests had the possibility of taking you to an interesting location you hadn’t been to before.
Like you said, one of the key features in any Bethesda game is the exploration, but the more they rely on procedural generation, the less interesting exploration becomes, and the gameplay and writing of their games just isn’t strong enough without the finely crafted world-building they’re known for.
Oh, absolutely. I was only commenting on the weird timing, the game was released 2 years after an adult rating for video games was implemented.
We definitely have an odd and often archaic view on things here in Aus. Personally I think the classifications should be a purely informative system rather than something that decides whether or not something should be banned. Films are given much more artistic leeway than video games, and I could rant for hours on the government’s stance on gambling, which is much more harmful than most things you’d find portrayed in any artistic medium.