It's REALLY bad on Steam, but on many online platforms (sadly even itch.io) there is so much damn shovelware. Not even "slop" something below "slop", sludge is the only word I can think of (no disrespect to Sludge Life 1 & 2, great games go play them). It clogs up online storefronts and really ruins searching games by tags.

It's really annoying that my personal favorite genre, "immersive sim" has been utterly flooded with these shovelware games. Unless I know exactly the name of a game, I cannot find anything worthwhile. Good games, small games, gems of yesteryear, all that sort of stuff is just hidden by this layer of sludge. I like to browse storefronts (digital and physical) and just check stuff out, get a feel for what's out there, but you can't do that when there is "XYZ simulator: prologue" every other item.

It fuckin' sucks. I really do think many real good games get lost in the sludge pit and have to hope that some internet video essayist/review or something discovers it by chance. I'm not saying everything is an undiscovered legend but I am saying, I can't even find games on most of these storefronts because the whole thing is flooded with effectively spam games.

(I then feel bad that these scumbags can get a game on steam and i can't even hack together a playable game jam thing, but that's a different post)

I just watched "Vampire Hunter D" for the first time. It rules, I can also see its influence in a lot of other anime, scifi, and other cool nerd shit. It's really a shame I have never sat down and watched it until now. It fuckin' rips!.

I need more animated films of that era that aren't made for the selling of toys. Doesn't have to be anime but really any sort of sleeper/underrated animated films from the 80s and 90s. I need more animated cinema.

What's the mindset behind forcing a user to create an account to view the media on a page? For example an artist I like posts their art on Instagram and Twitter but I can't look at it unless I create an account. What's the dumb corporate rationale behind this? I have seen this on so many sites you can't even see what's there without an account? Doesn't it just scare users away? I know it certainly does for me. If I have to log in just to view a page I don't want to view the page.

They are objectively on the highest of tier public workers. If you make a bracket of public worker they are automatic S-tier

I love the games (the Telltale games were peak), and I actually like like most of the individual members of the cast (aside from Kevin Hart, dude just is plainly unfunny to me), and I think Eli Roth can do a decent job behind the camera. However I know most certainly this will be a product/marketing platform in the shape of a movie.

Is the cinema landscape this bleak these days? Movie magic is being wasted on this slop. Goddamn.

I hate the current YouTube thumbnail meta. I found this extension and it just takes a frame from the content of the video and displays that. I believe that is fair and more representative of the video. I have been using this extension for a while and I find myself paying more attention to the names of creator and then considering if I want to watch the video; rather than being enticed by some intentionally inflammatory image.

I find it just make YouTube more enjoy in combination with Ublock Origin and YouTube Search Fixer.

Just wanted to share this extension with any Hexbears who aren't liking YouTube's thumbnail arms race of increasingly distracting images. I didn't know if I should have put this in c/videos or c/technology. I rolled a D6 and odds was c/videos and evens c/technology. I rolled a two.

America can't build houses. America can't fix roads, bridges, dams, pipes, or power grids. America can't provide high quality education for students of all ages and stages. America can't build libraries and parks. America can't provide medical care to all citizens. America can't provide childcare. America can't support public arts or media. America can't provide public transportation. American can't feed the hungry. America can't better the lives of its people.

America is powerless to do anything, other than expand the military industrial complex.

$14.5 billion is some COVID-19 level wealth extraction from working people. American oligarchs and plutocrats stole all our collective wealth yet again.

If you're overwhelmed by the bundle try to use this site to help find games for you. Support a real and meaningful charity and play games.

Not exactly anime, but I still think this is one of the best animations online.

I have been teaching myself more programming stuff for c/gamedev over the last several weeks as my ambition is to make a using Godot to share with people. Just making a game for the sake of trying my hand at a creative work, no real "profit motive" just wanna make a thing . However, but I was feeling like I wanted to get back into the old-school C++ programming rather than using a game engine and was looking for a primer as it's been a bit since I have done it. In my quest I discovered Academic Torrents, I found a ton of great computer science courses and the last weakened synapses of academic rigor in my internet poisoned brain to fire once again.

I have always been for open-information (most just downloading .pdf files of textbooks during college) and stuff but I didn't really know about the concept of a Shadow Library. I'm finding myself interested in just learning more computer nerd shit for the sake of learning. I like the idea I have access to pretty much every computer science department that has a webcam and torrent link, I think that's good.

This idea applies beyond not just for tech stuff of course, but just about anything. I think it's really weird that knowledge creation is soloed away behind nations, institutions, and IP laws. Everyone everywhere should have access to knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I don't know much about the actual process of knowledge creation but the created knowledge itself should be assessable to everyone in a library sense. Knowledge is one basic things that makes us human and should be free and open to everyone. Discovering a website reminded that learning is just cool and worth doing for the sake doing (if that's your thing of course, if you don't wanna learn that should be considered cool too).

The promise of the internet still exists outside the walled gardens and I think that's pretty dope. So long as people wanna learn I'm glad that these sorts of Shadow libraries are there to help people.

Also support your actual local library. Light and Shadow Libraries are cool and lefty and good.

Preface - It's never cool to be mean to developers or the rando who is running an official social media account online. Be cool.

One thing I will never understand about gaming and gamers™® is that they always seems to justify their own poor treatment. Worse yet they attack others for pointing out the way they are mistreated. Whenever I see good honest players point out that a system is predatory or designed in a plainly unfair way, other gamers™® will undoubtedly come in and defend that bad thing. It's so odd that gamers™® can min-max everything but can't seem to factor in the fact they are getting less than they used to. It's like digital inflation. Games are more costly in upfront costs, hardware cost, time costs, and yet are getting worse in general.

I'm very much anti-battle pass/anti-season pass/anti-microtransaction all that sort of stuff. I'm old-school, just want to buy a thing and have the thing and have the thing be whole and complete. That said there are semi-decent ways to implement a system that is profitable for the vampire executives and also don't siphon every single coin players have. It's so weird to me that gamers™® not only keep buying into these systems but seem to defend them so vigorously online.

From "Pay to Win" to weird obtuse purchasable currencies/resources to needlessly limited time rewards to create artificial scarcity (pre-order, in-game store "deals", general fear of missing out practices), all dark patterns make games worse. Gamers™® defend these things saying "I DoN'T HaVe tHiS PrObLeM. iT MuSt bE A SkIlL IsSuE!" or whatever dumb shit. Every dark pattern in modern gaming is making the games people play worse intentionally. People talk about the enshittification of internet all the time but gaming as a medium/hobby has been enshittifiying since the advent of Xbox LIVE. The worst part about it to me is seeing such vocal defense for it online (social media at large, game forums, comment sections of gaming news/articles). It's not just that sort of conceding "well what can't ya do?", it's more so this spirited "This is good actually, and you're not a REAL GAMER if you don't like this."

For example a decent battle-pass (regardless of the game/genre) usually rewards players with enough in-game premium currency to buy the next one and maybe have enough left over for an item or two. That way it keeps you locked for longer and feeds into the habit forming design dark pattern we all hate. You're constantly having just enough premium currency to buy something, and topping off your balance is just a few extra coins if need be. Yes, people talk about the "whales" and "minnows" but even just the regular players and worse yet the gamers™® get a bad deal. Setting the fact this is a dark pattern aside (however I can't stress enough how mobile gaming's/casino gaming inspired dark patterns have made gaming worse), it's bonkers to me that gamers™® just say "VoTe wItH YoUr wAlLeT BrO!". They will say that or these sorts of things support the development of the game, knowing full well that that money isn't recycled and invested into the betterment of the game.

It's just so strange to me that gaming of all things has grown worse in just about every way since 2000's and yet the online culture around it seems to take pride in it being so bad. It's so strange that gamers™® can datamine the most Ph.D level mathematical optimal way to play through a game before it's even released but can't seem to parse that games should respect them. Games should treat them better. Games should be better.

: "Wow this system sucks. We should either get more rewards faster or things shouldn't cost so much. I like this game but damn this system blows, and it probably doesn't have to. The developers should be better to us."

: "If you don't like it don't play it. If it were bad it wouldn't be popular."

My larger point is gamers™® are bad, gaming should be better, player != gamers™®.

P.S. Check out this Dark Patterns Site. It explains all of the shit that makes games worse in a nice bullet point format

Hello c/games. I have some games I'd like to giveaway. They are of varying quality, and I would rather give them to people who will actually play them rather than letting them gather cyber dust in my digital library. Some of them are shovelware no doubt. Others, just not my type of game. Some are games pretty rad.

That said I would like to giveaway to others. I would encourage you to compile a list of games you may have massed through various bundles you don't think you'd play and share them with others. Just spread a little joy to other people by giving away something you don't want to some who may very much want it. It's a win-win and we can all become big communism builders through the act of sharing.

For simplicity's sake it'll be first come first serve. I simply ask you only ask for games that you want and will play. One per person to keep things fair. If the key doesn't work I apologize, I don't mean to swindle or mislead anyone. It may have expired or some other DRM related trickery.

To protect against bots and webscrappers I'll be DM'ing the keys to comrades rather than posting publicly.

• ~~A Story About My Uncle~~
• Crossbow: Bloodnight
• ~~Darksiders~~
• ~~Medal of Honor~~
• ~~Mirror's Edge~~
• Neon Drive
• Panzer Corps + DLC
• ~~Windward~~
• ~~Going Under~~
• Robothorium: Cyberpunk Dungeon Crawler
• Forward to the Sky
• Hive Jump
• ICY: Frostbite Edition
• Insurgency
• Technobabylon
• Hexcells Complete Pack
• ~~Octodad: Dadliest Catch~~
• A Fistful of Gun
• ~~NOT A HERO~~
• ~~Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box Steam Key~~
• Offspring Fling
• Shank 2
• Snapshot
• Closure