Chess isn’t a game you haven’t heard of. Chess exploding in the online sphere is a relatively recent development but technically chess predates esports over a millenia.

I imagine most people don’t even know when a new release releases on GOG platforms because 90% of the time that’s not the case. I know I don’t check GOG every time a new game releases. I’d have to know before-hand for me to buy there.

And that was kinda my point. When most of the games don’t release on GOG there’s very little point in trying to build a library on GOG because you can’t depend solely on GOG. You’re going to have to split your library and most people prefer to have all their games in one place.

That’s because for the vast majority of gamers their games aren’t on GOG. From the top 50 sellers on Steam only Rimworld, Baldurs Gate 3, No Man’s Sky, Tainted Grail and Kerbal Space Program are sold on GOG. 90% of the top sellers on Steam aren’t on GOG. GOG has a lot of great features but when GOG doesn’t have the games people want to spend money on there’s very little reason for those people to use GOG.

The pinnacle of steampunk power sources, the nuclear reactor.

We can agree that they didn’t know if we also agree they’re so stupid they literally couldn’t comprehend who or what they were voting for. This is beyond “I don’t know his actual policies but he looks like a competent leader and he talks about the right things” because you’d need to have total amnesia for the entire duration of his first presidency to believe he’s a competent leader and knows what he’s talking about.

This is a person who genuinely believed nuking a hurricane was a possible solution to stopping a hurricane. I wouldn’t trust that kind of a person with an ounce of power but MAGA thought that’s good enough to be the president. Half the shit that is happening isn’t even because he’s a fascist piece of shit, it’s because he’s also an incompetent piece of shit.

Except the extraction shooter genre is one of the hardest to penetrate because there are too many interconnected systems that all have to work together and even the most successful extraction shooters struggle with getting all of the systems to together in perfect harmony.

The answer is kinda yes and no but more towards no because it was conceived as a successor to Black Desert and was originally set as a prequel to Black Desert but during development it became its own universe and the final product isn’t even in the same genre as Black Desert. But like Dark Souls isn’t in the same universe as Demons souls either and is still a spiritual successor if you want to consider Crimson Desert as a sort of a single-player successor to Black Desert online I guess that’s probably somewhat true. I can’t really say because I’ve never played Black Desert Online. For me personally MMO vs single-player is a big enough difference to not consider it a successor.

I brought it up as further proof that the primaries don’t really matter because the primary doesn’t exists as a method of finding the best democrat candidate, it exists as a tool of conformity to squash dissent against the establishment candidate. The “Vote blue no matter who” is the slogan used after the primary to tell people to put their differences aside and vote for the candidate who won the primary. But clearly the “no matter who” part has a secret addendum, it’s actually “no matter who as long as it’s the establishment candidate”.

Had Mamdani lost the primary and ran as an independent the establishment democrats would’ve been up in arms about him sabotaging the chances of the primary winner, who in this case would be Cuomo. But because Mamdani won there’s no outrage from the establishment about Cuomo running as an independent and getting backed by democrats, because that’s who the establishment wanted to win in the first place. Basically Mamdani had to beat the establishment candidate twice because there’s a double standard in place.

I didn’t say marketing isn’t powerful. Marketing is a pretty easy way to sell units, it’s why AAA games have insane marketing budgets. But marketing doesn’t guarantee 5 million units (which is what the other person claimed) and if a game reaches 5 million units sold without going through the average AAA marketing strategy that is a pretty significant thing because it is a sign that there is something to the game.

I think we’re in agreement here.

What do you think the status quo is? Are you happy with where America was heading to when Trump wasn’t in power? Is the slow crawl into a dystopian hellscape really what you want? That’s the problem with the milquetoast status quo maintainer. A milquetoast establishment candidate does nothing but kick the can down the road. If Harris had won you wouldn’t be having ICE storming Michigan in 2025 and 2026, you’d get it in 2029 or 2030 when Trump or his successor (not JD Vance) would get into power. And if it’s not then it’s going to be the next presidency. The things Trump does right now are not relevant to the discussion because if the votes went a different way those things would just happen at a later date. They’re an inevitability in the current US political climate.

As long as nothing is done to improve the material conditions of the American people you will always have the door open for fascism. Since the establishment democrats are not interested in improving the material conditions in any significant capacity all they’re doing is paving the way for fascism. As people get desperate about their material condition they will start looking for ways to improve your life and those are the exact heartstrings Trump pulled to get the win in 2024. And even if you see through the lies Trump told you’re still left with the choice of kicking the can and letting things slowly get worse or succumb to the apathy and just let things happen. There’s only so many times you can kick the can until you think “what’s the point?”. Or worse you become so desperate that fascism starts to make sense.

The only way to prevent that from happening isn’t to vote for the milquetoast establishment candidate. It’s to build a new party, one that is representing the people not the corporations. And if that’s not possible then prepare for the collapse of the empire and hope you live in a state that gets its shit together. Or you know, just dismiss me as a dumbfuck and go on with your day. At the end of the day if you’re an American you’re going to be the one living through the collapse. I just hope the rest of the world detaches from America before it happens so we can view things from afar.

I also wrote nothing about sex, that was all in your sex-crazed mind.

EDIT: You know what, while we’re at it how about you explain how it’s homophobic. I think it’s actually more homophobic to assume only same sex people are into sticking things into their partners rectums, you know feels kinda like you’re embracing reductive stereotypes here.

And my point is that if you asked your normie gamer, which really didn’t exist in the same form, in 2005 who Bungie is — you’d mostly get question marks.

I doubt it. By 2005 people already knew Bungie. Halo was a critical and commercial success and Halo 2 had released a year prior and not only was highly anticipated but ended up as a system seller for Xbox. If you were gaming in 2005 you’d know about Bungie. Had it been about Bungie in 2001 then a normie would give you question marks because at that point Bungie was pretty much unknown. Marathon games were on Mac, they made a RTS game and Oni, which wasn’t all that big of a hit. Halo is what put Bungie on the map and Halo 2 made them very much a household name.

And that’s my point with Crimson Desert as well. Pearl Abyss made BDO before, but they’re still very much an unknown developer. They don’t get the kind of benefit of doubt Bungie or Bioware or Blizzard tend to get. Crimson Desert is the hit that puts weight behind the Pearl Abyss name. The next Pearl Abyss is going to get more eyes because of Crimson Desert.

This would be relevant except that Marathon only sold as well as it did because of the heavy marketing push.

Again, that’s largely my point. You can’t market a game and just sell 5 million units. Marathon sold 1.2 million units because a) it’s a Bungie game so people would be paying attention to it and b) it had heavy marketing behind it. It would’ve sold even less without those two things, but that’s besides the point. The idea that you can just sell 5 million units through marketing is simply not true and Marathon proves it.

Apparently someone kidnapping you, tying you to a chair and sticking a dildo up your ass isn’t torture, it’s just sex. The more you know.

How about this. I’ll change my analogy just for you because your head is so in the gutter you can’t see anything beyond sex. You get waterboarded for 9 minutes or 6 minutes. Do you think the choice matters?

Oh right. I forgot it actually happened because it was such a sham it might as well have not happened. That primary was the equivalent of a democratic election in Russia, which is to say the outcome was predetermined and the rest was just getting the apparatus to show that outcome. If you truly believe that primary would’ve changed anything you’re delusional.

Edit: I’ll also add that the “vote blue no matter who” pretty quickly went to running Cuomo as an independent instead of giving full support to the primary winner, Mamdani. All the slogans of unity and standing together apply only when it’s the candidate the establishment wants.

What primary happened in 2024? Also how did it work out in 2016 when Bernie was running and the party was effectively sabotaging him by backing Clinton instead.

Yeah. And none of it would’ve happened if the democrats had actually tried to appeal to their voters instead of pulling the same “but our hands are tied so we won’t even try” shit they’ve been doing for decades. Do you want a pad on the back for it happening in 2025 and not 2022-2023? Had Harris been voted it would be happening in 2029. You’re missing the big picture. This was always going to happen because there’s no pushback against fascism, there’s only kicking the can down the road.

I can’t say I care what a fascist thinks.

Worked quite well, since the fascist was kept out. That was objectively and factually better option that letting the fascist in. Just because it wasn’t perfect doesn’t mean it wasn’t better.

You donkey, you know what I asked so don’t fucking duck the question. Did you life improve? compared to 2014?

Israel starts razing Gaza to the ground

That started when the supposed non-fascists were in power.

and attacking Lebanon

Has been happening for decades at this and even when non-fascists were in power.

girl schools in Iran get bombed

A girl school didn’t get bombed but Iran still got bombed when non-fascists were in power.

guy who fucks kids gets into the white house

Bill Clinton exists.

global economies suffer, decades long alliances crumble, countries start to run away from America, leading to a economic downturn for the USA

I’m going to throw all of those together because those don’t actually have anything to do with fascism, that’s just having a moron in a position of power. And if I’m being honest, I’d take those over the US having a competent autocrat in power because the rest of the world would be fucked. The amount of power the US has to exert around the world is insane and a competent fascist could easily use it to subjugate even more of the world. The incompetence of Trump is the only saving grace here.

You can live in your magical la-la land where there is a perfect candidate you can vote for without any doubts or conflicting feelings, but here in reality you’ve got to vote based on what the choices are.

Guess what. That is magical la-la land you’re describing is a dream for Americans. I’m not an American and I do get to vote for a candidate that very much represents my political beliefs because our political system isn’t fucked beyond repair.

You do realize the dildo is an analogy for fascism and you just said you do want fascism?

Harris was on the right track in some points but even those those points weren’t good enough and in some cases she ended up campaigning against her own points by refusing to distance herself from the Biden administration.

• Child care should get better but her tax credit is kind of a drop in the bucket compared to the costs of having a child.
• Healthcare should be free not get an extension of reduced premiums
• First time homebuyer tax credit wasn’t enough to make houses affordable
• And her affordability plan wasn’t to make things more affordable

Furthermore people have a serious issue with the economy because things were getting more expensive while purchasing power was going down. Biden claimed everything was fine and Harris refused to oppose that though it was clear to everyone that things were bad. That is what Trump tapped into with his affordability claims. People responded better to a clear lie that acknowledged their hardship instead of ignoring the hardship all together.