one thing i’d be interested in: is it possible to make a fun 4X-style game that challenges the very premises of 4X (which are mostly patterned after the models of expansion we’re familiar with in the West)?

Dystopika (Steam, Windows) is a city builder in maybe the strictest definition of that two-word descriptor, because it steadfastly refuses to distract you with non-building details. The game is described by its single developer, Matt Marshall, as having “no goals, no management, just creativity and dark cozy vibes.” Dystopika does very little to explain how you should play it, because there’s no optimal path for doing so. Your only job is to enjoy yourself, poking and prodding at a dark cyberpunk cityscape, making things that look interesting, pretty, grim, or however you like. It might seem restrictive, but it feels very freeing.

the only reason this is being kept up and locked and not deleted is to make it clear where Beehaw stands on Richard Stallman, which is: stop defending him, he is an awful person and he completely deserves to be put over the fire for his words and actions.

Aside for all his pedophile view points, he is correct about infantilizing 12-17 year olds.

…you’re just repeating my point back to me, and why Stallman is the worst mouthpiece for this position.

It kind of reminds me of ASD symptoms, not reading social cues properly, etc.

i know you mean well but, respectfully: having autism or another disorder (if Stallman even does) is probably not the reason why Richard Stallman has historically defended what amounts to pedophilia; why he continues to defend bestiality and necrophilia; and why he has extremely malformed opinions on what constitutes sexual harassment and sexual assault. and even if it is, that’s an explanation and nothing more. it does not excuse or make acceptable his behavior or the consistency with which it has skeeved other people out. he deserves to be strongly rebuked, as anyone else would, for his refusal to take accountability in this situation.

i mean, whom among us has not said such things, without retraction, as:

Cody Wilson [who at the time of his charging was 30] has been charged with “sexual assault” on a “child” after a session with a sex worker of age 16. […] The article refers to the sex worker as a “child”, but that is not so. Elsewhere it has been published that she is 16 years old. That is late adolescence, not childhood. Calling teenagers “children” encourages treating teenagers as children, a harmful practice which retards their development into capable adults.

Mere possession of child pornography should not be a crime at all. To prosecute people for possessing something published, no matter what it may be, is a big threat to human rights.

A national campaign seeks to make all US states prohibit sex between humans and nonhuman animals. This campaign seems to be sheer bull-headed prudery, using the perverse assumption that sex between a human and an animal hurts the animal. That’s true for some ways of having sex, and false for others. For instance, I’ve heard that some women get dogs to lick them off. That doesn’t hurt the dog at all. Why should it be prohibited?

and whom among us has not had to retract such positions as:

There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

these are obviously positions that everyone would take the fall for if they had a blog.

Not defending pedophiles, but

you are about to defend pedophilia. rethink this and stop talking.

there was a time when 13 was considered adult.

and? Stallman is not talking about a previous time at any point here. also: that previous time was bad anyways. why would we want to–especially with respect to age of consent–go back to considering 13-year olds and younger to be adults? they cannot meaningfully consent to sexual relations with adults; it’s just child abuse. all of this is why Stallman’s words are abhorrent.

It’s still legal for teenagers to marry in most countries.

Stallman is not talking about teenagers. he explicitly distinguishes children (again, people <13 for him) from teenagers (people 13-17).

An anonymous hit job

it’s literally his own words all the way down here. if it’s a “hit job” it’s entirely Stallman’s own fault for being a freak with morally abhorrent takes. one of the first things mentioned here is that he had to retract the position that “voluntarily pedophilia” doesn’t harm children (a category of person he defines as anyone under about 13)! any reasonable person would find this abhorrent and Stallman a horrible person for ever having defended said position in the first place, because it is genuinely abhorrent to defend something like that. that’s just child abuse.

don’t do this

With approximately 600 members, Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA is the largest group of union-represented workers at any U.S. game studio. Workers in the new unit are located in California, Texas, and Minnesota. Over 1,000 video game workers at Microsoft now have union representation with CWA.

this is very cool, and hopefully more workers leverage the Microsoft neutrality agreement.

today is apparently just a bloodbath day in gaming generally. Deck Nine is also laying 20% of its staff off, and esports company ESL Faceit Group is laying off 15%

according to Jason Schreier:

PlayStation plans to close its London studio, which was responsible for several recent VR games.

Among other divisions, the layoffs will hit Insomniac (Spider-Man), Naughty Dog (The Last of Us), and Guerrilla (Horizon), three of PlayStation’s most successful subsidiaries

would you believe me if i told you this is Bloober’s first attempt at combat

i think it’s very clear now that the lack of unionization in the gaming industry will need to change, or every year or two or whatever arbitrary interval we’ll see an astronomical number of people losing their jobs all at once in this way.

i am aware of what a mod is and literally used it at you in reply–what you call them, however, has no relevance at all to my point. you’ve earned the thread’s first 3 day ban for your unnecessarily weird attitude about this.

ask any old-timer fanfiction writer about this. “fan work” as a whole–including mods–is a gigantic gray space in current copyright law and IP holders are almost certainly within their technical legal rights to prohibit any works like Revolution on a blanket basis. the current arrangement where most rightsholders look the other way and/or accept the existence of such fan works is a largely informal one, and there’s nothing codifying it being that way. it could arbitrarily change (or just be fucked up by a court case) at pretty much any time–and, indeed, occasionally rightsholders still do try and enforce their IP quite aggressively.

i guess this is a bit opaque but: pretty much any (formal or informal) mod action or guidance that isn’t completely self-evident (i.e. spam removal, approving users, pinning threads) has been seen by at least two or three other mods, usually more depending on who’s around. that includes this informal correction from me upthread. the site-wide mod team is aware of what i said because we have a chat for vibe checking stuff like this–and straightforwardly, if they disagreed with how i responded or the substance of what i said, then the posts would not still be up because i’d delete or amend them.

This is nitpicky and toxic.

are we seriously calling “pointing out that the argument being made has been changed in a rhetorical sleight of hand because the original argument is completely wrong” nitpicky and toxic now? come on. this is a piss take and bordering on “let’s look the other way when someone is making a false argument that aligns with what i want to be true”.

were this Nintendo, they’d be receiving rightful backlash, but people, like you, online will give a pass due to the sheer fact that it’s Valve doing the takedown.

well… now you’re indicating that this kind of isn’t hyperbole from you, because you’re just straight arguing the underlying (and still incorrect) “hyperbolic” point now, lol

Yes, hyperbole is non-falsefiable. It’s a rhetorical device, not a claim unto itself.

i mean i think this is just obviously ridiculous. if someone said “every person who dislikes Valve is a pedophile who hurts children” or whatever hyperbolically i think it’d be silly to say that’s non-falsifiable just because it’s hyperbolic. there’s still an underlying and incorrect claim being made