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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • According to a post I found on that shitty alien site, An AAA game has to sell 10 million copies to break even around 6 months ago. That means at $70 dollars each. They can cost $700 million to make, market and distribute. The money has to typically be recouped within a certain time frame to keep the lights on and invest in the next 700 mil project. The successful games also have to carry the weight of the failures too, so you probably aren’t getting that bad a deal.

    I’m not saying the price isn’t inflated, just that it can cost a lot more than you might think to make this stuff, and it’s all on a gamble that it will sell.

    I remember buying mortal kombat ii on the megadrive/genesis with saved up pocket money for £45 ($58). That was in 1994, I think I maxed out at about 10 games. I’m seeing assassins creed shadows on the xbox at £56.99 ($74) today (ignoring online digital shops because they didn’t exist in 1994.) So in 31 years inflation on the price of a premium video game has been 0.75% annually vs 2.5% for all goods and that has resulted in a small 20% increase in the price over 30 years.

    Closest link I could find to back up the inflation rate. If games increased in price Inline with inflation, they’d cost about £96 ($123) today.

    Games have always been expensive, but less so now than 30 years ago.

    P.s. If I don’t ignore online digital shops, I can actually get it cheaper the that 1994 price. Only £40 ($51). I mean come on its not like suddenly we have a bad deal on video games. Also if it really bothers you stop buying games at launch. I rarely spend more than a third of those prices now just by waiting a year or two.


  • “Here is your big mac meal”

    “but I ordered a McChicken sandwich”

    “don’t worry, our AI suggested swapping your order because it predicted you actually prefer chicken based on your order history which it got from facial recognition when you walked in so we started preparing it before you ordered which also meant we’d get your order out 9.4 second faster! Isn’t it so clever, eh?”

    “what about my drink, I didn’t order diet coke?”

    “we gave you diet because our AI indicated that you probably have diabetes based on body weight analysis and McDonald’s is committed to healthy eating as well as maximising profits”

    “I want to talk to the manager.”

    “the manager was replaced by AI last month, corporate felt on site managers were one of the biggest expenditures for the branches and felt AI can offer more value. I’m sure the AI will be able to help you at that terminal over there. If not, we can escalate to the corporate AI which is authorised to offer 1% off coupons and has a slight antisemitism problem…”

    “the terminal over there? The one with the queue 30 minutes long?”

    “yep, that’s the one. Have a great day!! Oh it looks like our conversation took longer than the time we saved. Oh well, isn’t AI though”




  • If you can smell something, part of it is airborne. Pretty sure I know what peanuts smell like.

    I’ve been on a lot of flights and never been served peanuts since the 90s. I was under the impression they did not serve peanuts on flights any more but those stories you linked say otherwise, but of course you can’t stop people bringing their own.

    I think you have to speak to a doctor and maybe see what the options are.




  • This will be unpopular but I have found Marijuana users to be extremely biased against any negatives raised about the drug and conversely very biased towards accepting anything positive. Because of this and the fact that psychosis is rare, i.e. not the typical experience, the answer you are mostly likely to get here is that Marijuana doesn’t cause it. You can only trust their personal “had it or didn’t have it” but not what they say about never seeing it in others.

    Imagine that it causes psychosis in 1 in 1000 users (I don’t know the real ratio this is just for example). That would mean, based on personal experience alone, you would get 999 answers saying it’s totally fine, and 1 saying it causes psychosis. You walk away thinking it’s safe when maybe for you, it’s not. Even if it was 1 in 10 you’d probably still think the consensus is that it’s safe the 1 saying its not is going against the consensus so must have an agenda. Not what if the rate in the general population is 1 in 1,000,000 but the rate for people with a family history of mental illness is 1 in 3? Both can be true but which is the one that matters to you? Here you’d only be finding the 1 in a million number when you really want to know the one in 3 number.

    Things like this are not about opinions they are about statistics. As someone else said, don’t ask social media for medical matters, science is not about consensus it’s about evidence. The laws of physics don’t change based on how many people believe something.

    Many comments here are the equivalent of saying “I’ve never seen a car crash so they must be made up, it’s just fear mongering by the auto industry to put useless air bags and seat belts in the car to charge you more”.




  • I know what the point was, but Biden is included as if he is part of some political dynasty. He was VP. A very normal situation, 19 out of 49 have run for president. It’s like being promoted through the ranks until you get to the top. Isn’t that kinda normal in most careers?

    So why is it “insanely improbable” for Biden, someone who qualified for the job over decades, to be “chosen” as opposed to anyone else.

    We aren’t talking here about how much cash it requires to become president which raises the bar above most people’s head.we are taking about political dynasties.

    So I say again, including Biden as if it is some statistical anomaly or stranglehold on politics is disingenuous, especially if you exclude Harris.

    Her situation of running for president after serving as vice president is EXACTLY the same as Biden unless you want to split hairs and say he served 2 terms and her only 1. So if you want to say Biden was given a silver spoon, so was she.

    Biden is not a dynasty. But if you insist he is, so is Harris, and that makes the original premise flawed.




  • You think the only reason people could find destructive, violent behaviour to be unusual or difficult to understand is because they have no passion in their own lives?

    I’m just a little sad that there are people in the world who have grown up in such violent, loveless homes that they can’t conceive of finding violent behaviour over a sports game disgusting.

    I wonder how many of wives and partners who get the shit kicked out of them when their passionate “alpha” male’s favourite team loses would agree with you. Oh it’s OK, he had just lived such a full, passionate life that he sometimes loses his self control for a moment.