There are a bunch of free channels on the internet that some TVs can just stream without a dedicated app. These channels are supported by ads like cable/whatever channels, but not locked behind a subscription. VLC is supporting whatever formats they use to allow (or make it easier; IDK) people to watch them if they want.

The other part is that they’re working on web assembly to allow sites to use VLC as their embedded video player.

3 months is recent.

A game having a significant sale 6 months or a year later is perfectly normal behavior. It tells you absolutely nothing about the industry. It’s worked that way for decades. It’s not the tiniest bit unusual.

None of those games are that recent.

Discounts over time are a perfectly standard part of their pricing strategy. It’s not even mildly unhealthy. Resellers don’t count at all, because that’s always their strategy.

The unusual part of suicide squad and skull and bones is that they’re brand new games. The discounts are not huge because there’s a problem with the market. They’re huge because they’re dogshit excuses for products and nobody is stupid enough to buy them.

If you don’t immediately throw someone who doesn’t flush off of your property to never return, you’re nasty too.

The list of words in order also definitely is.

And a lot of them are trying to stay matched to the real one.

It’s really not.

In poor countries sure, but not the US or Europe. You will get sued and you will pay if you do that at any scale.

One company can’t be a cartel.

The other benefit with Costco is that they have an extremely generous return policy.

Some obvious stuff has different rules (electronics is 90 days, stuff like tires that have clear expected lifespans have their own rules), but it is extremely liberal. And my experience is that I pretty rarely have to use it, because while not everything is a premium product for a bargain price, they tend to ensure that the suppliers for products they sell have reasonable build quality and make stuff that isn’t trash designed to fail.

It’s decidedly not free if you have to buy physical products to get it.

The friction of a physical purchase is relevant.

But all the rest of the slot machine mechanics in terms of dopamine juicing sounds and animations are still there, and they’re the biggest issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_Inc._v._Connectix_Corp.

That’s a loot box with extra steps. You get loot box physical trash and loot box digital trash. TCGs are the original microtransactions.

Now, the extra steps are a small barrier that makes it slightly less bad, because you have to physically go to a store or at least order and wait to get them. But it’s not that much less bad.

No they didn’t.

“You have to rebuy your games, that you can’t play anywhere else” isn’t just “not the best way”. It’s straight up horseshit with no possible way to be valid. It’s also the biggest reason it tanked.

The only thing about stadia that was in any way redeemable was the fact that they didn’t mess around and gave full refunds for any game purchase.

It’s already proven. Repeatedly.

Nintendo and every lawyer involved should see obscene fines for the blatant harassment.

Emulation is not piracy.

There is an abundance of precedent that emulation is not copyright infringement and is not in any way illegal. You can absolutely make money on an emulator and there is absolutely nothing they can do.

The courts aren’t. Nintendo is.

Emulation has already been litigated to hell and back. It’s very clearly legal, including relying on users pulling a blob or two from their hardware for the whole thing to function.

It’s a far cry better than Google or Amazon making you buy the game on their service specifically.

It’s still cloud gaming. So it still sucks. But at least they’re not trying to force you into a shitty locked in storefront. (Though not keeping your Steam login is definitely a pain point.)

There isn’t guesswork involved. They know for certain that people will. They have network effect on their side. Their entire audience is captive. Anyone willing to leave already has after the hundreds of different “revelations” of how fucking disgusting everything they have ever touched is.

They aren’t selling anything but your privacy. It’s Apple’s limitations on being overt malware that they’d be bypassing, and it is absolutely guaranteed that they would do so the literal minute they can.

Yes, it would.

They don’t leave the play store because, and exclusively because, Google allows them to do anything they want. Apple does not. The literally exact day a similar law goes into effect in the US, it’s an absolute guarantee Facebook leaves the App Store with every single app they have. There’s not even the slight possibility they stay there.

Facebook/ten cent/etc have literally zero reason to stay off the play store. Google encourages them to be malware, and doesnt curtail their bad behavior is any way.

Apple doesn’t. They might not leave while they think they can also destroy the security of iOS in the US, but it is a complete and utter certainty that the literal day any similar law takes effect in the US that Facebook and all their apps leave the App Store completely. They absolutely can trivially walk people through the steps from their website and the apps that are already installed, and they already have the monopoly to force their users to deal with it.

Apple isn’t Reddit, building a market by claiming to be open then locking it down. They built their market because the walled garden is a massively better product.