The fact that Disney is asserting that whether a EULA has been read is irrelevant and that a EULA signed five years prior for an unrelated use is still enforceable feels more than insidious.
I hope Disney’s claim gets thrown out because I worry about the precedent this could set for EULAs going forward.
I’m definitely a little late to the party to comment on this thread, but it blows my mind that any organization would pick a flight with SAG-AFTRA at this point (or the WGA, though that’s not relevant to THIS issue).
SAG has already proven they will hold out pretty much indefinitely and the effects of the joint SAG/WGA strike are still being felt in Hollywood now.
Is the siren song of AI so alluring that companies are willing to die on this hill? At its peak hype, I could see executives salivating at the potential savings; but my understanding is there has been pretty substantial pushback to projects made with AI (or tech with AI in it). I can’t imagine that these large studios think their potential savings would outweigh the potential losses in sales; but I guess that’s why I’ll never be a Fortune 500 CEO…
I wish SAG-AFTRA nothing but the best in their endeavor for protections against AI.
I can’t say I’m surprised to see Gamepass get a price hike; it always seemed like it was in the loss leader stage to try to grow market share.
I wonder what the reasoning was to institute the hike now, though, since I’m not sure how strong their market share actually is on it.
My theory is that either:
My understanding is they are still releasing new Series S models, which are basically just Gamepass machines; so I would expect they are not happy with their current market share (though corporations literally never are), which makes me think it’s the former option, not the latter.
All that being said, I wonder how much the price can increase before the value proposition of Gamepass is moot. Right now 20 USD a month doesn’t sound bad as long as you’re playing at least one new game a month, but I wonder how much more room there is in the price before the number of games you would need to play becomes unreasonable.
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the Gamepass model since I like owning my games physically (it’s the main reason I prefer console to PC), so I don’t have much of a horse in this race; but I will be interested to see what becomes of Gamepass in the long term.
That’s a really good point about their business model potentially being unsustainable, but I still question if adding gambling is the answer.
Things that get me to go out (and I know that is anecdotal at best) are things like trivia nights, theme nights, stand up comedy, etc. I don’t think I would be very tempted to go out by the opportunity to be hustled in Angry Birds.
I agree that Dave & Buster’s needs to develop a more novel niche to not get erased by home entertainment, but I would be shocked if this was the best way to do it.
I remember when this news first leaked, people online were joking about getting into fights over a 200 dollar bet on a kid’s game if skeeball.
While I’m not sure how common that type of phenomenon would be, I have to agree with the author of this article that I would certainly think twice before bringing a child to a location where gambling is encouraged (especially in conjunction with drinking).
At this point, I’ve lost count of the number of times Elon should have been let go. I recall him recently saying that dosing himself with cat tranquilizers was cool and a good business decision actually.
That’s not even getting into turning Twitter into a Nazi bar (and throwing out its extremely valuable branding) or pushing for the cybertruck that cuts its passengers, looks like a dumpster, and corrodes if you look at it funny.
The fact any board of directors considers this man employable at all is mind boggling to me.
Honestly, that’s my main hope as well; that all the charging team talent will disperse across the market and help other chargers spread as well. The article mentioned Tesla having 60% of the fast charger market, so hopefully we will see other companies fill the gap.
My concern is that if no companies pick up the ball Tesla just dropped (or more accurately angrily chucked over the fence), that this could set the EV charging network back significantly; which would definitely be a problem for mass adoption of EVs.
When this news dropped a little while ago. I saw a lot of speculation that basically Elon got mad that a woman said he was wrong and laid off possibly Tesla’s biggest asset in a tantrum.
Honestly, at this point, the most surprising part of this situation is how unsurprised I am at that being exactly what happened.
Hopefully, this will not set back a widespread EV charging network (Tesla or otherwise) too much; but it definitely sounds like damage has been done.
Thanks! They were not my initial plan, but I think they turned out quite well.
I actually spent several months trying to track down a bulk quantity of blue “Flying Fist” toys to be the glove. I was also considering mini boxing glove keychains for a little while. Eventually I somehow had the brain-blast to make a custom sticker instead, which would be much easier (and cheaper) to get.
It worked out really well, too, because I was about to put each guest’s name on the back of the sticker so every person would get a gift-bucket with the right sized shirt in it.
It really does feel like that’s what happened. Is WBD going to can something every time they lose an expensive bet?
To add insult to injury, I don’t think anyone was clamoring for an online-only looter-shooter version of this game. If they had just let Rocksteady do their thing, it probably would’ve been a hit. WBD (probably) meddled hard with what would’ve been a solid game, and now a bunch of smaller developers are paying the price…
That does not feel like a good way to build brand loyalty. Especially because no artist is going to want to give their work to a corporation who will throw it in the trash first chance they get.
I think you can download it from Deery’s website (Link)(Archive link)
So I think (/hope) it’ll be available indefinitely-ish…
It’s honestly very sad how corporations can just throw their work in the trash if they think it will make them more profit there. I’m glad Deery was able to release it on his own for free so the game won’t be lost, but it’s unclear if all the developers will be able to do that.
I can’t imagine how frustrating and disheartening it must be as an artist to create something to share with the world only for it to be essentially buried underground because someone decided they could make a little extra money if no one ever sees what you made…
That’s pretty cool. Does it let you pause games indefinitely while playing other games, or does it just initiate a pause while you’re on the home screen, etc?
The sleep function is pretty nice, but I like to swap games relatively frequently; so being able to save frequently is still critical for me. Plus at the time, I was just playing on my personal computer, so I couldn’t leave it running, even if I wanted to.
For P5R, I suggest only playing for an hour or a two at a time; I think it helps keep the game from dragging. For me, it helped keep the exploration aspect fun since I didn’t have to rush to the end since I was probably not getting there in this sitting anyways.
I can’t really compare too much to P4G, since I never got very far in it (I missed the QoL improvements).
I think being able to save in safe rooms let them expand the Palaces/Dungeons, which I could see making the game drag for some. Personally, I enjoyed the safe room mechanic since it meant that I could play for short times if necessary, which let me “pick up and play” much easier.
P5R was my first introduction to the series, but I’ve heard the characters in P4 are much more fleshed out. Is that your issue, or would you say it’s the game mechanics that are bugging you?
I’m not saying that the game would’ve been kept off Eidos was still at SE, but I’m so tired of big corporations acquiring companies just for their IP while killing their projects and laying off their staff.
Embracer has a long history of acquisitions, and I am kind of wondering how long it will take until they decide to just “loan” out the IP they’ve bought instead of putting out any games at all.
If this is to be trusted (which is a big if), it’s very interesting Nintendo would not continue with the OLED screens. I’ve heard people theorize Nintendo is choosing to keep the OLED screen for a mid-cycle refresh, which I would believe; but would consumers be happy with the graphical downgrade?
Either way, assuming this is legit, it sounds like Nintendo is likely keeping the Switch form factor if they are still using small (ish) screens for the console. If this is the case, I wonder how likely a Wii U situation would be (where customers think it’s the same console they already have and don’t buy it)…
It will certainly be interesting to see how this film turns out given the oft-cited point that Link does not traditionally speak during the games (though I think he did in the CD-i games).
It’s also worth noting that video game based movies rarely do well. I’m not sure what the general consensus was on the Illumination Mario movie, so maybe people are more optimistic for this movie if they liked that one. Personally, I didn’t love the Mario movie, so I’m still a little uncertain of the potential quality of this movie.
I certainly hope this movie does well, though. Then we can finally get the Chibi-Robo movie we’ve all been waiting for.
That stuck out to me as well. Disney probably made 50k USD in the time it took me to write this comment. This feels more like sending a message than trying to avoid a costly payout.
I’m sure they want to discourage lawsuits, but I’m worried they did this just to try to set a precedent on EULAs being the end-all-be-all.
I just hope they get enough bad publicity from this move to cost them more than the payout would have.