I recently played The Looker and loved how perfectly it captured the sheer pretentiousness of The Witness. And beyond that, it had surprisingly competent game design. The ending was legendary. It feels like the kinda game that could only be made out of a personal, burning hatred for the original.

I also learned about Pyst, made to shit on the 90‘a hit Myst. For a game that features FMV of John Goodman in a hot tub, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about it sooner.

Are there any other games made with the express purpose of shitting on another game? Or just games made out of spite in general.

I've seen the argument floating around that GTA VI's file size would be too expensive to ship on physical media. I did some quick math to debunk that notion.

I should note that these numbers are very approximate, based on my own Googling while rounding up to account for the weird inflation we've been experiencing. If someone with better knowledge on the matter would like to correct me, please leave a comment and I'll edit my post. Anyway, here's what I found:

Physical media cost

First, I’m gonna start with the assumption that GTA VI is somewhere between 200 - 250 GB. That means three Blu-Ray discs. Though unprecedented, we’ll soon find out it‘s not all that expensive.

The cost of a 100GB Blu-Ray is $2. It used to be $1.50, but the plastic shortage raised it considerably. Since the storage shortage is affecting SD cards and tapes, let’s assume it’s mildly affecting blu-rays too. So, $2.50 per disc.

Three discs is $7.50; add on the case, prints, and shipping, you get an extra $2.50. So, $10 per physical copy of GTA VI. And that’s using high-end estimates. It could be closer to $8.

Now let’s compare how much money Rockstar makes selling GTA VI through each medium.

When you sell a game physically, you have to pay two commissions: the 30% retailer commission and the 15% console platform fee. Add on the manufacturing cost, and Rockstar makes $34 per physical sale.

On a physical download code, the commissions are different. The online store gets a 30% commission, while the retailer only gets 15%. Why? Because the retailer doesn’t have to insure against loss. Stolen codes are worthless without point-of-sale activation, so nobody loses any money. The box is also cheaper, let’s assume $1.50. Adding that all together, Rockstar makes $42.50 per “physical” sale.

Online sales take a 30% platform commission, so Rockstar makes $56 per online sale.

In conclusion

There's a $22 difference in what Rockstar makes between shipping physically and selling digitally. If you're wondering why physical media is dying, this is the reason.

When we compare physical discs to physical codes, there's an $8.50 difference. Again, these are very approximate numbers; it's probably closer to $6.50.

Why would Rockstar forego that single-digit bill? I can think of a few possible explanations:

• Rockstar is penny-pinching eight bucks per sale
• Rockstar wants to steer people towards online sales
• Rockstar doesn’t want used game sales
• Rockstar is paranoid about leaks after 2022 and is willing to make physical media their sacrificial lamb
• GTA VI is just barely on track for its Nov 19th date and Rockstar doesn't think it can ship a gold master early

Personally I think it's a combination of all of them, with an emphasis on steering people towards online storefronts.

Of course, Rockstar could compensate for the disc cost by raising GTA VI’s price by $10 over the standard AAA price. That’s a silly idea though, because nobody would want to buy an $80 game.

…oh wait

I’ve seen my feed flooded with posts complaining about how much content is left behind for GTA VI’s Ultimate Edition. Some are saying that Rockstar is selling an incomplete game, I’ve even seen posts going so far as to say that it’ll set a precedent that’ll lead to the death of gaming.

This is one of the biggest nothing-burger controversies I’ve ever seen.

For $80 you still get the whole campaign, side missions, open world environment, wanted system, side activities, wildlife, and treasure maps. You’re losing less than 1% of the total content.

As for the base price: over 6000 people painstakingly obsessed on this game for almost eight years. That’s an unprecedented scale for any video game ever made. I think $80 is a fair price for that amount of labor.

Let me frame it this way:

When you move through the world of RDR2, there are obvious signs of content that was cut for time. Random buildings in the wilderness that are unenterable. Some shops are closed for business. A gang encampment with no story bearing. Does it feel a little odd? Maybe. But you just forget about them and move on with the game. You had no idea what you were missing out on and had a blast playing anyway. Would paying $20 to open seven of these buildings have substantially improved your Red Dead experience? Probably not.

GTA VI Standard will play much the same way. There are thousands of unenterable set dressing buildings on the map, Sara’s Unisex Salon will blend in with the rest. If you never knew about the Ultimate edition, you’d just pass by and forget about it. It’s not going to have any meaningful effect on your gameplay experience.

There are worthwhile things to be outraged about. This isn’t one of them.

EDIT: I feel like I should clarify a few of my opinions.

I think part of the problem is that the copy text for Ultimate Edition is misleading. It makes you think that car customization and haircuts aren’t in the base game. They are. You’re only losing out on extra styles available only at those shops. How many clothing stores did GTA V have? Something like a dozen? Scale that up to the bigger world of GTA VI and now you have twenty. Now subtract one. Still more content than GTA V.

I’m not saying that charging for extra content a positive. It’s an objective negative. What I’m saying is that it’s such a tiny negative in the grand scheme of things. The content you’re losing is dwarfed by the scale of the game itself. People are acting as if they can no longer enjoy GTA VI cause of this. If you never knew about the Ultimate edition, you’d have a blast playing GTA VI.

I’m not a paid shill, my post history should prove that I’m a real person. This is an actual opinion I hold and I’m risking the negative karma to post it. The reason I respect GTA VI is because I have friends who are game devs. There are 6,000 people working on this game. To say that’s unprecedented is an understatement. A lot of game studios collapse under their own weight when they hit 500. The fact that Rockstar has been able to organize 6,000 people on a single project is a marvel of software engineering. That’s why I’m more than willing to pay $80 for it.

I’ve seen my feed flooded with posts complaining about how much content is left behind for GTA VI’s Ultimate Edition. Some are saying that Rockstar is selling an incomplete game, I’ve even seen posts going so far as to say that it’ll set a precedent that’ll lead to the death of gaming.

This is one of the biggest nothing-burger controversies I’ve ever seen.

For $80 you still get the whole campaign, side missions, open world environment, wanted system, side activities, wildlife, and treasure maps. You’re losing less than 1% of the total content.

Let me frame it this way:

When you move through the world of RDR2, there are obvious signs of content that was cut for time. Random buildings in the wilderness that are unenterable. Some shops are closed for business. A gang encampment with no story bearing. Does it feel a little odd? Maybe. But you just forget about them and move on with the game. You had no idea what you were missing out on and had a blast playing anyway. Would paying $20 to open seven of these buildings have substantially improved your Red Dead experience? Probably not.

GTA VI Standard will play much the same way. There are thousands of unenterable set dressing buildings on the map, Sara’s Unisex Salon will blend in with the rest. If you never knew about the Ultimate edition, you’d just pass by and forget about it. It’s not going to have any meaningful effect on your gameplay experience.

There are worthwhile things to be outraged about. This isn’t one of them.

Hi y’all, I really wish Armoury Crate had options to limit a game’s FPS to 45, 50, 55, or any arbitrary value. Does anyone know a low-resistance tool that might make this possible? Ideally something that lives in the Xbox Game Bar, or can be summoned with a back button hotkey.

I already tried Handheld Companion but it was a buggy mess and never connected my controllers properly. I also tried Winhanced, but the UI felt incomplete and generally too obtrusive. I’ve heard that RTSS can do this too? But it seems like a lot of work to set it up in Xbox FSE.

I really like my Steam Big Picture + Armoury Crate Quick Menu setup and don’t wanna give that up. I’m also not switching to Linux cause of the drop in audio quality.

If anyone knows of a good frame rate limiter tool, I’d love to hear about it.

I wasn’t sure if this question would be considered stupid or not, so I figured I’d post it here. I was thinking about how an unborn baby can technically breathe underwater since the umbilical cord supplies oxygen to the blood. If that’s the case, then what’s stopping us from creating an adult umbilical cord that feeds oxygen and nutrients? Imagine being able to breathe underwater or eat without having to swallow food. You could just recharge the device every day with a new bag of nutrients.

Of course, there must be a biological reason this isn’t possible. My assumption is that the umbilical cord mechanism closes up as an infant develops. At risk of sounding a bit unethical - would it be theoretically possible to keep the cord open through some kind of surgical implant? Have someone grow up with this ability kept intact? If not, I’m curious why. I guess I’m just generally curious about how a baby’s development works.

I wonder if any media has given a detailed description of what a mind trick feels like to the victim. My imagination is that your internal monologue jumps to the idea implanted and you forget any train of thought you had before. Likewise, mind trick resistance training would involve finding shortcuts to recall your previous thoughts.

Wondering if anyone else has opinions on what it would feel like.