u/goro-n

I applied to an F500 company a few months ago and got an email from the recruiting team asking me to complete some questions about my work authorization status and what experience I have with certain technologies in the job description. I sent it in and didn't hear back for 2 months, but now suddenly this week I got an email from the company saying a hiring manager wants to have a 30 minute call with me. All the recruiting emails have been anonymous and I don't have any point of contact within the company. Is this normal? I have no idea what to expect going into this call I scheduled.

I understand that Aragorn and the Dúnedain serve as Rangers and secretly keep watch over Bree, the Shire, and other Northern areas, but when they had to go into town or got a pint at the inn, how did they pay for it? It seems like there wasn't any money involved in being a Ranger and given no one is generally aware of their work, there's no one paying for protection or even giving them gifts or free food and clothing as thanks for it. Surely there would be some need to purchase items such as clothing, occasionally food, boots, pipe weed, and other items?

I think physical games going away was a bit of an inevitability. Sony already made it clear this generation that it is much cheaper to them and to the customer to ship a console without a physical disc drive, and in today's post-AI RAM and SSD prices, they have to do whatever they can to cut the price of PS6 which they've undoubtedly spent years and billions of dollars developing. Plus, games are going over 100GB these days and require multiple discs which adds to the physical production cost, even though digital and physical games on Sony/MS cost the same.

I think the outcry would be lessened if game publishers allowed users to keep an archival copy of digital games stored on some external hard drive or SSD, so that even if the marketplace stops selling or distributing that game, gamers still have access to the title which they paid for. Additionally, the marketplaces should have an option to permanently transfer license of a digital game to another person for free. This is how physical media works, I can take my PS5 game on disc, give it to my friend for free, and they can keep and use it in perpetuity. If I want to sell it to someone, I can charge another person money, and then give the disc to them. This is how it has been for physical media for decades going back to vinyl records. With these two principles--digital archive and digital transfer, I think most of the concerns around physical media going away would be assuaged.

I don't think it's realistic to ask Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to make physical games forever, when PC has been digital-only for years now and is doing just fine. But with some small changes they can preserve most of the benefits of physical games even with an all-digital model.