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If I wanted to play, say, Final Fantasy Adventure 2 for the GB. I could have purchased the copy at the game store for $55. Or I could download the rom off the internet and play it on my cellphone.
Discs are more complicated. Emulaton for disc based systems has gotten sophisticated enough that, with the exception of the original xbox, you can basically get whatever you want from the entire catolog and play it on your computer with a little bit of setup. For the original xbox, which I have, it’s a matter of modding one (a somewhat easy task) and then
So yeah at the end of the day what is the use of these plastic discs anymore?
If you’re around indie games long enough and go to any talks at all you are bound to come across a talk on “indie game marketing” with advice that is specific to releasing on steam. The person doing the talk seems to know what they’re talking about, so you listen. Then they begin to tell you that you are doing everything wrong as a game developer, and that it’s absolutley vital to learn the ways of marketing. In fact you are doing things so wrong that your current project is doomed to obscurity and if you don’t follow your advice on your next game
What is their advice? Marketing. You need to Market Your game (In addition to making “A good game”)
Mainly I watched a lot of smaller indie devs have similar crushed expectations, but with a lot more invested. I had read the account of one game maker who had quit their job, moved to the midwest in order to maximize their savings, and worked solo on a project for 5 straight years, crunching the entire time, only to have everything basically go wrong. Prior to release I had read of one hobby developer who had about 50 sales after spending 3 years of devoting 20-30 weekly hours to their project, while also carrying a day job. I didn’t quit my job, mortgage a house, or crunch at all. I would mostly attend social events, go on vacations, and be generally lazy about things because I had made up my mind to release it as freeware to lower the stakes. I also did this because it seemed one could do “everything right” and indeed I read many accounts of people doing “everything right” and still end up with very few sales or downloads. With odds like that I wasn’t comfortable taking much risk with the project.
There is nothing a neoliberal loves more than to tell you to vote, to shame you into voting, to bring up the US’s appaling voter turnout. The neoliberal wants you to participate in civics, run for office, and a bunch of other activities that will result in “something” changing. But the expectation is those changes you won’t see matirialize in one’s lifetime, they’re “slow incremental change” that they neglect to mention can be wiped out overnight.
Through the film it’s revealed that the protagonist’s life is, essentially, the worst of all possible options. We see her grind through a life that she feels trapped in and is negative about for legitimate reasons. She wanted to be a singer or a movie star, but is instead running a laundromat with her husband. Alpha Waymond then reveals that blah blah blah, other timelines exist where the protagonist made the “right” choice and, through the power of the movie’s timeline hopping technology, one can live through that lifetime and gain those abilities.
So if you did the right personal choices, you too could be a movie star, or a singer. The reason you are in the lot you’re in? Those are personal choices. You should have gone to the right school, taken the right job, gone to the right parties, said the right things. Personal circumstances are irrelivant.
After a few restarts, including one run where I sold all of the items in my inventory for a night at the hotel, I got a stroke of luck: finding a crate of wine on the side of the road. Selling this at the local gas stop provided enough money to get ahead of the game’s resource burning curve. I was able to start getting speed parts for the car, making it go faster and faster, and soon the journey became almost easy. I nearly lost the car in the game’s mountain pass section, fording deep waters and traversing a town’s steep and turning streets at night.
I don’t quite remember when I lost the ride first but there was a big hill, and then and then, oh gosh. I let off the throttle just a little bit and my bike absolutely died as the rpms dropped and scores of bikes flew past me. In this situation you have to pedal to give your bike just an ounce more speed hoping that the engine spins up again. I cannot let go of the throttle even though it’s wide open and bogging down, because if I do, the whole thing will die, so it’s just misery the entire way up.
I let off the throttle because, when my bike is on the pipe, it will pass everyone going uphill, getting a surge of power. but I let off the throttle because i don’t want to run into anyone. Eventually on the ride I learn to give into acceleration and blast past people going uphill, weaving between slower bikes, because it’s the only way I will get to the top. Full speed or no speed. As long as I get a head of steam going up a hill, I can make any one of them.