The definition of indie is always contentious, but there are definitely studios out there who are independent (as in not owned by a larger company) but work with a publisher for funding, marketing, and other support.

Even beyond that bit of semantics, many indies rely on funding from investors of one sort or another, be that angel investors, startup funds, or even just small business loans.

Many of those investors have lost their appetite for games, making it extremely difficult to pay the bills unless you’ve already got a sizeable cash reserve to cover costs.

Tell that to all the smaller studios that have already been decimated and forced to close because of their publishing/funding deals falling through over the last couple of years.

You don’t hear much about it because they’re smaller and/or working on things that hadn’t released yet, vs the occasional big media splashes from companies like MS doing more layoffs, but indies and AA are being gutted too.

It’s comforting to believe that only the biggest companies are struggling, but the industry as a whole is currently in active collapse from the inside out.

I wish that was true, but funding has dried up across the entire sector and that affects the viability of smaller studios more than it does the mega corps with bottomless warchests.

Realistically, it’s Animals for me. Solid narrative theme, Roger Waters’ trademark cynicism at peak potency, great tunes.

But part of me also wants to play devils advocate and say The Final Cut? Okay it’s not the greatest album they made, but it feels raw and real and heartfelt in its own way.

(Yes I also enjoy Waters’ solo albums)

Founded in 1985, Rare is one of the UK’s most historic game developers, best known for Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007, and Banjo-Kazooie.

Microsoft acquired Rare in 2002, and it has since gone on to create titles such as Kameo, Viva Piñata, Kinect Sports, and Sea of Thieves under the Xbox banner.

Says it all, really. Rare has been mismanaged into the ground for the past 20+ years.

Agreed. Permanent hardware bans have been a thing since the PS3/360 era.

I’m not saying it’s a good thing that they can unilaterally disable hardware you purchased (although I certainly understand the reasoning wrt cheaters and pirates) but the author here is acting like the idea is some completely new scheme from the diabolical industry villains du jour.

It’s disingenuous at best.

No, I mean the completely unfounded claim that discord’s typing indicators are somehow a tool for analysing users’ writing styles and selling that on to data brokers.

It’s so bizarrely specific that it comes across as an unhinged conspiracy theory, especially when it’s delivered as part of a link salad.

It’s kind of impressive that you managed to squeeze in so many links to references but without including any that actually back up the accusation you’re making.

Like what?

Specifically the hops used to flavour beer are a potent herbal sleep aid.

So this will affect Reddit and Lemmy too, presumably?

I don’t think I’ve ever used a fake name to order anything online.

I can understand doing it for something potentially embarrassing or compromising, but until I saw this post it never even crossed my mind that there might be people that do it as a matter of course.

Sadly (at the time of writing) you’re just getting downvoted, because Lemmy’s hateboner for Nintendo is more important than context

I’m sure there are lots of examples for me, but I guess one that comes to mind is 007: The World Is Not Enough for PS1.

Reading/hearing about it as an adult, not only is it seen as a poor follow up to Goldeneye, but also the PS1 version is the worse of the two releases, with the general consensus being that the N64 version is better.

Back in the day, though, I didn’t know any better and I loved it. I expect most people have games like that.

Congrats on missing the point and making it about yourself instead

Because hours of play has no direct relationship with completion. Playing for 100+ hours doesn’t mean you’ve finished the game.

It’s well known that video games today are disposable pieces of slop.

Kicking off an article with such a provably incorrect and inflammatory statement is certainly a choice.

Right? If it still works then it still works.

If the article was talking about anything other than tech/software, we’d be praising its longevity.

Maybe they’re still mad that the first game was on Google Stadia?

A big part of the problem is that social media platforms encourage and amplify hateful content.

People are literally profiting from their hate and harassment of game developers (and have the hubris to complain about ‘woke grifters’) but platforms like YouTube just throw up their hands and pretend it’s nothing to do with them.