David Gaider

If someone *truly* goes above and beyond, I'd still be tempted to tip - here and in Europe, honestly. That's what it's supposed to be for and what North Americans pretend it actually is.

I've been heads down all weekend and I finally looked at the news this morning and... gosh. 😬

Guess they should have given him that Nobel Peace Prize after all, huh?

"Aren't prices higher at restaurants there?" Yes, they are. Yet, magically, restaurants still exist and people still go to them and pay. And when you look at the prices back home and factor in tax and tip (now up to, what? 30% as the "expected" amount?), it's not THAT much higher at all.

When I first moved to Australia, I felt weird about the "no tipping" culture here. Now, after 4 years, I've done a full 180. It feels weird when I go home and am asked to "optionally" subsidize low wages and pretend it's a form of enticement for better service (even if there isn't any service).

Gaming my ADHD: starting a side project that I know I'm not truly invested in. BOOM. So much housework done.

Side risk: I encounter an issue in that side project and fixing it becomes my hyper-fixation. 😑

There's a way of saying it so it doesn't sound *quite* so brutal -- I just don't think that way is "this is a good thing, actually".

I really don't think the shareholders are fooled, either. We all get that layoffs are done - especially recently - to benefit the bottom line.

OK, that's way too much discourse. I came here to get *away* from discourse, not post about it myself! Aarrgh. The outrage algorithm clearly has my number. 😔

Skate studio Full Circle is laying off employees, says having fewer people working there will enable it to 'move faster, listen more closely, and deliver consistently for all of you,' somehow Five months after launching into early access, Skate's player numbers on Steam have declined precipitously.

Layoffs are unfortunate for everyone involved. Full stop. This mealy-mouthed thing where it'll help a company "move faster, listen more closely, and deliver consistently" - like they're metamorphosing into a higher state of being - who are they fooling, exactly?
www.pcgamer.com/games/sports...

I do have a whole thread that follows the first post. It's not an open-ended question. 😉

For context: I really enjoyed Heated Rivalry. It, at least, didn't shy away from the idea that gay men enjoy gay sex, and that fact alone makes it crazy that it was embraced by so many straight audiences. As for its authenticity... meh. It's hardly a documentary.

That said, it does make me blink to see so many people espouse the op's attitude when I can't help but wonder, in any other context, what "material harm" they might ascribe to a piece of fiction with what they deem improper representation of a group they *are* a part of. 😉

For me, no. For other gay men... well, I'm not going to tell them how to feel, but I've always thought we won't reach true equality until grandmas switch from "finding a nice girl" to "finding a nice boy" for their grandkids without skipping a beat. Normalizing romance as just romance is a big step.

A screen capture of an exchange on X/Twitter, where someone defends MLM romance (referring to Heated Rivalry, here) as "harmless fiction with no material harm", calling the other user (who says gay men shouldn't be told what they can and cannot be offended by) a tourist, since MLM romance is by women and for women.

This came across my feed, and while it's the kind of discourse that's par for X/Twitter, I've seen variants here as well.

As a gay man myself, I'll say this: I do kinda cringe at some depictions of mlm romance (like the oddly sexless teens on Heartstopper), but is it something to get *offended* at?

I wonder what the crossover is between the dudes who’ll criticize the slightest continuity error or suboptimal lighting or technical glitch in a released movie and the dudes who rave about those obviously sloppy AI clips as if they’re God’s gift to cinema based purely on their apparent potential? 🤔

The bewildering part, to me, is that my impression was always that it wasn't that the execs were too dumb to realize they'd lose the current audience with such a massive change... it's that they just didn't consider sales of 8.5 million worth bothering.

Look, modding is a different world. I'm well-acquainted with it. If you think modders who use AI assets will transform into solo devs at the push of a button and they'll suddenly start putting out "David Gaider-quality" games en masse and it'll then be OK... well, be my guest. I beg to differ.

...what?

Oh, sure. At the press of a button, a direct line between their dreams and the output! Such freedom at last for unleashed creativity! All those creative folks just chomping at the bit to use a treasure trove of stolen work and all their dreams will come true.

"My idea is: I get all the credit but do none of the work!"

"My idea is: I get to make all the decisions, now!"

Not in *any* iteration - at least, not until AI has achieved the ability to think, dream, and conceive in the same way a human does... and, at that point, their ability to plan out and create a game experience is likely the least of our worries.

But AI enthusiasts have starry-eyed dreams of conjuring up multi-stage, in-depth, triple-A games and that's... unlikely, no matter where AI takes us. Ever.

The trick will be navigating an era where execs think devs should now make games by stringing those experiences together, on the cheap.

And that's fine. It'll provide an abundance of content for platforms that only *require* content. Multitudes of pancake-thin games that require no more attention from the player than they required effort to create. The games equivalent of slop AI, just so a site can say "we have X thousand games!"

A friend asked me if I really thought AI wouldn't be able to create video games, and I said no - they will, but that comes with a big asterisk.

The games will all be of the one-step variety. "Do X" and no depth beyond that... enough to engross you for an hour until you realize there's nothing more.

Okay, that makes a lot more sense. Phew! 😅

Wait wait… it’s February, isn’t it? Surely Second Winter is around the corner?

Wait wait wait... I think I finally figured out who they are. Who the customer is for this AI: the IDEA GUY.

You know, that dude who breezes into your mentions who thinks their idea is special. That it's the most important thing. To them, the prompt IS the game!

How did I not see this sooner?

No story. No arc. No progression. No clever level design. No motivation for the player to *want* to continue playing. All of these things require intention, and if "character running through an environment" is enough to impress you? Your notion of how things work is, shall we say, vague as f.

"Bro, the games industry is cooked!" and it's always a video of some character running through an environment. Shooting enemies, maybe, or picking up hearts? Mostly running. Sure, the environment looks decent, from a distance... but this is, apparently, all they think is needed to show "potential".