In a case like this, I would assume it is a budgetary thing - if your marketing campaign is budgeted at $100k, you wouldn’t want to give away a million dollars of free goods.

Well if you’re looking for caloric density, look no further than drinking oil. Enjoy.

Mostly I suppose - but in the example/hypothetical given in the article of Sony moving it’s manufacturing from China to India, it would take 6-24 months minimum to find/develop the space they need and move the equipment. This cost to move all of the equipment half way across the world and the opportunity cost of out of stocks at stores worldwide when your distribution chain finally drys up - the cost was sited at 10%. If they MOVE a facility, I think that cost gets passed on to everybody worldwide.

There may be situations where JUST American production is moved to another country with more favorable tarrifs and worldwide production continues out of the existing facility, and probably in a situation like that, only the American costs would increase to cover the facility/equipmemt costs. But for that to make fiscal sense, this would have to be somehow CHEAPER than the price already elevated by the tarrifs. Companies could even in this case, theoretically hike prices worldwide to subsidize the impact to everybody. More people paying a higher prices mean everybody pays less.

Now, I couldn’t say if there’s any precident for the last line there. Purely hypothetical. But regardless - it’s entirely possible it WON’T be JUST Americans paying higher prices.

People vote with their wallet repeatedly against live service games, and they keep releasing them. Eventually they’ll stop, right? Right?

I’m a former player, but played continuously from release for 11 years. This is undoubtedly ridiculously expensive, but the convenience of having your mail and auction house anywhere in the world - the value to certain players is immense. I think if I played still today, it would probably be a struggle deciding whether this limited time offering was worth jumping on - I certainly don’t need it even a little bit, but when I want it, this thing would be incredibly convenient to have. Maybe that would just be the addiction talking. But when you spend all your free time with one game, you do feel a sense of good value relative to things like drinks at the bar or a movie or buying 1 or 2 full priced games a month.

But truly, the utility this provides for you and your guild is immense and impossible to replicate. They definitely shouldn’t be selling mounts on the shop for $90. That’s fucked. But compared to some of the video game devs selling weapon or character skins for as much or more, there IS at least a unique value proposition to the player. I guarantee there will be people with it the second it releases, for better or worse.

Did people get bitchy on the internet when they released the PS One, the PS2 slim, 5 generations of PS3, or the PS4 Pro? Or the Xbox One X, Xbox 360 E, the Switch OLED, 2DS, DS lite, Gameboy Advance SP, Sega Genesis 2, Sega Genesis 3, Sega Saturn 2? I certainly don’t remember this much discourse back then. It’s like every gamer on the internet has collective amnesia about mid generation refreshes and how they have existed since the dawn of console gaming.

Just as always - it’s probably not meant for you if you’re perfectly happy with your base model.

And just like all those multitude of prior examples - no, they certainly will not release games that ONLY work on the mid cycle refresh device. Because that would be a really poor financial decision. And can you imagine the discourse if you had to buy a $700 console to replace your $500 console so you could play all the newest first party titles? On a device that has likely 4 years max before it is subplanted by the PS6? That would be a far more justified upset in my opinion.

I understand what they’re trying to do - bring attention to total cost of ownership and the price disparity between petrol and electricity. It’s clearly marked and impossible to miss when you’re on the website speccing out a car, so it’s maybe a little initially deceptive, but not scummy imo. But it also leads to screenshots like this…

(laughs in European)

She’s not a teacher, shes in the library. But - she is allowed absolutely zero ot. She’s already had her time card adjusted on days that she worked early or late to match her scheduled hours. And they only pay her for 7 hours a day, but it’s an 8 hour work day and she hasn’t once had the time to take a hour for lunch.

What even IS the recourse when it’s not a comproration, but the government that is stealing your wages? 🤷 I think I’m more upset about it all than she is, because the quality of life is way higher than her last job. And so I’ll just keep it all to myself.

My wife got her first pay check last week at her new job in a US school district. I was certain something was wrong when it came in, but the pay stub did nothing to show the breakdown of hours, rate, etc. She finally got a response today - and I’ve learned that school breaks are NOT PTO. She gets zero PTO she can take during the school year, and while frustrating not to be able to choose when you take your time off, I assumed that was just because she gets the summer off. But apparently she gets no PTO AND takes 71 days out of the year off without pay, effectively. So they do you the favor of paying you over 12 months, but you still only get paid for hours worked. The rate of pay seemed like it would be a pay raise on the surface, but I never anticipated needing to dock it by 20%.

Zero PTO. Just the perks of American life.

There is also just the one straight path from the US east coast (Florida) to Asia.

They know my tax liability based on the income reported to the IRS by my employer - but you’re right that something they don’t necessarily know is the variety of valid deductions you might be eligible to take. Part of the process of filing is also calculating your tax liability though - and that part of it they know precisely and rather than TELLING you, you’re expected to determine your own liability and heaven help you if it’s wrong.

They also know precisely how much we owe in taxes, but instead of telling us and we pay it, they allowed a multi billion dollar industry to pop up around it and dictate tax law.

When I booted up Final Fantasy VII for the first time on my PS1, I was so confused as to why I could not start a new game. I was young, but I’m pretty sure I just shrugged and put the game away for months.

I don’t want the devs to kill themselves for a game, obviously. I don’t think anyone does. People just want content updates for a property they love. In an industry that lays off people after they ship a game or starts work immediately on the franchise yearly $70 sequel, I just want a game developer that does better than that. That’s why the whole world waited patiently for the follow up to the GOTY of 2022 with Shadow of the Erdtree. Elden Ring didn’t get a ton of free content updates in that time, they didn’t make it a live service or offer mtx, and they didn’t pump out their massive expansion in an unreasonable time frame. They built an incredible game and incredible world, and then they continued development on the game they had poured their hearts into for years and spent the time they needed to create the expansion the game deserved, and at a reasonable price.

Oh very cool - that’s a very good use case that I hadn’t considered!

Of all the names on the list, Leazel is absolutely killing me. Everytime I think it I’m laughing again. A little disappointed but you’re probably right - it’s meant to be Lae’zel.

I just loaded up Android Studio, which has it’s own emulation layer. I’ve tried Bluestacks in the past and had trouble with it - figured that Google’s own environment would be the best option.

I only came along after Google podcasts announced that it was sunsetting, so I don’t know what the lifetime membership entailed. But I have no need for any of the paid features they offer, so I’m happy to remain a free member. I don’t really understand why I would need cloud storage… from my podcast app… and on pc, I just run the Pocket Cast app in an Android emulator since for some reason you can’t use a web browser without a subscription. Completely mystifying decision, but I’m not paying $4 a month for it.

Bioware didn’t make Starfield - that was Bethesda. Maybe you were thinking of Anthem? And fair point there.