Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

I can only imagine, lol. tbh even I allow the bot to lead for the most part. Sometimes I just putt around narratively, so to speak, interested in what it comes up with.

I'll use it when it starts going down a narrative chain that smacks up against the filter, so I don't have to deal with multiple minutes of asking it to 'try again' with filtered responses.

Considering this particular bot forced my last character to throw away all of his stuff and then spent the night verbally abusing him while drinking shots of whiskey, I was relieved by the mostly wholesome direction the RP took after this.

Apparently there are already clothing companies using AI to fabricate photo-realistic models for their products!

AI art can be pretty stunning when it goes away from the plastic-y CG look a lot of it tends toward. I'm guessing that'll depend heavily on the level of sophistication of the software, though. Most of the AI art I've attempted to generate via free services ends up looking pretty nightmare fuel-y, unfortunately.

I think higher level artists will be fine, but companies are wagging their tails at the opportunity to cut costs by downsizing their art departments.

@HallowMoonshadow It was probably my fault. I encouraged his sadism too much, since I was curious what would happen. Didn't realize he'd turn into an abusive stepfather.

I saw this on BBC this morning:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65372710

It's nothing new really but it did give me an idea. I love a good consumer care/rights/awareness cause and I wonder if a Microtransaction Analysis website would be a good idea to inform players and their parents about games.

Something that will give games a colour coded score out of 10 to note how predatory the MTX in the game are. Red being the worse offenders.

I feel like an in-depth knowledge of behavioural psychology would be needed to analyse games which is unfortunately something I don't have.

Maybe a top 10 list of worse offenders would be a good feature. Also games broken down by platforms whether PS, Xbox, Switch, multiplatform or Mobile. Also breakdowns of the "true" cost of these games, how much an average player might spend to achieve a good enough standing in the game and how much an extreme player would have to spend to unlock everything.

I know MTX is big business and I hate the idea of affecting people's livelihoods, those who are employed by these publishers but at the same time, I feel the bigger moral crime is that these companies use psychological techniques to manipulate potentially vulnerable players to part with their cash.

I'm always in favour of tighter legislation to regulate such an unwieldy debt-inducing facet of our favourite hobby but in lieu of that, I feel a Consumer Awareness resource could be massively beneficial to players and relatives of players alike.

Had a bit more of a think about the above idea as I wasn't sure how it could be financed. I imagine that white hat behavioural psychologists aren't cheap.

Ad revenue wouldn't suit a consumer awareness website because any unmoderated association a product could have with the website would mislead users. As well as advertisers using similar manipulative techniques to gain your custom. Equally a subscription would money hat information that should be made available to all.

I had a look at the MSE website and they detail how they are financed:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/site/moneysavingexpert-fina...

It seems they rely a lot on affiliate links without them having an effect on editorial. The content on the website is produced first then another team tries to find affiliate links to any recommended products or services. If no link can be found, the content isn't changed to accommodate that.

I wasn't sure how this could apply to a website that is basically grading games on a scale from Bad to Awful but maybe within the grading scale I discussed above, there could be a Green whereby a game has no MTX whatsoever and those could be affiliate linked. I'd also have no issue with a Yellow scaled game being affiliate linked. Something along the lines of the last few mainline Resident Evils where additional content that can be earned in game can be bought early for a maximum amount of about £20-£30. (At least, I believe that's the case with Resident Evil, I'm happy to be corrected.) I don't think any Orange or Red scaled games should be affiliate linked.

Edit to add some more thoughts:

I suppose I envision this more as a resource that you check when you need to, a bit more like checking HLTB to find out how long a game is rather than checking PushSquare daily for the news cycle. That said, fact checked topical articles with journalistic integrity (very important due to the purpose of the website) could be published as and when news comes up and/or industry quotes are provided. This could contribute to the news cycle to keep things relevant.

Consumer safety scores for the latest releases, even Green scaled games, should help too.

MSE has a forum too which I've found to be a useful resource in the past. Would be good to incorporate this and foster a community.

I think if the site takes off, it might be a good idea to contact headteachers and heads of subjects around the country to solicit it in an honest way because it might be a useful and educational resource for them to share with students or parents.

I think honesty and transparency is a pretty important ethos to have. Nothing should be hidden and trust should be based on information provided by the site and not "just trust us, we've never steered you wrong before!"

@Kidfried cheers for replying and the feedback. Yeah you are probably right that one might only need the behavioural psychologists to set up a criteria matrix to judge games by. But I wonder if new features would pop up that are not thought of or accounted for in their initial analysis.

I think there are obvious things that developers use to give that dopamine kick when you spend money, whether it's attractive sounds like cash registers, clinking metal, crescendo wave sounds or attractive graphics like swirling lights, stylised fire and other things. I feel like a psychologist with an interest and knowledge not only in these sorts of things but an interest in protecting consumers from it would be a valuable asset. They could spot less obvious things that haven't been thought of.

I should clarify that the comparison to HLTB is its utility rather than user contribution. Even though it would be so much easier in the long run to set it up so users can assign their own scores, I think the risk of bots and/or shills influencing the scores is too high. Not that you said anything about user contribution, I just wanted to clarify my earlier thoughts 😅

I think my scale was along the lines of Green-Yellow-Orange-Red. I kind of wanted it to be recognisable like the traffic light system we have on food in the UK. I stuck yellow in there though because there really is a level between something with no MTX whatsoever and something that is built around it. I feel like orange would be the sort of game based around MTX and red would be a super manipulative game. There'd be a score out of 100 assigned by the criteria matrix as well anyway.

I think the games you've mentioned have made me realise that I would be woefully ill equipped for this task though because I haven't played any of them!

Thanks again for replying and your ideas!

@Kidfried thanks! 🙂✌️

@Kidfried Oh yeah, it’s been a really nice response to the poll! It’s possible that future rounds of actual voting might have less participation, but who knows.

As I’m sure you’ve thought about, one reasonable approach would be to scale the nominees into a couple categories where some move into the next round automatically, based on number of nominations, and some of the more niche nominations have a separate ‘weeding out’ run-off. It might simplify the process of elimination. Although, I don’t know, it might also confuse the masses who are showing up to just vote for Mass Effect 2 and Elden Ring and don’t even know what Space Quest and Dungeon Keeper 2 are. Also, I know early participants (before the flood gates opened) were tending to gauge their list based on whether a game had already been nominated.

But it just seems fair that games with multiple nominations maybe get a leg up. Just an idea and trying to consider how to make vote tabulation easier and also maintain community interest for the long haul.

Thinking about I’m seeing about 50% repeats and then another 50% being random more personal choices. Which is really, really cool to see, actually. I’m surprised at how diverse the community’s preferences and opinions are and how many retro nominations there are. I consider myself a fairly seasoned gamer, having experience back to PS1, but there are a lot of people who are reaching back even further than that. 😄

@Kidfried I think we started off nominating games that we knew others wouldn’t, in order to get a field of games for the next round. That seems to have slightly changed 😅

Just finished my 36 hour fast. Building up to it with multiple 20 hour fasts helped a lot.

I'm a snacker, so it has been an effective way to impose more impulse control on myself.

Kinda impressive that the word ‘niggles’ was actually trending on Twitter just because Sammy used it in his FFXVI article.

inb4 "niggle" just becomes a new racist dogwhistle because of how it sounds.

@Ralizah That’s basically the half of it to be honest. Mostly tongue in cheek from black games journalists all reacting to Sammy’s headline.

@Kidfried It’s not a Geoff event so I get what you mean!

@Kidfried I’ll be missing it too since I have to work. 😞 There’s no question I’d rather be watching the show. But Push Square will have all the deets right away so we can be up to speed quickly afterward.

I usually just catch the trailers of the games I'm interested in, in all their 4k goodness after the show. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything by not watching it live.

@JohnnyShoulder Normally I am the same to be honest. The stream quality can be a bit rough in my experience and I can't skip the bits I have no interest in. And it's like, an hour I could be playing Zelda...!

@Kidfried Ah yes, I have done that on a couple of occasions and that was good fun!

And like @kyleforrester87 mentions, most of time the quality of the stream can be questionable.

Hope you enjoy the content however you choose to watch it Kiddo!

@Kidfried I like the chats, but I tend not to use a computer/laptop for any browsing these days, and there is no mobile chat functionality. So, if I do watch a stream it's through YouTube on my TV.

@Kidfried After all that I did watch it live!

@AgentCooper @RogerRoger @ralphdibny @Thrillho @Kidfried Hey guys, I thought I would give you a little life update since you all so kindly reached out to my original post.

First off I'm in a much better mental state now, though it's took me awhile to find some courage to talk to you guys...giving an opinion on a gaming news story? No problem. Talking about my mental health problems? Not so easy lol.

It was a good number of weeks before I read your replies because after posting I was worried I'd get a bunch of dismissive or judgemental messages, so I'm sorry for not giving you guys the benefit of the doubt.
I was left in tears reading your messages, I couldn't believe how kind, thoughtful and relatable your words were. It really made it worthwhile to open up if only to a handful of people. It's not something I'm going to forget in a long time.

As for the situation with the Doctors, well I took the appointment like I said previously and she referred me to a specialist. Funnily enough I missed a call from them today so will need to contact them tomorrow.
Ultimately I just wanted to thank you all for your kind words, you have no idea how much that meant to me, I had a hunch that the PS forums was the best place I knew to speak out and you guys proved me more then right.