Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@ralphdibny it’s not really “as much as they want” as it’s whatever RPI is, plus the percentage they’ve said they’ll add, being one of the measures of purchasing power in theory this RPI increase shouldn’t matter as the “real world” cost to you should be the same when factoring in everything, plus the percentage they have said they will add. Appreciate it is controversial and that might not be the reality, especially in the current climate, but I guess the upshot is any increase won’t be massive as you’ve pointed out? I get your point though, it should be clear and where it isn’t offer a straight forward way out, and it’s funny that they don’t say it’ll decrease should RPI go the other way?

I have a chip on my shoulder at the moment as my home costs are going through the roof (hopefully not literally, can’t afford a new roof). Obviously not the only one right now but it stings!

@kyleforrester87 yeah I only really meant "as much as they want" in so much as it's not really the point that I was miffed by. More that the industry standard contract for broadband has become one where you pay X amount for a set amount of months before an indeterminate price rise occurs which you are obliged to pay for the remainder of your contract, despite not agreeing a figure in advance. It's as good as signing a contract where the price field is left blank.

Real world cost is never the same to me unfortunately, due to the industry I work in, but that's a whole other conversation for another time I think.

But anyway, it seems my back is up against the wall with it and I have probably secured myself a reasonable deal despite what the price rise is expected to be so I will probably suck it up, forget about it and move on. I just don't like it and I don't like the lack of choice in the matter. Which of course, is why I came here to vent 😅

I was literally thinking though, that's more or less what a mortgage is in some ways, at least in terms of fluctuating interest rates. So i do sympathise. Wishing you the best with it. Feel free to vent here, it's good to get it all out sometimes!

@Fight_teza_fight Morning friend, I received your message on psn, have you managed to get to bottom of it? Hope all is well 👍

@AgentCooper Yep all good! Won’t go into the ins & outs as that’s probably against the TOU. I had prepared for the worst after I read an another user got hacked last week & they didn’t have enough proof.

You can take me off the list now. Or wouldn’t that be what a hacker would say🤔.

@Fight_Teza_Fight Ah excellent news mate, good to hear Teza, if that is actually your real name? 😉

@ralphdibny I was trying to draw a comparable with mortgages, but it's not really the same since you would generally lock your rate in for a fixed period, during which time you can't leave without paying a penalty, but then when you end the fixed term you're free to leave without exit fees, or can continue paying a rate that's unknown when you initially signed on. But with Virgin you're still within the fixed term when the price changes to an unknown amount, so I can see how that's less fair.

Of course, in reality there are generally costs associated to move onto another fixed term mortgage once the existing one ends, so you could view that as an exit fee I suppose. It does work the other way, too - if rates drop generally during your fixed term, you could pay to exit sooner, with savings on a new cheaper product offsetting (and then some) your exit fee. That's really not happening anytime soon, mind you.

Apparently whatever you do these days you're haemorrhaging money! I'm struggling to see what fair is sometimes, given how bad things have got. The old unfair is the new normal... Hoping we just need to knuckle down for a couple of years and brighter days will be ahead. At least until climate change really begins to bite down on everything....

I OFFICIALLY GOT MY OLD PS3 WORKING AGAIN

nearly 6 years ago, goddamn 0_0

Expect a lot more activity from me here over the next while (thinking about starting off my newly acquired PS portfolio with either the Devil May Cry or Splinter Cell HD Collection), I'm so happy man 🥹

@Fizza Hey, at least it still works! I dread to think what would happen if I booted up my Xbox 360...

@kyleforrester87 wow the world of mortgages sounds like fun fun fun 😅. I'll be dealing with that all at some point in the next few years. Can't wait 🙄

I think my default is that nothing is fair. The goalposts for what's fair to an individual can't move. The only thing that should be negotiable is how much better than the bare minimum you can get is.

I think things are simultaneously worse and better than they used to be in previous generations. As a simplification, I'd say being worse off is probably better than it used to be but being well off is much much harder to achieve. If that makes sense lol

@get2sammyb Hi, quick question about review embargo’s - specifically FF16 in this case, but this is just a general question and I know what you can say may be limited.

Is it a condition that you’re not allowed to say when reviews will go live, exactly? I assume so, as it never seems to get mentioned anywhere, even though people are eager to know. Perhaps this rule changes from publisher to publisher. Or maybe you’re erring on the side of caution, which also makes sense. I’m somewhat surprised this sort of basic info doesn’t seem to “anonymously” leak, too. Maybe it does, and I am not looking hard enough. Cheers!

Dont want to be negative but its intresting how bad job most of the established media does to cover how things are for most people. Guess they are many things they simply dont want the public to know.. Which is kind of unfounate… Or they dont want to cause to much stress which is I guess is the only good about it…

@kyleforrester87 Some publishers allow review embargoes to be disclosed, others forbid it. All depends on the game/publisher.

My favourite thing about review embargoes are the ones that have ludicrously specific things you can say and do. Like some are just like you can put your review up on the 16th! Cool. Others are like, you must not mention that you're playing the game, you must play the game on a profile that has been newly created, has no friends attached to it, isn't connected to the internet, etc.

Like I'm not sure how much damage it could possibly do to know that a person is playing the game but it's interesting seeing how wildly different some review conditions are.

@johncalmc I guess it doesn't hurt them any to impose those conditions, so why not. I have not really given it any thought but if a family or friend saw you playing an early release could they convince you to talk to them about it, or screen share with them, or whatever. I dunno. I also don't really believe that people don't go home and discuss all kinds of confidential work stuff with their partners either haha.

@kyleforrester87 Yeah this is true. Also people can track you through your trophy data and ask you stuff. Back before I just left my trophies hidden I recall someone messaging me on PSN asking how I'd gotten a trophy in a game I was reviewing.

@johncalmc It does seem odd that they would embargo the time that reviews will drop though - you would think this would help build excitement for the release, if anything.

Another fun one

Was reading an article on Push Square about Kotick being not a fan of Game Pass. And some other publishes that were or were not a fan of it. Personally, I side with Kotick and Ryan in this discussion. That's not a comfortable position to be in an argument, nor do I think that I'm in their camp for the same intentions, but I do think it comes from a similar place.

Right now Game Pass is a great proposition for a lot of smaller publishers. For each of them releasing a game is a big risk, that might or might not kill their future dreams. Sure, there are some stories of indie games exploding, but most of these developers would be happy to get a steady living out of game development.

Big publishers like Sony and Activision, for them Game Pass is less interesting. They KNOW their games will sell millions, because of them being household names already. More than anything, Game Pass provides a downside for them: the possibility of having to split their money with these smaller studios.

Now, I'm not a fan of big corp capitalism. I always like to distinguish the current form, big corp capitalism, from the idea of capitalism. Because these current big corps controlling the markets all around the world, seems to be at least at odds with the original ideals of capitalism. Even though I might not be a fan of Facebook, Valve and Microsoft, they do exist.

A Game Pass focused on smaller games is good for the industry. Like I said, right now it boosts smaller publishers, who seem mostly happy with it, while the big AAA still make their millions.

I believe this model, and all of Game Pass' benefits will languish as soon as AAA games will become a bigger part of Game Pass. These big games will take away attention from these smaller indies, and you can expect these big corporations force Microsoft to pay them more out of proportion large amounts for their games. Game Pass will then, inevitably, become like Spotify. It will become a service that will be ruled by the big bucks, in which smaller studios will start earning less and less.

Sony keeping their first party games from PS Plus is a blessing for smaller creators. Just like Game Pass in its current form can be very beneficial for many publishers. It won't stay like that if the newest Call of Duty will be on that service.

Just wanted to share my 2 cents somewhere... don't really know why.

@Kidfried I like reading your thoughts there and I agree on your points about the two services and the potential effects on smaller games being gobbled up by larger AAA games. So I too feel that the Sony approach to the PS+ service is more in harmony with a healthy industry - a place for smaller titles to flourish and smaller studios to have the option for less risk if they take a guaranteed contract to release on the service, and yet larger big-budget games will still have a place in the market to make their millions.

However my prediction is that the GamePass approach with expensive AAA game launches on the service won’t last. I don’t think it will endure to the point that the smaller creators will be pushed out of the service by large studio creations. A lot of that prediction is dependent upon what happens with ABK and COD, but if things continue as they are now, I think I agree with J Ryan that this model is not sustainable in the long run. Microsoft can take large losses for a while but eventually they will owe it to their shareholders to correct course and modify the program, as we’re already seeing them charge GamePass subscribers for early access to Starfield. In a way it’s already one step closer to what Sony is doing, except that “early access” is about 1 year early — $70 to play their games a year early vs. $35 to play their games 5 days early.

I think if the deal goes through, it does change things and MS can survive with their current model for a while because of the huge COD money that will trickle in from PS players, but if the deal is axed then they will need to course-correct and do something to directly monetize their big budget games like Starfield and Elder Scrolls, whether it be charge for early access, release special deluxe versions, launch with lots of MTX, or something.

@Th3solution Even more micro transactions and Game Pass are a match made in heaven. Going to sound like an enormous Sony fanboy, but I'd rather pay more upfront than have every game basically become Genshin Impact.