Which ones and why?

I sense a fun story and I’m here for it.

…trying?

Who would’ve thought that making your product more readily available would increase sales? That’s so much more counterintuitive than “double down on NFTs and release schedules that require knowledge of calculus to figure out.”

Seriously. For the same price as McD’s I can go to In-n-Out. That’s just comparing fast food places. For the price they’re charging for a Quarter Pounder I may as well go to a sit-down restaurant.

If you compare that to the average cost of living in Japan it’s a bit closer to $300 in terms of spending power.

Either way it’s a lot cheaper than I’d expect to have to pay anyone for sex work, much less something that blatantly illegal.

Oh, as for the age of consent thing that change just made it a national crime. Every prefecture in Japan had already raised the age of consent to 16 (or higher) well before last year. The only places it didn’t apply were some remote military bases and IIRC the portion of Antarctica that Japan claims. Still a good move but it’s not like Japanese pedos were just having sex with 13-year-olds without consequence before then.

There? Really? There is where you draw the line? Killing a dog is fine, but lying about meeting a dictator is too far? Just trying to keep track here.

Screw it, go make the actual Starship Troopers game not suck. That thing is in dire need of help.

While 177 countries sounds like a lot, it’s not where the majority of players are. PSN operates in the top 15 countries by GDP and the top 4 by population.

Of course there’s still the question of why they work in so few countries when literally none of their competitors (that I know of) have those limitations.

The scuttlebutt is that they don’t get to make that decision because the PSN mandate is a part of the contract they signed with Sony.

Most anticheats don’t have the track record of repeated data breaches that Sony does.

Same boat here. I had no problems making a PSN account because I like the idea of crossplay, but if they were planning to add this requirement back in later they needed to be much more clear about it. Like “gigantic popup every time you load the game if you don’t have a PSN account” clear, especially with PSN not being available in certain countries.

There’s also the larger question of why this is required. Clearly the game works just fine without it. Whatever the reason is, it’s not for the benefit of the players.

I’m actually really surprised that Valve is loosening up on this one. They usually play hardball when it comes to refunding a game past the 2 hour mark.

They make exceptions when a game has major issues or implements some significant change that dramatically alters the availability of the product. No Man’s Sky, Starfield, and Cyberpunk 2077 all could be refunded outside the 2 hour window - at least for some people. And of course everyone who bought The Day Before was refunded entirely.

I expect they’ll be allowing refunds for anyone in a country where PSN does not operate at a minimum. It’s really hard to argue that the game is still playable when the required service is not available in your home country.

Local safety regulations require a breathalyzer test before you’re allowed upstairs.

I’m not predicting a Fallout-tier adaptation here, but as long as I get a few giggles then go on Comedy Central.

They have free coffee and croissants in the mornings and their chairs are decadently plush.

Blades my beloved.

Never forget what they took from us.

Knowing him this is less of a matter of conscience and more a “fuck it I’mma burn this bitch to the ground on the way out”.

Also, don’t put all your eggs in one basket: diversify, diversify, diversify. Make a main account, but have more on at least one other instance. Instances go down for maintenance, software gets updated, owners change moderation policies, so on. If you can’t get to Lemmy through your main, use your secondary.

Personally I use lemmy.sdf.org as my secondary. It’s run by a bunch of retro-enthusiast Unix nerds who more care about the functionality of the tech than anything else. No blocked communities there, and AFAIK they haven’t defederated from any instance outside of ones that were hacked/compromised. That does not mean you can just go there and be a shitbird though, they do have standards.

Good as that is, I gotta endorse the Utah Philips version. It comes with context and a story, and also he’s hilarious.

Thanks, though I am honor-bound to point out that Sandbox6 has been maintaining YUP for the last several years now. Doing a great job, too.

AFAIK they’re not on Lemmy or I’d tell you to thank them more directly. Still!