If they’re just scraping tweets, it’s probably looking at mentions of a million and one regular guys in the US named Sam Fisher and not the character.

Then they come up with the rating system whose only enforcement is on the AO rating, and don’t bother to actually clean up their shit. As the post above yours mentioned, the problem is lack of enforcement anywhere outside the AO rating or even anyone involved actually caring. Devs and marketing teams push for M if they want to actually sell a game to kids above 7 years old, retailers will sell anything to anyone lest they lose out on the money, and parents who ask about it will just ask the kid who wants to buy the game and will lie about what the rating means. We can crab about movie ratings all we want, but at least most studios and theaters actually enforce the MPAA’s rating and parents know what movie ratings mean. Game ratings are basically like TV ratings, so irrelevant you wonder why they even bother.

Sounds like the community of every competitive (or coop campaign) multiplayer game I’ve ever been in. I prefer just to not play online multiplayer, I don’t have the time (or disposable income) to “git gud” enough to be able to even stand a chance against all the obsessed people who pour hundreds of hours into it in the first month and drive everyone else out.

Even the ESRB, another example of gaming industry self-regulation, hasn’t stopped gaming companies marketing M-rated games to kids or really slowed down sales or access to such games to underage players at all. If anything, they use the M rating as a direct marketing tool to kids: “your parents wouldn’t want you to play this so you totally should”.

EDIT: autocorrect is dumb

Yes, it’s invasive kernel-level anti-cheat common in competitive multiplayer games now, because cheaters will mod their system that much for the sake of getting around the anti-cheat. Annoying from all sides.

That, and despite many devs being Linux fans, there does seem to be a (false) perception that Linux is the OS of choice for cheaters.

EDIT: Just remember, can’t play a game on Linux? It’s ALWAYS either the DRM or anti-cheat. Either way, corporate BS that hinders honest paying customers more than the people it’s trying to stop.

Most people don’t, or only throw something like 5 bucks at games like that here or there. But some F2P games are pushing 10 years or more in existence, so somebody’s paying to keep the servers running. The backbone of that industry is the small population of “whales” who spend their life’s savings to get the superior rare new cosmetic or in-game currency to gamble their life away to maybe pull enough copies to max out their waifu. Then they’ll use said cosmetic or waifu for about a month before the next super-ultra rare amazing once-in-a-lifetime hat or weapon comes along, or another waifu who totally eclipses their original one is released, then it’s rinse, repeat ad infinitum until the whale is flat broke and their life is ruined. But at least they maxed out their waifu and got to the top of the rankings in the leaderboard.

Yeah, at least some in-game currency is really the least they could have done if you’re gonna pay money to just get the base game to begin with since it’s F2P (pay-to-win) otherwise. Complete waste of money even for people who play and regularly spend money on these types of games.

I’ve been a part of two different friends’ attempts to quit addiction to MMOs. A high school friend had a problem with Everquest back before WoW. His brother recruited us friends to help give him alternative stuff to do like movie and other game nights. We succeeded, and he was able to put the game down. Some college friends and I were not so successful in pulling one of my roommates away from WoW. Activision Blizzard have it literally down to the science of addiction.

I think I still have one of those. It was Logitech. I thought it was good unless I wanted to use the thumbsticks or triggers. I always thought the Sony design of putting the thumbsticks down in the lower-middle was really awkward, and for some reason, using the triggers on the Logitech controller sometimes felt a bit painful.

Aside from Microsoft selling it as one, there’s a reason the 360’s contoller design is basically the de facto basis for most PC controllers. It’s the most comfortable one I’ve used for 3D games by far. Everything you need is easy to access. Nintendo lifted essentially the same design for their Wii U and Switch Pro controllers.

That and Math Blaster. Good times.

A Rugrats game in 2024. Certainly didn’t have that on my bingo card.

There were popular MMOs before WoW, such as Runescape and Everquest. WoW just took a popular genre and rocketed it into the stratusphere.

Legend of Zelda OoT followed up with popularizing a targeting button (good ol’ Z-targeting) to focus on one object or enemy in a 3D space and move around it or fight/otherwise interact with it. Such targeting has been a standard feature of 3D action-adventure games ever since.