See, you say this, but (with all due respect, as I get the perspective), you might vehemently disagree with me asserting that "boycotting AI is playing right into tech bro's hands."

So yes I agree with the irony, but I also feel like nuance and sub-arguments (from my perspective) get drowned out, too. Not every single Democrat politician is an oligarch, the US has done some good abroad, and using ML as a FOSS tool you own and host is not necessarily bad.

I feel this encompasses my political universe.

Trumpists: The Clintons are oligarch crooks! Arrest them!

Me: Nods eagerly.

Grads: The US is an imperialist menace! Shows horrific CIA ops.

Me: Mmm hm. Seems like us, yyep.

I'm a local ML enthusiast/tinker too, so:

AI Haters: Sam Altman is a tech bro con artist! ChatGPT is evil and melting our brains!

Me: Yep. Nods. Massive understatement, you have no idea.

Yet I feel binned as a Neolib, US Apologizer and AI Bro. Which I am not.

Please. Let it diversify.

As a US dweller, I'd love it to be anything but US centric.

open framework untouchable by publishers or game platforms

Splitting hairs here, but Steam is a pseudo monopoly at this point. Sure, one can not publish a game there, but that's hard. And on multi-store releases, I don't think publishers are allowed to undercut it on other platforms.

Which is fine since Steam is behaving and working well...

For now.

Top 6 hours is very light on niche communities. Sometimes they're in top hour, but its still mostly the big few.

Also, that's an remarkably scathing interview for current named employees. No way they could do that without a union.

Also also, the game they inexplicably canned well into development sounds awesome: https://www.trueachievements.com/news/canceled-xbox-mmo-project-blackbird

Traversal was a core aspect of the game, with Exodus offering a vertical playground for players to explore, equipping players with a grappling hook, and, according to our source, you'd have been able to "climb and wall-run on any surface." The team wanted movement to feel natural and fun, similar to that found in games like Spider-Man and the driving in GTA.

Interestingly, our source tells us that ZeniMax had been toying with ideas for multiplayer side content away from the combat that would put the traversal system to good use, included races and obstacle courses. One mode the team had been toying with was like a blend of basketball and Quidditch. Our source says, "There was a ball to dunk into a ring, and you could pass or shoot," offering an experience that felt a little like Titanfall 2, although not as fast.

Maybe the setting was a little too anti-corpo for Microsoft?

In fact, our source tells us that up until July 2, 2025, when Microsoft announced the layoffs, the ZeniMax Online Studios employees working on Project Blackbird had no reason to think the game would be shelved. In fact, ZeniMax had taken a demo build to Microsoft's Redmond office in October 2024, and our source says the team had seen "good things coming out of that," so Microsoft leadership was impressed with the game. In a development release review meeting that took place in late June, ZeniMax leadership were not expecting for Microsoft to shelve the game. In fact, the team was preparing to ramp up development after several years in pre-production and was in the process of executing a $300,000 purchase order for hardware when the news came that the game wouldn't be going ahead. After several years in pre-production, ZeniMax was preparing to enter full production this October. Initially, the team was aiming for a two-year development window with a late 2027 release, but our source says the release window had moved to late 2028.

Original source: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/zenimax-staff-lambast-inhumane-xbox-layoffs-it-s-difficult-to-work-when-you-re-looking-at-a-graveyard-

Sorry to be nitpicky, but this should be linked instead of the referring article.

Change the sorting algorithms?

I’m not sure of the details, but the default “Hot” algorithm for Lemmy surfaces ragebait from popular subs first, while Scaled or New Comments are way more wholesome.

This should be an ongoing experiment, but I think “Hot” or whatever is default should boost quiet communities more.

On their mobile Netflix exclusivity: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/monument-valley-3-is-heading-to-netflix-games-to-avoid-app-store-compromise-

Speaking to Game Developer about Ustwo's decision to renew its partnership with Netflix on Monument Valley 3, lead producer John Lau says the current incarnation of the App Store is a very different beast to the one that connected the studio with new audiences all those years ago.

He feels the App Store is currently more focused on surfacing free-to-play projects and titles that prioritize "high user-acquisition" above all else. As a result, he says it now makes a lot more sense for a morsel like Monument Valley 3 to venture onto mobile by way of a subscription service like Netflix Games, which he says will actually "allow people to see it."

"The thing about that is, it also allows it to stay Monument Valley rather than change its mechanics or do whatever else you need to do to survive in a different [ecosystem]," Lau continues. "[The Netflix Games deal is about] trying to make the kind of game we wanted to make, without having to compromise in order for it to survive in the kind of App Store that exists in the modern day."

Hence, I think the same logic applies to the Steam release.

I fondly remember Monument Valley: it should be a mobile staple. But it's just not compatible with the app stores anymore.

That speaks volumes about how much the stores have deteriorated. If Monument Valley can't make it, what hope does any other game have, unless it's a predatory attention-hacking rat race?

Depends. For lots of my Southern family, oldschool racist and Confederate roots are deep, and tied to church culture. And I've seen examples outside of that where things are 'learned,' like a macho, sexist, homophobe jerk kinda ex-friend who's Dad was the same.

Also, talk radio was like this long before Fox got so extreme. Rush Limbaugh was huge, people like him were a staple across the rural US and can still be heard if you tune in.

In the richer eschelons (like in my private school), libertarian-mindedness is more common, and extreme social conservatism bleeds in from there, as counterintuitive as that seems.

In other words, the Fox environment has been cooking for decades (if not a centuries), and I agree: they're catering to (and stoking) the market that's already there.

I have doctors/technicians in the family.

And... WTF.

Do the students know the horrific, gruesome, batshit crazy stuff doctors have to witness and deal with? Not just like objects stuck in orifices, but mentally ill and abusive patients, deathly contagious ones, slow motion tragedy, stuff oozing out of the body you wouldn't believe. Criminal patients, criminal bosses and companies, drama with staff, corporate drama, other fucked up or abusive doctors, drug abuse (from the staff), plenty of sex scandals...

...And their thought is: "Patients that want to rub their genitals on the same sex? Eww. I refuse to deal with that, even professionally."

Wut?

Let's play devil's advocate and say the bigotry is somehow justified (when it's not). Still, how does that even work? Like, an anti-vaxx nurse I know makes at least some sense, by comparison.

you can’t put everything you want into a setting just because it’s fantasy/fictional.

Yes, you can. That is literally the idea.

But it has to be believable and fleshed out. I never read the WoT book, but the TV show I half finished did feel like a mess, heh, though I didn't stop midway because of cultural weirdness. It just felt... boring, and the world wasn't interesting.

Witcher is largely drawn from celtic lore, and in the world it sets up, people being kinda pastey faced makes sense. But I brought up KCD2 because it's mostly white Europeans is a more grounded and historical (Germanic?) region, yet there are still distinct local subcultures and distinct travelers, like gypsies and that turkish guy. There is plenty of PoC. You should play KCD2 if you haven't already, as if you're going for 'authentic medieval,' no other game comes close.

...On the other hand, look at the setting of Avatar: The Last Airbender or the Kyoshi Novels. It's transitioning out of middle-ages tech and culture, yet has a mash of different skin tones and inspirations. Chinese, Japanese, Southern US, Inuit, Mesoamerican, Indian, you name it. And it works perfectly, because they build those people up and flesh them out.

In other words, authenticity doesn't matter in fiction/fantasy because you're building the world. The reason for a mix of 'PoC' is whatever one makes.