Video Games - Sequels of Dread and Anticipation

[Proudfeet]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Lol, what? How is it immoral. It's a fucking PS5, get a grip. They aren't jacking up prices on valuable medications, or taking food out of people's mouths. It's a luxury item that nobody needs. As far as the free market goes, these people are doing absolutely nothing wrong. 

Only because they don't have the opportunity. Scalpers go after everything from PS5s and graphics cards to tickets, sneakers and common recreational facilities. Whatever is in demand, in limited supply and is first come first served online. Luxury and recreational items mostly sure, but it doesn't change that this is basically an extortion racket. 

Also, as far as the free market goes, its the equivalent of pushing people out of the queue. And its not hard to identify things that are in demand. The only thing that can punish them is for the supplier to flood the market, which is not happening because there is limited supply in the first place. Or they can try to prevent it by requiring identity verification, making it useless unless the buyer is also the user. Its not always applicable.

As an aside, one can also argue that pyramid schemes are "free market" too. Do you want to defend that also?

[Relic]

7 minutes ago, Proudfeet said:

Only because they don't have the opportunity. Scalpers go after everything from PS5s and graphics cards to tickets, sneakers and common recreational facilities. Whatever is in demand, in limited supply and is first come first served online. Luxury and recreational items mostly sure, but it doesn't change that this is basically an extortion racket. 

Also, as far as the free market goes, its the equivalent of pushing people out of the queue. And its not hard to identify things that are in demand. The only thing that can punish them is for the supplier to flood the market, which is not happening because there is limited supply in the first place. Or they can try to prevent it by requiring identity verification, making it useless unless the buyer is also the user. Its not always applicable.

As an aside, one can also argue that pyramid schemes are "free market" too. Do you want to defend that also?

You speak of "scalpers" as if they were all operating under one brain. 

I'm not going to talk about scalping as a general thing, that's not the point. The point is that calling anyone "immoral" for reselling a hot "in-demand" luxury item is a pretty extreme break from reality. Let's try to keep the real problems of the world in perspective.

[Poobah]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Lol, what? How is it immoral. It's a fucking PS5, get a grip. They aren't jacking up prices on valuable medications, or taking food out of people's mouths. It's a luxury item that nobody needs. As far as the free market goes, these people are doing absolutely nothing wrong. 

They're actively choosing to do something that they know will make other people's lives worse. Yeah it isn't a violent crime or anything but it's still being a massive nobhead. Pretty sure any reasonable ethical system I can name would agree that that's an immoral/unethical action.

[Relic]

2 minutes ago, Poobah said:

They're actively choosing to do something that they know will make other people's lives worse.

How? No one NEEDS a PS5. And if you you have a kid that's gonna throw a shit fit over not getting one for X-Mas you should proabbly buy a book on parenting instead.

[Relic]

Capitalism creates assholes. Let's tackle that problem instead of delving into morality of reselling luxury items that YOU DONT NEED. All imho. 

[Proudfeet]

5 minutes ago, Relic said:

You speak of "scalpers" as if they were all operating under one brain. 

I'm not going to talk about scalping as a general thing, that's not the point. The point is that calling anyone "immoral" for reselling a hot "in-demand" luxury item is a pretty extreme break from reality. Let's try to keep the real problems of the world in perspective.

Its the same underlying concept. And sure, they're not all one entity, but those selling PS5s are not just going to be selling PS5s. They are going to diversify their portfolio. Or are you telling me that it depends on what they are scalping? 

[Poobah]

1 minute ago, Relic said:

How? No one NEEDS a PS5. And if you you have a kid that's gonna throw a shit fit over not getting one for X-Mas you should proabbly buy a book on parenting instead.

There are lots of people who want thing X and who will likely be happier buying it at the fair market value than not, and very frustrated and annoyed when it's sold out everywhere; they are using unfair tactics to skip ahead of the queues and hoard the stock. How can you not see that that is a choice that makes people unhappy purely for their own personal gain?

And yeah it's a symptom of a wider disease, but that's no argument for not treating or pointing out the problems caused by the symptom.

[Relic]

3 minutes ago, Proudfeet said:

Or are you telling me that it depends on what they are scalping? 

I mean you certainly need to take that into account when discussing morality, yeah. Our entire system of buying and selling exists around mark ups. Amazon makes what, minimum 30% mark up on most items it sells? Why aren't we calling them immoral?

[Relic]

3 minutes ago, Poobah said:

How can you not see that that is a choice that makes people unhappy purely for their own personal gain?

I see it, but I question the priorities of anyone getting upset about marked up Playstations but being ok with the the cost of medical treatments in America. I dunno, I just don't see how morality enters this particular, and specific, conversation. 

[Proudfeet]

1 minute ago, Relic said:

I mean you certainly need to take that into account when discussing morality, yeah. Our entire system of buying and selling exists around mark ups. Amazon makes what, minimum 30% mark up on most items it sells? Why aren't we calling them immoral?

You're stretching the point. I'm calling this extortion. It's not a mark up. Amazon is a platform for sellers and buyers. Scalpers corner the market for no benefit to any party other than themselves.

And who says we aren't calling them immoral? As a large retailer, they use their size to squeeze suppliers, they regularly exploit their workers and I'm sure there are more abuses that people can think of. But its not quite the same thing.

Also, I don't get the distinction of scalping luxury items and supposedly non luxury items. So, PS5s are okay to scalp. What isn't? Food? They are perishable and you can't corner the market. Medicine? They are controlled items which you should need a prescription for anyway. What else is there?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

12 hours ago, Rhom said:

What they are doing isn’t illegal, but it’s definitely immoral.  There comes a day when everyone needs to be able to look themself in the mirror.  I don’t see how those types can do that.

Those types are the ones to go on to become CEOs, because you have to be that kind of cutthroat to do so. 

[IlyaP]

12 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Map indicator in Morrowind? I'm not sure what you're referring to. There isn't a system of "active quests tracker" as far as I remember, and that's one of the great things in the game that's been sorely botched in many recent games. On the other hand, the quest journal is quite bad, sometimes you really have no idea who you should go back to when you've done your task, or where that person is. Going to UESP to check their Morrowind pages is definitely helpful. Thankfully at least you have a complete listing of current quests available in your journal. And you often have 20-30 of them at the same time, specially once you joing several guilds and factions

Oh god, the journal. It's like a Malazan novel. 

"Who's this character again? Where are they? How do I know about them?"

That said - am now level 5 in the game, having played about...6 or so hours today. Have been up and down the west coast, as far north as Gnisis and as far south as Seyda Need. Have delivered a dwemer box to some fighter guild member, reported to Caius, sent to a mage, and then sent on another errand by said mage. 

Have found the game can be made slightly less madenning by having AI companions (people who want you to take them from point A to point B). It at least provides some damage sponges if nothing else. 

 

[Rhom]

Okay if we want to debate “immoral” can we all just agree that it is, in fact, a dick move?

[Fez]

Picked up a pretty interesting early access game, Home Behind 2. It's a rogue-like (supposedly, though I'm 5 hours in and haven't even figured out what the failure state is yet) Darkest Dungeon-esque game. It's a quasi-fictional world (the countries are all fake expys for real places, but the continents are real), set in a war-torn fake Caucus mountains area country. You're a college student returning home to join in the revolution against the dictator and end up leading a band of gurellias behind the front lines.

The writing is a strange mix. The world building and setup is quite good, and the game seems like it has some things to say about the price of freedom, overseas military adventures, and so forth (it's from Chinese developers, and I kinda have to think they aren't actually in China; there's some strong anti-authortarianism in there that would never get past the censors). And the quest text you encounter is pretty good too. But the character dialog is just awful. I don't know if it's a translation issue or what, but whenever the characters speak it's like they are in a completely different setting than the rest of the game; more of a bickering, animated journey thing for the most part. Except every once in a while when they randomly get super serious and dour and it fits right in.

The gameplay starts out more management sim than anything else, since basic attacks in combat are entirely automated and happen in real time. However, each character can learn up to 4 skills at a time, and you control when to use them and against which targets. So it eventually gets more complicated.

Not a perfect game, but worth the $15 I think.

[Gorn]

Re: scalping, the only reason what they do works is the need to have the latest and the fanciest stuff now! If the shoppers hold firm and refuse to buy from them, they'll end up stuck with goods they'll have to sell below price, and shops will have them back in stock again.

It's not like there are any good games exclusive to the PS5 so far anyway.

[Werthead]

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Lemmings, one of the biggest-selling games of the 1990s and still an addictive, fiendishly challenging puzzle game.

Also notable as the game that gave DMA Design the massive financial resources they needed to invest in their next few projects, including a game about cops and robbers called Race 'n' Chase which went through a few evolutions and changes and was finally released as Grand Theft Auto in 1997. So Lemmings is the grandfather of the modern open world action game and also half-created the RTS genre (Blizzard Entertainment designed the original WarCraft as a combination of Lost Vikings, Dune 2 and Lemmings). Not bad going.

[Clueless Northman]

9 hours ago, Relic said:

Capitalism creates assholes. Let's tackle that problem instead of delving into morality of reselling luxury items that YOU DONT NEED. All imho. 

So you agree that free-market capitalism is the main issue?

[A True Kaniggit]

What counts as a luxury item?

Anything you don’t need to live?

We should all just be eating bland gruel containing the basic nutrients to exist. Any other food you eat is a luxury item. 
 

The weather has completely KO’d my internet. What’s the point of playing games on steam if you can’t get trophies?

[Proudfeet]

9 hours ago, Gorn said:

Re: scalping, the only reason what they do works is the need to have the latest and the fanciest stuff now! If the shoppers hold firm and refuse to buy from them, they'll end up stuck with goods they'll have to sell below price, and shops will have them back in stock again.

It's not like there are any good games exclusive to the PS5 so far anyway.

Ah, yes. The wishful thinking "if only" method of solving problems. You can only control your own spending. You can't stop people from willingly getting fleeced. And the scalpers will or learn to study the market anyway. And again, PS5s aren't the only thing that scalpers go after. Where do you draw the line?

[IlyaP]

On 2/5/2021 at 2:27 AM, Toth said:

So... the discussions last week about Bethesda open world games in addition to me listening to Skyrim and Oblivion ambience music while working and trying to wander around the neighborhood as some kind of minimum workout... seem to have successfully make me weak. I bought... Fallout 4, which was until recently on sale. I am stumped how old the game already is, I thought it was a rather new entry, but oh well.

Meanwhile, I am quite excited to see what Obsidian does with their next entry in the Pillars of Eternity series, Avowed, which will feature a first-person perspective.