monkeyking1969

Thank you, these list break down are what I find most joyful - the numbers don't lie.

I think the biggest problem is most "platforms" run some sort of advertising and the level at which you can advertie on them is VERY LOW.

There should be an "upscale" advertising level for all websites that all social media and news services use for advertising with a paid membership. However, the paid membership level advertising is ONLY " top shelf alcohol, luxury real-estate, designer fashion, top-brand autos, companies listed on S&P 1500; S&P Global 1200, NYSE, etc." So no clickbait articles needed to pad the bottom line, this platform's clients are only the advertisers who can pay out the nose.

People WOULD pay not to be advertised to by the riff-raff selling cash-for-gold or clickbait articles with 90% advertising on every page.

I just finshed the single player parts of Tom Clancy's The Division 2 - meh, it was fine. I was in a major gaming slump for teh past

I'm in the mood to just take my backlog and hammer out a few of the games on single player side.; however, I fully expect that because I will be playing them years out-of-date that the accomplishment will be muted. Most of the games in my backlog are PS3 and PS4. I have tried very hard not to buy anything on PS5 that I don't play immediately.

The way I see it everyone was shocked that video games were strong in the XBOX One and PS 4 era,. Likely the shock was because pundits of the industry were dead wrong about demand for consoles, video games and the strength of smartphones and Apple. Nevertheless, I think PS 5, Switch and Series X are doing fine - demand is there and the biggest disappointment really comes from the "executive side of the games' not the hardware.

What people would be prepared for is when the 'union bug' hits the video game development industry. Big business from autos, actors, nurses have seen strikes this year,; and it has shown what workers can do when organized. If you want to look forward to the next bump in the road it will be unionization...Or a second pandemic. Possibly we can watch how China's economy and social structures spinning down the toilets effects game development - we likely should view a game like Skull & Bones as a 'tofu dreg' project like a dam or a bridge that failed because anything made in China without oversight will be subjects to graft - thus likely to fail.

They spend more time, but they have that leeway because so few 3rd parties make games for them so literally Nintendo has very little competition for selling games...you either buy their games or you have a tiny library. They can delay games or not put them out for months without falling behind or losing sales because a 3rd partly beat them on a release date.

Games on Nintendo machines in the least 15 years have fallen into three groups:

1) First party - mostly games that are good and cannot be found anywhere else - exclusive evened to the point where there are no PC ports. Also, there is never robust online, multiplayer online or DLC so that games are dead simple. Asking why first party Nintendo games have so few bugs is like asking why does any box cake mix make a product that tastes like cake?

2) 3rd Party ports - mostly big games where the worst version with the lowest framerate and graphics is on Nintendo hardware. Probably buggy in that the system really does have not enough RAM, Storage, or extras to stuff was quickly removed or blocked from function.

3) Trash - the lowest of the lowest of the junkware or old android games; mostly 'monster truck' or 'big game hunting' themed or made for users with learning disabilities.

I would say Switch will be seen as "in the top 3" for handhelds made by Nintendo. And, just an important system or concept in gaming hardware.

So, Switch is in the mix with Original GameBoy and Nintendo 3DS, and above GameBoy Advance for importance. Even if you do not like Nintendo or find their games uninteresting; you have to respect Switch for what it does. I am not a Nintendo fan - for sure - but I will always respect when they do good work.

See I thought Jeff Gerstmann just liked that outfit, but it was secretly a costume since 2001.

I am re-reading Red Storm Rising. Lets just get this out of teh way, Tom Clancy loved to make his military, FBI, CIA, and cop porn; his view of the world is always about American exceptionalism and certitude America is smart and honest which -of course- is stupid.

However the book was very prescient about why Russian (at that time the Soviet Union) would go to war. He nailed all the paranoid reasons why, all issue they would have, and all the reason why they would be over matched against western weapons. If Russia had a playbook for invading Ukraine in 2022 it seems liek it was lifted from Red Storm Rising.

RSR [Book Synopsis]
Poor economic oversight and planning (graft) cripple the Soviet Union's economy. After much deliberation, the Soviet Politburo decides to seize something economically worthwhile like oil…but it could have been anything grain, a port, or...a country they wanted. Knowing that the United States had pledged to defend the world like 'world police', the Soviets decide that neutralizing NATO is a necessary first step before its military operation can take place. To divert attention from the impending operation, the Politburo embarks upon an elaborate maskirovka to disguise both their predicament and their intentions [Does this sound familiar???]. The KGB then carries out a false flag operation that makes it look like western interference. [Again, do modern Russians just use Tom’s playbook for planning? In 2022 Russia went through Belarus to pretend it was that country attacking, they used their own forces to do false flag attacks back across the boarder into Belarus to make ist look like Ukrainians striated it....] The Politburo publicly denounces the West German government and calls for retaliation. The Soviets figure with West Germany neutralized and occupied, the United States would not move to rescue anyone else. Yadda, yadda yadda….it ends up the Russians are low on petroleum and fear famine if their farm industry shut down, so they have a tight time table to win. NATO is slow off the start and lose ground quickly in West Germany and Northern Europe. The key for NATO is attacking supply lines, and over time a Russian high ranking Generals get killed. [Again, this is how Ukraine is winning against Russia now] Lot’s of saber rattling and fear of nukes is mounted by the Soviets. when they start losing The end of the story is a Russian top general takes part in a coup d'etat, arresting the government ministers and establishing a troika to temporarily preside over the country. The new Soviet government then negotiates for a ceasefire with NATO to return to pre-war borders, effectively ending the conflict.

I think even though current AI's could do chat-bot interactions very well, that there will be a while before any publisher will do anything interesting.

I think the sad part is they could use AI interactions and chat functions to PUSH the concept of "ALWAYS ONLINE" games down our throats. The AI interaction will be the fancy Trojan horse through which they will end all offline functional games. So they won't add AI to make games better, just use it to crack the door open so they can make always always need to be logged in -never offline.

Duke[You see where I am going with this] Nukum

Runners Up:

• Leisure Suit Larry
• All of the characters that were not Disney in Kingdom Hearts's games.