And I’m sure they understand that exposure also leads to more sales.

Don’t make me point to the sign with people standing on boxes in front of a fence.

This should be very easily solved with matchmaking lobby settings.

Anyway, most accessibility settings are either something every competitive player should be using anyway (reasonable color contrast settings, HUD tweaks for clarity) or things that only people who need them despately would ever use (remapping all buttons to be able to play using only a stick in the players mouth, because they have no hands).

This seems to me like a total non-issue. And in the very few cases it is, the ranked lobbies can just diable that setting.

The backlash was probably because for you and I a harmed pvp experience is a “could happen” while for a bunch of gamers the lack of accessibility is a daily undeniable part of their reality. For some people, games are a critical sanity-saving retreat from the rest of their life. Let’s let them have their tweaks outside of ranked play.

I’ve found diving deep into retrogames is great for my similar situation.

Games from the 80s, 90s and even some from the 00s are often designed to be played in much shorter play sessions.

Great points.

To add for OP: I’ve found that I can scratch the “play and progress with friends” itch with games like Torchlight II, which doesn’t have the same kind of addiction triggers.

That’s a good point. No company has had a great time throwing their handheld into the market across from a Nintendo product.

Steamdeck and Evercade seem to be holding their own, at least.

As a current Switch owner deciding what to pick up next time I spring for a new system, the lack of anything portable from Microsoft and Sony is kinda wild to me.

Honestly, if I had not been burned previously by Xbox losing my online purchases, I think I would consider buying an Xbox for game pass.

I don’t hate the concept, and I’ve heard great things about the Xbox game pass library.

I’m also not a big fan of not actually owning my games. I have 40 year old games that I still return to every year. The idea of finding something special on Gamepass and having it just disappear like a streaming show does… Not compelling to me.

I like to play though GunStar Heroes (a terrific Contra style bullet hell) with a self inflicted “melee attacks only” rule.

The fact that it’s possible is one of the cool things about the game.

I had the opposite FF8 experience. I got lost like 3 times, and between over leveling and limit breaks, none of the bag guys ever got through their dialog trees during a fight. It was funny, but I don’t recommend it.

I did the speedster pacificst build in DnDOnline once, because I liked to kite most enemies while charming a few to fight for me.

It was wild how that character could solo some difficult dungeons, but then a solitary guard at the top of a ladder was nearly impassable.

I do the same!

I would love to hear people’s preferred early game alternate starters.

I usually go with the first non-Normal type Pokemon I encounter and build my team around it.

These are all very real possibilities.

Here’s another: The big shot billionaire’s agreed over drinks one night that their handlers - the staff that used to make them look smart - were overpaid.

I’m getting sidetracked here, but I want to give my support of McD’s turning every possible life event Grimace can have into to a new marketing event, so long as each comes with a new Gameboy color game.

I’m not sure, honestly.

Charitably, we could assume it’s just from removing Google and various carriers background apps meant to improve my experience.

Uncharitably, I have my suspicions. For the last five or so versions of Android something always seemed to be using processor cycles and battery when I wasn’t actually doing much with my phone.

But I never saw evidence of usage data exfiltration via Google apps - at least after I turned off the related optional settings.

In any case, switching to GrapheneOs was a startling and pleasant speed boost for me, whatever the real root cause.

I feel you.

I have found that searching for game reviews with the term “Cozy Gamer” finds games that fit into that after work funk, for me, when I have that time.

“We’re here for you and we know that being 35 is really really really old, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.”

I feel seen.

Spoiler for a later stage of your journey: Your phone gets wayv faster. That part is pretty nice.

Can’t automate any of the other jobs they are trying AI on yet either, but it’s not stopping them.

“I have fond memories of playing Sonic 2 with my brother growing up, and I’m glad that kids today will still get to have that experience.”

Say you were the older sibling without saying you were the older sibling.

Or their older brother was one of those saints that stopped periodically to allow Tails back onto the screen.

Same here! But only because I haven’t figured out how to exit yet.