Based on what the YouTube frontpage looks like when I'm not logged in I can guarantee that I will have zero interest in anything that gets hyped up on a leaderboard. But YouTube will of course malform its UI so it can constantly shove it into my face like it does with shorts.

I've selected "performance" in the PS5 settings, but I've experienced several AAA games ignoring it and having their own graphics setting that defaults to "fancy graphics" mode.

3/4 of players want performance, but publishers don't care.

If you want something with a small footprint I would personally go for Rust, but anything that compiles to a static binary is going to be better than something that needs a dedicated runtime.

Python is what I use for small one-time scripts and utility stuff that doesn't need to run long, but it may be worse than Java..

It's great that Godot was in a good place when Unity had its (inevitable?) implosion. Having used both engines I think they are comparable enough that Godot was a perfect fit for small indie and casual devs to move over to without having to learn a completely new workflow. If Godot hadn't been around I don't know where everyone would've migrated to.

Great article! Ubisoft seem to be really good at making worlds that are immense and magnificent and yet utterly boring to be in.

I watch a stupid amount of YouTube so I pay for YouTube Premium. I wish that meant I could have premium features like disabling shorts, disabling those annoying themed sections that keep popping up (right now it's the olympic games), a search function that actually searches for what I want instead of shoving more suggested videos in my face, and changing every "not now" button into "don't ever ask again".

Despite the fact that I'm a voracious consumer of YoutTube videos and a long-time paying customer, I have to accept that I am not the target audience. They want passive users who endlessly watch whatever gets put in front of them so that they never leave the app. If there was a respectful alternative that worked well with iOS and AppleTV I'd gladly pay for that instead.

I loathe the wording that's been normalised around tracking. The options for the upcoming dialog are "Allow" or "Ask app not to track".

Why the fuck do I need to ask, as if the app is free to deny my humble request not to be spied upon? The whole tracking industry is awash with weasel words and vagueness in an effort to have us make ill-informed decisions.

Fucking parasites.

I know that the world has changed and these kinds of big conferences aren't really viable (or necessary) anymore, but my younger self who always wished to go to E3 at some point is sad.

Even single-player games aren't single-player anymore with all the online-requiring bullshit publishers have shoved into their games. The game most likely comes with a fuckton of telemetry and user-behaviour tracking which is a lot more valuable to Sony if it can be attached to a specific user.

Cute article, but does anyone else find it distracting that in between some of the paragraphs there are links to other articles? I know that modern media needs to be engaging to people with TikTok-brain, but I found it somewhat obnoxious.

I counted 5 of these article links which was bad enough, but I can't imagine what it looks like without an ad-blocker.

Ironically if the developers band together and start another studio they would probably have Microsoft knocking on their door with an acquisition offer in a few years.

I wonder if regulators will bring this up the next time Microsoft wants to buy another publisher. They fought tooth-and-nail to buy Activision Blizzard and like a child that got a new toy they're throwing out the old ones.