The only problem of gaming is my time, i just don't have enough of it. There's like a tons of game i haven't play and the free game claimed from epic is untouched, but here i am, replaying Subnautica for the 4th time, slowly making progress.

Just like all other subjects in life, you'll be a lot happier if you stay away from news and tabloids

The equivalent community seeded on the site that starts with R and ends with eddit recently (a month ago) made it a rule that people can't make "therapy" posts which means people posting topics can't make them primarily about their grievances with personal time or with the industry. And the baseline quality of topics in that place went way higher.

I think there's a lesson to take from that: Try and not give a shit. Just find games you like, and play and talk about them. Make that the top priority, and make these concerns secondary - and you'll have a higher quality time with the hobby.

I personally have 0 idea why the news circles gave two weeks of attention to something like Suicide Squad. Game looked bad, reviewed bad, openly had manipulative features built in AND attached to update promises, and then releases and, whoa, turns out, surprise surprise, it IS bad. And yet, two weeks. Two weeks of random place just bringing up the bad game that is bad with a lukewarm stance. Fucking even Skill Up, which I avidly consume content of, gave it a whole hour of attention split across two weekly roundups. That is unhealthy. Games do NOT deserve attention just because they're marketed. And, in no way I can convinced of otherwise: It's objectively stupid to give it that. I just skipped any discussions related to it, will probably skip any discussion related to turtle rock, the studio, henceforth that doesn't start with "they made a return to form! XYZ is the best game they've made!" and my life feels unsurprisingly unaffected and I feel personally, unsurprisingly, less stupid.

It's also never been a greater time to be an indie game fan. There are loads of smaller games every year that are a really fun time. Pizza tower and lethal company were one of my favorite games last year.

I've yet to play Sea of Stars and Cocoon but they're high on my list of next games to play.

I think it's going to get even better in the next few years, too. The tools for 3d modeling are poised to improve in a way that makes it dramatically easier to create very high quality graphics. Nanite is one component of this, reducing the need for multiple levels of detail in polygon-based rendering. But 3d reality capture is improving too, both thanks to hardware like depth sensors and software like Gaussian splatting and NeRFs.

Indie games are just going to keep getting better, basically. As will AA games. I think the days of the AAA blockbuster may be numbered.

15 out of the 150 unplayed games in my library were released in the last two years. Two are AAA (Persona 5, Elden Ring) and two are what I‘d call AA (PAYDAY 3 (worst offender in pulling crap), Trine 5), the rest are indie games. Basically all of those games were bought on a discount during sales.

The only full price AAA game I‘m even considering buying in the next two years is Monster Hunter Wilds.

My biggest trigger regarding games at the moment is Paradox wanting 45 bucks for this year’s DLCs for Crusader Kings III; I fucking love that game and don‘t know what to do since I know that‘s an absolutely insane price tag.

But generally if you‘re patient, don‘t get baited by the newest shiny toy, and aren’t some sort of giga lawful consumer that won’t ever utilize emulation, you can have a blast with games now more than ever.

I honestly don't understand that sentiment. People keep complaining about all of these manipulative games, yet I have so many games I own and on my wishlist (100 on each) that I just don't have the time for, so I'm good for the next couple years at least.

So yeah, maybe gaming will suck in a few years, maybe it won't. There are still great games coming out that totally respect my time, and I don't see any reason for that to stop. So if your friends are complaining about no good games, point them toward some of your favorites. Together we can show the big studios that traditional gaming is still very much in demand.

So I just dusted off my PS3 (with an air compressor).

Discs apparently work again, not sure if from the air or some other temporary thing (I've seen some say tilt and "let it warm up" like aging motors or something). Not seeing any issues now.

Controller's lights wouldn't even come on, but turns out it needed the original cable and connected to the PS3. Had to fix the L1 button but the triggers fell out (design sucks) making the triggers too sensitive and then I fixed those too. Seems to hold at least some charge and it obviously wasn't puffed.

Popped my R:FOM disc in, works great. Got the auger (to the level that starts in a tunnel, turrets+trenches).

Haven't gotten to FW stuff yet, seems straightforward and I have the compat. info I need.

Looking through the menus jogged my memory. The game I mentioned was a PSP mini (playable on PS3) and is called Deflector (gameplay at ~1min+). Not really that interesting TBH, but seeing quite a few minis based on Flash games so it makes me wonder if you could convert Flash games somehow and how well it'd work for making new homebrew games especially if it can use other things besides Flash (though it does use PSP emulation so performance might not be the best). I also see a package for LUA, but it's old so not sure if it'd still work.

(Updated comment, original below)

I was just wanting to re-play one of my old games (Resistance: FoM), but that only brought up PS3 gloom because I can't easily run them.

I mean free games are nice, pretty much all I play now aside from things I bought on sale many years ago.

Gaming journalism has been dead for so long the body's nothing but bones.