I experimented with this as well, but since I was keeping full copies of the discs on my hard drives anyway, it was unnecessary in my case. I still have most of these disc images; now on my NAS.

I think the first time I tried N64 emulation must have been in late 2002. There were indeed still games released for this system at the time, although not many. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 (ported to the console in 2002) was one of the last big games for it. Fun fact: The PC version at lowest settings looks almost identical to the N64 port.

Early N64 emulation was spotty, but the fact that it worked at all absolutely blew my mind, especially since I was just in the process of switching from N64 to PC as my main gaming platform. Super Mario 64 was one of the first titles to be properly playable with next to no issues, but outside of that game, it was a bit of a gamble and remained so for years. Performance could vary wildly, glitches were very common (some titles remained unplayable until surprisingly recently, like the excellent voxel-based Command and Conquer port for the system) and the plugin system proved to be a nightmare, as it fractured development resources.

GameCopyWorld is still around today and still being updated. Looks the same as it did decades ago.

My go-to method was to create a disc image of games from the local library and then use either DaemonTools’ copy protection emulation feature or a crack from that site. They had and still have a really good selection of the latest titles (nothing 18+ though, the equivalent of the American M-rating), although it’s almost entirely console games now due to mandatory online activation with most PC games.

There was also software (probably still is) that records the state of your computer before using a program. Then you’d run the program and it recorded any changes (with filters, of course), which you were able to undo with a simple button press. At the time, it was usually a change to some registry entry. This was another method I used to reset timers and usage limits of software like the one you mentioned. As before, I tracked down registry changes by hand until I discovered a more convenient option. This was necessary, because many programs with usage limits left information behind when uninstalled so that you couldn’t just do what you did.

I could swear I did something like this (although obviously not at a kernel level) decades ago with trial versions of software that would only work for 30 days or similar. At first, I did this by hand for the entire system, but I’m pretty sure I had a program for Windows 9x that could independently set time and day for any given application, without affecting the rest of the system.

Independent developers are even more likely to close down. How many long-lasting independent studios can you name?

The fact of the matter is, the entire games business is an extremely risky and volatile one. A single flop can sink a well-established studio and great reception very much does not guarantee economic success.

Has this ever been the case? For as long as I’ve been playing games (early 1990s), there have always been buggy games that were clearly not thoroughly playtested. The difference was that back then, patches were either impossible (console - at best there was a silently patched re-release later*) or required PC players to purchase a gaming magazine to get them (if there were any). Perhaps the fact that it’s now easy to distribute even large patches has incentivized developers to adopt a “we’ll fix it eventually” approach, but I have no actual data on this resulting in worse games on average. If there is an actual measurable decrease in software quality in the gaming world, it could just be that the increasing technical complexity of games makes it impossible to detect the majority of bugs these days.

*GTA San Andreas is one of the better known examples of this. There were game-breaking bugs in the original PS2 release that made 100% completion impossible. Only later releases (and ports) had these issues fixed.

My last game from them was Mars: War Logs, which I disliked so much (despite my love for Eurojank RPGs) that I have avoided them since. Should I take a look at this title? Review scores are obviously significantly better, but how are writing, world building and combat in your opinion?

On one hand, it’s sad to see another studio go, but on the other hand, Spiders have been producing almost entirely middling games for so long that blaming their misfortune on Nacon entirely seems a bit far-fetched. That said, everything I’ve heard about Nacon is the very opposite of what a publisher should be doing.

Admittedly, the last game from them I’ve personally played and not just read reviews of was Mars: War Logs, which was such a severe disappointment to me as a die-hard fan of Eurojank that I haven’t picked up anything else from them since. Nothing about it was good: It didn’t make up for the lack of budget (which I never hold against a game) with solid writing, engaging world-building, interesting gameplay, functional controls or a pleasant art style.

Words are cheap and money does buy influence.

Until they aren’t being offered anymore. On PC, physical games are practically dead and on console, they are only making up less than 20% of sales at this point (which is why both Sony and Microsoft are offering versions of the consoles without disc drives). Not to mention, there’s often mandatory day-one patches in the tens of gigabytes or (particularly on Switch and Switch 2) the physical media only containing some of the game files, requiring a download to play.

I agree. I recently watched a video of someone exploring a Waymo servicing point and it was just masses of low-paid workers cleaning and repairing these robo-taxis. What a disappointing future.

Maybe they should ask their AI for ideas on how to make money.

By the way: Why are AI companies still on a hiring spree while at the same time peddling AI as a replacement of high-skill white collar jobs, like software engineering?

Sometimes, the issue is certification, e.g. for aerospace and medical applications - although these systems tend to run on decades-old software anyway (since changes to the software also need to be certified, which rarely happens), so it’s not like this has an actual impact.

Decreasing friction is a problem though. In the past, you needed at least some basic skills to e.g. photoshop a compromising photo of someone (and quite a lot of experience to do so convincingly), whereas current AI tools can do this far better with no skills required.

Also, the market is already oversaturated. It’s not just that there are too many AAA and AA games; Indies are also struggling, because supply vastly exceeds the demand due to thousands of titles that are published on Steam every year alone, most of which are commercial flops. Only someone with a complete lack of understanding of what’s going on in this industry would want more people and more games.

A relative of mine switched to a BEV just a few months ago - KGM Torres EVX, a bargain from South Korea with 462 km (287 mi) WLTP range, which he regularly exceeds - after years of driving plug-in hybrids from Mitsubishi. He obviously could not be happier, given current gas prices (except that the driver’s seat holds up exactly as poorly as on the Mitsubishis). He does not have a wall box, by the way: All of his charging is done through public chargers and a slow wall outlet at work. At between €28 and 36 per full recharge, it’s a very cheap car to drive.

Even when he was driving his prior hybrids, he was barely ever using the internal combustion engine - to the point that the car would occasionally warn him to refresh the gas in the tank - since he was doing almost all of his driving in EV-mode.

They aren’t peddling their products exclusively in America though. I doubt EU customers, courts and regulatory agencies are oblivious to this change.

Legacy of the Dragonborn? Can’t think of a reason for it not to work in VR.

I finally have a room that is large enough for this game in VR. We are both giving the worst ideas ideas to each other.

I’m assuming you’re talking about this mod:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/11802

Never heard of it, but I stopped playing the game for the most part (except for the amazing total conversion Enderal) years before it came out, so it makes sense. It definitely looks interesting though.