I have young kids and recently learned what Roblox actually is. My kids will never be allowed to spend a cent on that. I am happy to buy them suitable games.
From what I understand, it's a platform where you can create games and monetize them by doing things like adding subscriptions, item or ability shops, add access fees, etcetera, that require real world money to be exchanged for them. Though, I think it could also be robux, but I wouldn't know because I avoid that service like the plague.
There's a whole entire webpage dedicated to this monetization thing that's out in the open, if you wanna read it.
It's a platform for playing and creating video games. The stated intent was for kids to make games for kids, but as soon as game creators could make real money from it, professional devs took over. The in game currency is called robux, and it seems like every game is littered with buttons to get a higher jump or faster car or whatever for a few dollars' worth.
Because young kids are not savvy consumers, the platform is chock full of identical games with the same name and logo hoping to steal players stay from whichever game is on trend at the moment.
There are certainly some games in there worth playing, but it's a very small minority.
Trouble is, most of the other games out there for kids are the same thing as the roblox games, and many of them cost money upfront, then sell the kids on skins, and tiny game functions just like roblox games. It's hard to find suitable games for kids, and takes a ton of energy.
I have gotten my kids into satisfactory, raft, and games like that. But my youngest keeps coming back to the grinders which all have pay to win. Good games are just not as profitable.
I was about to say... What does "suitable" mean? I grew up in the 90s, and "suitable games" ranged from SimCity or the settlers to age of empires, crusader Kings, quake, doom, unreal tournament or half life.
There is no need to over protect kids from the "simple" evils: when I was very young, I didn't want to play violent or scary games, even knowing they exist. Later I got curious and explored them. Depending on your choice a game such as the settlers, age of empires or crusader Kings could well be classified violent and "unsuitable". But violence is everywhere, and those were some of the games that I fondly remember for instilling a huge curiosity in history and cultures in me. And yes, we were marketing victims as well: everyone spent way too much on Magic, Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards and related toys. But it didn't infect every part of our lives.
Help your kids reflect on their choices and wants. Help them find out why they really want to pay too much money for that shiny Roblox skin. And offer alternatives with free, open content sharing so they realize they are being swindled. Media literacy is much tougher today because companies got much more insidious marketing vectors to infect kids.
Nowadays there are thousands of games being released per week, in addition to classics such as Minecraft, Terraria, Rimworld, Eco, which still have very strong modding and multiplayer communities.
worst part is when they have 57 AAA games but all their friends play fucking roblox have become obsessed with making content with roblox so they can join the child labor pool it uses.
Lemmy would need to become significantly popular for it to be worthwhile for them to manipulate it; they might be laying the groundwork now. However, only time will tell. If Lemmy does become more popular, hopefully people here can effectively counteract any manipulation.
I've seen lots of attempts to market on Lemmy. Most get called out as spam and shut down quickly, but there's also exhalting of YouTubers and other influencers who in turn shill stuff like crazy.
Also the gaming subs are really bad for this because posting trailers and announcements about games seems to be viewed by some as a way of "padding" Lemmy with content, so as to make it not feel so empty here. If you ask me, we should welcome the emptiness, only posting about things we actually want to talk about. People who post dozens of game trailers, announcements, and patch notes are just flooding the feeds with things that may matter to nobody.
I was just talking about that with a friend a couple days ago over a delicious Starbucks Frappacino™. We decided to meet up so he could show me his new iPhone XX Pro™. Great phone by the way.
We both thought viral marketing and astroturfing wouldn't probably be much of a factor on Lemmy, even if you're using a really smooth interface like Voyager™.
I know the iPhone XX Pro™ is pretty new, and exclusive to T-Mobile ™ with their comprehensive and afforable coverage. So there may be misconceptions about its abilities. There is an optional case made by the good people at Fleshlight ™ available which will satisfy your needs. Of course the free VPN service offered with every purchase will allow you to view your favorite video entertainment, even if you are a freedom loving American from the great state of Texas.
It will be. We are just not sure yet how because it precisely doesn't work like reddit or Facebook. But I am sure there are ways to manipulate here too, it may just be more elaborate.
idk I use my phone to play chess, wingspan, Root, all kinds of games. There are a lot of really cool text adventures on mobile, plus Pokemon Go is mobile only. You can even play Minecraft on your phone ...
On Instagram I usually just see pictures about my friends lives, news, local events. The most well informed people I know are all active on social media. If all your kids are doing is playing console video games, they'll be disconnected. The most cutting edge news is on social media, and has been for years now. My phone is just a more comfortable way to do things. I could play chess and read the news on my laptop, but I don't want to.
This just reads like moral panic over tech you don't like ... you know, people used to fear-monger about books being too addictive and bad for you.
Doomscrolling on reddit, imgur, and twatter destroyed my mental health over a ~4-year period. I went cold turkey on all three about a year ago and there is a remarkable difference. They caused a great deal of anxiety, I just didn't realise it at the time.
It was also a near-addiction when I could just flick the mouse wheel and more content would show up, and oh my, suddenly it's 4am and I have work in 4 hours. r/ouchmyballs and r/watchpeopledieinside were particularly problematic.
Less content on the whole. There are many "the world is sliding back into fascism"-type posts, but I don't feel compelled to scroll on the front page infinitely.
Gaming consoles just mean you've already bought into their walled garden. They don't need to use the same tactics the mobile games use; you're already trapped. Hell, you're probably already paying a monthly subscription for online play, and then there's still nothing stopping individual game publishers from further enshittifying on top of that!
No, what you should really be doing is gaming on PC (Linux), ideally with games bought DRM-free (e.g. from GoG) or even by only playing Free Software games. I personally compromise enough to accept Steam, but that really is at the absolute limits of acceptability (and only then because of factoring goodwill from all their work on Linux compatibility for games).
Hell yeah. I haven't been able to play jak x in literally a decade and I was able to start it up today and bask it's 480p glory. Next is laughing at the first killzone while still enjoying the story and trying out Demon's Souls for the first time.
It's how you use the tools that count, and I think both types need (self-)restrictions placed upon them to be maximally effective and fun. Even a gun has a use, within certain bounds e.g. Ukraine can put them to great use.
Yea wow. As a 90s kid I’d never thought of comparing smart phones to consoles. Great point. Gaming together on the couch or a truly fun and social activity and way more wholesome than doom scrolling
On a phone, I actually rarely get stuck for hours. Not only because most of my personal data has to stay off of it (it cannot have LineageOS or similar), but also because it is inconvenient af. No keyboard, small screen, everything is slow. The problem of infinitely going into rabbit holes solves itself, while on the laptop there has to be a lot more self-control - it is far more comfortable.
I think I could tolerate it for a couple months at most. The problem is that good advertising doesn't exist very often so it's all just fucking annoying
The conspiracy take would be that someone wants the specific negative outcome we have and is deliberately calibrating their actions to achieve it
“Hidden interests and hands” in this case more charitably refers to the vast complex system of distributed incentives that different actors in the system have. If everyone washes their hands of their own little corner of the problem and refuses to take accountability at any level, in aggregate it leads to negative outcomes at scale. And of course no individual actor would want to publicise knowingly looking the other way: thus, hidden interests and hands
Everything's a tool, you can hit a nail with a hammer or crack your own head its how you use it and not the tools problem unless its specifically made for doing an evil thing like the evilinator or somethin . also being a neuroscientist doesn't instantly make anyone right people like to spread their opinions as facts because they have some kind of authority so don't be sheep and use your own head sometimes which most people clearly don't do as we can see in the upvotes.
I get the sentiment, but that implies nothing good is being made. And even if the sentiment “nothing good is being pushed” were true, that wouldn’t be that same as not being made. Still tons of artists out there putting work in.
There are more things to a stable and sustainable society than economy.
With many European countries doing budget cuts to education, social security, healthcare etc many people are dissatisfied with their goverments. This can make it very hard to justify spending said budget on migrants or programs with aim to integrating migrants to the society.
All those countries also suffer from a huge demographic catastrophe coming in. Unless they get a massive amount of young immigrant workers to stabilise the social systems, those systems will collapse alltogether.
Sure, but in order to solve that through migration we would need good infrastructure and effective processes to properly integrate these people to our societies. Unfortunately most of these countries do not have the money, expertise nor the will to implement these things properly making them fail not only their people but the refugees / migrants as well.
These migrants also increase the need for more social security and better education as many of them struggle to find jobs due to lack of education, language skills or just general distrust/racism towards migrants. Add in the additional need for healthcare and day care services well further putting presure on social systems in verge of collapse.
Now add in the possibility that artificial integeligence will cause causing unprecedented levels of unemployment in near future and how climate change may throw a wrench in the system at any point. I just don't see how we can solve any of these problems under the current market economy.
It's just that the austerity cuts on basic living necessities create more instability, for native-born and new members of a society. But that's probably the purpose, masses are easier to control when they struggle and are helpless
This is just bullshit. I'm sorry but it isn't true. The blanket statement for immigration being good is wrong.
Immigration can be good and it can be bad.
The problem is immigration is used as a huge catch all term. It's hardly ever "immigration from the EU" "Highly educated immigration".
If you look at the data, not just throwing out what makes you feel good, the actual data shows a lot of immigration is bad. Both the UK and Denmark has shown this recently.
The fact is we have been lied to over this. The government doesn't want to raise taxes to invest in locals and they want to keep wages down and house prices high. Immigration has net been a negative for the individual.
People wonder why so many are going to the far right. It's because the left and centre are trying to gaslight us into thinking something is true when it isn't.
My wife is an immigrant, pretty sure I can demonstrate multiple different ways how me (an individual) have received a net positive in my life because of her. Starting with big things like our children and ending with little things like how she helped me clean the house today.
The stats say that it costs the company money and the Danish data also says they commit way more crime. I'm sure victims of violent crime can mention multiple ways they have had net negatives from immigration.
Yes. Everyone just gets their "facts" from feels. Believing the world to be a certain way when the data says otherwise is dangerous. But people don't want real information unfortunately.
Oh this is interesting, but how do we get identical twins then? How come we get two gastrulation processes doing the exact same dance side by side, if not DNA?
Also I didn't know about Copy Cat. Being a clone and coming out nothing like the original, what a cat thing to do. They'll wiggle out of anything, them adorable bastards.
The EU has been hosting many immigrants for decades, and many have become citizens.
Surprisingly though,it seems that many EU citizens with a migration background, ( for example 1st and 2nd generation etc) in the EU vote against new immigrants.
They usually perceive it as a threat against their economic/housing/children's stability & future.
... Or because they see the things they ran away from following them. But of course this is not compatible with the myth that immigration is unconditionally good, so its better to pretend those immigrants are just trying to close the door behind them (have people who say this shit ever spoken to actual immigrants BTW?)
I was taught that the default is to write out numbers, but if you're comparing multiple numbers, they're normally supposed to be written in numeric form. I feel like they should have either started with a number or restructured the sentence.
googles
Apparently AP style guidelines say that for ten and above, you should use numeric form. Below that, write it out. That may be the driving factor here.
In general you should spell out numbers one through nine in AP Style. Consider the following examples of AP Style numbers,
The Chicago White Sox finished second.
She had six months left of her pregnancy.
You should use figures for 10 or above and whenever preceding a unit of measure or referring to ages of people, animals, events or things. Also use figures in all tabular matter, and in statistical and sequential forms.
I generally agree with most press conventions, and I'd buy into some of that, but I don't think I really like the "ten cutoff" convention.
Spell out all numerals that begin a sentence, except a calendar year. Unless another specific rule applies, spell out whole numbers below 10 and use figures for 10 and above.
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