I am very minimal with what I carry.

I always have phone, headphones (either wired earbuds or my shokz bone conducting ones) and the least amount of keys(this is currently down to a single key on a small elastic cord).

If I am cycling I add in a small cafe lock, and in the summer I include spf30 Chapstick as well.

That is all the stuff ever really worry about taking with me on a daily basis.

This analogy is so bad, it is not even close to what is happening.

I will try and adapt to cars for you(I dont know why), but this is just really really bad.

Say you have designed a car, you can produce them on a very small scale, but you have come to valve(they make cars now) to mass produce. They do so, for a 30% cut(that reduces the more they sell) for everything they sell from their direct sales at the price you have set. There is no material costs or labour costs, just that cut of the price you have set.

Now valve have a sales page and are selling, and you decide that actually I would like more people to see the car, and so you consider selling it at other dealers. Valve says, sure, you can even have the cars for free from us(no 30% cut) and you can have basically an unlimited supply of free fully built cars to sell else where. We only ask that you sell the car at the same price you have set with us if you are selling a car we made.

You want to go sell it new cheaper? You are more than welcome too, but you cant sell the car we produced.

Such a bad analogy, but that is closer to what is actually happening.

Just think about how this works.

Steam currently allows you to generate keys and sell them for free, only stipulating that they must be sold for the same price as on steam.

Let’s say they are told that stipulation can’t be enforced.

Valve, will probably go with 1 of 2 options.

1 - you can no longer generate keys. So all the great key sites(GMG, Fanatical and so on) no longer exist, because no steam keys.

2 - Valve charge an upfront fee for keys generated. Now smaller pmdevs and publishers can no longer supply keys to sites, because they can’t afford the upfront costs.

What incentive does valve have to continue offering this free service? If it can be exploited for the detriment of steam, they will stop providing it.

Phone tech is really boring. Almost everything looks the same, they are all x% faster than last year’s model which still does everything perfectly fine. In terms of hardware, the phone has kinda reached the optimal place.

I’m not the target audience for bleeding edge phones though. I take photos, listen to music(using Bluetooth and wired headphones), browse the web and message people. I don’t really play games or use it for work.

By far the most interesting thing to me is foldable phones. I really like the idea of a flip phone, but I don’t think it would be too happy sitting in my sweaty pocket while I cycle.

Trust me, you could absolutely follow the example of other drivers and use your phone while driving.

SQL has always been Skull in my head. I think it is because I hated it when in college and associated it with dying inside.

Paige NO!

They keep throwing around threats of leaving.

Do it… do it you absolute chickens.

I love Firefox, it is my desktop and android go to, but fuck apples bullshit.

Look into Orion browser, it allows you to use chrome and Firefox extensions on iOS, it does mean no easy bookmark or tab sharing, but small price to pay to be able to use the net again properly.

I feel the Linux - Linux fanboy is very wrong these days. It does not have a monitor at 22 degrees

So for fighting games, character passes are a good thing(overall).

If you bought SF4 at launch and continued to play the game throughout it’s life, you ended up buying the same game multiple times. This was essentially a few characters and a balance patch(had new mechanics as well). This the fragmented the player base a lot, so if you were playing the base game you couldn’t play with someone on the latest version.

Street Fighter 5 however, switched to character passes and even being able to unlock characters with in-game currency(difficult if you came to the game later but possible). This means everyone got the balance patches and major system updates, so the player base stayed as a single entity.

For a niche genre, this is significantly better than multiple purchases of the same game, and allows for a game to get more updates over a longer time.

However I do wish they kept in more unlockable content like costumes, colours and stages.

Specific to Street Fighter 6 though, they have a battlepass(which is not good, but isn’t terrible either) which the free version gave/gives out a bunch of character rental tokens, so you can play with DLC characters you haven’t purchased.

We have also had, Tekken 8, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Persona 3r and Helldivers 2.

A couple bad/mediocre games is to be expected when we are only in Feb and this year is such a fucking banger for games already.

I finished up Moss Book 2, love it. I wish there were more VR games like this. Absolutely recommend Moss and Moss Book 2 if you are looking for something a little different. But be warned they are only around 4 - 5 hours long.

I just picked up Immortals Fenyx Rising which was 90% off on Steam. I really enjoyed the base game and looking forward to replaying and also diving into the DLC.

Street Fighter 6 is still my daily game, playing Blanka and just rolled into Diamond 5. I am also really happy that the Spy X Family collab event is not a complete rip off and is just 1000 drive tickets(looking at you TMNT event).

Hi Fi Rush was a great contender for sound track, I would have liked either of those winning it. Last of Us winning is fucking wonky though.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam

I will give it a try, pretty sure it is in the steam library, but probably be a couple months til I get round to it now (Granblue is being an absolute blast).

I used to use it a lot. I still have some nice headphones that I like using, but they have become 2nd choice. I have bone conducting headphones that I use daily.

I prefer them, because I can still communicate, ride the bike, and never have to pause the music. But if I have to do anything loud, the wired buds are coming out to plug the ear holes.

Still playing Street Fighter 6 pretty much every day. Still absolutely loving it.

Spider-Man Remastered, going through on Ng+ and ultimate difficulty to 100%, having just 100% Miles Morales. Those games have really clicked with me and makes me want to play the Arkham games again.

The Finals, have really enjoyed the betas and the full release being shadow dropped was a nice surprise. Definitely going to have more time when Spider-Man is done.

Next on the list to play is Sea of Stars, and Granblue Vs Rising.

Favourites, not really ordered

• Street Fighter 6 - Really really good fighting game, definitely a recommend if you want to play one.
• Baldurs Gate 3 - It is BG3, what more needs to be said?
• Octopath Traveler 2 - It is more of the first, but more refined and better at tying the characters together.
• Dead Space Remake - If you like the original, you should really play this, it is incredible.
• Remnant 2 - Great game, a good refinement of the first remnant, and fantastic in co-op.
• Last Epoch - I really like the leveling systems(Character and also Skills). Not perfect, but fun and chaotic.
• Crab Champions - Crab goes BRRR. Not many games I go out of my way to 100% but this games feels incredible to play.
• Spiderman & Miles Morales - Finally pick up on the cheap, if you enjoy the Batman Arkham formula, these two are fantastic. Miles Morales definitely feels like a large DLC though.
• Driftwood - Longboarding Sloth, super chilled out and relaxing. Just enjoy carving down the hills on sticks of butter.
• Lumines - The best game on the PSP, and still love it(picked up for cheap with Tetris, but prefer Lumines)

The not so good.

• Ghost Runner 2 - I want to like this more, I loved the first game, but the wide open levels and bike traversal just don’t feel good or fun.
• Diablo 4 - Play Last Epoch instead, D4 feels boring and bland and uninspired after finishing the story.
• Blasphemous - Didnt click with me, the combat felt good and the movement was good, but never stuck with it, will probably try again at some point.
• Hyper Light Drifter - I have tried a few times, and I keep bouncing off it.
• Ori and the Blind Forest - I also want to like this game, but bounced off it again.

While Street Fighter 6 is my Favourite game of the the year, Baldurs Gate 3 is definitely the GOTY. I would strongly recommend any game from the favourites list. I haven’t played any really bad games this year, Diablo 4 is probably the worst I have played, do not recommend it. Unlike the other games which I would be tempted to suggest under certain circumstances.

Battle Breakers

This is a bad example to put down, can’t find that on the epic store either.

https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-is-turning-off-online-services-and-servers-for-some-older-games