Soon, GOG and all other storefronts will state that you’re purchasing a temporary digital license for any game who’s publisher uses an EULA that states you don’t own the game. This is due to the recently signed California law that forces storefronts to be transparent about the publishers EULA.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digital-purchase-disclosure-law-ab-2426

I think the long-term sales of the games you just cited is at odds with your opinions. At this point, Bethesda has made a name for themselves with janky, bug-riddled games with big story, that excel at giving the players a feeling agency. At this point that is Bethesda’s brand image and they seem to be just going with it. Like why would they bother spending more money to fix bugs and exploits that have become a signature to a lot of people? Also it’s costs them less to leave their titles unpolished and let the modders fix it.

I haven’t bought Elden Ring for this exact reason, but I love watching other people struggle and then succeed at it.

I have one friend who uninstalled Elden Ring completely after they reduced the difficulty of the new expansion DLC because he felt like they watered down his achievement of beating it.

Ultimately games are a form of art and their designers and developers have the ultimate say in how accessable (or not) they want to make the experience. I have also seen games with way too much ease of play features that completely destroy any challenge to the point of making it unplayable (looks a Ubisoft).

Researching games before you buy has become a critical skill to avoid feeling burned, because social media does an amazing job of selling you games through FOMO.

It’s actually a “test things first and have a proper change control process” thing. Doesn’t matter if it’s open source, closed source scummy bullshit or even coded by God: you always test it first before hitting deploy.

The new Nvidia App beta is available and it’s much better than Nvidia Experience, including that it doesn’t require sign in to an account. That said you don’t “need” it, but it does have a much better settings control panel than the normal Nvidia settings.

Star Citizen has entered chat

This isn’t about Sony “relenting”, Arrowhead needs Sony’s PSN support network to deal with support tickets: it’s the whole reason Arrowhead signed up with a publisher instead of self publishing and developing an international workforce of support agents. I hate Sony as much as the next person but let’s be honest, Arrowhead needs Sony and PSN, and it makes sense given they want to spend their time making games rather than getting into being a publisher and help desk.

Ultimately, Arrowhead should have made it a day one requirement and delisted the game on Steam for every country that lacks PSN support. Instead Arrowhead and Sony decided to let it ride and enjoy the sales and accompanying popularity.