Here is a thread to talk about gaming

[Mercutio]

That's probably a matter of class.
People who take off their clothes for money, like nearly all my friends, mostly aren't coming out of privilege, although I do know some exceptions to that as well.

With regard to phones specifically, there's a massive social pressure specifically to have an iphone. You are judged strongly and negatively for not being a blue bubble person. I've witnessed gas station employees dressing down older people who don't know how to navigate with a Map application specifically because "nothing works on Android" rather than pull out a paper map to show someone where to go like said older person clearly wanted. The expectation is that if you can't afford a new iphone, you will buy the iphone you can afford. Android is not an option for a huge mass of the public, so thorough is the brainwashing. This is even more true for younger people.

Regarding cars: Remember cash for clunkers? Clunkers were the cars young people could afford and they do not exist in the market any more. If your choice is a $15k used car with 100,000 miles on it and a three year payment plan or a $25k new car on a seven or 10 year loan, take a wild guess which one people will pick.

 

[Handruin]

With regard to phones specifically, there's a massive social pressure specifically to have an iphone. You are judged strongly and negatively for not being a blue bubble person.

I'm curious if this is more of a regional thing regarding the iphone pressure. I remember it being more of a thing many years ago (12+) but I can't even remember a time anyone I know, or being out anywhere, has ever cared about someone's phone type or whatever color a message bubble is.

Phones aren't even discussed any more because all phones are basically just the same boring slab of glass now. It used to be exciting when someone got a new phone and people would talk about it but no one seems to even care or notice any more, at least from any friend, coworker, or random person.

 

[Mercutio]

As far as I can tell it's nationwide and worse the younger for people are. My best friend's roommates literally would not let her move in unless she was willing to accept an apple phone. I've also heard of kids swapping a brand new flagship of a four year old apple device to stop certain kinds of school bullying.

I also hear it a lot in bars and nightclubs. "He had an Android app he must be broke."
I've even lost out on work over that kind of judgement. It's pervasive.

 

[jtr1962]

Regarding cars: Remember cash for clunkers? Clunkers were the cars young people could afford and they do not exist in the market any more. If your choice is a $15k used car with 100,000 miles on it and a three year payment plan or a $25k new car on a seven or 10 year loan, take a wild guess which one people will pick.

There's also much stronger support among the under 30 crowd for better public transit. I'm sure given how hideously expensive it is to own a car most would choose not to if having better public transit made that possible. Forced car ownership is the single biggest factor keeping people in poverty these days.

There seems to be a lot more interest in micromobility vehicles instead of cars among the younger crowd. If you need personal transit, it can often take the form of an e-bike or e-scooter or pedal bike instead of an SUV, particularly in urban areas.

I can't believe young people are so snobby about iPhones. To me smart phones are all boring, generic glass slabs. I don't get the excitement over them.

 

[sedrosken]

You're seeing the people under 30 who are the loudest and the most fortunate, Lunar. The rest are all too busy working to show much of anything off. They gotta pay that car note, after all. Merc is very correct on that -- the "clunkers" that were all gobbled up with the government subsidies were the cars people like me would be driving if they still existed. Nowadays 4 or 5 grand will get you something used that barely runs and needs all kinds of work -- the options really are a 5-10 year old used car for $15k on a 5 year loan or something new $30k+ on a 7-10 year. Given those options it's not surprising at all that we'd pick what's comfortable and gives the impression it won't break down. I can do my own car work, which is why I trusted my then 5-year-old RAV4, but a staggering amount of people can't, and no one can afford to have work done.

Most of us will never be able to retire.

I don't think the blue-bubble pressure is all that pervasive in the circles I live and work in, maybe that's more of a bigger city thing. In particular I'd say that if someone were to try to restrict my employment or my living space over it, well, then they're just not the kind of people I care to associate with anyway. I did end up folding to it, though, mostly because my number had been used for iMessage before so half my family was trying to send iMessages to an Android and they weren't going anywhere. I ended up looking like I was just a jerk not responding to people rather than I just wasn't getting messages. This much after I went through the process through Apple to remove my number from iMessage. My family's phones just weren't getting the message.

Phones really are just a generic glass slab for us.

 

[LunarMist]

I've never heard of the blue, green, and red bubbles, but it seems like some high school antics. I can certainly use the Textual Messenger to communicate with the peoples that I know use an Iphone. I gather that iMessage must only work on the Apple networks? It's a bit confusing how important APPLE really is. I've seen our CEOs phone was some S22 or like that, so it's not very necessary to being successful in business or life.

Are the iPhones worse at playing games than the Samsungs?

 

[Handruin]

Of the friends of mine who have kids, which is roughly 10 of them, none of them care about specific phones or which color dot their messages are, they just use discord to chat and play games on PC or consoles.

No one really even cares at work about phone types. At most we all complain phones are too expensive and slow. Corporate phones are Android/Pixel 7 & 8

 

[ddrueding]

Here in Denmark the culture is very much about finding value and showing off is frowned upon. Here if you buy the "Turbo" Porsche or the "AMG" Mercedes, you remove those badges so you aren't bragging. In the US they glue them onto the cheap cars to show off. Even clothing with brands on them are avoided.

Yet somehow Apple gets a pass on this? It is obviously overspending with questionable value, but the market has a bunch of Apple adoption and no one seems particularly embarrassed by it.

iPhone Market Share by Country 2024

worldpopulationreview.com

 

[LunarMist]

Iphones are not very expensive like cars are. Anyways, I just used IPhones as an example not that the phones are the best or most expensive. The Z Folder 6 Samsungs are $1900.

 

[jtr1962]

Nowadays 4 or 5 grand will get you something used that barely runs and needs all kinds of work -- the options really are a 5-10 year old used car for $15k on a 5 year loan or something new $30k+ on a 7-10 year.

My brother picked up a Mark VIII in great shape for $6K. Here are a few pics of it:






A good bet for decent used cars at reasonable prices is to buy vehicles which were high-end when new. This car cost over $40K when it was new in 1997. Being that they were high-end, they were likely well taken care of, and also better made in the first place. I think he said it has less than 100K miles. He bought it to replace the same model he's been driving for about 20 years. His old vehicle has a lot of rust, the frame might be compromised, and it has well over 300K miles on it. Since he's familiar with how to work on it, plus he has a lot of spare parts, it made sense to get another. He's not big on the newer stuff anyway. He hates SUVs. Unfortunately, that's most of what's been made over the last decade.

Nice thing is anything over 25 years old can get classic car insurance, which costs low three figures annually.

The $10K EVs BYD in China is making would be another perfect vehicle for young people but it looks like we'll stupidly tariff the hell out of them, thereby denying people truly affordable vehicles.

 

[LunarMist]

I'm pretty familiar with the MN12 platform but this thread is derailed and I think the later posts should be in the Something Random.

 

[Mercutio]

Some kid won NES Tetris.

 

[ddrueding]

There have been some cool documentaries on the progress in Tetris. I remember watching one for an hour. Fascinating and well produced. I haven't touched it since the NES was the newest console out.

 

[sedrosken]

I've kept up with the saga too, but I thought the story was over when they found the kill screen. I didn't imagine in my wildest dreams it'd be possible to just roll the level counter over without a crash. Makes me wonder if one couldn't do something similar for Pac-man.

 

[Mercutio]

Mechwarrior 5 Clans trailer just dropped.

Battletech is the property that's most likely to get me to spend money, but Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries had some really awful AI and never quite lived up to what it could've been. I still like seeing a new game, even if I prefer isometric turn based strategy rather than a first person simulator. This game looks to have more of a plot than the sandbox of the old title.

The in-universe tabletop game just had a new time skip that I'm waiting for a Bundle of Holding to learn more about it. The newest setting is fully 60 years after the extremely unpopular and widely ignored Dark Age and ~125 yeas after the original 4th succession war that was the setting for the original DOS Mechwarrior and Battletech: Crescent Hawks Inception computer games. Battletech is having its 40th anniversary this year. The current owner of the IP is Paragon Interactive, the Crusader Kings and Cities Skylines people. Paradox actually owns several other tabletop gaming properties, such as the World of Darkness setting, for those of you who might remember Vampire: The Masquerade and all the 90s theater kid goth polycules who played it.

 

[ddrueding]

Now that I've completed Satisfactory 1.0, I'm looking forward to Factorio Space Age in a week or so.

 

[Handruin]

I'm also excited for the release. I'm planning to start from scratch and build out a factory with a couple friends so that I can experience all the new 2.0 base game upgrades along the way.

 

[ddrueding]

I set up a server for Satisfactory, and got several friends to log into it, but they are Rust players, and may have only logged in once. I basically solo'd it. I think I'll just play local for Factorio.

 

[Mercutio]

If anyone happens to have Amazon Prime, right now Guardians of the Galaxy (on Epic) and Doom Eternal (on the Microsoft Store) are available through Prime Gaming. Also most of the Borderlands games.

 

[Mercutio]

Humble Bundle has an "All Things Sid Meier" bundle up for grabs this week that includes Civ 3 - 6 with all their DLCs plus some old favorites like Pirates! and Railroads!, for an $18 donation. I haven't touched an actual Civ game in decades because of Alpha Centauri but it's the rare place where my and my partner's gaming tastes line up so it was an instant buy for me. I'm sure that means there's going to be a Civ 7 in a couple weeks but those games don't get decent until they've been out for a while.

I'll also put in a good word for Terra Invicta, which was created by the guys who developed the brutally hard "Long War" mods for the various Firaxis X-Com games and plays as something like the combination between X-Com: Enemy Unknown's strategic layer and a Civilization title. I just installed it again.

Losing myself in a "just one more turn" strategy game seems like a really good idea right now.

 

[sedrosken]

Yeah we've known Civ VII was on the way for a long time now. It is in fact just right around the corner. No doubt it further digresses from the IMO perfect gameplay loop of V. I played VI for a grand total of ten minutes, went "nah screw this" and went back to V.