I love retro gaming on real hardware, but the prices for turn-of-the-millenium software are outrageous. whatever was popular 20 years ago tends to suddenly become very expensive, but after a certain point the price does go down again. I used to collect NES games, when they got too expensive I moved to big box pc games, and now I’m building a Wii and Atari 2600 collection. The 2600 is so old that most of the people who are nostalgic for it aren’t actively collecting it. meanwhile, the Wii is still comparatively new (though that will likely change in a few years).

so, I guess my advice is: buy whatever’s cheap. I had never played the 2600 before but I ended up developing a genuine appreciation for the console. similarly, I’m picking up Wii games because I love the Wii and I want to make sure I have all the essentials before they get really expensive.

Another alternative is to just buy a console and then use a flashcart/softmod. or use an FPGA system, which will get you a native-like experience.

it sucks that a thing I like so much has become a festival of unrestricted capitalism, but I think it’s still possible to carve out a niche and enjoy yourself.

I’m probably not going to pay $10 a year with additional fees to have my music on a website unless a lot of people are already using it

it’s not really subjective, having a drm free download is like owning the thing, having it on steam is like borrowing it from someone fairly trustworthy, and having it on epic is like borrowing it from an asshole

you’re on a decentralised, federated social media website. why are you arguing that more centralisation is a good thing? the comparison you’re making is nonsense. you don’t need to download an app or sign up for an account to listen to music drm free or to play drm free copies of games. you download the thing at the point of purchase and then you own it and you can do whatever you want with it. and that includes launching it from steam, which I do with a lot of my drm free games

people in this thread have lost their damn minds. you can buy the game without DRM. that’s better than epic or steam

irrelevant to the thread, but it actually took only 3 years for clement atlee’s government to create the UK’s national health service

the vast majority of the internet is shit, it’s a slurry of Content from content farms designed to top google search results or go viral on social media. if all that were to disappear then the internet would absolutely become a better place

last time I signed into my Microsoft 365 account for work I got two separate 2fa prompts and two captchas, it was like being in an episode of the crystal maze. the mere act of signing into something is now tedious and difficult

Pathfinder 2e is definitely more complicated than DND 5e, but in return you get a much more interesting, expressive game, in my opinion. When people say it’s cleanly designed they are normally comparing it to pathfinder 1e, which is a labyrinth of bizarre rules, pointless edge cases and overly crunchy rolls.