• @[email protected]
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    1424 hours ago

    I can’t speak to factorio since every time that dev has ever opened his mouth it has just been horrific hateful bullshit.

    But Civ is more just “addictive” because the gameplay is fun. That is not to downplay that but it is generally closer to “escapism” than not when you get into that “one more turn” cycle and realize it is 3 am.

    ARPGs were very much designed around skinner boxes/operant conditioning chambers which are one of the core tenets of how things like slot machines are designed. We can see similar (and it was outright acknowledged by many reviewers/influencers) with games like Vampire Survivors.

    At the end of the day, the reality is that the “This is fine if you are 13” system is idiotic and what we actually need is fine grain warnings… which will go down great in an era of “Eww, trigger warnings are woke”. But, like, I have a cousin who is well aware that he is incredibly prone to addiction when it comes to gambling and on many occasions he has texted family and friends to ask if it is “safe” for him to play a new game. And… it is kind of concerning how often the answer is “no”.

    • @[email protected]
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      14 minutes ago

      Civ is a bit exploitative in that they deliberately release a half-arsed base product with glaring flaws, charging big $$$ for it; and then release a chain of expansion packs to flesh it out and make it complete.

      I was on the beta team for Civ 5; and it was a real eye-opener to see that this is a deliberate strategy. It isn’t just that games are hard to get right. They deliberately hold back to squeeze more cash out. I haven’t bought any civ game since then.

      But yeah, I agree that it isn’t the same type of exploitation as gambling.

      • @[email protected]
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        3
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        19 hours ago

        Til both that he’s trash and that Uncle Bob is trash. It makes sense honestly, Uncle Bob was always hyped to no end with his mediocre contributions to software. Also the agile manifesto sucks ass.

          • @[email protected]
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            516 hours ago

            He wrote some hyped up programming books and he was involved in the creation of extreme programming (a bust), cucumber (an almost completely useless waste of time), and agile (an ok idea but in reality it’s a huge bust, it’s biggest effect is that management tells everyone “we need to be agile” all the time).

            Tldr: you’re not missing out

        • @[email protected]
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          719 hours ago

          While I sympathize with not knowing every random english word, the one next to it being ‘rape’ should’ve been enough clue