I do wonder how much of an uptick in sales the first two games will receive once the third is done.

Did you read the article?

This doesn’t just cover microtransactions. In fact, the new law is harsher on fake gambling than it is on real gambling - loot boxes get classified as M, but a poker minigame is an automatic R18.

Patent infringement is a curious angle. Do we know what specific patent(s) they’re claiming here?

Oh, did you think the headline meant they were shutting S3 down? Servers will remain up for the foreseeable future, and they’ll even still run seasonal Splatfest and Big Run events. They’re just done with content updates.

My ultimate dream would be to someday get SteamOS running on a DS-sized form factor. Doesn’t need to be beefy, just needs to fit in my pocket and run my favorite 2D indie games.

I bought a Steam Deck just to support the most important thing that ever happened to Linux gaming, but mine has actually just been gathering dust. It’s far too big to really be a handheld, doesn’t fit in my pocket, and does not fill the role that Nintendo’s handhelds served for me. The main thing I do end up using it for is taking Deck + dock to FGC events for a portable setup.

Last year I bought a Miyoo Mini Plus, a little emulator handheld, as an impulse buy because it was on sale super cheap. I ended up putting far more time into it than I ever did with the Deck.

Maybe the best library of all time, my DS collection is massive.

The one thing that’s sad though is how many classics are unlikely to ever see a rerelease. Games that were designed around the hardware just won’t be the same on any other platform.

Two years of content seems plenty reasonable. Especially when they said from the start that it would be two years. Games don’t need infinite updates forever and ever and ever. Especially when it’s not a live service being sustained by microtransactions.

You didn’t answer my question, by the way.

Huh, surprised they’d actually release the original Cosmo Gang over Pac-Attack. I actually didn’t know there was a SFC version, I thought all the home ports were Pac-Attack.

I would be entirely fine with Flappy Bird passing into the public domain, but this isn’t even that. They actually own it now.

Splatoon 1 had one year of content updates. Splatoon 2 had two. And they told us from the start that Splatoon 3 was also going to have two years.

How long do you expect them to keep going for?

Did you even read the article?

This is not the same Flappy Bird. The original game already has been preserved, the APK is floating around if you know where to look.

This new game is an outright scam using stolen IP to trick users into thinking this is the original.

Sell the website to who? Aquaman?

Normally these kind of announcements come with some kind of explanation. The lack of one reflects very poorly on Mozilla and leads me to assume the worst.

So real gambling is M, fake gambling is R18+. Makes sense.

FWIW, all three Boktai games do have patches if you can’t play on original hardware.

It’s an iterative series, each game building on the predecessor’s mechanics, so there’s not any one major twist. But there are a lot of little things that add up. The new movement techniques are great, Salmon Run has been significantly expanded, and just in general the QoL is night and day.

Also, the fact that Ink Armor, Sting Ray, and Main Power Up are not in the game might be the true biggest step forward. S3’s meta is in a pretty good spot now.

Large parts? It’s been a while since I played Octo Canyon, but I’m pretty sure the only thing that reappeared from Valley was the Octostomp boss, but it’s a different fight anyway so not really.

It’ll never happen, but I’d honestly prefer for S4 to move on from Splatfests and do something else entirely. They’ve run out of ideas, a lot of the themes feel like filler just to keep it going out of obligation. At this point I just see Splatfests as a weekend where they take away Ranked and make everyone play the worst game mode.

How many years do you expect them to keep pumping out content for the same game? They’ve gotta wrap it up somewhere. Two years is plenty.

Back in my day, games were released and we played them for what they were.