HarkMahlberg
@HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth
People keep asking me, and I haven't really had an answer, but now yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.
- Comment on Indie Game Awards Disqualifies Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Due To Gen AI Usage 1 week ago:
True on most fronts except one. On a personal level, I do hate AI lol. The large language model itself. I just don't think typing out or speaking out a series of instructions is that useful or efficient. If I want a computer to do something for me, I much prefer the more rigid and unnatural syntax and grammar of programming language. AI tools themselves just don't produce a result that satisfies me.
- Comment on Indie Game Awards Disqualifies Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Due To Gen AI Usage 1 week ago:
When I give myself the leeway to think of a less hardliner stance on AI, I come back to Joel Haver's video on his use of ebsynth:
It lets me create rotoscoped animations alone, which is something I never would have the time or patience for otherwise. Any time technology makes art easier to learn, more accessible, we should applaud it. Art should be in the hands of everyone.
Now my blood boils like everyone else's when it comes to being forced to use AI at work, or when I hear the AI Voice on Youtube, or the forced AI updates to Windows and VS Code, but it doesn't boil for Joel. He clearly has developed an iconic style for his comedy skits, and puts effort into those skits long before he puts it through an AI rotoscope filter. He chose his tool and he uses it sparingly. The same was apparently true for E33, and I have no reason not give Kojima and Larian the same benefit of the doubt.
On the other hand, Joel probably has no idea what I'm talking about when I say "surveillance state AI." People Make Games has a pretty good video exposing its use case. There's also...
- the global and localized environmental impacts of all these data centers,
- Nvidia and Micron pricing the consumer out of owning their own hardware,
- aforementioned companies fraudulently inflating an economic bubble,
- the ease with which larger models can be warped to suit their owners' fascist agendas (see Grok).
Creatives may be aware of some, or all, or none of those things, which is why it's important to continue raising awareness of them. AI may be toothpaste that can't go back in the tube, but it's also a sunk cost fallacy, you don't have to brush your teeth with shit-flavored toothpaste.
- Comment on Indie Game Awards Disqualifies Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Due To Gen AI Usage 1 week ago:
I have the same feeling about Kojima's and Vincke's latest comments on AI. Am I supposed to get mad at every single person who said they used/plan to use AI for something? I'd be as outraged as the average Fox News viewer, and it would be impossible to be taken seriously. I still won't be using AI myself (fuck surveillance state AI) and I'd be making every effort to encourage others not to use it, but there's no point in burning bridges and falling for rage bait.
They're creative people who care about the craft and care about the teams in their employ, which gives their statements weight, where some Sony/Microsoft/EA executive making an identical statement has none.
- Comment on Steam winter sale is now live 1 week ago:
I mean it is 6 years old. It is also possible that Project Aces' licenses for the aircraft is expiring soon, so they may have to delist the game.
- Comment on Steam winter sale is now live 1 week ago:
Ace Combat 7 is less than $5, that's a real solid deal if you're new to AC and/or interested.
- Comment on Sony's Naughty Dog Studio Orders Employee Overtime on ‘Intergalactic’ 1 week ago:
Why am I not surprised. Overtime is always ordered by the folks who clock out at 3.
- Comment on Video Game Physical Software and Hardware Sales Just Had the Worst November in the U.S. Since 1995 - IGN 1 week ago:
Well then I think your beef has nothing to do with the form of the media, but with DRM and lack of transferability. And I totally get the anxiety of having something and not wanting to lose access to it, but such is the nature of all games, movies, shows, books. Everything humans create has a shelf life and we're in a neverending fight against entropy.
- Comment on Video Game Physical Software and Hardware Sales Just Had the Worst November in the U.S. Since 1995 - IGN 1 week ago:
Almost got me with that hotness but I wouldn't necessarily disagree. In a perfect world, we would just own digital copies free and clear of any remote tampering.
Trouble is, physical media is relevant now because companies can't nuke your access to it once their licensing deals expire, like they can with digital streaming services and storefronts. Even digital copies are physical, they have to sit on a hard drive somewhere, and even those degrade over time. So let's say we own the hard drive, that's great, but I still need to transfer it once the disk/flash dies. It's unquestionably more efficient than disc media tho.
- Comment on What are your gaming highlights of 2025? 2 weeks ago:
- Finishing my first Baldurs Gate 3 campaign after 250 hours.
- Winning my first gold stake run of Balatro.
- Still alive to witness the Ace Combat 8 trailer.
- Comment on 2025 Game Awards Results Discussion 2 weeks ago:
Yeah Divinity went for shock value and boy did it pay off.
- Comment on 2025 Game Awards Results Discussion 2 weeks ago:
I saw some gossip about the cost of revealing a game on the TGA, which I didn't see in years past. Makes sense that they work like ads where the best spot (right before GOTY) is the most expensive.
So imagine: Larian paid less for that unhinged Divinity trailer than Wildlight paid for another generic looking hero shooter (we have Valorant at home).
- Comment on Epic and Steam banned it but HORSES is out now on other stores 3 weeks ago:
Take me with a grain of salt, but from what I understand Valve banned it when they received their evaluation build, and they found a scene of a child character "riding" on the back of an adult, naked, "horse" character, in the form of a human.
Developer immediately took to social media to whip up the current media frenzy you see now. Whether the developer simply didn't realize the implications of what they made, or whether they did it purposely for "artistic license" or "anti-puritan shock value" I leave to you.
- Comment on Amazon’s AI ‘Banana Fish’ Dubs Are Hilariously, Inexcusably Bad 4 weeks ago:
You know 15 years ago it was common pastime to see how quickly we could trick Cleverbot into admitting it was a chat bot and not actually intelligent. Now we have chat bots competing with us to prove that we must not be intelligent.
- Comment on Valve dev counters calls to scrap Steam AI disclosures, says it's a "technology relying on cultural laundering, IP infringement, and slopification" 4 weeks ago:
No. AI cannot "get better," that's what techbros say so they don't light a trillion dollars on fire. LLMs cannot avoid hallucinations and even now are being trained on their own excrement, human centipede style. They hope you tell yourself this lie so you don't notice when they move on to the next hyped up pile of shit.
- Comment on Valve dev counters calls to scrap Steam AI disclosures, says it's a "technology relying on cultural laundering, IP infringement, and slopification" 4 weeks ago:
- Comment on 5 weeks ago:
The real question is if Valve plans to swallow the jumps in price. They must have designed the machine before the price hikes, so I wonder if they already had a price in mind and whether they're gonna stick to it.
- Comment on Why a new Steam Machine when the first ones flopped? Because this time, Valve say, it'll actually have games 1 month ago:
Thank God for that, because after seeing it's ventilation setup, I'm gonna have to drill holes in that front panel. XD
- Comment on Which year was the most stacked for game releases? 1 month ago:
It's probably not the most stacked but I think 2017 was still a monster year for games.
Breath of the Wild
Mario Odyssey
Persona 5
Nier Automata
Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice
Divinity Original Sin II
Doki Doki Literature Club
Cuphead
Prey
Star Wars Battlefront II
Destiny 2
Nintendo Switch itselfThese were, for one reason or another, some of the most monumentally influential games in the last 10 years, no matter if you're talking AAA, indie, platformer, shooter, open world, RPG, horror, you name it.
- Comment on 'Valve does not get anywhere near enough criticism': DayZ creator Dean Hall says the 'gambling mechanics' of Valve's monetization strategy 'have absolutely no place' in videogames 2 months ago:
- Comment on 'Valve does not get anywhere near enough criticism': DayZ creator Dean Hall says the 'gambling mechanics' of Valve's monetization strategy 'have absolutely no place' in videogames 2 months ago:
The price is off-putting because we can see the sticker in order to get sticker shock. But lootboxes and gambling have no upfront sticker, the cost is obfuscated and extended over years. In that regard, Paradox is much more transparent.
That being said, my beef with them is their "subscription for DLC" model, at least the version I saw being rolled out for EU4. That and the free updates tend to be fairly unbalanced if you don't also buy the corresponding DLC for that update. That seems skeevy... but still not as skeevy as lootboxes.
- Comment on Sam Altman Says If Jobs Gets Wiped Out, Maybe They Weren’t Even “Real Work” to Start With 2 months ago:
Yeah, I've got something to add. The ruling class will use LLMs as a tool to lay off tens of thousands of workers to consolidate more power and wealth at the top.
LLMs also advance no profession at all while it can still hallucinate and be manipulated by it's owners, producing more junk that requires a skilled worker to fix. Even my coworkers have said "if I have to fix everything it gives me, why didn't I just do it myself?"
LLMs also have dire consequences outside the context of labor. Because of how easy they are to manipulate, they can be used to manufacture consent and warp public consciousness around their owners' ideals.
LLMs are also a massive financial bubble, ready to pop and send us into a recession. Nvidia is shoveling money into companies so they can shovel it back into Nvidia.
Would you like me to continue on about the climate?
- Comment on Sam Altman Says If Jobs Gets Wiped Out, Maybe They Weren’t Even “Real Work” to Start With 2 months ago:
Ever work in an enterprise environment? Sometimes a single talented developer cannot overcome the calcification of hundreds of people over several decades who care more about the optics of work than actual work. Documentation cannot help if its non-existent/20 years old. Documentation cannot make teams that don't believe in automation, adopt Docker.
Not that I expect Sam Altman to understand what it's like working in a dumpster fire company, his only job is to just pour the gasoline.
- Comment on Amazon to replace 600,000 US workers by 2033 with robots 2 months ago:
The robots are there to replace the apologetic delivery driver, not the rich asshole. They'd never let that happen.
- Comment on Fediverse alternative to Facebook is what's really missing 2 months ago:
The flip side of that same coin is that, IME, fediverse developers champion data privacy, anonymity, and decentralization. Users should never offer that much personal data to one platform, so they build and advocate for platforms that don't require that data. Building a lowercase-f facebook on the fediverse would betray that foundation.
- Comment on I went to an anti-tech rally, where Gen Z dressed as gnomes and smashed iPhones. Here's what I learned. | Business Insider 2 months ago:
I think few open source projects enjoy the user satisfaction that VLC does. Even Linux itself is not as friendly to its users.
VLC (by cause or by effect?) also doesn't have evangelists trying to push it. It doesn't need them. Contrarianism is a strong motivator in today's culture.
- Comment on The AI that we'll have after AI (Doctorow) 2 months ago:
I was going to reply "at least the burning of Alexandria was an accident," and then I thought to look that up. Seems egotists destroying public collections of knowledge is just baked into humanity. We'll never be free of its scourge.
- Comment on GOG say their preservation program has been "harder than we thought", thanks to DRM and elusive creators 2 months ago:
That's journalism right there.
- Comment on 2 months ago:
I don't know, I think a rag calling itself Windows Central might have a bias towards Microsoft...
Even the tone of the article sounds like their arms are tired from carrying their water.
One thing after another, Microsoft is forced to respond time and time again to ongoing rumors that it's leaving the hardware space.
A new Xbox rumor started this weekend that's now blown out of proportion, as usual.
Can you bitch any harder?
- Comment on I've recently turned into a blocker. 2 months ago:
"No. { Several paragraphs of argument that's not mutually exclusive }"
Arghh hate that shit. I don't know why online argumenters love to start with "No and." I don't block because of it but man, nobody learns how to have a constructive debate anymore.
- Comment on Google Confirms Non-ADB APK Installs Will Require Developer Registration 2 months ago:
They took your headphone jack.
Are we talking the nubulous They, the royal They, or do you mean "Android took your headphone jack?" Because uhh,