Video Games

On that I agree. It's like renting a house v buying it.

Same money at the end and nothing in your hand but the flexibility of moving around.

I do worry a bit about the constant swing towards renting rather than owning

Reminds me that I've probably spent around £800 on Microsoft Office over the past decade just so my MiL can use MS Word...

Also there's something about the mentality of downloading a game from Game Pass where I don't seem to care as much about completing it. I think it's because it feels more transient, I didn't set out today to go and get this game, it was just something I saw on the home screen that looked fun. Then when I get stuck I just drop it. But if I've specifically bought a game I'm a lot more willing to push through the tough bits. It's just something I've noticed about the way I approach them. Same with films on Netflix, if it's boring I'll just turn it off.

I was recently read a quote from someone who works at Adobe and the gist of it was they know they have probably the most pirated software ever, the subscription is a shameless way to try and claw back some of the cash.

This is a pro in my book, I've tried so many things I wouldn't have gone near otherwise, some I've finished, some I've not but had some fun with all the same. Saying that I bought a series X game last week for the first time since getting my Xbox one however many years ago that was, which meant I literally never bought a game for that console.

Come to think of it I don't own any game for the Series. And I'm not even sure if there are any games for just the Series.

I'm definitely the same here. I think I need to just be a bit more mindful, and less flighty.

Adobe's CC pricing is infuriating, unless you make good money to pay for the sub from its usage it's completely inaccessible to most people.

A (truly) affordable sub which allowed you to access the apps you needed without having to buy them all would probably become ubiquitous, adobe has always made it worth the effort to pirate their software, how many of those people would take the convenience and reduced risk and just sign up if it was something you could ignore when it came out of the account each month like netflix etc...

It's not just for series X, but I bought it for it. Got a cheap key for assassin's creed Valhalla and figured that won't make it's way too gamepass anytime soon and I wanted to be a Viking.

Not sure if you're looking for a Photoshop/InDesign replacement that's a one-off cost, but Affinity have a decent trio of Adobe alternatives (can't remember what the third one is though)

Yeah I can definitely see how it's more profitable, thankfully I don't have to use any software where there's not a decent one-off purchase option!

I use affinity and am a fan but there's pretty much always something I'm trying to achieve when doing some design work that is a single click in photoshop/illustrator that either doesn't exist or is only partially supported in Affinity and requires finding out via their message board.

I've played a few things on Game Pass but so far nothing really held my interest. Still for the price it's worth it. I do worry though at the rate everyone is doing subscription services (esp. here in the US) I'll end up at ~200 a month on them

have you given slay the spire a go yet?

I thought received wisdom was that piracy is (not quite actively) encouraged, as it increases the number of paid sales & support contracts.

Make something ubiquitous enough to enough people, and when they need to use it in a corporate environment, they pick that product / universe / brand, and piracy is a lot less likely because of the BSA & the like, and the need for support.

Piracy as of itself costs nothing, if people aren't going to pay for the software anyway.

Y U not libreoffice?

At the time I already had Office installed as I was doing a load of processing of Excel files and LibreOffice wasn't always perfect in ensuring the formulae were applied correctly. Trying to talk through correctly opening .docx files in LibreOffice to an elderly Danish lady who's been using Word for the past 20 years was not a task I was feeling up to at that point!

There a free PDF editor that doesn't watermark?

You just need to get a slower internet connection. When you have to wait two days to fully download Hitman you really appreciate it that much more.

I cancelled my subscription after a few month because it was such a time sink of installing and deleting mediocre games. It's probably ideal for someone who loves the generic online shooters. A lot of the indie or retro games were half broken and didn't work properly.

Can just cloud play them first now.

Or run the cloud version on Switch, when you have to wait 500ms for the next frame, you really appreciate it.

yeah! I actually have that on my switch... reserved for air plane trips lol

so that at least they have improved with cloud play... a lot of the games you can stream straight away to decide if you like them or not

Might try that later this year.