Cool

She’s trained you well! And how can one say no to rubbing cat belly?

LOL. Our cats are just so thoughtful aren’t they?

Fair enough, megacorps certainly are amoral in their decisions, which generally leads to evil outcomes.

Have you considered what happens to indie game devs, which aren’t megacorps? They list games on Gamepass to increase exposure. Microsoft takes a cut of the monthly fee and the rest is dispersed to the publishers and then all the way down to the game devs getting a small slice of the monthly fee.

When OP issues a charge back, the game devs aren’t getting paid. Is that fair to indie game devs? They don’t get paid if Microsoft and the various publishers don’t get paid.

Granted, I’m not justifying subscriptions. I personally dislike Games-as-a-Service as I prefer to own my games. But using a paid service, and then charging back against the company? Especially when it’s smaller game devs on that platform, too, hoping to make it big one day.

I don’t think indie devs should eat your ass, or the original commenter’s ass. Frankly, they need money to eat and pay their bills just like us plebs.

Regardless of how you feel about Game Pass, shouldn’t Microsoft (and the game’s publisher and dev) get paid for a game rental service you fully used and benefited from?

With my morals, that’s not something I could do. Definitely doesn’t sit right with me.

I love my cat, and if he did this, I would be absolutely flattered that he felt safe to eat a meal on top of me. Plus it’d be so freaking hysterical to wake up to such an absurd scenario you’d never expect to happen! One of those things you wish you got on video

My cat will carry his toys to me and drop them at my feet when he wants to play, for context.

LOL. You’re Microsoft’s ideal customer to pay for a service you don’t use. Happy I could remind you to cancel!😃

Agreed. I guess it’s that value proposition: if you have the time to play, and you play their whole catalog and have a blast, that’s $16.99 well spent.

As for me I love owning my games (where possible due to licensing and DRM), so the value isn’t there. But my spouse and I certainly took advantage of the heavy discounts they offered like the $1 month. I planned it so that I could try as many games as I could during that period and ended up buying them on GOG or Steam if I really loved them.

If their whole catalog is refreshed and they have another heavily discounted offer for 1 month, I’ll pick up a month just to try those games. But I definitely would never be a long term customer, I’d be a parasite loss-leader lol.

LOL yep. And if you ever work in the traditional corporate office job, you’ll hear these great words mixed in:

• align
• synergize
• innovate
• compete
• streamline
• agile

I work the corporate game, so I use these words myself, but ooh boy it gets tiring. Thankfully I’m agile enough to synergize myself with these new standards, which are aligned best with our competitors.

Sony slipped into the chat:

“We heard our name so we came running. We must keep up with our competition. Gamers proved they’ll pay anything, so to stay competitive, we will be increasing our prices in order to stay competitive with our offerings. Sure the publishers are raising their rates, and servers aren’t cheap, but we hope that with this new increase, our profitability margins will increase faster than our operating revenues. We think you’re gonna love it.”

Agreed. It isn’t a sustainable model. Eventually game companies will want their own proprietary ‘Game Pass service’, and we’ll see a great schism in the next 10 years - the very same that fractured video streaming. Customers will get more choices, but prices will remain high(er) rather than lowering.

For now, depending on the type of customer, Game Pass is a good deal for those that want to try out games or have the time to justify the subscription. For an oldie like me, it’s not a good deal as I prefer to own my games (where possible, considering licenses and DRM).

Uncle Rob: “Joey, do you like movies about wrestlers?”

Definitely want to see this!

No prob! I just had to internet search this pastor because I wanted to know just how old his gross ass was when he did that. I think most functioning persons in society would have the same mindset as you shared.

Providing just a small correction here. The child was 12 at the time, now 52.

Robert Morris (the accused sexual predator former pastor of the rapist, racist, sexist, traitor, “Christian”, beloved friend of Jeffrey Epstein, and convicted felon Donald Trump) was 22 at the time and now 62.

A 22 year old preying and praying on a 12 year old. Just so disgusting.

How much money can we pull together for Clarence Thomas?

I heard the corrupt shithead also likes free vacations, so maybe we can chip in on a Royal Caribbean cruise or something, and maybe get him a snow cone and a breath mint on the side.

Clarence Thomas:

They were one of my favorites over 20 years ago. I played many of their games: Splinter Cell, Beyond Good & Evil, Child of Light, Assassin’s Creed. I never played Far Cry, Prince of Persia, or got heavily into Rayman, but they certainly did make many gems.

Then somewhere around 10-15 years ago, they enshittified.

Now they’re an evil and anti-consumer corporation. I don’t buy their games anymore, which is a shame because I’d love the Beyond Good & Evil remaster and the upcoming sequel. I’d love to play Immortals Fenyx Rising. But their track record shows they will only release games that are: “safe” copy-and-paste games, not innovative, unoriginal, loaded with micro transactions and predatory telemetry, and equipped with DRM and kill switches.

Why purchase and play Immortals Fenyx Rising when in 10 years they’ll just take it away from me? Such a shame. I won’t participate in Ubisoft games anymore unless they course correct (read: They will never course correct).

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I got you, boo. 😘

The Stupendous Spider-Man #131:

“How Nefarious! It’s the National!”

Cover Art Description:

Man leaning out of a car window while pointing a gun at Spider-Man in the distance. The man’s license plate says “PRIVATE”, and there are multiple bumper stickers with the words “TRAVELLER” and “NON-COMMERCIAL VEHICLE”.

The National yells fiercely at Spider-Man, “I never entered into a contract with you, Web Head!”