Quoting: Doktor-MandrakeOr Nintendos D-pad

To be fair, that was a novel invention that nobody had done before, and a correct use of patents, though. (Pretty sure that the Namco one was pre-dated by the 1987 Invade-a-Load tape-loader for the Commodore 64, though.)

On the other hand, it's being speculated that Nintendo is going after Palworld on patent grounds due to holding patents on the concept of catching monsters in a ball - something that was inspired by real-world gachapon toys that existed before the Pokemon games did. It just goes to show how little they have going for them in this case if that's all they could come up with, so hopefully they'll lose this one and won't be able to enact chilling effects on future competition.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyPengling can help, I expect. Isn't her gaming all about Emus?

Hahahahahahaha! Yeah, it is at the moment.

And on that note, the Steam Deck is an excellent emulation-box on top of all of its other merits, so hopefully Australians can finally get their hands on it soon!

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There are three freebie Points Shop items for this one, as seems to be the norm for Fests, too - an animated avatar, avatar-frame, and sticker.

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QuoteWhat have you been playing recently?

Just emulated stuff through RetroDECK - there's still nothing new that's caught my eye, yet!

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Quoting: CatKillerThat's because, back in your day, you'd have some money that you'd be given or save up, and you'd spend a fixed amount of that in exchange for specific goods at the toy shop or sweet shop or wherever. You wouldn't have had invisible obfuscated access to your parents' credit cards for ephemera.

Indeed - hell, credit cards were barely even a widespread thing, at the time.

Still, I assumed that the numbers were due to kids spending their own money (and if it is, that average is still a lot higher than I got back in my day ), and hadn't even considered the issue of them using credit cards without permission!

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Quoting: KlaasDon't forget inflation. Non-existing things have become a lot more expansive than they used to be.

Honestly, I dread to think about the inflation-adjusted price of the notorious horse-armour that started this slippery slope.

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QuoteData shows that children in Europe are spending on average €39 per month on in-game purchases.

Good lord, I never even got close to being given that much pocket-money in a month when I was a kid! That's a lot to spend on items that don't exist!

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QuoteWhat's your favourite Steam related memory?

I only started using Steam at the very end of 2021, after we already had things like Linux support and Proton (though this was all new to me at the time - when I'd last heard of Steam, it was still Windows-only), so I don't have a long list of favourite memories to draw from! That said, I've got three;

Firstly, experiencing Proton for the first time - it was like magic, and just worked! I don't think that the novelty of this has ever worn off.

Secondly, seeing how Super Bomberman R (a game with a very wonky PC port) got closer and closer to being fully playable on Linux over successive Proton versions, and testing it out with each Proton Experimental release, with the current one finally being the one that eliminates the last of the problems it had (not 8.0-5, which Valve assigned as its stable Proton version last year).

And last but not least, how, on the release-day for Super Bomberman R 2 (a year ago tomorrow, at the time of writing), it just worked under Proton, completely flawlessly, and I got to spend a free day completely immersed in it. That was the first time I'd seen the "day and date on Linux" thing with a game that I'd been looking forward to.

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I'll be sticking with Minetest, myself, but now I'm wondering if Mojang will ever address the many failings of Minecraft Education Edition?

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Looks a bit Mega Man Zero-inspired - nice to see more games in that sort of style!

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