Comments 606

Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges

danlk1ng

@Toypop also let's just make it 100% clear that by "people who work" what you really mean is "people who have plenty of disposable income" - there are plenty of people "in work" who don't have enough money to afford a PS5 at RRP, let alone scalped prices, so let's not bring "whether or not someone works" into it. You really mean people with very well paying jobs (or slightly less well paying jobs but no dependents) e.g. doctors, lawyers, mothers of basement dwellers etc. There are plenty of people who genuinely work hard but can't afford to use their money to "outbid the basement boys" (particularly not while the basement boys' mothers are still earning)

And I'm not expecting this to pursuade you that your whole argument is wrong or anything - that's not my intention, just to point out that "being in work" doesn't equate to "being able to afford a PS5 from a scalper" like your argument heavily implies, even though I'm sure that's not what you mean

Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges

danlk1ng

@Toypop speaking of fallacies, why is it necessary at all that "scalpers" and "the unemployed in moms basement" are even different people? Surely the "time-rich" are best placed to play the F5 lottery and get hold of consoles, and thus become scalpers in the first place?

Instead of you demonising the "time rich but cash poor" and me demonising scalpers, let's join forces against the common enemy - the "time rich but cash poor F5 lottery scalpers". We could achieve such great things together. Think about it

Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges

danlk1ng

@Toypop when I said "hard science - like maths or physics", I wasn't talking about the difficulty... more that, maths or physics applies whether there are people to percieve it or not, whereas economics is 100% down to the way people interact.

Boiling your argument down to "cos economics" was a bit unfair, but your argument still only really addresses how scalping is incentivised, it doesn't really offer any meaningful commentary on the action of scalping itself. It's a bit like making an argument like "banning alcohol/drugs only turns it into an underground industry". It's true but it doesn't really address any moral issues around banning, making or consuming alcohol/drugs, it's just an observation of how supply and demand works when it comes to acohol/drugs in a particular scenario. I'm sure there's a decent argument for why scalpers are perfectly decent people, but this ain't it...

Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges

danlk1ng

@Toypop also you're not in debate club, this is a gaming website for goodness sake. You don't need to call out fallacies by name, particularly not when you've regaled us with such sentences as:

"People like 45danlk1ng in the posts above, don't have any money. So they want an F5 lottery on Amazon. 45danlk1ng doesn't give a stuff about fairness or justice"

"when the Doctor bids a higher price than 45danlk1ng thinks it is worth/can afford, 45danlk1ng will perceive it as being "artificially inflated" and cry."

I mean, in a line up of men made of 100% straw, "45danlk1ng" would still be the strawiest man of them all

Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges

danlk1ng

@Toypop and what do you think Economics is, exactly? It's not a hard science like Maths or Physics, it's fundamentally dependent on human nature. Remove all life on earth and there is no "economics".

Which is why I disagree with you that "cos economics" is a valid excuse, and it doesn't give you the right to just handwave away people's opinions about the morality of something like scalping.

You're correct in as far as there's not really anything we can do to stop scalping from happening and that's not really what I'm going for. I'm not looking for a ban on scalpers - it's hard to imagine anything you could set up that would be particularly effective. I'm just not rushing to their defence because "basic economics gives them a free pass, bro".

I'm actually more than happy to agree to disagree with you on the morality of scalping, but your disdain for people who disagree with you and assumption that we're all poor and uneducated and can't be bothered to work, undercuts your entire "I'm so educated" thing you've got going on

Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges

danlk1ng

@Toypop dude. Fine. You have a GCSE in Economics (I really hope you've got more than that and you're not literally flexing this hard over a GCSE lol). We get it. It's not that I don't understand what you're saying - I do. I'm rejecting it as a rebuttal for people's dislike of scalpers.

Whether or not you invoke "the market", scalpers are still individual people that we're very free to despise. I wasn't comparing business to murder as an action in itself, only in the sense that both are things that can be analyzed at the population level, and it makes no sense to dismiss an individual actions purely because a high level analysis can be done. You can keep your market lol, I'm not trying to take it away from you, I'm just trying to point out that it's a pitiful excuse for justifying the individual actions that scalpers choose to do.

Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges

danlk1ng

@zekepliskin I like your explanation better because at least it acknowledges individual choice rather rather than invoke "the market", the invisible amoral force that apparently forces us to do stuff and lets us thoroughly off the hook. We only did what the market wanted, after all

Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges

danlk1ng

@Toypop that's like justifying murder by saying "the people who want to commit murder and the supply of easily murderable people will inevitably reach equilibrium with a certain number of murders being committed. The murder market has no conscience or feelings. It doesn't give a damn whether some people like it or not, or what weird irrational feelings of morality some people have. The market just does."

It doesn't matter if "the market has no feelings" lol. Scalpers are still making a scummy choice (not on the level of murder lol. My point isn't that they're equivalent in severity, only that it's equally preposterous to claim that morality doesn't apply just because it can be analyzed at a high level), and I'm very free to mock them for it. I'm just a small cog in the mockery market - it turns out the people wanting to engage in mockery and the mockable people form a kind of equilibrium, where mockery inevitably happens.

Re: Scalped PS5 Prices Plummet as Retail Stock Surges

danlk1ng

@Toypop living proof that you make anything sound intellectually justifiable if you just try hard enough

The idea that scalpers exist to give gamers more choice is probably the most hilariously stupid thing I'm going to read this week.

I managed to get a PS5 at launch (not from a scalper) btw so I have no personal bitterness against them, I just think they're all a bunch of "jumped up country bumpkins" (to quote sir Kenneth Haight) playing at being legitimate businesses when they're doing the business equivalent of playing with a Fisher Price "my first legitimate business" set lol. And this isn't to say they don't have sophisticated setups, more that if they genuinely want to be a legitmate business they should stop being such cowards and start one

Re: Hogwarts Legacy, PS5's Spellbinding Harry Potter Spin-Off, Massively Exceeded Sales Expectations

danlk1ng

@Arnna I mean... she's not though?

And don't get me wrong, saying "she's not though" is a really bad argument and it lacks any kind of evidence. Just like the complete lack of evidence for any "imminent and ongoing danger/subjugation" actually caused by anything that JK Rowling has done. Emphasis on caused hence why I boldened that word.

I'm NOT (capitalised here because I accidentally missed the word 'not' out of the initial comment) denying the plight of trans people itself, more whether JK Rowling really has anything directly to do with it. I mean sure, there are a bunch of trans hating folk that are kind of happy that this feud between angry activists and JK Rowling exists, because they were going to hate trans people anyway, they'll take any old excuse to claim a bit of legitimacy.

But the people who really resonate with what JKR is actually saying, don't wish any harm on trans folks, they just want to see a bit of application of common sense - or at the very least, a reasonable discussion that doesn't boil down to "right, that's it, I've decided you're a bigot, now I don't even have to listen to you"

Re: Hogwarts Legacy, PS5's Spellbinding Harry Potter Spin-Off, Massively Exceeded Sales Expectations

danlk1ng

@Impossibilium the irony here is that Rowling really doesn't paint every trans person as a "bathroom-stalking predator". The only point that she has ever tried to make, is that if the barrier for entry to "the trans community" is low enough that all a bathroom-stalking predator has to do is say "I'm trans" to get a free pass to stalk bathrooms, it's going to happen. She's not even saying they're going to be the majority of people who say "I'm trans", rather that there are people (no matter how few they may be) deplorable enough to do that, just like there are people deplorable enough to use a perfectly legitimate cause as an excuse to send death threats (although presumably there are many more of these people).

Why you can see the distinction on one side, but not on the other is beyond me.

Re: Ubisoft Helps Out Its Writers by Implementing AI Tech to Do Their Job for Them

danlk1ng

I mean I can see this being useful, not for creation of crafted dialogue but just for NPC chatter in the world. I can't imagine how soul destroying it must be to come up with so many things for random NPCS to mutter to each other, but the idea of some kind of AI being sent a query like "what might this particular type of NPC say to this player character at this point in the story, given that the player chose these choices" seems kind of cool (although I do realise this isn't quite what they're talking about here)

I can definitely live with randos on the street sounding more like real people, but like I say, main characters/story and even side quests, absolutely needs to be crafted. Which is why I can't really say I trust Ubisoft with this

Re: UK Sales Charts: WWE 2K23 Lays the Smack Down on Hogwarts Legacy

danlk1ng

@Splat the idea that the PS4 is holding the PS5 back in some way is pretty laughable tbh. What benefits exactly are you expecting from ditching the previous generation?

Not sure if you've noticed but most of the PS5 exclusive games really aren't noticably "better" than games that have both a PS4 and a PS5 version. Because the PS5 really doesn't have any "new" tricks (except for haptics, but the PS4 really isn't holding back PS5 versions from using that), it's just got faster storage and better processing capabilities. You're already getting the vast majority of the benefit that you're going to get out of this generation

BTW I own a PS5 (and never owned a PS4) so I'm not ragging on the PS5 here - I just think you've believed a little too much hype..

Re: PS Plus Members Are Gutted Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot Doesn't Include PS5 Version

danlk1ng

@naruball the article doesn't actually mention any gutted PS Plus members, I suspect the title is either referring to PushSquare staff themselves, or commenters on the main "new PS Plus games" article. Or maybe it's just a case of referring to self in the third person, but by describing one's self rather than by name

Local man disagrees with the premise of this article

Re: TV Show Review: The Last of Us (HBO) Finale - A Highlight Reel of Your Favourite Story

danlk1ng

@BadPlayerOne a lot of people also seem to be confusing "good story" with "good gameplay loop". Battling through lots of waves of infected and lots of waves of regular people throughout the story, makes perfect sense in the game because it's a fun gameplay loop. It makes less sense in the TV adaptation because there isn't the question of "will they die in 5 seconds time" - they don't get to die and restart from the latest checkpoint, so Joel Rambo-ing his way through the series makes less sense because it's just not feasible that his luck would last that long.

It also makes a nice contrast - Joel in Episode 9 really goes off on a rampage in a way that we didn't see (not on that scale, anyway) in the whole rest of the series - whereas in the game, it's just another wave of enemies after lots of other waves of enemies. It's significant in terms of the story, but the gameplay loop is identical to the rest of the game

Re: These 9 PS5, PS4 Games Are Leaving PS Plus in March

danlk1ng

@rjejr ironically though, there's no such thing as "PS extra" or "PS premium" since you missed the "Plus" out of both of those names - you also missed the word "Essential" off the first tier.
You also got the tier details completely wrong! There are no PS3 games on Extra, you can only play those on Premium, since they involve game streaming (there are even some PS3 remasters in the Premium tier, because apparently them being a PS3 game originally warrants this even though the game itself is on PS4)
I really didn't go into this comment intending to pick on you this much, but after I noticed the first thing I mentioned, the inaccuracies kept piling up!

tbh I think most PS+ subscribers (of all three types) are clever enough to work out that if 9 games leaving the service is news, it's the extra/premium tiers that are affected, not the essential tier (since the essential tier typically only has 3 games per month and we know exactly how long we can claim them for).

Re: PS5 Firmware Update Finally Changes How Game Discs Work

danlk1ng

@Dr_Rock no, it means if you install the game from a disc version, and then later come to own it digitally (either outright or via PS Plus, the latter being more likely but I've done the former too if the digital price was suprer cheap..) - it just means you can play the existing install from the disc version (without the disc), rather than having to install it all over again like you had to before now.

If you never buy or claim the digital version of a game you own on disc, this update will mean nothing to you

Re: PS5 Firmware Update Finally Changes How Game Discs Work

danlk1ng

@Mysticshadow what you're talking about is game sharing. This isn't the same thing. This is about playing games on just one account, where you might have done the following:

*Buy and install a phyiscal game
*Re-buy it as digital (or claim through PS Plus/as a freebie)
*Try to play existing install without the game disc inserted, because you own it digitally

Basically your installs counted as a "disc install" or a "digital install" before, they weren't interchangable.

This might sound like a really niche situation - and to be honest it kind of is, but it's come up before for me several times:

I bought Horizon Zero Dawn on disc when I got a PS5, and had to delete and reinstall it to play without a disc when I claimed it, back when Sony made it free for anyone to claim.

I bought Demon's Souls on disc, and had to delete and reinstall it to play without a disc (claimed through PS Plus Extra) - same for the PS5 Spiderman games, and Horizon Forbidden West.

I bought The Last Of Us 2 on disc, then later bought it digital as it was super cheap (gave the disc away) and had to reinstall it as digital

So yeah - in the grand scheme of things, this is a fraction of the games I own (although funnily enough it's probably half of all the disc versions I own ) but it does come up. Considering that the install files are identical other than how they handle DRM, it's a welcome change as having to re-download an exact copy of a massive game install you already have is a bit pointless

Re: UK Sales Charts: Hogwarts Legacy Takes Fourth Number One, Still Selling Best on PS5

danlk1ng

@TheCollector316 I mean it's not particularly surprising IMO. Playstation owners tend to be much more attached to buying games physically than Xbox owners (probably in part because they specifically buy it with Game Pass in mind).

On PC there's isn't even a boxed edition of the game, other than the collector's edition. I mean in fairness there wouldn't have been a boxed edition with a game disc anyway, but some games have a boxed edition that contains a steam code (e.g. Elden Ring did this)

Re: Horizon Fans Can't Believe How Short Aloy Is in PSVR2

danlk1ng

this brings up an interesting point that I'd never really considered for VR - partly because I don't own a VR headset but even if I did, I'm fairly tall. Should there be some sort of "tallness setting" in VR games as standard? Just feels like people should be able to have the camera at their desired height if that's what they want (so that people can see their VR games from a familiar perspective, but also so they can see them from another perspective if they prefer). It doesn't even seem like it'd be that much effort, it's literally just a setting for "camera height while standing" - possibly character scaling too.

Then again, I'm not a game dev so this whole comment might be a load of rubbish

Re: UK Sales Charts: Onslaught of New Releases Can't Touch Hogwarts Legacy

danlk1ng

@johnny30 this is the UK sales chart though - I can imagine Jedi Survivor making the top 10 for a bit, but I'd be very surprised if the other two you mentioned come anywhere near. No disrespect to their quality as games, they're just much more niche than say, Harry Potter or Star Wars.

Case in point - the whole Trails series sold around 7 million copies between 2004 and 2022 (according to Wikipedia - "As of 2022, the series had sold over seven million copies worldwide"). That's just over half the sales numbers Hogwarts Legacy - one single game, has rustled up in just a few weeks

Re: Hogwarts Legacy Team Confirms DLC Isn't Planned

danlk1ng

@Father-Noo I realise this isn't what people mean by "appropriate" but I can't think of a much more appropriate response to accusations against JKR's character, than actual words from the horse's mouth that demonstrate none of those characteristics. Sure, the article ventures into NSFW territory but I'd rather that than opinions about a person's character that have very little basis in fact.

I do find it a little ironic that JKR has been accused in this thread of "subjugating vulnerable people" - "subjugating" btw, means "the action of bringing someone or something under domination or control". I'll leave it open to interpretation whether this is actually true or not, but given the propensity of "angry trans allies" (a completely different group of people to "the trans community", here I'm just talking about the people going round twitter/the internet looking for wrongthink to correct. A lot of them aren't even trans) to want to completely reject, correct and demand compliance from anyone who expresses a point of view contrary to their own (no matter why someone holds it), at the very least it's the pot calling the kettle black.

Re: Rumour: PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for February 2023 Possibly Leaked Early

danlk1ng

@add286 yeah, for digital edition owners it kind of sucks. My PC is completely without a disc drive, but the vast majority of PCs (built within the last half decade, at least) are these days, and the PC market handles it better. Even for a specific platform like steam, there are a whole bunch of different places to buy Steam keys, so you're not beholden to the prices that Steam dictates like you are with PS. Not that the discounts on Steam games are as good as you can get on physical console games - but that's the benefit of buying physical stock that takes up space, which retailers want to clear up

Re: Rumour: PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for February 2023 Possibly Leaked Early

danlk1ng

@jrt87 I doubt you're the only one, but I could never do that. "I'll complete this game within a month" is a promise I could make to myself, but wouldn't necessarily be able to deliver , in most cases I'd get distracted by either something else in my backlog, or some game that's just come to PS Plus. I tend to just buy what I want when it's dirt cheap, except in extremely rare cases where I'll buy a game at launch

I actually ended up buying TLOU part 2 for the cheap price of £15, only played an hour of it, then ended up re-buying it for £8 digital and gave the physical copy to a friend who hadn't played it yet

Re: Rumour: PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for February 2023 Possibly Leaked Early

danlk1ng

@add286 and this is precisely why they don't tell you in advance what they're putting on PS Plus for the next year or so

personally I don't think it makes a massive difference whether it's coming to PS Plus or not - it coming to PS Plus was never guaranteed, but the fact that a physical copy would be attainable for more than 50% off within a year of release was pretty certain, that's just how physical sales work, so IMO if you're willing to wait for it to be cheap/on PS Plus, it's always worth waiting. The only game I've bought at launch in recent years was Elden Ring, and I wouldn't have done otherwise even if it went to PS Plus within 3 months of release - playing it in the launch window just felt special and communal in a way that very few games do.

But you're right - you're you, not me. You're very free to do and think differently to what I do. If I come across as judgemental, I don't mean it - it's just personally, this is how I rationalise my game purchases and deal with owning stuff that goes on subscription services

Re: Rumour: PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for February 2023 Possibly Leaked Early

danlk1ng

@add286 I mean "why spend £70 on a game at all if you're happy to wait a year to play it" is a better question. I managed to pick up HFW for £25 in December, without any real trickery, I just waited until it was dirt cheap at Asda.

For that price, I couldn't care less if it releases on Premium/Extra a few months later. My backlog is plenty big enough as it is, it's nice to have the option to play it if I don't renew my subscription this December and haven't finished it yet

Re: Flaunt Your Favourite Harry Potter House with Free Hogwarts Legacy PS5 Avatars

danlk1ng

@Flaming_Kaiser the only thing I would say around "The group of people she is with" - is what choice was she left with? JKR was the darling of the left for around a decade, only to be eviscerated the moment she expressed sentiments that seemed to be coming from a sincere place but were deemed too offensive to be tolerated.

If a bunch of people won't even hear you out without feeling the need to publicly distance themselves from your views, would you stick around? IMO the increasing association of JKR with more and more right wing people is at least partly down the left's (or rather, the very vocal left, not necessarily the quiet majority) inability to have a reasonable conversation around the issues she raised without everyone already being in agreement with each other - which kind of defeats the whole point of a conversation..

I don't necessarily agree with everything JKR has said, especially if some of the more extreme things she's reportedly said are true (antisemitism etc), I just think you shouldn't be surprised that someone ends up getting into bed with "the other side" when you try so hard to evict them from your own

Re: Poll: Did You Buy Hogwarts Legacy?

danlk1ng

@ItsBritneyB_tch I wouldn't feel too bad for the devs - Hogwarts Legacy is currently sitting at #9 on the chart of steam games with the highest all-time concurrent players (690,000 people were playing this game on Steam at the same time - and as I say, that's the 9th highest number out of all of the games on Steam).

Regardless of the controversy, it's selling like hot cakes - and the hardcore anti-JKR brigade aren't exactly making themselves any friends, what with bullying streamers to the point of crying and the like.

Re: Poll: Did You Buy Hogwarts Legacy?

danlk1ng

@Onkydonk I was a bit confused that people were still replying to that comment as I couldn't see it, so I assumed that nessisonett had deleted it, but I think he might have blocked ("ignore" button) me!

I mean I can't say I 100% blame him, I just didn't realise that if someone did that, it hid their comments from you as well (especially given that all one has to do is sign out in order to see them.. seems a bit pointless)

Re: Poll: Did You Buy Hogwarts Legacy?

danlk1ng

I'd go ahead and buy this now, except I'd like to get it on PS5 rather than for my PC.

But I don't particularly want to pay £10 more for the privilege

I realise I could get it on ShopTo or something and get it cheaper -but then, I could also get a Steam key from Green Man or somewhere similar, and get it for even less still.

I'll probably just wait until there's a decent sale on, my backlog is already big enough