Happens a lot.
I’ve used bad redaction to my advantage at work to make money, I’m all for other people using bad redaction techniques :)
If it does, then Export to PNG almost certainly removes it (while also removing all other selectable text)
You've certainly piqued my curiosity. Can you say any more?
There are billions of PDF files out there, but the ones are being redacted are the most valuable of the lot.
I’m surprised even more at the P5R sales! I might actually have to give it a real try— tried it a couple years ago (P5 non-R) and didn’t really take to it, but I was put off by the whole anime vibe.
> It’s amazing how valuable of an IP Sonic is. It still sells consistently well after all those years.
It’s not as surprising when you consider Sonic is also mascot who they’ve ploughed millions into.
The movies will have definitely reignited some interest into Sonic too
That's more like it
Much as I dislike the modern era EA, it’s hard to argue that their Football / Soccer games are duds. And EA have always been liberal about their branding so everyone knew that FIFA was an EA game.
It's the same reason for the decade-long glut of capeshit. Hollywood found that (people who were then) teenage boys could be relied upon to show up for a superhero film, no matter how bad, provided it starred their favourite characters.
People continually buy the next EA sports game even though it’s basically just the old game but with the year incremented.
People still spend £50 on new copies of 10 year old Nintendo games like Mario Kart 8. And let’s be honest, the last great Mario game released was Super Mario Galaxy.
If there’s one thing you can guarantee, it’s that people will waste their money on stuff they like. And if there is one truism that HN commentators forget, it’s that software doesn’t need to be academically perfect to be good software for their particular target audience. In the case of games, it’s being more enjoyable than the alternative of not playing that game. Which, frankly, is a pretty low bar a lot of the time.
I'm quite surprised that TW:3D sold that many copies, tbh.
If you want a great story, it is weak. Looking for a great tactics game, it is weak. The combination of gameplay styles is a ridiculous ride, but I can see how the genre mashup has limited appeal.
Was probably strategically smart to reboot the series a bit with Kasuga. Makes it a bit more approachable.
- where do I start? There's a dozen titles and no clear entry point
- supposedly the series' genre changed over time? So if you like it in one game it might be a different game in a sequel
- it looks weirdly unserious? Like much of the advertising focuses on doing bizarre side activities rather than any actual plot-driven message
- all this on top of having a very non-traditional environment for an RPG which already is a bit of a hurdle in messaging what the game will be like
It's just very unclear from the outside how to get started with this series, and what I'll get if I do pick one to try.
The games are a mashup of genres, but it is only the latest one which leans so heavily into the RPG aspects. Prior installments are more "fist fight dudes" core gameplay.
The main character essentially hallucinates that he's a character in dragon quest and the bad guys you encounter at first look normal but transform into "sujimon"/monsters during encounters.
The core gameplay is really fun, the writing is top notch (first like a dragon > infinite wealth tho), character classes/"jobs" picked out at an unemployment center are fun/funny, your "mage" is a homeless guy who summons pigeons to attack and uses a bottle of alcohol which he spews into a lighter to cast flames, and the mini games are just there if you want to play them and many are fun.
Pretty much any other Yakuza game you're going to see will be more action-focused and have real-time battles, but still with RPG elements. Yakuza 0 is a commonly-suggested starting point for the action-based entries or the series as a whole; it's a prequel but one that still works well as a place to start.
But, either way, the average user likely isn't using an adblocker; how have we got to this stage where a website is more ads than content?
Persona 5 Royal is for all intent and purpose, a side hustle.
https://www.segasammy.co.jp/cms/wp-content/uploads/pdf/en/ir...
Profit, profit, profit. It was a standalone full-price expansion of an existing game. They made stupid money on that release.
Tails would be a clerk…
> These retro SEGA games are now free on Android (and iOS) until they disappear forever
https://www.androidauthority.com/sega-retro-games-android-fr...
[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/retro-rings-sonic-cd-hits-i...
[2] https://powerupgaming.co.uk/2016/10/27/sonic-cd-goes-free-to...
Edit: Looks like the "end of life" version (4.0?) disables the ads but keeps the bloat which is better than I hoped for.
Depressing how ephemeral and consumable everything is
This is a much better outcome than most games or software that is discontinued.
Who are the 7 million people going out to buy the 20th Persona game? What are you actually hoping to get from it that isn't just a slight variance on something you've already had multiple times before?
I have friends genuinely excited to go buy Mario Cart for the 17th time this year... Once you've made two objects move along an enclosed route at differing speeds and slapped Nintendo marketing on top hasn't the game play evolved as much as possible?
Could the money not be better spent coming up with new and interesting concepts rather than copy pasting the same stuff out every 12-18 months?
It's because they change: They tell new stories. They look better. They play better. They introduce completely new mechanics.
Persona: we're up to 5 in 25 years (almost 30 now!), during which time we've seen a massive increase in compute on consoles. Having a new game every 5 years seems very reasonable.
It’s such an absurdly bad take they can’t be serious.
Of course someone there is looking at the balance sheet and noticing that recycling is actually profitable so who can blame them if we want to keep repurchasing the shinier version of the thing we liked before?
Then I suppose we have ourselves to blame — or not.
I suspect the OP though is bemoaning the lack of new, original ideas that this kind of commerce workflow eschews. (Myself, I'm not into first person shooters and so essentially walked away from mainstream gaming decades ago.)
> It's because they change
That's not true at all. I don't return to the same great restaurant because it's new and different. If I wanted that, I'd look for a different restaurant.
I go back to the same great restaurant because I'm hungry again.
Now if i had 17 unique paintings exploring a variety of motifs and styles, each one with a story to tell that would actually be worth talking about.
Who are the millions of people who watch, for the 20th time in their life, how Character A does something unrealistically stupid, ends up in an awkward situation, and then spend the rest of the episode being continuously teased over it by other characters, because they're all written to be slightly stupid and low-key assholes.
This is not to criticize sitcoms and reality shows (and people watching them) here, but rather to point out that the same phenomenon you described also manifests with vastly more popular forms of entertainment, so there must be something to enjoying the experience beyond sheer originality.
NBC and Nintendo, no evolution or original thought. Just copy paste it to the masses because its all the seem to want anyway based on this thread.
Maybe im wrong for demanding more....
In some ways this is the optimal way for a video game company to innovate as they need ROI (people don't generally buy new IPs in high numbers even if they're really good and it often takes a couple of installments to build trust and sales!) so creating new gameplay out of trusted IPs is a good way of achieving that.
However, every new Mario Kart game is genuinely distinct from its predecessor. You can show me any screenshot of any Mario Kart game, and I will immediately be able to identify what version it is.
Have you considered that you may just be very out of touch?
Religion is really the worst offender. Same service with same text time after time, year after year. Like they do not even take effort to mix it up every couple years or rewrite it...
Surely there is at least one thing that you enjoy in your life that is fairly similar across iterations.
People are excited to buy new cloths, even though they're "just a slight variance on something you've already had multiple times before".
They love to try out the new hyped-up food stand, even though the hotdog will be just a slight variance on all the hotdogs they had before.
Video games don't wear out, you can still play the same software you bought in 2003 today.
I last played Mario Kart on Nintendo Wii and enjoyed it. That's 17 years ago. I'll probably buy one of the newer versions at some point. And it will be very different from the game I played.
I know people who rewatch the same TV series every year and go to the same vacation every year.
Fear of change is deep.
Myself, I'm quite open to new forms of entertainment, as well as those previously unknown to me. Even within my favorite genres, I'm more than happy to explore - but I'm still gonna rewatch at least one Star Trek show each year.
It doesn't matter that I've seen most of those show 6-10 times each over the course of my life; it doesn't matter that I've watched some specific episodes 20+ times already. What matters to me is, each time I see those characters and those locations, it feels like coming home.
(And more so than actually coming home.)
People anchor to different things like this, not just TV shows. Sometimes it's a real place (or an event in that place - e.g. vacation), sometimes it's a club, sometimes it's a video game or an outdoor hobby.
The American version? Same but with more advertisements for pharmaceuticals.
I think that's more an issue with the specific rules/players/fans though, I've not had a problem watching multiple matches of other sports in a day.
And even if a "new and interesting concept" turns up, it's is too bothersome to learn for them. That's why once they find the fun in one thing, they tend to stick to it and be blind to others.
Play Persona 5 Royal, then Persona 1. Tell us it's the same game and everybody would think you are crazy. Hell, even Persona 5 Royal is way better than Persona 5 in a lot of ways...
Maybe you are satisfied by only trying out completely new things—if they even exist—but most people don't.
Everything in life can be much more complicated and nuanced if you put an effort in it as reality has infinite amount of details. There is a lot of value in refining successful concepts.
Also a lot of “new and interesting concepts” turn out not to be that useful or that interesting like not that many people listening to experimental music or reading novels whose writers think they are smarter than everyone else.
For someone else, it might be reading Hacker News.
For you, it’s video games.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with differences of opinion, even to the point of bewilderment, but it doesn’t feel productive to question people’s interests and reduce them to, frankly, disingenuous levels of oversimplification.
I think one of the more beautiful parts of the internet is how we can be connected and talk about our differences and understand each other better. But it does not seem like you are truly attempting to understand, instead your posts read more like “looking down one’s nose,” which isn’t fruitful or productive for anyone.
Maybe I am mistaken! If so, I’d like to encourage you to try to reach understanding of others without depicting them as “mad” or financially wasteful or simple-minded.
[1] though my favorite time doing it was catching smelt on the docks on the back side of the barrier island at Hampton Beach with my grandparents and bringing back enough to fill the freezer
I agree with the responders that this is a common fallacy (good insights / learnings for us all). Eg I like following baseball but if you were to ask me about it 10 years ago I’d be pretty reductive about. I agree with the responders that there’s beauty in the seemingly little things at first that build. That said not all of us take the time to appreciate certain areas of beauty because there’s a lot of beauty out there. And that’s ok but nature does seem to indicate repetition and variation are fine.
