GamePass used to be such a good value, but it’s gotten so overpriced. I’d rather keep the money and spend it on a few games a year I get to keep. Plus, not being available on Linux and/or Steam Deck makes it easier to ignore. Never going back to Windows.

It’s all I use now. They are so good.

Ancient stories are almost always parabolic. If there’s not a lesson to be made, then it’s not preserved. Recording history only for history’s sake a fairly modern value. So you’re absolutely right. Ancient texts, especially scriptures, tend to attribute things to god whenever it’s convenient for the narrative.

The way Epics reviews work are awful, though. They are trying to be really attractive to developers but they aren’t attractive enough to USERS.

For example, you have to be INVITED to review games on Epic. The system is automated and will occasionally ask for a review after you close a game, assuming you’ve been playing long enough. They claim it’s to avoid things like “review bombing”, but that’s a cop-out to shield bad developers/publishers from the repercussions of their actions (like when Denuvo was non-consensually added to Ghostwire Tokyo a year after release).

Google is abusing most of their workforce through major pay cuts.

Fixed that title for you, Business Insider.

“I know we cut off both your arms, and while that may seem inconvenient at first, it’s a good thing because we helped you lose weight!”

Oh… oh no…

It’s a bummer than those sound like bad things simply because corporate abuse is always a forgone conclusion. If your data was truly private and always entirely under your control and ONLY your control, those would be really attractive features.

But which Linux?

You just touched on the problem, which is a confluence of Base Rate Neglect and Availability Bias.

UE is the most popular gaming engine, so it’s used on the most projects and has a high amount of visibility. No matter which engine you build a game with, there are many factors to keep in mind for performance, compatibility, and stability. The engine doesn’t do that for you.

One problem is that big studios build games for consoles first, since it’s easiest to build for predictable systems. PC then gets ignored, is minimally tested, and patched up after the fact. Another is “Crysis syndrome”, where developers push for the best graphics they can manage and performance, compatibility, and stability be damned - if it certifies for the target consoles, that is all that matters. There is also the factor of people being unreasonable about their hardwares capabilities, expecting that everything should always be able to run maxxed out forever… and developers providing options that push the cutting edge of modern (or worse, hypothetical future) hardware compounds the problem. But none of these things have anything to do with the engine, but what developers themselves make on top of the engine.

A lot of the responses to me so far have been “that’s stupid because” and then everything after “because” is related to individual game development, NOT the engine. There is nothing wrong with UE, but there are lots of things wrong with game/software development in general that really should be addressed.

Exactly. It’s not the engine, it’s what you do with the engine.

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/developer-interviews/layers-of-fear-reimagines-horror-with-unreal-engine-5

Also, “I don’t know what I’m talking about, so your list is invalid” isn’t the dig you seem to think it is.

Right. So it’s not the engine, but what you do with it.

So it’s because the developers paid attention to optimization and polish to ensure the game ran well on the largest number of devices.

My point exactly. It’s not the engine, it’s what you do with it and how you do it.

I tried it again recently and starts out tolerable but gets worse the bigger your city gets, even when you lower settings. It would be one thing if the game looked amazing and had these deep, detailed simulations… but it just looks okay and the digital corner-cutting trickery becomes obvious when you start looking closely. I feel like there is something fundamentally wrong under the hood of Skylines 2.

So what you’re saying is that Tekken being a fighting game just magically made a “bad engine” run well?

Fortnite, Wukong, Tekken 8, Layers of Fear, Firmament, Everspace 2, Dark and Darker, Abiotic Factor, STALKER 2, Jusant, Frostpunk 2, Satisfactory, Expedition 33, Inzoi, Immortals of Aveum, Starship Troopers: Extermination, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, Lords of the Fallen, Robocop, Myst (UE5 remake), Riven (UE5 remake), Palworld, Remanant 2, Hellblade 2, Subnautica 2… and the list keeps growing.

When a big studio skips QA and releases a broken game, it’s not the engine’s fault, it’s the studios fault. As long as consumers tolerate broken games that can maybe be fixed later (if we’re lucky) then companies will keep releasing broken, unfinished, unpolished, untested games. Blaming UE5 is like blaming an author’s word processor for a poorly written novel.

Can we please stop blaming UE5 for sloppy development and poor QA?

That game is called Arena. It was the first Elder Scrolls game.

Rivian is great, but really pricey and requires charging. Aptera is solar powered (or at least charges up to 50 miles/day on solar power alone). That’s what makes it exciting.