It’s not the Blizzard that used to make games we loved anymore. It’s just a name now, and behind that a corporation focused on maximum profit exclusively.

It seems that happiness is something in one’s mind, an internal state. I’ve seen people happy who have very little, and the opposite. Happiness is therefore a perception. The mind is the lens through which we perceive everything, so focusing the lens at the right things and ensuring it’s a clean lens are the right starting point to “finding” happiness.

Cleaning the lens: Eat well, sleep well, exercise.

These three fundamentals lay the foundation of a clean lens. If you do the above, you have created the best physical conditions for your mind. You are unfortunately a chemical creature, so the physical state of your brain is critical to all pursuits, including perception of reality.

The next step is pointing the lens at the right things, stay tuned for our next episode!

Let me try.

By creating a culture that singularly valued money and production over all other concerns, including the well-being of staff, Kotick created and cultivated the conditions needed for abuse to set in.

And Kotick is the kind of sociopath that leads to this when other things are swept under the rug.

Maybe it wasn’t a line item on his payslip though.

Yeah, but Kotick was not really the real issue. He’s a straw man of sorts, a target dummy, designed to draw fire for unpopular decisions.

It is the board and shareholders who massively incentivized him into that behaviour. CEOs are brought in to act in the interests of shareholders, while also abstracting them away from blame and direct culpability.

The goal of blizzard (and any other publically listed company) is wealth creation for shareholders via share price growth, not making games per se.

I believe the answer is “A lot of Americans”.

If this game releases with good quality my friends and I are day 2 customers for sure. Seems fun as hell from the videos.

So you want to try create the right moments for deeper conversation, I think that would be more likely away from his mates? I don’t know them so just guessing.

With that in mind, maybe Google around for anything interesting or different happening in the area. A gardening or book faire, wine or coffee festival, anything relaxed. Then ask him if he wants to go. Ideally something quiet that has some walking around?

That might create helpful conditions.

Tricky, but you could take the approach of just putting it on the table:

"Hey, I have a weird random question… " And then ask if he thinks there is life elsewhere in the universe or what he thinks is going on with flat earthers or whatever. It isn’t bad to be a bit random in timing.

In terms of timing specifics though, you don’t want to do it in the middle of some other discussion, so you normally wait for a quiet moment or a lull in the current conversation. Typically depends on what’s going on. I find something like building puzzles together is great for this, because you’ve both got something to do but it’s not so intense as to block easy conversation that just meanders a bit. Just an example though.

When you are together, what are you normally doing? Long drives are easier to find ok moments, studying in the library or in the middle of a dentist appointment less so

You could try asking some deep questions, see what comes out of that.

Exactly, if you choose to work for a company then that is in support and furtherance of that companies goals / operations.

We are not so helpless as we sometimes like to claim.

Yeah, I like them but I’m firmly in the camp of waiting for player reviews. We’ll see.

I’m not super into anime, no connoisseur by any measure, but I recently felt like there might be something great to watch in that area. I looked up highly rated anime and Frieren came up.

I’ve watched a few episodes and it seems, well there’s no question it’s well made and a great story, but it’s pretty heavy. Sad at times. Does it get happier and more fun, or is this the tone throughout?

If so I might have to try something else.

Only some people will get access I presume

Well, rather this than a bad release

Moved to Firefox some months ago, it’s fine. Small adjustment but browsers generally offer high interchangeability

Yeah you’re right, a divider. Or a 0.x multiplier I suppose.

And you’re also right about the divide between highly skilled and not, but I think that’s what we saw quite strongly in SAO. The side effect of serious consequences separated the players.

I don’t think it’s a successful design approach for a commercial game, most players do not play permadeath even if it’s an common option.

The underlying threat of serious consequences changed player behaviour, psychologically.

Today gamers throw themselves into monsters with limited regard for consequences, which changes our perception of the encounters.

I wonder what would happen if number of deaths was a tracked stat that acted as a multiplier for player skills / powers.

Thanks for the heads up.

A once off time rewind by 28 years.

Pump the rage into their veins, that’s the ticket. Can’t possibly go wrong, and even if it does it wasn’t us.

OK, maybe it was us but it’s not that bad. Ok, it’s bad but who knew?

OK, we kinda knew, but that monetization tho!