Not a term, but a lack thereof:

People I have to regularly interact with for work have been excluding “to be”, especially with “needs”, and it’s infuriating.

This issue needs escalated. That report needs fleshed out. Let me know if anything needs cleared up.

This kills the developer.

Honestly, I’d like a little grinding. Just enough that unlocking a character feels like an accomplishment.

But no paid DLC characters is great news!

Diablo 3 went from zero to hero with Reaper of Souls. I desperately want D4 to follow that same development path, but the Blizzard of old is long dead, and its rotting, zombified corpse has lost most of what made it great in life.

Still keeping my metaphorical fingers crossed, though, and hoping for a miracle.

I wouldn’t be too worried about burn-in. You’d have to display the same static image at max brightness nonstop for a month straight, according to this article.

“The issue” that needs addressing is the obsession our governments have with spying on us.

People are complex, and sure, some are just racist, but I don’t think it’s that simple.

Hatred isn’t nearly as powerful an emotion as fear. White people complaining about non-white main characters aren’t necessarily racist; it’s more likely, I think, that they’re afraid of losing the only consistent part of the white identity: being the “default” race.

Sounds like something an AI-loving Nazi would say!

Seriously, though, yes. This was exactly my first thought. There are plenty of reasons to be apprehensive about AI, but conflating it with Nazis is just blatant propaganda.

'Bout time. The combat in the games has been what’s kept me from completing any of them. Great stories and characters, but tedious and boring gameplay.

With this news, it’s official: I am hyped.

What an absurd, ignorant notion. Of course social media has a negative impact on developing minds, but forcing sites to display warnings would have zero positive impact. Browser extensions would immediately pop up to hide those warnings, and if anything, the presence of such warnings would increase kids’ use of social media, since the danger is something even adults had a hard time understanding and kids love to rebel against oppressive systems. The warnings would turn into memes.

The only answers to this problem are to break up and ban social media companies (not possible) or get parents to actually be parents and teach their kids about the pitfalls of social media.

I hate to say it, 'cause Bethesda has been very influential throughout my gaming life, but it’s too little too late. Starfield is entirely unsalvageable without a complete overhaul and re-release using an upgraded engine that can actually handle the scope of the game.

Would that be so bad, though? The Nazi wastes money on a useless decorative blade and you get to take some money from a Nazi that might otherwise have gone to something worse.

So this is why Hogwarts Legacy didn’t have playable quidditch.

English is my primary language, so yes, I’m aware of the historical use of they/them as a non-gendered pronoun for hypothetical people.

I’m also aware of the fluid nature of language. I’m still salty about “literally” becoming its own antonym, but I have to accept it because it’s now part of English.

That being said, it’s never been socially acceptable to use they/them for a known person of a binary gender, and I’d argue that it’s even less acceptable now, thanks to the common adoption of they/them as a personal pronoun for known persons of nonbinary gender.

It’d be much less confusing if there was an entirely new pronoun for enbies. Or, better yet, if there were never any gendered pronouns to begin with. But this is the world we live in, and we all have to find the best way to navigate our own paths without kicking up dirt onto others’.

I completely agree. Gendered pronouns are not helpful and at this point only confuse things. I’m just glad English doesn’t have gendered nouns, too, like Latin-based languages.

Anyway, the fact is that they/them has become “gendered” in the sense that it’s now a preferred pronoun for a lot of people, mostly androgynous enbies, so its implicit meaning has changed. Sure, it’s still used as a non-gendered pronoun for hypothetical people, but when used for a real, known person, it has the same implication as he/him or she/her - that they appear to be a certain gender, enby in this case.

I’m a clearly masculine person - I’ve got a beard and I wear masculine clothes. I personally wouldn’t be offended, but I would think it very odd if someone saw me and thought they/them was an appropriate pronoun for me. If masculinity was as important to me as it is to most men, I could see myself getting offended at someone implying that I appear androgynous. Same as if an enby was referred to as he/him or she/her. Cisfolk’s emotions are just as valid as valid as enbies’.

Please don’t do this. This is just misgendering by default. The vast majority of people are exactly the gender they appear to be on the surface, and if they aren’t, they’ll let you know. I’ve only known one person who wasn’t the gender they appeared (a very masculine-presenting enby), and they weren’t offended at all when I misgendered them at first; they corrected me, I apologized, and that was the end of it.

However, if you call the wrong clearly-masculine “alpha male” or clearly-feminine “queen bitch” they/them, you’re likely to get a violent reaction.

My old job doing systems design for a predatory mobile game. I quit that job, moved half a state away, and got a job that pays half as much in a company with integrity. Best decision of my life.

The toys-to-life trend ended, as it wasn’t making enough money. The games remain playable, but they have no support and are old enough they they require hardware that I no longer have.

My little one just past toddlerhood has a few games they love to watch me play on my Steam Deck. These aren’t all Verified, but they all run perfectly out of the box. Use ProtonDB for a more accurate idea of a game’s Deck compatibility (Verified status has failed me in the past).

• Donut County (already mentioned, but a great one worth mentioning twice)

• Everything (one you unlock all the powers, it becomes a sandbox game where you can do things like gather a large group of caterpillars, make them dance, and turn them into streetlights (which can still dance), or turn an entire planet into a planet-sized space caterpillar, or turn a dust mite into a microscopic building, etc. In my save, about 20% of all matter in the universe is caterpillars.)

• LEGO Worlds (basically LEGO Minecraft with less survival, more control, and smaller worlds that can be swapped between at any time. Can be very fun for little ones to use the free DLC vehicles to blast holes all over a world, make tunnels, etc.)

• Tchia (Zelda BotW mechanics with very little combat (and the only combat is with enchanted scraps of cloth) and the ability to jump into and control any creature (dolphins, birds, cats). It’s got some nice family-friendly options, like infinite special meter, no death, and family mode for cutscenes (though there isn’t anything too bad, regardless))

• Webbed (a 2D platformer where you play as a spider with Spider-Man-esque movement. Fun for kids unafraid of spiders to make big, climbable webs, and maybe good to help kids become less afraid of spiders, as it’s pretty cute)

Toys-to-life video games. I went on a Skylanders spending spree less than a year before it officially died. $5-$15 figurines got sold at garage sales for $0.25-$3 each.

I had tons of fun getting into it and I was young enough that I could afford to waste the money, so I regret nothing.