While I greatly enjoyed John Wick, and have been a fan of Keanu since Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, I wish they had not left it ambiguous (even if only 10%). It would have been a stronger ending than leaving it a little open.
On top of that, I think the best way to make sure a story is well liked in the future is to tell the story you want and end on a high note. Unfortunately, Hollywood is very interested in franchises and would be remiss if it allowed a potentially milkable franchise to end. Not leaving it open 10% would have prevented a sequel that tarnishes the rest of the franchise.
Finally, one of the reasons I think everyone was drawn to the original John Wick was its simplicity in story. John's motivation was simple, and the story wasn't bogged down by movies of lore/ canon. I would rather Keanu/ Stahelski come together on an entirely new project than make a John Wick 5.
I fully agree that game preservation is not a priority for any gaming company. The playability of old games and not requiring paying again for a remaster/ release can only hurt their bottom line.
The good thing is that they don't have to like preservation, or even support it, when there's physical game disks. In 40 years if I have a copy of Breath of the Wild and a working Switch, I can still play it; but the same likely cannot be said of a digital copy.
The fact that companies care so little for (or actively dislike) game preservation is the very reason physical games are so important.
It seems like it there might be a number of updates about the FTC leak, but the notable highlights of this email from me are the plotted purchases of Nintendo and WB Games.
The way they discuss the purchase of Nintendo as if it is an inevitability and how they may need to purchase it in a hostile manner really cements to me that they are utilizing Microsoft's immense capital to obtain a gaming monopoly.
I know it is an unpopular position because of how beloved a Gamepass is, but this really solidifies how shady Xbox/ Microsoft is; and I really hope the acquisition of ActiBlizz is blocked.
The all digital design would certainly prevent me from buying an updated model, which is unfortunate since I do appreciate the backwards compatibility.
It's a cynical move to get all game purchases done through their storefront and eliminate game reselling, and it will lock out a lot of price-conscious consumers who need to wait for a good sale, or buy used games.
On top of that, it's a huge blow towards game preservation, since the logical next step would be to stop producing physical games. Even other publishers might think twice before producing a physical game if only a third of the base can even use disks.
Often people bring up that games can ship incomplete and need updates; but even a non-updated game is still more playable than a digital one when the servers aren't maintained, and there's no reason to remove the disk drive. You can still play digital games on a console with a disk drive.
All in all, this is a pretty disappointing update for me.
That's actually a good point about how some services do require payment to provide safe service to their users. A very close to home example would be your local Lemmy instance. In order to run the servers and keep it ad (and tracking) free, each instance needs donations from their users. The same is true for Mastodon, as you mentioned.
The problem is, I would be shocked if Twitter actually provided a safer (or improved in any way) service. There are a other issues at play as well, but they all basically boil down to most users not wanting too give money to Twitter, and if they were ok with that, they would already have purchased Twitter Blue.
It really feels like a lot of social media platforms are intentionally self-sabotaging themselves. I keep expecting them to die off every time something like this happens, but they appear to continue on regardless.
I think that social media sites actually dying off is actually impossible with enough inertia (even if their base decreases) and that's why they are emboldened to do such anti-consumer practices.
All this to say that I'm sure Steve Huffman has immediately started furiously texting everyone he knows about his new idea to charge for Reddit as well as a boosted version of Gold called "Alien Orange" or something.
From what I can tell, it's still on the invite system; but I haven't been keeping a close eye on it. I figured if it opened up, I would hear about it online.
I know it is a popular sentiment that people should migrate to Mastodon, but I personally think people will migrate wherever the people they follow migrate to.
With this in mind, I suspect Bluesky will be the platform to usurp Twitter; but with Twitter chasing off all their users in the near future, it may go to whichever platform is readily open at the time.
I'm very curious to see if Bluesky or Spill open up when Twitter closes the door on its users. If not, Mastodon may have a shot at being the next large platform...
It sounds like the studios have about a month and a half to engage in good-faith negotiations before losing an entire season of scripted television.
I remember during the last writers' strike, studios leaned hard on reality television; but I'm wondering if reality television will be enough to keep the studios afloat as they try to keep their streaming services relevant.
In my personal opinion, reality TV will not be able to work as a streaming exclusive in the way a truly solid scripted show can; and I wonder how much longer the studios can drag their feet.
That's a good point. If she's SAG and not WGA (which I'm assuming is the case), then her toeing this specific line could be enough to keep her out of trouble; even though what she is doing is morally dubious at best.
@UrLogicFails
@beehaw.org