• BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 days ago

      Half a century ago, when Marx was writing Capital, free competition appeared to the overwhelming majority of economists to be a “natural law”. Official science tried, by a conspiracy of silence, to kill the works of Marx, who by a theoretical and historical analysis of capitalism had proved that free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly. Today, monopoly has become a fact. Economists are writing mountains of books in which they describe the diverse manifestations of monopoly, and continue to declare in chorus that “Marxism is refuted”. But facts are stubborn things, as the English proverb says, and they have to be reckoned with, whether we like it or not. The facts show that differences between capitalist countries, e.g., in the matter of protection or free trade, only give rise to insignificant variations in the form of monopolies or in the moment of their appearance; and that the rise of monopolies, as the result of the concentration of production, is a general and fundamental law of the present stage of development of capitalism.

      back-to-me

  • Thallo [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    On the one hand, it’s the end of an era for a very beloved side of gaming.

    On the other hand, a lot of “deeply thoughtful” Fromsoft video essayists are going to be very mad mari-smug

  • LGOrcStreetSamurai [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    I still think the good of FromSoftware has already been done. I think they put out a lot of great idea/art/games and whatever good that will come of those games will be seen in future titles from those who were inspired by it. If Elden Ring is the last good Fromsoft title, then I consider that a dub. If this beginning of the end of a golden era then so be it.

      • 0__0 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        Masterpiece? I’m playing through it right now and honestly, I would rather take the other two souls game I played (DS3 and 2) over Elden Ring any day of the week. If you haven’t played it, I recommend you don’t buy into the fanboy hype about it being “one of the best games of all time”. I made that mistake, and whilst it sounded like a sound take at the beginning of the game with the novelty of the open world, QoL changes and a horse, once all of that newfound charm wears off and you enter the end game where people legit have to respec just to beat one fucking boss because the game is ridiculously unbalanced and the boss design is objectively trash, you quickly begin to realize that giving this game GOTY inspite of its quite blatant flaws was a major fucking mistake.

        • lorty
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          2 days ago

          Agreed, Elden Ring is a bit too big for its own good. Considering how popular open world games are, I suppose that’s why it’s so well so well regarded. DS2 is definitely better imo.

        • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.org
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          2 days ago

          I had some of the most fun I’ve had in a fromsoft game up until finishing leyndel. Although I did think the game was spread a bit thin at times I’m not sure moments like siofra well would work if you expected to consistently find cool reveals like that.

          Almost everything after that was a tedious slog. It’s a crying shame since places like haligtree brace have some stellar level design ruined by cut and paste spam of annoying enemies and completely bonkers damage scaling.

          I bounced hard off the dlc although I don’t know what I was expecting.

          DS, DES, and sekiro are all wonderful in their own way. I think they excell at smaller projects that are original. If elden ring ended at the erdtree it would have been a terrific high, although I’m unsure how much replayability is there because of how much loot there is and how spread out it is.

        • _pi
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          2 days ago

          In terms of game play Elden Ring has a lot of nicer stuff, though I’m always going to like DS1 because the gameplay is visually technical which seems “clunky” but is nicer to me personally because I can understand that I’m actually executing what I’m trying to do correctly.

          As far as the game play balance goes, it’s a wash, plenty of DS series games had pointless annoyances.

          In terms of lore / world building / writing / meaning Elden Ring is 3rd behind DS3 / DS1. I’d arguably put it even lower like below DS2 / Sekiro because the DLC was nonsense and a lot of fan service and made me lose faith in the cohesiveness of the work.

          I have a lot of regret putting the time I did into Elden Ring.

    • jack [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netM
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      2 days ago

      I would definitely not expect Sony to ruin the creative juices of FromSoft. Sony was the publisher behind Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne and have a 30 year relationship with the studio. Not that they won’t stab a studio in the back like they did Japan Studio and Studio Liverpool, but I don’t think things line up for that given FS’s consistent commercial success the last decade.

  • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    Huh, didn’t know Kadokawa had a controlling interest in From. I imagine this has more to do with the anime/manga side of things, and that From is just the cherry on top. Oh well, we had a good run!

      • frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        It’s funny: I can’t stand soulslikes; mostly bc of their playerbase-- but I always swore that Bloodborne was the only one I’d give a shake if it ever came to PC.

        From’s recalcitrance to putting the only soulslike I’ve ever see with an aesthetic I’d care to sit through on multiple platforms has pretty much been saving me from the “gitgud” bros and difficulty cliff fetishists

      • peppersky [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        I don’t care about the shitty Demon Souls remake, but the way they’ve completely forgot about Bloodborne is just a fucking joke. Sony fundamentally doesn’t care about games. They’ll put money into stupid senseless remakes and port games to PC only if they think it increases the worth of their intellectual properties. The only reason they ever even financed Bloodborne was because they needed something to get “serious” gamers to become early adopters of the PS4. They half assed it the second time around with the terrible demon souls remake (which they won’t make again either, since they’ve definitely realized that there is no need to pander to core gamers anymore).

  • ShinkanTrain
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    2 days ago

    We won’t stop until we butcher every From Software game or our demands are met