I don’t really know much about this topic even after reading the article. It does bother me however that there’s so many channels/server on Telegram full of spammers that seem to offer drugs and prostitution. It’s almost like those were the only things that exist in this world. Which is such a huge waste of a chat program.

Also who the hell listens to any of the nonsense influencers/politicians write in their heavily biased channels, seriously, I can’t find a sane reason to join those, yet strangely that seems to be the only reason the masses use this tool. It’s all just confusing.

I think rating genres is generally not a useful thing. I feel as though pidgeonholing games, music, videos or other things into categories and judging them based on that could lead to narrow-mindedness. Each genre has great games and each genre has bad games.

Some genres are more interesting to some people, but I’d say that’s because hobbies are sort of random and not because some are better than others. If by chance you happen to get a deeper knowledge about a certain genre or topic you will become more interested in it naturally. That doesn’t mean other things are more boring by nature.

I mean we’re doing ok, but our prices more than match the incomes.

Yeah I guess that’s normal, because having more money means you’ll want a bigger income and for people to afford paying high personell costs they’ll have to sell products and services at higher prices.

I get mildly annoyed every time a non-Swiss European - only having heard of typical Swiss incomes and nothing else - acts as if we were super rich.

You didn’t look annoyed. Your comment seemed neutral in tone.

Anyhow, with that much money compared to the rest of the world you are kinda “rich”-ish (depending on who you ask). Sure, you probably don’t own ten mansions and yachts, but you’re able to afford things inside and outside your country which some other people might not be able to afford (unless the product is price adjusted like eg Steam games which from what I understand are more expensive in Switcherland).

When I say “I guess in some countries people have way too much money” I don’t mean to insult the inhabitants directly, rather I’m pointing out - in a perhaps mildly provocative manner - the unequal distribution of wealth around the globe.

Alright it wasn’t clear whether or not this was after tax. Makes sense!

I think a rent of 3600 with 5000-7000 income could be sustainable. Kinda depending on the price of living, but I think the best case of 3400 each month would be enough in most of Europe. Still paying over half your salary probably wouldn’t make sense for most people unless you live there 24/7 and the place is in a really good location (eg short transits to work, family and other places people frequently visit) and you really like it and/or it’s cheaper than comparable flats.

Well I guess in some countries people have way too much money…

Yes they only considered certain places. See “NEIGHBOURHOODS COVERED IN EACH CITY SURVEYED” in the surveys pdf for a list of cities and the respective neighbourhoods.

The 1-bedroom flats in Helsinki that were considered for this study are 40-60m². All the 1-bedroom flats for this study were either 40-60m² or 60-80m², depending on the city. See “Typical dwelling sizes by category in each surveyed city (in m²)” of this surveys pdf.

Keep in mind that these numbers are for above-average flats, ie in good locations, of good size (40-60m² or 60-80m², depending on the city) and for well-earning positions. Probably not the top 1%, but still generally well paid jobs. As such the presentation is inaccurate. Those are not “average prices in the city”, but “average prices for good flats in good districts, comparable with Brussels”.

source: 2023 CURRENT MARKET RENTS (pdf)

OBTAINED THROUGH SURVEYS WITH ESTATE AGENCIES, COVERING A SPECIFIC HOUSING SEGMENT

The rent data presented in this booklet are part of a wider work programme, whose objective is to compare the relative cost of living of international civil servants in any place of employment with that of Brussels, the reference city.

Since the aim of the entire exercise is to compare “like with like”, the neighbourhoods surveyed may not necessarily be in those areas where expatriates actually live but are comparable with those actually occupied by officials in Brussels.

These neighbourhoods are described as residential areas of good quality, favoured by expatriates and professional people such as international civil servants, university staff, doctors, managers, and similar professionals, who pay their rent by themselves (i.e. not paid by their employers).

I feel like comparing OTTD to OpenLoco is a bit similar to comparing Freeciv to Freecol. OTTD and Freeciv just had so much more popularity and development. But OpenLoco and Freecol are still nice to try.

Of course! TTD and Locomotion were developed by the same person. From my understanding Locomotion is closer to the Roller Coaster Tycoon engine and UI. Also I think I remember reading an interview in which Chris Sawyer said Locomotion had the cleanest code out of the three.

On that note, considering the original engines are similar I wonder if OpenRCT2 and OpenLoco have any big similarities in the code base as well…

Very true, but only the fact that the game had such an incredible and easy to use map editor was the reason this was possible.

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I’m aware of that and also see the problem, but argue that that’s partially because most people just aren’t used to this. People’s actions depend a lot on what they consider the norm. Take waiters or other service people as an example - in some cultures it’s usual to tip them, in others it’s unusual or even frowned upon.

You would have to at least have a base minimum purchase price and then accept tips on top.

That’s also fine. If the initial price were lower than other comparable games then I assume that more people could be convinced to tip. Or even just if a company is very open about their work / income and dedicated to communicating to their players. I think there’s already some companies like that, though perhaps not necessarily the big ones.

That’s where work contracts can help. Any form of tipping and how it is split would have to be handled by a contract anyway.

He’s not talking about donations though, he’s talking about paying full price THEN tipping.

I’m aware of that. The “Pay what you want.” concept mentioned in my first paragraph was its own idea/suggestion/thought, since it kinda fits the topic. It’s a different thing.

It’s a blatant excuse to pay developers less while placing financial guilt on the people paying for the product. It’s the same way tipping at a restaurant works.

Not really, really good video games take months or even years to complete, so your developers will want to be paid for that time before they become profitable. At restaurants the initial investment isn’t quite as high, as far as wages are concerned. I’d argue that you get tipped before even getting your first monthly paycheck. That can not be the case for video game tips.

I assume software developers and other people in the IT sector are also in higher demand than waiters, so they don’t have it quite as bad as waiters. That’s why I think they’re not comparable.

That said, I do believe that a company that is open about the tips it receives could be interesting for developers. If I saw that tips were actually split evenly among all the employees and their work hours then I think it’d be worth considering applying there. Though I guess for fairness those tips should even be paid out if employees quit or get kicked out so you’d have to track how much each person contributed to each product and that could be a bit of a bureaucratic hassle.

I think the concept of “Pay what you want.” is a very friendly approach to this. It already exists on platforms like itch.io and some free to play games financed through donations, like Dwarf Fortress, also became extremely popular. Humble Bundles are also pretty famous for this. And of course kickstarters do something a bit similar to this.

Personally I’d love to see donation buttons/infos especially for all the free music and games that exist out there. But I want to make sure my donations reach the people who actually worked on it, so I dislike products like paypal or patreon where a portion of the money goes to men in the middle and their managers/owners, etc. A bank account number or something along those lines where I can transfer money a bit more directly would be nice, but some creators only provide paypal buttons, so I won’t donate.

I never played the game but watched some trailers and gameplay videos. I’m 99% certain that Helldivers 2 is following the Starship Troopers formula and purely making fun of patrionism, propaganda, war, the military, military personnel, “freedom”, heroism, politics and military advertisements and turning that into a game. There’s just so many obvious signs, it seems impossible to miss. In other words, it is a political game. Or maybe I just really don’t get either of the two.

That’s an interesting view/idea. Is that a reoccurring theme in politics? Like, I’m wondering if there have been similar cases and if yes how well did they work.

I can imagine something similar happening at school, where eg. kids who litter or destroy plants or furniture are assigned to cleanup/anti litter duty or to gardening work or to furniture maintenance. I think I remember seeing similar things, the idea being that it helps those kids learn to better understand the work that goes into such tasks and the value behind them. Basically it helps build your morals and values or something along those lines.

The way I see it maybe this decision could promote gender equality organisations that are active in Saudi Arabia. It could create or increase social awareness for this topic. Being given a responsibility can make you put more effort into it than you did before because suddenly the effort counts twice.

Seems to be mostly about horror stuff. I guess a bit of a focus on more random negative events / disasters? My assumption it’s mind/madness related, so perhaps some of it is only in a pawns imagination/hallucination.

Judging by the few existing screenshots I guess that’d also allow for some random natural disasters like earth movement / quakes (big hole in the ground) and makes me think of other stuff like flooding, tornados, etc. But there’s probably already a ton of natural disaster mods.