miniblog.

Watching Hytale vs Minecraft discourse reminds me of how games feel different when they're new. Single player games have an online discussion that occurs shortly after release. Multiplayer games rapidly develop a meta. I tried UT99 years after release and it wasn't as much fun.

The games console market is fascinating: there's incentive to *not* provide upgraded models. You want the guarantee that a game for $X just works on any $X purchased. E.g. the Switch OLED has a bigger screen, and a better CPU than the original, but it's downclocked to match the original Switch's CPU.

It's odd that games often show the hours played, but I've not seen this in other apps. "You've spent 20 hours talking to this person." Would this be a usage deterrent? If so, why do many games offer it by default?