God’s sake. I mean… At least he’s apologising? I could imagine some of our recent lot doubling down on this and refusing to give in to wokeness blah blah blah…

But yeah. I’m really trying hard to be charitable cos it’s Christmas and everything. That’s not really pleasant stuff to hear from the guy who is in charge of the Police (over 1,100 under investigation for sexual assault or domestic violence atm)

Love his Thursday Next books to bits!

It depends on the game, character etc. I mean I suppose it adds to the escapism slightly?

I play all sorts of different games though, some where you’re not given the choice (Life Is Strange for example) and I don’t feel like it’s that big a deal

Yeah it’s a real shame because from what I saw of the Artemis app it looked good as well. I hope the dev is ok.

Kbin definitely needs a decent app. The web app does the job but it can be a bit irritating as you say

I work in healthcare. Never sounds this much fun, sorry, disgraceful.

It’s not really that surprising that the average user wants the most popular search engine instead of yahoo (of all things) baked in, whatever your views on Google.

I’ve been seeing these on r/comics and assumed he was her secret alien friend or something, I never realised he was a sex toy.

Thanks for the, uh, enlightenment

I love this guy’s stuff so much. Especially with some of his longer comics you think you know where he’s going and he’s just on a complete tangent!

I remember having to change things I got from… places… from epub to mobi using calibre for my old school kindle to recognise it years ago. I don’t even have that device anymore.

Glad they’re accepting what appears to be the standard format tbh.

That’s appreciated - if they did this in the UK it might finally drag me back out to the cinema!

From a British perspective I know there was always a huge political obsession with maintaining the ‘Special Relationship’ with the US up until Trump came in and Brexit happened basically simultaneously making us more irrelevant.

It’s still there in a half hearted transactional way when it comes to intelligence sharing, day to day stuff etc. But in terms of the PM sucking up to the President photo opportunities to get some media attention - that aspect seems to have died pretty quickly.

It strikes me there are a lot of similarities with our politics right now though - lack of faith from the voters, rampant cronyism, lawbreaking heads of state FFS, culture war obsessions dominating the discourse when the average person is more worried about affording their rent/mortgage at the end of the month. I’d say our government is dysfunctional on the same level but the difference is we stopped being a superpower way back when.

I’m rambling way off topic, sorry. Reading that just reminded me of when our politicians used to be all over the American ones as being the glamorous ones to suck up to (whether the public agreed or not) but things have definitely changed.

I’m guessing the 2 uses you already know are ‘joke’ and ‘to retch/nearly vomit’?

Another meaning of ‘gag’ is to physically tie something around their mouth to stop them from speaking (like in films when people get material or tape in their mouths to muffle their cries for help in a kidnap scene? That material would be the ‘gag’)

Obviously in this instance it’s not a literal gag, although I’m sure there’s plenty of people who wish it could be. A ‘gagging order’ is a metaphor for not being able to speak about things

This is about misinformation on social media plays a part in war and journalism

Yeah, I guess if you own an iPhone and a Mac there’s more appeal. I see the prices for things on my son’s Switch and he’s not old enough to want the really expensive stuff yet, and you don’t even get a desktop version there.

I think my original point stands though - that having “you buy it and then you play it” games on mobile is not a new concept.

Funnily enough gay sex was fine in ancient Rome (as long as you were the dominant one) but having sex in the light (whether natural or candle light) was seen as a massive taboo.

(Amongst the upper and middle classes anyway, I doubt the majority of people cared)

Thing is, there’s plenty of Premium games exactly as you describe - it’s all I play on mobile or tablet - but they all cost on average between £5-10. Many are ports, some are free to install to play the first couple of levels and then you unlock the game with a one off purchase. The only thing I own good enough to play games on is my tablet and phone so I know this the hard way, but quality is out there, it’s just hidden away.

Anyway, £60 is a big step up from the usual £10. I think the Final Fantasy/Ace Attorney ports are about £20. Usually the cheaper price to my mind is that you’re playing on a smaller screen and with a touch control system that doesn’t always suit the game you’re playing (although it can improve certain games - Cultist Simulator, Kingdom Two Crowns and Bad North all feel like they work better with touch controls for me but that’s more a genre thing)

Obviously - I guess I’m more surprised at The Register in that case. They’re a very savvy industry magazine. Presumably they get a hefty wad.

Devolver have done some terrific games going way back - I think the first time I played one of their games was the first Reigns for mobile and that was what, 2016?

Their name is a good indicator of quality so good for them thinking rationally about what they have to offer to players and not just taking the money

Thanks for this - this is something that has passed me by. So essentially plagarising another website’s content for traffic plus the usual Google shenanigans? Nice

Thanks for the info - was not aware of this before. Yet more wonderful business practices from the world of big tech…