Pretty sure it pleases the shareholders

If Steam is any indication, a system like this would reward devs for posting something controversial on twitter

Worms Armageddon! I vaguely remember being disappointed by the absence of some features I liked from Worms 2, but can’t remember exactly anymore. I think I still have the CD somewhere.

Staring at a little screen that brings you entertainment & joy: 😡

Staring at a little screen that fills you with anger, dread, and despair: 🤩

I’d like to see a project set up a dedicated branch for bot PRs with a fully automated review/test/build pipeline. Let the project diverge and see where the slop branch ends up compared to the main, human-driven branch after a year or two.

For anybody saying “it’s not a problem, just moderate it yourself”

I’m of the opposite opinion. It’s a much bigger problem than just Steam community moderation and it needs to be addressed more broadly. (Monkey’s paw curls)

This. It’s not a problem, it’s a niche.

This breaks my heart. The Marathon trilogy had such a cool setting and atmosphere. What the hell is this.

Into the ground, you say?

After everything they’ve done to their other key franchises… Surely no one is going to fall for this, right?

Blizzard openly admitting that they scammed players into buying Overwatch 1 twice:

Classic publicly traded company using “reorganisation” (read: layoffs) to trick shareholders into thinking they are turning things around by simultaneously reducing costs and shifting blame for past failures of leadership.

The next step is a super safe release, like a remaster of one of their top selling games, followed by an announcement of a new entry in one of their most popular series. Line goes up. Ubisoft is back! Hire more developers, open a new studio (or buy an established studio), resume enshittifying. Rinse and repeat.

I have played these games before.webp

The difference between awards chosen purely by people who play video games and awards chosen primarily by people who make their pay cheques in the industry

Saints Row 2-3-4 are great for this. 2 is the GOAT, but 3 and 4 are arguably better at providing the “screwing around” experience.

Sleeping Dogs is underrated and regularly goes on sale for like $5. There is not as much sandbox-ey stuff to do compared to GTA/Just Cause/Saints Row, but I loved jacking a nice car and cruising the freeway at night, or going on a murder spree and playing survival against waves of cops.

Elder Scrolls isn’t necessarily as wacky of an experience out of the box, but between mods and the sheer amount of freedom you have in the game, there is plenty of dumb random stuff you can get up to.

If you have Elden Ring on PS4/5 and know your way around the game, invasions have a ton of potential for shenanigans. Probably not what you’re after, and I imagine multiplayer activity is down since Nightreign came out, but it’s worth mentioning as such a unique experience.

Honourable indie mention: Mars First Logistics is a game where you build vehicles and use them to transport objects from point A to point B. The challenges are largely physics-based, with the objects often having unusual shapes or odd properties, and your vehicle needs to be able to self-load them in addition to bearing them across varying distances and terrains. It’s not really what you’re asking for, but I feel like it scratched the same sort of itch for me in terms of open-ended low-stakes gameplay.