Anti-cheat is the latest biggest form of DRM yet, as how it’s gotten increasingly intrusive from asking for phone number verification to running at weird kernel levels that have a good chance at destabilizing the system. Then there’s also the totally-not-trying-to-be-a-monopoly Epic side of this with their Easy Anti-Cheat which is both apparently easy to implement and bypass. VRChat already got a bit screwed up by this. It still usually runs about as fine as usual, but it’s still not a good thing. I feel like I’ve gotten at least one blue screen from it so far at random. On the plus side, I rarely tend to want to play multiplayer games in general these days because they’re all about selling skins and random junk and unlocking battle passes and whatever.
Everything doesn’t have to be some arbitrary progression. In fact adding in that battle pass crap makes me less likely to want to play. Whatever the actual name of it is. Feeling of missing out, I guess. I’m more about the fun of moving on in that case. I’ve been enjoying other games more lately. I’m glad there’s still recent games out there, even if they’re mostly indie, that are still fun. Especially where I feel like a number of major studios seem to be actively sabotaging themselves, because they have cash they want to burn I can only suppose would be a reason why.
I don’t see ActiBlizzard going anywhere anytime soon, outside of a widespread gaming crash, just for the sake of ongoing WoW subs and CoD spending which will soon be the absolute only things that company does at this rate, so Microsoft can take their time convincing regulators to let them be an even bigger conglomerate. Maybe we’ll end up getting some of the good ActiBlizzard games on Game Pass as a result, the ones from companies that got absorbed into the Call of Duty machine shortly after releasing what would turn out to be their respective magnum opuses. Opi? I don’t know. Mainly it’s bad decisions from a standpoint other than “sacrifice more to the money pit”.
Slime Rancher 2 is in early access, and while I do have access on Game Pass, I’m going to wait a while before I dive into that one to get much closer to release, maybe even after I finish having Game Pass depending on when it does launch in full. I did play a little and it seems fine to me. I don’t want to get attached quite yet before the rest of stuff comes in. I hope there’s quite a lot. And at least they’re putting their game specifically in early access instead of just releasing it in “full” in a buggy and incomplete state like major studios tend to. However, I’ve more been diving into Tinykin recently, a game I played a demo of previously and just so happened to come to Game Pass, so I figured why not. It’s been a mix of Chibi-Robo and Pikmin with most focus on exploration rather than hardcore survival as respawns come easy and it feels a bit casual in the family-friendly way. Nice to mess with to unwind so far.
I still find it weird I decided to go in for Game Pass for a fair bit of time as I hardly ever get subscriptions. But I’ve been getting something out of it at least. All the benefits of Gold are a small bonus, even smaller now that they don’t offer the original Xbox and 360 games monthly anymore, so it amounts to additional rentals in the Xbone category. Also with how they’ve been gradually removing games I’ve had some interest in, even if fleeting or sporadic, and replacing them with ones I’m not entirely fond of, to where I’m certain the total number of games on there has been dropping a bit for several months at least. That’s why I feel like I’d be fine with wrapping up Game Pass when that prepaid subscription lapses in many months from now. At least the weird amount of points I’ve been accumulating can go towards other stuff like games to hang onto outside of any subscription. Like ones that have been removed from Game Pass but I’d still like to go back to. On sale, of course.