Huh, interesting. I thought that the primary reason game devs use DRM these days is to specifically keep the first week’s sales as high as possible (since that’s the most easily available metric to judge a game’s success, and also the biggest moment of profit, as it’s usually only downhill from there). To see researchers actively suggest removing DRM after three months seems to confirm this idea further.

That’s not the actual GTA VI logo, but some fan creation. The logo in the actual trailer seems to consist of the standard GTA logo with a colorful “VI” in a bold sans-serif behind it.

These days “games I can play on Linux” is, like, almost every game released on Steam. Install Steam via your package manager or Flatpak, set up your account, and the vast majority of both native and Steam Play-based games will install and run very well. (The only thing worth noting is that while Windows and Mac versions of games are indicated by Windows and Apple logos, Linux native games are indicated by the Steam logo for SteamOS.)

In addition to that, there are free and open-source games that may be available for installation straight from your package manager (or Flatpak). Here are some:

• OpenTTD is a clone of Chris Sawyer’s Transport Tycoon Deluxe series, but with massive improvements to both UI and game logic. Run a transportation company, move people and cargo from one place to another, make money, expand, compete against AI or human opponents in online multiplayer.

• Xonotic is an original Quake/UT-style FPS. I don’t play it much, but I have friends who really enjoy it.

• “The Battle for Wesnoth” is a turn-based strategy game with gameplay reminiscent of console/handheld titles like Advance Wars, but redesigned to better suit PC gameplay. Has both singleplayer missions and online multiplayer.

To be more specific: most often a game would run its physics calculation at the framerate it’s designed for, like 30 or 60 fps, and in case it displays with a higher framerate, try and interpolate the graphical data based on the physics calculations. It’s possible to make the physics run faster as well, but carelessly adapting things may make things go wrong (a good example is Quake 3, where your jump height changes based on the com_maxfps value).

A racing game that runs its physics at 60 frames per second can, at best, calculate time in 0.016666... second intervals. To have a precise 3-decimal-points clock, a game would need to run its physics calculations at 1000 frames per second.

(It is also worth noting that a game developer can try to interpolate a more precise finish time by looking at the last pre-finish frame position of the vehicle and the first post-finish frame position and calculating at what point “between the frames” the finish line would be crossed, but I don’t know how difficult and/or buggy actually implementing that would be.)

These days there are mods, such as SkyGFX, that let the PC version of GTA:SA match the PS2’s graphical effects, but these obviously rely on GPU improvements that didn’t exist back in 2005.

Looks very impressive!

Seems like more of a human mistake – like one of the designers used a stock image of a clock spiral that was AI-generated…

Most Terms of Service don’t do that, instead asking you to provide a “perpetual” “irrevocable” “transferable” license for your content – and while some absolutely stretch the terms to allow them to use it for things like language model learning or shifty monetization practices, such a license is also legally necessary for the website to function at all.

For “open-source” websites like Wikipedia or OSM, the terms are usually even simpler - you agree to license your posts under the same license that they use to distribute it.

As for Fandom specifically, they seem to mostly operate on the latter model – though you still need an additional commercial use waiver if you want to submit to NC or ND-licensed wikis (which once again goes into the “legally necessary” box).

The same open-source license that lets people edit the wikis and fork them to independent websites without having to ask permission from every single contributor also lets Fandom admins reject attempts to delete or redirect pages.

Ooh, neat… I remember watching the show as a kid, and the remake seems very cool. Reminds me of “Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap” in the whole “seamlessly switch between original and new graphics” feature…

Honestly, with so many departures of staff, including Dan Houser, Lezlie Benzies and Lazlow Jones (who in addition to playing himself in almost every game also writes a lot of what you hear/see/read on the in-game radio, TV and internet), I don’t have high hopes for the game.

IIRC these are the initial colors of the Nintendo Switch Lite. Previously 8bitdo’s controllers were built to look very much like (modernized versions of) Nintendo controllers - like the SN30 Pro and the SF30 Pro looked very much like the SNES/SFC controllers with extra shoulder buttons and analog sticks – but these days they are a bit more careful about potentially infringing on Nintendo’s intellectual property and instead just borrow color schemes.

I heard that in the late 2000s the western gaming press had a very strong dislike for JRPGs, which led to Japanese developers treating the term as derogatory. And while I still think that ideally we’d have better terminology that would try to capture the differences between the games rather than their place of origin (the most famous distinction being that “western RPGs” usually let you create your character and treat them as a blank slate in the story, whereas “JRPGs” usually put you in control of a predefined character with their own motivations and actions in the storyline), I think it’s nice that nowadays there are developers who are actually proud of the term “JRPG”.