while True: learn() is a game about cat-to-human translation.
With all this hubub about the so-called digital delivery wars that are raging right now it's easy to forget that none of it is true. What is really going on is a race between narrow sighted gaming companies to establish themselves as the most popular digital delivery platform in the market before game streaming hits its stride and decimates the vertical.
But there is one company that gets that there are more important things than fighting over who gets to be king of shit mountain. That company is Good Old Games, a company I respect and admire greatly. CD Project RED does the hard thing, which is to not think about yourself but to consider the good of the industry as a whole in terms of what happens when a great games infrastructure dies around it.
I have had the pleasure of working with them when Gwent was dropping and they behave like a company that did not make one of the best video games in the world in The Witcher, but more like video game fans that had somehow stumbled into an industry leadership position and are somehow embarrassed by that.
Everyone that games are a friend, doesn't matter the title of the person, doesn't matter what they have to offer, large or small. It is a humbling experience to be on an email chain with someone who is cool with handling the shipping charges for their stuff, cool with going to po-dunk nowhere to do a demo or explain the game to money people, and does not ask for all of the product you have for nothing just because "They are doing you a favor" by displaying it at market.
Whoever wins the digital delivery war already lost, because of the streaming thing, and because GOG is creating the Library of Alexandria for games, an idea that has legs long after the flavor of the moment has become ash in the mouths of consumers and the sun falls and the hubris of digital delivery services has them huddled outside of the gates of the big tech three begging for alms while developers are inside eating turkey dinners.
Business people call what GoG are doing an "Evergreen Market."
The gaming market is saturated. hundreds of new games are being launched every day with Steam and Epic fighting to be the marketplace for these titles. Meanwhile, CD Project sits back and picks the ripest fruit from yesteryear knowing that a good old game is always going to be more valuable than a popular new game over time.
Can't wait to see Fortnite and Half-Life on GoG in twenty years.
Also, rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is a revolving sushi lunch with friends, hate is a cold Arby's burger you eat in your car while you drive back from your fifteen-minute crunch break. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jerbz.
The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: People: Desultory
