And that’s the thing. Two years ago, I didn’t understand all the hate Epic gets.

Now? I’m viewing it as a temporary free service. I’ll download your free games…but I also know this could all be taken away from me at any moment. Even if they somehow fixed my issue today, at this point, I’d still be hesitant to buy from them over steam. Whereas, if they’d have fixed my issue two years ago, I probably still wouldn’t get the hate they get.

I get the hate they get now though, and they deserve it.

I just remembered I had to do the same thing with Sony, and Nintendo. Nintendo had me verify some games I had bought. Sony was a bit weirder. They asked me which games I had been playing. But it didn’t come off like verification. It sounded like the guy at Sony was bored and lonely. He was just like “Sooooo, what’cha been playin?” And I was like “uhhhhh…I guess Grand Theft Auto?”

I felt bad in saying that my playstation usage had dropped DRAMATICALLY the past 10 years. I barely turn it on.

And then he says “says here you haven’t played in a while. Any other games you’ve played recently?”

Uhhhhh, no?

And thats when I realized he was asking for verification purposes.

So far, Yahoo, Hotmail, and Epic are the only services that won’t let me back into my service. The rest have all had other ways.

Now to be fair, yahoo has a way you can pay them money to have an expert look into things. But I refuse to pay money for some guy in India to tell me I need to log into hotmail and give him the code. Then shut down and take my money without resolve when he finds out I can’t.

I know the passwords. I just can’t log in, because they both want security codes sent to other services I have no access to.

Well…I lost access to my email account assosiated with my Epic Games login.

I emailed them, and they kept refering me back to this automated process that just kept asking me to check an email.

I don’t have access to that email.

So I contacted them, and said I’m not going to buy any games from them, because as far as I know, this account could be taken away at any time, since I can’t access the assosiated email. All they gotta do is say “security check, we sent a code to your email. Use it to login”. If that happens, I’m locked out of my epic games account.

That was 2 years ago. I had the same issue with steam, since steam also used that email account. I forget what steam did to verify, but I remember I had to jump through some hoops. But then they switched my assosiated email.

I actually JUST realized that my tivo account had the same issue. I called them, they didn’t even make me jump hoops. They just said “oh, you have a new email? Yeah yeah, thats fine, it’s switched. Should we change your password? No? Ok. Have a nice day.”

So now it’s 2 years later. Total money spent on Epic? $0.

Total money spent on Steam? Well…I don’t have an exact total, but I figure it’s maybe $1000? Now keep in mind I’m 1 person. How many other people are in my situation who just moved on and forgot about Epic? They don’t fill any niche where they’re needed in the space. It’s not like GOG where it’s DRM free, and they’re the only ones that do that. Epic’s library is probably entirely available on Steam. Yeah, I’ll take your free games while I can still log in, but I’m not paying a dime until my email situation is resolved.

I feel zero sympathy for Epic games, and if they go out of business, oh well.

You know what my favorite pizza topping is? Bleach.

Dominoes REFUSES to put bleach on my pizza, so I gotta do it myself. I found out about it from AI. Now my pizza tastes great! The downside is having to go to the hospital to get a stomach pump everytime.

If the CEO is in charge of a technology based company, yeah…it does.

“Tim Cook steps down from role”

“THATS NOT A TECHNOLOGY STORY!!!”

See how that comes off?

Canada is lovely nice cozy not hostile this time of year! I mean, it’s a frozen tundra, but you won’t be pulled out of your car and killed by secret police looking for people they don’t like.

I was just trying to answer that at the fundamental level there has to be someone trusted to verify your info

Why?

Why does there need to be age verification at all?

We’ve had computera since the 1940s, and never needed this. We’ve had the internet since the 1990s and never needed this.

Now that a pedophile is in the white house, and an entire network of pedophile politicians have been revealed, NOW they want to protect the children???

And you honestly believe that?

The consumer market will care. They’ll just be priced so far out of the market, it’ll be unrealistic of them to ever hope to buy one.

Hey I’m grump!

I’m not so gruuuump!

And we’re the artifically intelligent poor mans recreation of the game grumps!

Hey Dan.

Yes Arin?

I am the boy of video games. I am made of win! Check out my 12 fingers!

Wow Arin! That’s cool! I have 45 lbs of afro!

grabs popcorn

munch munch munch

I might be part of the problem. I bought a PS5 years ago, thinking GTA6 was close to being released.

Turns out no.

But what I’ve discovered is that with how the gaming industry has gone, I don’t see any need to buy games anymore.

I’m sick of games being an online focused experience, which requires subscription costs.

I’m sick of every game needing a multiple deluxe collectors editions that are the only way to play the full game, but cost $200 each and come with cheap plastic junk “collectables” to justify the cost.

“But you won’t get the super rare coin and lapel pin if you don’t get the collectors edition!”

“Thats fine. Just sell me the full game at $60.”

“The full game requires the collectors edition. But it comes with this lapen pin and rare coin!”

“How many copies of the collectors edition are there?”

“About 2 million.”

“So, not exactly rare, is it?”

Welp. Certainly can’t argue with any of that. I’ve said the same thing myself on many of your points.

Let me get this straight. When you think of the “linux experience”, you think of refridgerators, air fryers, and vacumes. Your words. That’s your mental image of Linux.

While at the same time discrediting the desktop experience as “a tiny specific section of computer hardware”.

Now personally, I think Android SHOULD be counted as Linux. I’ve even asked why there isn’t a Linux distro that’s just Android for the PC. However, whenever I ask that question, instead of anyone answering legitimately, I get told that’s not what Linux is.

And the sad thing is, I think that would BLOSSOM the Linux userbase on PC. The power supply on my PC died a month ago, and before I found a bandaid solution, I was using my phone in dex mode for two weeks. It was a flawed but decent experience. The type of experience that would be a lot better if it were more common. But it’s not. People just don’t use their phones as PC replacements like I did for 2 weeks.

So me reading your reply, it’s obvious to me that everything you’re saying is a strawman arguement. What’s not obvious is if YOU realize how much of a strawmans arguement it is.

Seriously. You used air conditioners to justify numbers of Linux marketshare. Hang on. I gotta do some photo editing. Let me go grab the dehumidifier and run GIMP on it!

Um…when it comes to desktop OS’s, they ARE the top, and always have been.

And even if you remove windows entirely, Apple becomes number one. Not Linux.

Last I checked, the highest Linux as a desktop usershare ever got was something pathetically small like 5%

And the reason for this is Linux developers design their OS as if the user knows what they’re doing.

Windows designs their OS as if the user is clueless.

So users who know how to use their computer, use Linux. And idiots use Windows. Well it turns out the world is full of idiots.

I tried explaining how to install a program in terminal to someone who’s never touched linux.

“sudo apt install program”

And her response was “ooooh, no no no no no! That’s too much for all that! Ain’t nobody got time fo’ all dat!”

I have no idea which OS she’s using these days. Haven’t talked to her in years.

But if I had to bet my life savings, I’d bet she’s still never touched Linux.

I’ve said it a million times. The year of linux will come 5 years AFTER a distro is released which not only holds the users hand, but handcuffs it. Does EVERYTHING for the user, so the user never ever ever ever has to even know how to do anything. Update a driver? They don’t even know how to do it in windows! You think they’re going to try their hand at updating kernals and such in Linux?

How big is the torrent, and where do I download from?

“So a man and his injured wolf walk into a bar. Stop me if you’ve heard this one…oh, wait. Sorry, not actually a joke. I was actually reading news headlines…”

C’Mon…start living up to your username! Global apocalypse for all!

He had many feelings on an Island too. I don’t like it when trump has feelings…

…ya know? If trump just nuked all of earth, and everybody died? At least I don’t have to worry about my non-existant retirement plan.

Sorry. You gotta go to jail now. Your toddler grabbed a juicy juice box from your smart refridgerator without being 18+.