PkGam

12/04/2022

Two In The Groove/Stepmania tournaments are going on if you are up to joining them!

There's East Coast Stamina 10.5 which is a team-based event (Though you can play solo like I always do, it's just much harder, lol!). It's running through May 16:
https://ecs105.groovestats.com/index.php
There's a whole bunch of stamina content that is premiering here so that alone is worth checking out as you'll get to play a bunch of new stuff. Like the last few Groovestats stamina competitions, you have to be up to playing at least 11s (12s for the marathons), so if you find that inaccessible, don't like stamina or just wanted to play in a different sort of tournament...

There's the International Timing League Online 2022 which runs through June 24:
https://itl2022.groovestats.com/
There's new content here too! Charts start at 7s so chances are most players can pass something in it. The majority of stuff here are what are called "technical" charts though, so unless you don't already play tech, there will be a lot of patterns that are new to you. They have a FAQ on it to get players up to speed on stuff like that though: https://itl2022.groovestats.com/faq (Click "What are all of the two-letter technique notations? (XO, FS, BR, etc.)" to expand it) There's a bit of stamina in it too from 11-16 if you prefer (Sort of like how Stamina RPG 5 has a splash of tech), along with stuff that doesn't have tech in general. So chances are you'll find something you'll like. Or maybe just want to challenge yourself to try and pass as much as you can. They give bonus points for varying levels of full combos too, so accuracy is paramount.

Info on how to set yourself up for them are on their respective pages.

17/03/2022

Want to support Ukraine and get over 900 games for $10 that includes the legendary Celeste? Boom:
https://itch.io/b/1316/bundle-for-ukraine
Only' about 8 hours left though. That's $10 "minimum" too. So you can pay more to help more if you prefer.

Essentially it's a charity bundle where a bunch of developers put their games and other stuff (dev tools, music, etc...) in it to encourage donations and it kept growing in scale.

Bundle for Ukraine: 998 items for $10.00

17/02/2022

Another two bite the dust I see!

I remember back with the Wii's Shop I'd say that I didn't want to get anything from them because they would eventually shut down and no longer be accessible. Others said: "No, Nintendo said you'd be able to redownload them forever." I said: "Just wait until they shut down like every other download service has and you'll see." Sure enough when the Wii and DSi shops shut down, the ability to redownload went with it. So when their Wii/DSi one inevitably went kaput, there's no possibility to move them to another system. Now guess what'll happen with the Wii U and 3DS shops. :P

That being said, this also means that the cycle of archived games never being put up for sale on their online shops by the time the service ends only for them to restart the drip feed of games next service continues for the third straight generation with the Switch. Only this time it's even worse because it's a paid online subscription where if you stop paying for it, you lose "access" to all the games as now you can't even download them to hopefully save them. That even includes if you wanted to save them for a while after it shuts down later. But don't worry, there's no way they'll put all their games on the service before it inevitably ends again anyway and they want people to re-buy into the next generation's service for mere access to games again next gen (and again and again). Plus the Switch's online has poor emulation to boot! XD
..And Nintendo wants us to have faith in their narrative that we don't have to worry about game preservation because they have it handled? Oh... they "have it handled" all right. :P

It has been confirmed today that the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShops are to go offline in late March 2023.

However, it has been confirmed that when this happens, Pokémon Bank will become free to use until its own service ends at a later date in the future as long as you have Pokémon Bank downloaded onto your 3DS.

What are your thoughts?

Full details @ https://www.serebii.net/index2.shtml

10/12/2021

https://twitter.com/lutherlowe/status/1459168723756068869
https://twitter.com/lutherlowe/status/1459178759987163139

Whaaa? GooHISSSS lying for their own benefit? This has never happened before because of their "Don't be evil!" motto!

Sarcasm aside, if they're this worried about the bill that they send out lies to try and get an army of people that are none the wiser, this has gotta be a good bill. ;) See, the reason why so many are using GooHISSS's ad networks to begin with is because they monopolized them. Search results favor places with their ad network ads because of course they would. So even if another ad network would pay more, your traffic would drop substantially if you didn't have GooHISSS ads. Therefor weeding out other ad networks through monopolization. On top of that, ad revenue has been dropping for everyone despite their claims it would go up: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/your-content-and-making-money-from/
To think for a second that GooHISSS cares about your small business after all of that is laughable. They're only in it for themselves and every change in their "services" proves it.

From the "Contractual obligations":
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/casualty-youtubes-contractual-obligations-users-free-speech

To taking advantage of their monopoly at every turn:
https://geoawesomeness.com/developers-up-in-arms-over-google-maps-api-insane-price-hike/
and:
https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/theres-never-been-a-worse-time-to-own-a-roku-streaming-stick
With:
https://www.axios.com/roku-youtube-google-deal-57c4193f-a350-4af8-bbe0-f465c9ced762.html

To trying to dodge accountability:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/business/google-eu-appeal-antitrust.html

To the numerous things they shut down that they told people they could count on:
https://killedbygoogle.com/

We are always having to pick up the pieces and it's time that ends.

“I still can’t get over how brazen Google is acting here. Everything is on the line, so they’re weaponizing their product & customer lists to push lies. It’s a step away from snooping Senators’ personal search histories and Gmails for any edge. No company is more powerful. https://t.co...

30/11/2021

Yeahhhh, so I'm sure some won't be pleased with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOuG8jMIgI

So for Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/return-youtube-dislikes

Or Chrome (Please don't use GoogHISSSS's... There's stuff way better like Vivaldi.):
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/return-youtube-dislike/gebbhagfogifgggkldgodflihgfeippi

Returns ability to see dislikes

07/11/2021

Few' more news posts, starting with:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-truth-behind-twitch-s-leaked-do-not-ban-list/ar-AAPzJIg

Gotta' love how they say "when it was still in use" to try and imply it's not a thing anymore despite so many rule breakers being let off the hook consistently. XD So it's pure damage control.

The massive Twitch leak revealed a "do not ban" list of streamers, but it's not as simple as it seems.

26/10/2021

https://time.com/6110234/facebook-papers-testimony-explained/
That.... That is some really scary stuff. To summarize a bunch of it:

-Hate speech and violence in developing countries was poorly moderated.
-Automated moderation in other languages removed content that was just fine while leaving up content that wasn't.
-They labeled election misinformation and conspiracy theories in general as merely "harmful, but not violating". How exactly can harmful be not violating? Well... just wait until you see the last bit.
-Filipina maids were being sold on FB... Yes, that's right: Slave trading.
-They wanted to remove the like button because it was causing younger people stress and anxiety over not getting likes. But kept it because there was less engagement and removing it wasn't alleviating anxiety. So the whole platform as a whole is stressful.
-They also noted when asked why they didn't make Instagram safer for youths was that young users are the future of Instagram and the sooner they get them hooked, the better...

And now for this last bit: They knew about all of the above the whole time too... But they mostly let it go on because they were favoring growth over anything else.

People behind these decisions at FB HAVE to be liable for jail? Right?... I mean we're talking about some seriously harmful stuff going on that they are encouraging "because growth". I mean their "policies" basically sound like they are happy to host any content as long as it draws people in and only when "the crisis has begun" do they "slow it down". (Not even try to stop it.)

Here are the most explosive revelations from her Oct. 25 testimony and the internal documents.

13/10/2021

https://gamerant.com/twitch-leak-streamers-do-not-ban-list/
Annnnnnd... there it is! Smaller than I thought. But I wonder if there's more because we all know there are obvious violators that didn't get the boot for violations while others who did the same sorts of things did.

https://nichegamer.com/twitch-no-ban-list-hacker-leaks-special-circumstances/
They claim that the list is there just to "double check". Assuming that's true, why wouldn't everyone get that sort of treatment? I mean certainly there are trolls who file false reports given how rampant harassment is on there. Also, why weren't they transparent about this to begin with? Maybe because, oh I dunno... People would be ticked if they knew this actually existed? (Even if it was obvious...) I mean most on the platform are basically walking on eggshells out of fear of being banned with how inconsistent they are with moderation.

-----

Can't' wait to see the inevitable Youtube no-ban leak in the future as we all know there are a bunch that get special treatment there too.

A former Twitch Admin has stated that an alleged "No-Ban list" was for mods to "make sure to double check" in special circumstances.

07/10/2021

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/the-entirety-of-twitch-has-reportedly-been-leaked
Karma finally hit Twitch as this is HUGE! Hopefully it does indeed lead to more competition and/or fixes to Twitch's garbage.

I mean if this is really everything, somewhere in it there will be info on stuff like Audible Magic, streamers breaking rules but getting away with slaps on the wrists (Usually the "top" ones of course. Such as "certain" camgirls... If you know what I mean...), them clearly only promoting the same "top" streamers repeatedly, bogus reasons for people's bannings (See, the ban thing goes both ways. Some get banned over trivial things, others don't get banned for blatant TOS violations), etc...

Source codes and user payouts among the data released in a 128GB torrent…