While I understand that I’m giving up “owning” the game, Steam has a good track record of trying to make users happy. It being a private company means that it’s beholden to users rather than shareholders. In this instance, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, at least for me. I don’t have enough space in my home for the 100s of games I have on top of not having to worry about disks getting scratched or corrupted. Then I also don’t have to worry about downloading game patches from a 20 year old site that may or may not still be up (AoE 2) to keep playing on a modern OS. Also, there’s a centralized space for users to communicate, upload mods, host servers, etc. without having to jump through different hoops for different games (Hamachi, GameSpy, etc.).

That being said, I appreciate that there are alternatives for people that feel differently. And I appreciate there are alternatives and competition (even people like you) keeping corporate greed in check and making Valve have to work to stay good for users.

When Gabe Newell dies or leaves the company though, I’ll be watching closely to see who the new CEO will be and figure it out from there.

I really liked the atmosphere and world of Vesper, but the story was contrived and bland I felt.

I’ve seen District 9 mentioned as kind of biopunk, so maybe if that counts, I’d say that’s my favorite.

I’m trying to determine if this is satire or not. I’ll respond anyways if it is just to share a point of view for anybody else reading though.

EDIT: I just saw the username and saw you commented above. The below still stands for everything the average big truck American embodies though.

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Besides the fact you have an oversized, $30,000+ vehicle for just grocery shopping (as you say “so you get some use out of it”), the ideal walkable/bikable city will save you time plus has the added benefit of making you healthier too. The exercise you get and reduced air pollution will have a noticeable affect on health and lifespan.

As for time saving, you say you spend ~40 minutes traveling to the big box store, but a walkable city would have more stores closer to you so you could just take a short 10 minute walk or 4 minute bike ride to them.

The umbrella and bag situation is an easy fix though, just spend like $100 on raincoat, backpack, etc.; you didn’t mind spending $30,000 on a truck. I know some people need a vehicle for longer travel, but that’s the point people are trying to make. Having every American require a multi-thousand dollar more of transportation when $500 for a bike and equipment is just insane.

I could 100% see the terriers in Age of Empires.

I feel like the lack of karma system will 100% help in this aspect. No reason to comment/post dumb things since you don’t really get anything with your post/comment is at the top.