scubbo

Ah, a fellow VX Junkie?

"_Every person who has ever done in the past, has done it with and it had _" does not imply "_The only reason anyone could possibly ever do is with to achieve _". That's a valid reason to be cautious, but not a reason to make blanket statements about an entire category of thing.

EDIT: for Day1 DLC in particular, a totally valid and non-exploitative reason for it is "we had a release date that we absolutely had to hit (because of marketing, contracts, etc.), which necessitated calling a production halt well in-advance of the release date for QA and testing - but instead of moving on to the next project, developers worked on more stuff for the same game. If that was too complex or didn't work out, we could drop it and no-one would complain; but if we'd kept developing it in the base game, and resulted in a slipped release date, there would be hell to pay"

When a company actually exists that utilizes your view of DLC, then it might be a valid criticism of the phrasing

No, that's precisely the point I'm trying to make - "every example of X that has existed so far is Y" does not imply "by definition, X is provably and definitively always Y".

You can claim that all DLC that has ever existed is predatory and exploitative (I suspect there are counter-examples; but, fine, whatever, not relevant to my point). You can say that, because of past performance, you are disinclined to trust future examples of DLC or give them the benefit of the doubt. That is all reasonable. But you can't conclude "because all DLC so far has been bad, the concept of DLC as a whole is bad and can never be used well".

As a super-simple example - here are some prime numbers: 5, 11, 37. Are all prime numbers odd? I can give you a bunch more examples if you want!

They smell bad?

Things that are opposites are not, in fact, the same.

I got into a discussion about this on the TheGoodPlace subreddit before I left. You've hit the nail on the head there - it's not possible for you to get bored, listless, frustrated, unfulfilled, etc. in a perfect paradise, because then it wouldn't be perfect. If you're imagining those effects, then the paradise you're imagining isn't a perfect one, and so is irrelevant to discussions about a perfect one.

A slightly more interesting discussion is "I, as I am now, dislike the thought of becoming a pleasure-zombie in the future. It makes me uncomfortable now to consider being motivationless and content in the future" - which, sure, fine, ok. Sounds like internalized protestant work ethic to me ("I don't deserve to be happy unless I'm working hard, and I only know that I'm working hard if I'm miserable"), but at least it's not logically irrelevant like the first argument.

The most interesting version is "I don't see a continuous line of consciousness between me and the hypothetical-future-me who lives in bliss, so there's no reason for me to be concerned with their fate - they're not really me" - which is pretty subjective depending on your views of continuity of identity.

doing stuff normal people usually do

Steady on there. It is not normal or usual to give a handie in a theatre unless you're a teenager.

That's not the case. The following two statements can be simultaneously true:

• a sufficiently-good product would sell through word-of-mouth
• corporate executives are not satisfied with the small amount of purchases this would generate, because they want more profit.

Advertising is a way to generate morepurchases (and so more profit), but it might be increasing from a non-zero amount.

I don't think that the person you're replying to is entirely correct (some products or markets really do require advertising to make consumers aware), but they're closer to right than they are to wrong on a level playing field. But if the other side is using advertising, you basically have to do the same in order to remain competitive.

All but the last four were new to me, so thank you!

I would love to know more! Feel free to vent.

You can download it here!

Arguments about the definitions of Communism or Property aside - yes, my farm. As in, the one I work on. The possessive pronoun, despite the name, sometimes connotes association rather than ownership - I do not own my school, my country, my street or (despite what Republicans might wish) my wife.