I think overall that piracy is good.
It returns control over media, instead of being bound to specific platforms or stores.
It allows you to test things on your hardware, before committing to a purchase.
It makes it possible to recover old media that you physically lost.
It makes your media portable, able to copy it to a new device or hardware without being locked out.
It makes things sharable, able to give a copy to a friend to have them try it out.
But one thing I find difficult is just the sheer amount of things that exist nowadays.
I don’t know how you guys manage it, but I have more media on just my laptop (external drives and such excluded) than I could really enjoy in my lifetime. How to even make choice of what to watch, play, read, next?
I know, very much a first-world problem. But still, it boggles my mind.
Only download what you want to watch. Don’t download stuff you’ll never gonna see/read/play. Download the first 3 episodes of a new show, download the rest if you like it. If not, throw it away. Useless data is just useless.
That’s something I very much agree with.
I often find myself just looking for more things and noting it down on my wishlist.
But actually when I think of something or see something I should just download it and try it and if it’s not good just delete it and be fine with it.
My 36TB NAS is almost full and almost everything I’ve seen. Stuff I’ll definitely not going to watch again I throw away, stuff I don’t like I throw away. I download everything automatically with Radarr and Sonarr using usenet. Hoarding data you never use is just, a waste of space. Upgrading storage space isn’t fun anymore with the prices of drives all fucked up due to AI. I can find anything I want, I only preserve really old stuff as it might get harder to find over time.
I was saving up for an extra NAS with drives adding up to ~100TB, to make a less protected media stream for friends. It first was 2200 euros. When I had the money I checked, 3 months later, it was suddenly 4400 euros. 2 weeks later 6800. I don’t even want to know how much it is right now. So we’re back to when I was young, when you had to be responsible and selective with managing stored data. Sigh.
I think eventually the prices of memory will still drop down though. We just have to get through this AI and data-centric crisis.
Memory might actually go down in price as China prepares to flood the market. Storage however, is a different story. Last thing I heard was that they expected to have the market return to normal in about 10 years or so. But those are just guesses on the current situation, everything can change.
Yeah, it’s not looking that great at the moment, but I think that also will push people to innovate and maybe find different technologies or ways, better ways of compression, something will change.
Or start to burn down data centers as we are all fed up with that bullshit. Guillotine for all AI and tech giant CEO’s.
Wow, i would never be able to actually watch or use 36 terabytes of media.
I do like keeping older things around because nowadays it seems like more and more things are getting lost somehow. Movies or games disappearing altogether from platforms.
Well, it depends on the quality of course. You could download movies of 120GB, it will fill up really fast that way. Not that I do that lol. For me it’s just years and years of collecting, while also having had loads of time at work to watch stuff (like 5 months naval deployments). Now I enjoy my military disability pension, so now I have too much free time to get through.
Hope you can enjoy your pension as much as possible.
I generally don’t download that large sizes because I don’t really have a fancy monitor or anything, but I tend to watch it once and then actually if I want to keep it, I re-encode it or compress it to something that stores well.
Honestly, I have a 4k beamer but 1080p is good enough imo. The higher the resolution, the more details which looks fake. Why would a movie look more sharp than real life. I miss the productions like Band of Brothers. Rough, no/barely cgi. Looks real. Also the details you see with 4k porn are the details I don’t want to see. But that’s just my opinion.
Also, do you actually see any difference between a movie of 12gb and 120gb? I do not.
Better discovery systems would be nice, with the huge amount of media out there I’ve never heard of, there has to be a large subset of it that I would love but just isn’t on my radar
Exactly. Even if you would be able to filter only those things you would love, there is probably still a massive amount of things that would fit.
Watch top 10 lists, 5* reviewed, or cult classics only. Don’t watch what’s new or being heavily promoted, watch the best of the best. Why drink bud light when you can drink champagne for free?
As someone who also downloads books and audiobooks, I can totally relate though.
That was my problem. 20 years ago when I discovered torrent I watched every list of best movies you can think of. After that, everything I watched felt average at best.
Are you me? LOL.
Yeah, you become a complete snob. On the other hand, once you’ve watched enough, perhaps read a few books or watched a few documentaries, you recognise references and techniques much more, and that becomes enjoyable in its own way.
It’s a bit like kids watching classic The Simpsons and enjoying it without getting the references, compared to old people watching classic Simpsons because they get or vaguely recognise most of if not all of the references.
And I find you start to enjoy movies which are different, even if they are a bit shit, because they manage to do certain things in different ways and still surprise you.
This problem is isn’t only about piracy. Also having too much choices isn’t a bad thing, variety is good. you can always find your way.
Maybe I’m just terrible at making choices/decisions
I do find I have this problem even without piracy
Not sure how to practice becoming better at this though.
Usually even when I made a choice, I end up doubting and eventually trying something else instead, never committing to anything.
Also having too much choices isn’t a bad thing
Meh. It’s not all good.
Back in ye olden days, when you had to buy physical media, you’d usually play the album you bought on repeat because it was the only new music you had. Some albums, repeated listening does truly improve your enjoyment and appreciation of them. Same thing for movies, there was nothing else, so you were forced to keep watching, and often learnt to appreciate something you’d have stopped watching now.
Same thing for dating, tbh. People find someone, but then they go on the apps and find someone who might be a bit better, date them for a bit, find someone who might be a bit better, etc. etc. End result; they never get to know one person on a deeper level and miss out on that arguably more rewarding experience.
Or you’d end up wasting your time watching/listening to/ dating something/someone horrible because there wasn’t anything else yet.
This is the answer, OP. Curating your tastes and learning to seek out art based on your values is a skillset that algorithms are attempting to destroy.
You are not a product, engage with art meaningfully like how a person should
I suppose I struggle with the ‘seeking out art based on your values’ part.
I don’t really have strong preferences, I always liked a wide variety of things. (Or maybe I never bothered figuring out my taste)
And even If I know my taste, how to find something that fits without spending hours filtering through things?
I’ve thought about just asking my friends what things they would recommend me. That would already limit the selection. But maybe then again, It wouldn’t be my taste, but theirs.
Well, have you ever seen the website TV Tropes? You can get lost for hours just looking through the different examples of specific plot ideas that make up the entirety of written and visual media. You find a kind of story beat and then some examples and from there you’ll build a vocabulary of how to describe stuff. So when you say, “I really like horror like in The Thing where the monster is our own human body” you can use that to find entire groups of media that’s just like that
There’s also looking at the creators of stuff you enjoy and connecting them to other things. In the music world, musicians often travel from project to project to collaberate on different things. So if you like, say Rage Against the Machine, Tom Morello has actually done all kinds of awesome stuff with other groups.
Thanks for the suggestions!
TV tropes seems useful, but also something where I would spend waay too much time.
Searching for things from the same authors/creators is actually a good idea. I don’t really do that too often.
Glad to help! I was gatekept from a lot of stuff when I was younger so I’m glad to pass along techniques or pick up new ones. When you discover something by yourself, it can feel pretty transcendent. 🤘
This is something that I learned after having kids. There are more things I want to do than I have time to do them. I needed to learn the skill of being selective because time is a zero sum game, unfortunately.
How did you learn that, or did it come over time?
Lists, my guy. Figure out what games you want to play, movies to watch, etc…
You don’t need to hoard everything. You can go around and look as your tastes develop, that’s part of being human after all.
I definitely don’t hoard much. Especially since you can just download anything again when needed.
I have a friend who keeps a stash of downloaded movies thats several TBs big. Never understood that.
But making a choice seems to be difficult for me. How does one develop their taste. I feel like after playing all these games and watching al these movies, i still feel interested in everything. And I’m unable to tell based on just the cover or a review whether I would like it or not.
For movies I actually don’t like looking at reviews or trailers at all because they often show too much already.
It’s not because everything is avaible that you must take everything. Carefully select and make list of what you want/have/“consumed”
Maybe sounds like a stupid question. But how would you go about and do that?
If I just take a list of all games and try to select from that what I want, that seems like a unsurmountable task.
Even just starting with getting a list of games, where do you get this list. Top 100 games of all time? Latest 100 releases? Again endless possibilities.
I don’t take a specific time to create a full list. I just add things when I found them in news, or someone talk about it, a YouTube video, sometimes I just watched a movie, and I’m curious about others made by the same director. The list just grow when I discover something that catch my interest. Otherwise, yes, it would be tedious.
Maybe I just have too many things that catch my interest.
The difficulty is never creating the list but actually going through it later and finishing items from it or trying out things.
Ive got movies, games, books, tv series. Its not a list that I have to get through at any time, but when I have the itch for something specific I look on the list and pick something that Ive got waiting. I have a few subscription services but most of my media is on my home server, so i dont have to worry about losing access. My big thing is just falling too far behind. But thats not so bad either. Lets you binge a series and not be kept waiting. As for games, I changed from Console to PC when the PS5 was sold out 5 years ago. Before that I would mod and pirate every system. Ps2 and 3, Xbox and 360, DS, 3ds, psp, vita… Emulation for the switch. Nothing holding me back. Now, I shop the steam sales.
I used to do the same with my Nintendo DS and my Xbox 360 and just modded and do other things with it, but eventually I just got rid of everything and just have PC now.
Maybe I should just replay and emulate some games from the past.
Had a friend recently try to send me this “arr-stack” that automatically grabbed the top new movie/tv releases of every month. Since he heard I was “doing it the old way”.
When I told him the VAST majority of shit coming out isn’t stuff I’m interested in watching he tried to convince I could just blacklist those things…So almost everything your bot grabs? instead of just grabbing what I actually want?
You can actually select what you want to grab. I mean I use Sonarr and Radarr, and if I’m interested in something new I add it to the library, if all criteria are met (like quality, language, etc.), it queues the download. Pretty neat.
I first had this when I was a kid and got an R4 DS cart. I used go get a handful of games a year and play them to death. Since getting the cart I barely finished any games.
I had the exact same card. I would have endless movies, games and music on my DS on the way to school with the train.
It was amazing, but it soon made all kind of media feel less valuable and magical.
Its so easy to start a game, but then lose interest. But when you do find one that grabs you, you’ll finish it. I found that I will still pay for games and get enjoyment out of them. But so often the gameplay loop doesnt fit the same way it did in the past. Ill replay old games too. Games that I would play for hours and they just dont do it anymore.
But thats because we’ve changed what we do with games. There was a time where like you said, youd get a few games a year and you would get every penny out of them. But now we consume them. We enjoy the gameplay or the story. Do I need to 100% this game? Do I get some enjoyment out of grinding every single corner of the map, and collecting every item? No. Im not going to. My time has value too.
I wonder if that’s an age thing. When I was at college i’d actively choose games based on length. Now it’s all about experience vs value.
I don’t want to grind through an Assassins Creed game, but i’d happily play a 8 hour streamlined story version of the same game.
That makes perfect sense. And I look at the cost too. I will spend full price for a game that I am going to enjoy for 80 hours. But if reviews have said that time is padded with nonsense, hand holding, generic collecting etc? Maybe not. I really appreciate the How Long To Beat database. Since it shows the difference between HLTB and completion. There are lots of games that you can beat in 8 hours but to complete will be way up there. Sometimes their mechanics are so satisfying you go back to them.
I think that makes sense. But at the same time I frequently found myself playing games which don’t necessarily respect your time. Especially nowadays there is a lot of filler and grind added to otherwise great games.
That’s why I also feel ok with people using cheats in singleplayer games. So they can adjust or even disable parts of the game that are just not fun for them.
I tend to enjoy the short 7-10 hours story focused games the most these days. But I still get dragged into roguelikes or crafting \ survival games from time to time.
I totally get that. And it really depends on what you are interested in. Some times I want a game that rewards skill, others I want a game with strategy. Then there are some that really only reward time spent in the game. And the ones I dont play at all, the games that punish time away from the game. Always plugged in, if you dont max out on gameplay this week you will miss a timed unlock etc. That is work.
Im fine with longer games so long as the story is gripping. The God of War titles were amazing, Great story, gameplay loop, rewarded variety etc. But again, like someone else mentioned. Another Ubisoft collectathon? No thank you.
I even struggled to get into breath of the wild, and horizon zero dawn when they came out. Because they reminded me of those generic open world games. But the story pulled me in both times.
The new God of War is actually still on my wishlist. I definitely want to try it. And I think games like that are great when they’re focused very much on the story and the gameplay.
Yeah, I think I stopped playing games like Warframe and Guild Wars 2 when I realized that it was too much about just logging in every day and to get all the rewards and stuff.
I can’t say I don’t have this problem, but the reality is that really is a non-issue regarding piracy.
It comes down to two things actually: procrastination and unnecessary use of your resources. Meaning, you should just start what actually gets you interested, and move on. And instead of data hoarding tons of media, try to consume what you have first instead.
I guess I feel this sense of urgency when playing one game, because there are other things I want to try afterwards so I don’t want to take too long on one thing.
But that feeling is also reducing the enjoyment of the actually game I’m playing at that moment.
“Unsanctioned copying” gives me a big pile to choose from, but in reality I still have nothing. For example I like computer games, but I use Linux, so 2/3 of titles are unplayable. 90% of rest are things that are completely not interesting to me. I am lucky if I can find something playable once or twice per month.
I really don’t feel your problem.
In all the years I’ve been using Linux, there’s been maybe 2 games I couldn’t play, and that was because the developers deliberately blocked Linux users from starting the game, not for any inherent technical reason.
2/3 is a little low. Around 90% of Windows games are playable on Linux using Proton.
90%
Nah. Do you really believe in that? Yes, Unity and Unreal based games are mostly(!) runnable. Anything else is very problematic. Where did you even get that 90% number? From Proton advertisements?
Tom’s hardware, last year. https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/nearly-90-percent-of-windows-games-now-run-on-linux-latest-data-shows-as-windows-10-dies-gaming-on-linux-is-more-viable-than-ever
Could be more by now!
Personally anecdote, but i got a game that was made for windows vista that doesnt work without patches for anything newer than windows 7. But it works out of the box with proton. /shrug
Yeah, Windows managed to break that only really cool characteristic it had: back compatibility. Well, their loss.
It’s undoubtedly higher than 90%
As a Linux user, I definitely live a reality of ~70-80% success with Proton, a bit more if I’m willing to do technical finegling.
Probably depends heavily on what sort of games you tend to play (and your setup). I play a lot of old or indie games, I’m not so big on the latest AAAs or online games.
Yes, may take some tinkering, but playable.
My 14 year old is now doing the tinkering himself after being on Bazzite, then Fedora, for a few years.
I’m also on Linux, but haven’t found a game from my collection yet that doesn’t play (only destiny, but I’m happy I didn’t spend more time on it)
I’ve tried being a bit more strict with my own choices, like limiting to games I already have in my collection or downloaded. Or games that don’t have too much grind or dark patterns.
But it still leaves me with a huge choice.
True. Enough movies have been made, enough books written. There’s no need for more. Stop creating stuff, everyone — unless you really need to, in which case you might be an artist or a writer.
I guess there will always be a place for new media and new books, but I think the problem is not that no more are ever needed. It’s more about how to choose.
I’d like a store like steam, but where they limit their selection to maybe a selection of 100 highly curated games. And change that selection from time to time.
A bit like when you go to the library, they have already done the effort of choosing what books will be on display from the vast collection of books that exist in the world.
If you can’t make the decision for yourself, especially such a inconsequential one, probably just rolle the dice or something. It can even be fun when you define multiple criteria and roll of each, ending up doing something that you already might have anyway, because it’s in your pool, but there’s still kind of discovery here, like you stumble upon something from your own collection.
I usually browse sites like MobyGames in search of games made by some of my favorite devs (as in people, not studios or publishers). Keeping track of their work and discovering new talent is what works for me, and I always end up buying whatever I truly wish to keep even if I make a patched backup of the games’ files anyway in case it wasn’t DRM free.
That’s actually a smart way to go about it.
How would you approach this with bigger titles that have hundreds of programmers though?
Do you search for the lead programmer and check what games they worked on?
Hey, thanks! I like reading and listening to interviews and finding out who did what. Sadly attribution is not always honored so it’s not always possible without insider info. Live service games are the hardest to keep track of but luckily I find them the least interesting. Devs I’ve spoken to also tend to mention their live service work as a dark period in their career.
A somewhat similar thing happens with movies and neverending series, but it’s usually easier to find who worked on lighting for a single episode than whoever programmed a funny looking NPC’s AI for a seasonal event.
I can imagine that part about live service. They probably have to spend way too much time on thinking about monetization and subscription and drip feeding content rather than just making things fun.
luxury problem. download everything let God sort it out
God, I have come to you in this time of dire need, can you please suggest me what game to play next? It’s urgent!
theres a game you probably never heard of: Simpulator Thank me later. 😀
I think I accidentally prayed to the wrong god…
Any roguelike gods here? Maybe immersive sim gods? None? Maybe a soulslike god?
