May 2025 PC Gamer Article Discussion

[Zed Clampet]

NM

 

[neogunhero]

NM

Placeholder?

This Acer RTX 4050 notebook is just $600 and, with a cheap RAM upgrade, you'll have a brilliant budget gaming laptop

Plus, you can add a second SSD to host your bulging Steam library.

www.pcgamer.com

Still window shopping, not going to commit to anything. But this seems like a good deal, until I saw at my local Walmart they have a laptop with an RTX 4060, 16GB DDR4, tiniest bit faster CPU (13420H), all for only $100 more. $700 for a good 1080p machine is quite a steal IMO.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Placeholder?

This Acer RTX 4050 notebook is just $600 and, with a cheap RAM upgrade, you'll have a brilliant budget gaming laptop

Plus, you can add a second SSD to host your bulging Steam library.

www.pcgamer.com

Still window shopping, not going to commit to anything. But this seems like a good deal, until I saw at my local Walmart they have a laptop with an RTX 4060, 16GB DDR4, tiniest bit faster CPU (13420H), all for only $100 more. $700 for a good 1080p machine is quite a steal IMO.

Probably not for this one since it's just articles, but I'm working on the other one now.

Laptops look pretty solid

 

[Frindis]

Gearbox is 'making rarity matter again' in Borderlands 4 after dropping too many legendaries in Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 "devalued" legendary items, so in Borderlands 4 they'll "truly be special events."

www.pcgamer.com

The problem in Borderlands 3 (with the exception of having atrocious and childish humor and an incredibly weak kakapo plot) is that a lot of the legendary weapons/items were bad. Visually a lot were good, but not so much with the functionality. So I think it is a good idea to lower drop rate more towards how it was like in Borderlands 2 and make them feel strong and cool! I get a rash whenever I hear words like special events, so lets hope it is not going to be anything close to boring world boss special events, as nobody wants to push buttons/levers or wait for stuff to die slowly. We want to speed farm stuff over and over again!

 

[neogunhero]

Gearbox is 'making rarity matter again' in Borderlands 4 after dropping too many legendaries in Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 "devalued" legendary items, so in Borderlands 4 they'll "truly be special events."

www.pcgamer.com

The problem in Borderlands 3 (with the exception of having atrocious and childish humor and an incredibly weak kakapo plot) is that a lot of the legendary weapons/items were bad. Visually a lot were good, but not so much with the functionality. So I think it is a good idea to lower drop rate more towards how it was like in Borderlands 2 and make them feel strong and cool! I get a rash whenever I hear words like special events, so lets hope it is not going to be anything close to boring world boss special events, as nobody wants to push buttons/levers or wait for stuff to die slowly. We want to speed farm stuff over and over again!

I’ve never been a fan of the Borderlands series mainly due to its dialogue and style of humor, I always found it hard to ignore. I’ve heard lots of other people complain about the same things, especially with BL3, so I’m hoping they can tone that back with 4 because the gameplay I’ve seen looks really fun.

 

[neogunhero]

Polygon sheds staff, editor-in-chief departs following sale to Game Rant owner Valnet

Vox Media has sold Polygon, the gaming site it founded in 2012 as "a new kind of website, built on new technology, backed by a new kind of media company."

www.pcgamer.com

RIP Polygon. I was just an occasional reader, but I have read them for well over a decade. They have done some seriously amazing work in the games journalism space. All of their writers were incredibly talented too, it's very sad to see it end this way.

"In April, Valnet sued media outlet The Wrap over an investigative report which characterizes the publisher as a "digital sweatshop," calling the article "an inflammatory hit piece." The Wrap's legal counsel describes Valnet's lawsuits as "inconsistent, contradictory and meritless.""

I have talked about this similar topic but never knew the parent company was called Valnet. They run sites like TheGamer, Game Rant, Screen Rant, and several others. I posted that I've noticed how these three sites pump out tons of articles every day, with very clickbaity titles like "best dungeons in Oblivion Remastered" or "best Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 builds". They are in tune with what games are popular, and dish out tons of articles revolving around it in the hopes that they are the first link you click on Google, and to their credit they have achieved this already. Any time you search a specific question about a specific game, you will most definately get articles from The Gamer and Game Rant, so it's just sad to see a website dedicated to real games journalism being sold to a clickbait farm company.

 

[Colif]

Polygone.

I have a video about this:

poly gone, dead parrot (I will go now)

can the verge be next?

The last believable article on that site has already been made, they now a click farm. Soon they be making articles about games that don't exist, based on fact people search for them in hope that they do. Why not, its what the other sites on network do.

i didn't know Valnet also owned fextralife, that channel on YT has earned a bad rep for making things up... it figures

 

[Frindis]

i didn't know Valnet also owned fextralife, that channel on YT has earned a bad rep for making things up... it figures

I don't know what Fextralife is like now, but not too long ago, they gained a bad reputation for artificially inflating their viewer count on Twitch, making their channel appear far more popular than it actually was. If I’m not mistaken, they achieved this by embedding their Twitch livestream into their homepage, so that each visit to the homepage counted as an active viewer on Twitch. Essentially, they had thousands of "viewers" aka viewbotting and were competing with top streamers, while only a small number of real people were actually watching their livestream.

 

[Colif]

Perhaps I had twitch and Youtube mixed up.

the linking to front page thing doesn't suprise me, what does is more people haven't done it yet.

 

[Frindis]

They probably did both. I have seen a few of these so called experts on YouTube making "best build, best weapon, best talent tree" and getting ridiculed by ranked players who actually know what they are talking about. Unfortunately a lot of them go under the radar if the game is to casual and people get stuck with dumb builds while giving these channels free ad revenue.

 

[Zed Clampet]

They probably did both. I have seen a few of these so called experts on YouTube making "best build, best weapon, best talent tree" and getting ridiculed by ranked players who actually know what they are talking about. Unfortunately a lot of them go under the radar if the game is to casual and people get stuck with dumb builds while giving these channels free ad revenue.

Bad builds are an epidemic. People see someone say it's a good build, and they never question it. I saw a bunch of people on reddit talking about a build for Darktide, so I went into the game and changed everything to that build. Supposedly it was a high damage build, but it was only increasing your damage by 5 percent. Meanwhile, my normal build increased my damage by 30 percent. And there were no other advantages to their build, either.

 

[Colif]

They get as many build videos/articles as possible out there, they don't care if the facts are questionable, its about getting traffic. They did it for Diablo 4, and any new ARPG that comes out that people are interested in.

You don't learn anything consuming their content, if anything it can leave you more in the dark.

 

[BeardyHat]

Grand Theft Auto 6's delay makes me think we won't be playing this thing on PC until 2027, or god forbid even 2028

So... GTA 7 in 2040?

www.pcgamer.com

Tragedy! Alas! Alac! What will I do until then?! Why I'll just have to sit and twiddle my thumbs for several more years with nothing to do! Woe is me!

Yes, I'm being glib. I know GTA is a big game, I've played every single one of them, even GTA 1 + 2, but who cares? GTA is a known formula at this point, so what are we really expecting? I have heaps of other games to play, with more coming out every day. As far as I'm concerned, it'll be into the 2030s before I play 6, as I'll probably wait for a heavy discount.

Incidentally, I bought some Take Two stock today...

 

[neogunhero]

Grand Theft Auto 6's delay makes me think we won't be playing this thing on PC until 2027, or god forbid even 2028

So... GTA 7 in 2040?

www.pcgamer.com

Tragedy! Alas! Alac! What will I do until then?! Why I'll just have to sit and twiddle my thumbs for several more years with nothing to do! Woe is me!

Yes, I'm being glib. I know GTA is a big game, I've played every single one of them, even GTA 1 + 2, but who cares? GTA is a known formula at this point, so what are we really expecting? I have heaps of other games to play, with more coming out every day. As far as I'm concerned, it'll be into the 2030s before I play 6, as I'll probably wait for a heavy discount.

Incidentally, I bought some Take Two stock today...

Now I can’t have a kid until AFTER May 2026. Tragedy!

While I am excited to play it, I struggle to figure out what could be so different. Besides better graphics, smarter NPC AI, and more features borrowed from other games, I really can’t think of how this could be any different than just those upgrades. What is so innovative and unique that has never been done before but will apparently be in GTA 6? I genuinely can’t think of anything, but then again I’m not the head of a multi-billion dollar company.

 

[Frindis]

@neogunhero Maybe they'll borrow some ideas from the countless RP servers. RP as a cop, try to arrest the bad guys and go home to a shitty apartment near the docks while trying to not to skim off the top.

 

[neogunhero]

@neogunhero Maybe they'll borrow some ideas from the countless RP servers. RP as a cop, try to arrest the bad guys and go home to a shitty apartment near the docks while trying to not to skim off the top.

Honestly, I would not be surprised if features from the RP servers made its way to the base game. Rockstar did hire one of the major teams working on those RP servers after all, so there is speculation that it may come true.

 

[Pifanjr]

Following its huge win over Apple, Epic says it will take even less money from developers who use its store

Epic is also launching new Webshops that will enable developers to bypass the "exorbitant fees" charged by Apple and Google.

www.pcgamer.com

I wonder if Android will be forced to recognise the Epic Games app as an "approved source", so you don't have to go into the settings of your phone to explicitly give it permissions to download apps.

I currently cannot use the Epic Games app on my work phone because the IT department doesn't allow me to edit the approved sources.

US federal judge on Meta's AI copyright fair use argument: 'You are dramatically changing, you might even say obliterating, the market for that person's work'

"I just don't understand how that can be fair use."

www.pcgamer.com

From what I understand about AI models, I'm not entirely convinced that they are "highly transformative", at least not for content that appears many times in the AI's training set.

I also feel like it's pretty obvious that AI is already affecting the market for a lot of people working in creative fields.

 

[Colif]

GTA 7
Oh no, think of all the spam that never gets to exist now until 2027/8.

I wonder what system requirements will be for it as if they too high, entire countries won't be able to play the sequel to their favorite game they all wanted to post about 2 years ago.

GTA isn't even about stealing cars now. I know there are some quests in last game but it seems to be more about bank jobs now. Sure, its been like that since it swapped to 3d but come on, its in the name.

my dislike for cop chases that started with Need For Speed just made me reject that game. That and I don't really play shooting games. Only ones I used to were Fallout as VATS made it easier.

I don't like open world games where it doesn't free you from the story long enough to just explore world.

 

[Frindis]

GTA 7
Oh no, think of all the spam that never gets to exist now until 2027/8.

I wonder what system requirements will be for it as if they too high, entire countries won't be able to play the sequel to their favorite game they all wanted to post about 2 years ago.

Cloud gaming is one way if the internet connection is good. Speed will be a problem in some countries though, not to mention restrictions to some of these platforms.

GTA isn't even about stealing cars now. I know there are some quests in last game but it seems to be more about bank jobs now. Sure, its been like that since it swapped to 3d but come on, its in the name.

Stealing cars has increased a bit more than it was since they have introduced Chop Shop DLC with more focus on cars.

When I played a few years back they also had a part of the game with you stealing cars and selling them for profit. I often used a cargobob for these missions and it was actually a lot of fun trying to lift them up and bring them back to HQ while trying to avoid other players and AI.

Unfortunately doing some of these missions were hard on full populated servers because of the countless of hackers, so I often did a small trick to get into small populated servers for a few minutes before they would fill up. Similar trick could also be done in Red Dead Redemption 2 which was also notorious for people hacking and then blowing up your cargo instantly. Hours of work could be over with a poof if you did not take advantage of the game mechanics.

For me GTA is roughly 30% story and 70% exploration doing silly stunts, finding secrets, killing people in fun ways and finding ways to earn money either alone or with a friend or two.

my dislike for cop chases that started with Need For Speed just made me reject that game. That and I don't really play shooting games. Only ones I used to were Fallout as VATS made it easier.

I don't like open world games where it doesn't free you from the story long enough to just explore world.

Cops chases is very hit and miss in GTA. There is one heist in GTA V that is incredibly well put together, with you starting with stealing a vault, getting in either with brute force or stealth and then trying to get out while not triggering alarm. If you go the more brute force way, you'll have tons of cops after you and you have to run through streets to either parked getaway cars or a police helicopter on roof. Then it is driving away into the sunset.

The other mission with you breaking out a friend from a maximum prison is also really fun and even more chaotic since you need to have people both skilled in shooting at ground and someone who knows how to fly a plane. Even the last sequence of the heist has people dying because you have to parachute out of a plane at the right moment.

There is also one with you robbing a bank, cops chasing you while you drive on motorbikes on train tracks and end up jumping from a cliff into a boat. Short, but fun missions with the interaction with the cops fun as you have heavy armor and big guns to mow them down if you so please.

I remember most heists as high adrenaline filling and often hilariously fun to play with casual people because soooooo much can go wrong and then you have all the raging happening. It is quite special

 

[Zed Clampet]

US federal judge on Meta's AI copyright fair use argument: 'You are dramatically changing, you might even say obliterating, the market for that person's work'

"I just don't understand how that can be fair use."

www.pcgamer.com

From what I understand about AI models, I'm not entirely convinced that they are "highly transformative", at least not for content that appears many times in the AI's training set.

I also feel like it's pretty obvious that AI is already affecting the market for a lot of people working in creative fields.

They have the ability to be highly transformative because they have so many different things in their training, but we haven't seen this use of AI up to this point except in the role play story telling sites and in AI art. The key to most of this transformative work, however, is that humans are prompting it and training it individually for these purposes.

What really gets me about this Facebook thing is that Facebook was pirating their data. Shouldn't there be massive penalties for this?

Now I can’t have a kid until AFTER May 2026. Tragedy!

GTA games are great for introducing children to gaming, alternate lifestyles, creative ways of earning a living, and non-traditional methods of dealing with disputes, car wrecks, etc.

Also, we could finally settle the argument of whether games have an influence on young children.

 

[Pifanjr]

What really gets me about this Facebook thing is that Facebook was pirating their data. Shouldn't there be massive penalties for this?

As far as I know pirating is only an issue if the owner sues you, so it might be part of the ongoing lawsuit or it might require a separate lawsuit, but I doubt the penalties are very high if the AI that was trained on the pirated content isn't considered breaking copyright itself.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's publisher says Oblivion Remastered 'didn't seem to harm us at all', in fact, it may have helped: 'Everybody was thinking and talking about the genre'

Sometimes you get lucky, and players are just happy to have two cakes.

www.pcgamer.com

At least for now, I'm assuming Oblivion as at least slightly outsold COE33 even though COE33 has been #1 in Steam's global top sellers list every day except for the day Oblivion launched because I expect Oblivion has massive initial sales. The question is did the Oblivion stealth launch hurt COE33, and it's hard to imagine that it didn't hurt COE33 at all. It obviously didn't completely kill COE33 because while there are no accurate estimates of PC sales yet, it's clearly well over 1 million, and COE33 currently has 108,000 concurrents compared to Oblivion's 79,000. But how well would it have done without Oblivion we'll never know, and, of course, it's possible that it could make up missed sales later and that people who might have bought it are simply delaying their purchase.

 

[Zed Clampet]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/grand-theft-auto/you-cant-escape-us-devolver-plots-to-release-a-game-on-gta-6s-release-date-no-matter-when-that-is/\

 

[Pifanjr]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/grand-theft-auto/you-cant-escape-us-devolver-plots-to-release-a-game-on-gta-6s-release-date-no-matter-when-that-is/\

Launching a GTA-like game on PC if GTA 6 only releases on consoles might not actually be a bad idea.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Launching a GTA-like game on PC if GTA 6 only releases on consoles might not actually be a bad idea.

It would be a great idea. If they had something like that, though, I don't think they would shelve it a year just to launch with GTA 6. I think they are just being amusing. I'm sure they'll find something to launch then.