Trainguyrom

If you think preventing predatory practices through legislation is a "nanny state" then I think you fail to understand the purpose of a government in a society with profit-driven companies

I mean, in the US before the reversal of the Chevron doctorine, the easy solution would be to pass legislation banning "dark patterns" then assign a regulatory agency to design guidance and enforce the law

Gambling is heavily regulated in most countries, often including requiring the odds of winning being clearly listed and regulating the profit margin that The House can take (usually limited to less than 10%)

Many casinos and developers of addictive games will hire psychologists and other experts on human condition to help them find ways to make the game more addictive and make it easier to seperate players from their money. These "dark patterns" both make gaming worse and make it more dangerous for anyone unfortunate enough to develop an addiction.

In short, I welcome regulation on the worst aspects of the game industry to keep the worst aspects from become too financially successful to not implement (see the $60 AA and AAA games that launched with lootboxes and predatory micro-transactions like this one about 10 years ago before some countries announced they were investigating regulating such practices)

I’d also argue the ‘GAMES MUST BE ULTRA AT 4K144 OR DONT BOTHER’ take is wrong.

Some of the best games I've played have graphics that'll run on a midrange GPU from a decade ago, if not just integrated graphics

Case in point, this is what I'm playing right now:

Was that a short story before Twilight Zone or was it adapted into from Twilight Zone episode later?

SpongeBob did a episode that was a retelling of Telltale Heart even!

When I was a kid the lady who ran a daycare out of her home that I attended would play the old yeller movie for us and it was probably our favorite film. I learned later from my mom that the secret is she conveniently ends the film before the ending so it's just a happy story about a good doggie

Usually with automated systems hitting whatever option gets you to a human no matter how wrong it is will get you to the right place eventually

I worked in a callcenter for 4 years. I have zero fear of work calls, but I still avoid calls to a rediculous extent in my personal life

Probably a check. If this was a while ago or a smaller landlord that just doesn't have a fancypants website with a payment portal they probably have to drop a check off at their office each month. I had to do that in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty one before I got my house

Edit to add: the lowish rent definitely supports either reason too. Small towns most businesses have no web presence beyond a Facebook page or maybe some static html made by the local computer place 5-15 years ago that they haven't updated since then because they aren't seeing the value in spending money to update it. It really is like going back in time technologically a good 15 years living in a small town

Sometimes I feel bad for scammers because I know how long it takes just to freaking reset a password on legitimate support calls at work (and usually that's someone who's put in a vague ticket saying "software isn't working" so I emailed them a "I'm not a psychic" email with a link to schedule a call which requires one to schedule on the next business day just to finally talk on the phone and identify what they couldn't write out in their ticket 2 days ago) but then I remember that they're fucking scammers and often fully aware of what they're doing