It’s especially weird that companies are still like this after seeing the success of a game like Baldurs Gate 3. The runaway hit of the year, and biggest earner on Steam, doesn’t even implement the basic Steam DRM. I tried it. The game launches and runs just fine when Steam isn’t running at all. It’s so messed up how capitalism leads to that (providing good products at fair prices and respecting your audience) being seen as an “unsustainable business model.”

Half-Life: Alyx is the game that shows us just how incredible vr can be. And it’s the game that ruins you for all other vr games because nothing else is anywhere near as good.

Since you mentioned Myst, Cyan published a vr game called The Last Clockwinder. It’s a cozy little game where you solve puzzles using automatons that repeat your own recorded actions. So for example, you record yourself picking up an object and dropping it in a bucket, and then a robot repeats the same actions over and over. Before long you’re creating assembly lines of robots that are all interacting with each other, and are all recordings of you. It’s easier to understand from watching a trailer. Anyway, it has a cute solarpunk(?) aesthetic, some nice casual queerness, and the kind of corny, earnest performances I remember from the Myst games. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1755100/The_Last_Clockwinder/

Beat Saber is an obvious good option, but before you spend any money on song packs, check out a site like BEATSAVER. Beat Saber can be modded and there are custom song managers you can use, but you don’t have to bother with all that if you really don’t want to. Downloading the zip file from beatsaver and dropping it into beat saber directory is enough (assuming the custom song didn’t require any mods, some of them do). There are so many good songs on there that rival anything officially released.

Also Blade and Sorcery. It’s rough around the edges, but the implementation of magic is pretty great. Hurling fireballs, using telekinesis to pick up and throw weapons, objects, and enemies, holding a ball of electricity in one hand and using it to imbue the sword you’re holding in your other hand, it’s all very fun. Even if it does make me more motion-sick than just about anything I’ve played in vr.

Fully expecting this to be yet another Rockstar Special, i.e. a technical marvel rendering a painstakingly crafted world, full of boring gameplay, underdeveloped systems, and dull, unlikable characters.

I like the grapefruit seltzer and hate actual grapefruit

Are we squeamish about sex? This place does seem less horny than other online spaces, but like, not because the people on here are prudes or sex-negative. More like people here understand how fast horny-posting can turn into something uncomfortable, or into outright sexual harassment, and in the interest of keeping this place nice, are doing the horny-posting in more appropriate places. I don’t know, I’ve never gotten the impression that hexbear is uncomfortable with sex, or that this place is completely sexless, just that we maintain a respectful distance from it to ensure everyone’s comfort and a minimum of drama

um, wow, seethe much?

if I take “identity politics” seriously I’m either going to have to stick my neck out for other people, or feel guilty that I’m not sticking my neck out for other people, and there are a lot of really good video games in my backlog, soooo…