A couple of major factors:

Users who expect low prices - This partly because of the history of mobile games being smaller and/or ad-funded but also because the vast majority of people playing games on their phone are looking for a low barrier to entry, time waster, not specifically a game.

Lack of regulation or enforcement - other gambling heavy fields tend to be at least somewhat regulated, but mobile games are very light on regulation, and even lighter on enforcement. This allows them to falsely advertise their games and how they function (both in terms of misleading ads, and lying about chance based events and purchases in-game).

Monopolistic middlemen - On other platforms, theres more direct competition (IE, Sony and Microsoft’s generally more direct competition) or companies that prioritize long-term growth and stability (IE Steam or Itch.io). Apple and Google, on the other hand, largely compete on brand perception and hardware specs. These means that their app stores, where they make most of their money, have zero competitors. Seeing as they have no reason to make the stores better, they can instead promote whatever makes them the most money; that being exactly these manipulate, sketchy, virtual slot machines.

I think it is technically possible - with the Valve Index you can read the camera input like a webcam, and I’m sure theres some way to do it with the Quests (although probably not easily). That said, as others have noted, between the bulkyness of the headset, the lower quality of the cameras, the risk of losing tracking, and the natural shakyness of people’s heads, it likely wouldn’t be an improvement. Try watching VR footage from someone who doesn’t stream/video it regularly and you can get an idea of how hard the footage can be to follow, even before the lower camera quality.

It would be anywhere between 2 and 5.

Either physical or digital. And I have access to a PC (with a bunch of emulators) or mobile phones.

Exactly what everyone else said, regardless of how much troubleshooting they did. Lol

Literally just a 3.5mm headset plugged directly into the mobo. As simple as can be.

I hope I can switch some day, but I doubt a lot of my actually specialized software will work any time soon, even if the audio issues have been fixed (or my computer replaced) so I don’t expect to any time soon, unfortunately.

I think it was about a year ago. I have given up since then, but I have yet to find anyone capable of getting my audio to work properly, despite many hours of trying and help from multiple people from the Linux support subreddit. It might have been fixed since then, but I don’t have the disk space nor the time to attempt the switch again, and if I can’t even get audio to work, then I can’t use the OS.

Edit: I believe this is the mobo if you want to look into things yourself. The best I every got was audio that was delayed by about a second. https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/AB350M-HDV/index.asp

Specialized software like my audio drivers?

I left it out because its something that can (theoretically) be left for a more convenient time such as a weekend, so its a less one-to-one comparison. That said, thats still additional work compared to buying food.

Relative to cooking a similar meal, absolutely. Getting McDonalds takes like 5 mins and almost no effort. Less if ordering for delivery or pickup. If I want to cook myself a burger its probably going to take me like 40 minutes to makes and fry the burger, and prepare toppings. Im sure a good chef could do it much faster, but thats not me, and esspecially not after a full work day.

Edit: Plus, less directly measurable and comparable, but the time and work for planning, shopping, and dishes afterwards.

Its not really about the taste - its about the speed and convenience. If you want good food, you make your own. If you just finished a shift in a back-breaking job, and hate cooking, then its a chance to relax and free up some time.

Unfortunately, Lemmy is the only one with content that appeals to me so far (at least to my knowledge, given the near-unsearchable nature of the fediverseso far). The platforms just aren’t large enough.

I think this one is already a thing as of a few months ago, but maybe its not rolled out to your instance yet.

Its just been my personal experience browsing, sorting by new. Generally, anything that could potentially be viewed as an ad (nonetheless a paywall) gets downvoted. For example, I used to see more art shared, and often users who included watermarks (even non-disruptive ones), or links to a patreon would be immediately downvoted. I’ve also seen YouTube creators criticized here for simply selling merch. Even just a couple days ago, I commented on the same trend, and another user quickly replied to tell me its a good thing nothing here can be monitized because money ruins everything. There are exceptions, esspecially with open source software, but these seem more the exception than the norm, in my experience.

They also often rely on commissions or supporter pages to cover costs or make a living, which Lemmy is often hostile to.

Unfortunately, while it only takes one user to make these communities, there is rarely enough to maintain activity and esspecially not discussion on them. Even fairly large niches, such as Dota, rarely get more than a post or two a month, and no meaningful discussion despite it being a game that emphasizes theorycrafting so heavily.

Galahad

Eleanor

Emeline

Emeric

Lancelot

Siegfried

It absolutely can, but doesn’t always. For example, Gamer’s Nexus is well respected for their thorough and unbiased research and journalism. It would be extremely difficult for them to do so without ads and merch sales, as any products reviewed must be purchased, testing equipment needs to bought, and experts need to be hired to use said equipment. Until capitalism ceases to exist, most people who make stuff will need to find a way to fund their work, from paint brushes to high-end testing equipment. If we can’t accept this, we will rarely get creators willing to provide quality content, and what we do get will be biased towards those with the money to burn.

If used in the specific niche use cases its trained for, as long as its used as a tool and not a final product. For example, using AI to generate background elements of a complete image. The AI elements aren’t the focus, and should be things that shouldn’t matter, but it might be better to use an AI element rather than doing a bare minimum element by hand. This might be something like a blurred out environment background behind a peice of hand drawn character art - otherwise it might just be a gradient or solid colour because it isn’t important, but having something low-quality is better than having effectively nothing.

In a similar case, for multidisciplinary projects where the artists can’t realistically work proficiently in every field required, AI assets may be good enough to meet the minimum requirements to at least complete the project. For example, I do a lot of game modding - I’m proficient with programming, game/level design, and 3D modeling, but not good enough to make dozens of textures and sounds that are up to snuff. I might be able to dedicate time to make a couple of most key resources myself or hire someone, but seeing as this is a non-commercial, non-monitized project I can’t buy resources regularly. AI can be a good enough solution to get the project out the door.

In the same way, LLM tools can be good if used as a way to “extend” existing works. Its a generally bad idea to rely entirely on them, but if you use it to polish a sentence you wrote, come up with phrasing ideas, or write your long if-chain for you, then it’s a way of improving or speeding up your work.

Basically, AI tools as they are, should be seen as another tool by those in or adjacent to the related profession - another tool in the toolbox rather than a way to replace the human.

Its not that old (although that does fit the theme) but Hotline Miami 1, and to a lesser extent, 2. Both are limited a lot by the engine, and by the small scale of their development. If they could be re-made in a new engine, with some modern customizability and QoL features, as well as added polish on things like the door physics, I think it could go a long way to ensuring they stand the test of time.