There are free engines available, and many of the paid ones have cheap or free tiers available for smaller projects. Also, if you want to actually publish your mod, there are likely to be a bunch of costs, like buying licences to use copyrighted characters, settings, ect. Even more so if you want to publish your mod as a standalone product, where you need to buy a licence to resell the entire original game.

That said, prehaps it would help to think of the game engine as a foundation, and the games as a completed house. If you want to make something, you can look at existing houses and imagine putting an extention on, or a new coat of paint. If the house is particularly well contructed, maybe its even easy to do. Still, at a certain point, theres no more you can add or change without it being easier to tear everything down and start from the foundation, or entirely from scratch. Its not a limitation of the design of the house, its just an intrinsic fact when you’re working by building off someone else’s completed work.

Now, if we start from the foundation (engine) instead we have less to start with, meaning its going to be a lot more work than doing minor changes, but the hardest part is still already done for us. This is what most people do when making games. Its far more flexable than modding, esspecially because you have a selection of engines available at different prices, with different strengths, weaknesses and specializations. GameMaker for simple 2D games, RPGMaker for making jrpgs, Unreal for 3D action games, ect.

Finally, you could skip both these options, and design and build everything from scatch. Its the option that gives you most freedom by far, but its generally not worth it unless you’re making something thats very small, that is so unique that nothing else will work, or that you’re dedicated and what a perfect fit for.

Company-made games and standalone games aren’t going anywhere any time soon. Its a different type of project than modding/creating for games like Half Life, Gmod, Minecraft, Roblox, or VRChat. Making games within other games limits what you can do, because you have no control over the engine, and said engine is normally focused on an specific “base” mechanics set. For example, in Gmod, this is an FPS game. Modders can change this gameplay, but the further you push away from it, the less work is done for you, and the more you’re fighting the existing game. At a certain point, you may as well just make a game rather than a mod.

Depends on the use case. If its just to be a piece to fill the spot and nothing else, yes. That said, assets impact tone and gameplay, and if you’re trying to judge how something will feel or play, then sometimes you need something closer to the given use case. For example, if you have a survival horror game and are trying to judge the ambiance and visibility of an in-progress level, using wildly out of place assets will mess with the tone, and may result in difficulty in judging factors like the visibility of gameplay elements. Like was said before, the same role as stock assets and programmer art.

Stock assets (at least if you need more than the absolutely basics) cost quite a bit. Programmer art can work, but if you want something close to the tone of the finished product, still takes time and thus money. Slop is quick and free.

Frankly, given the fact that placeholder assets are literally meant to be utilitarian, disposable, “just good enough” work, it’s actually not a terrible use case. Placeholders are meant to be slop either way, so not much is lost by automating it, so long as it is actually removed after.

Watched through the video, and you’re right. Based on the video, Nvidia’s original statements were, for all intents and purposes, lies. Ironically, since it does seem to be based on the existing DLSS stack (from what I’ve seen), it does have access to things like depth map, it just doesn’t use it. I’ll edit my prior comments.

That said, as I originally said, none of this matters anyway. This technology doesn’t run on desktop hardware. They announced a “”“gaming”“” software that can’t run on gaming hardware. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, because you can’t play games with it. Frankly, at this point, I doubt they’ll even release it.

Yes, but what the tech costs to implement has a huge impact on what it is, and how (or if) its ever implemented. So far as I can tell from my own research, the original commenter was lying, which makes sense. If it actually increased dev time that much, even Nvidia wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and sell it. “AI graphics costs $10 million dollars to implement, and has negligible impact on sales.” would not look good for their bubble.

The inputs from everything Nvidia has said, are simply the final pixel colour values and motion vector information.

Edit: It does not use the same inputs as DLSS 4. It only uses motion vectors and 2D color. (See https://sh.itjust.works/comment/24367414) This could change, but most of Nvidia’s marketing is currently bullshit.

If it is the same as DLSS 4 Super Resolution, it seems to use motion vectors, colour buffers, depth buffers, and camera information like exposure. That said, this might change, as, like I said, they’re showing off something they haven’t even got running on the target hardware. Its clearly not even close to being a finished product.

Yes, depending on implementation details. I mean, its never going to be completely consistant, but I don’t expect these companies to mind a little brand damage if they get short-term boost in invest.

I’m more thinking that as it stands, the hardware requirements make it DOA for users. They’re saying they’ll improve it, although I have my doubts. That said, even if no one can run it, it may be popular among publishers for screenshots and marketing. On the other hand, if it does actually double dev costs, then it’ll be DOA even for corporate use.

Its more an argument against the, “artisit’s intent” and “disrupting gameplay” points.

Yes, let’s double (or more) the workload of artists and programmers

Do you have any evidence for this? Given whats been shown, this seems relatively easy to implement on the game dev side.

Edit: The claim about doubling dev time was pulled out of the user’s ass. DLSS5 is (at least currently) literally just a filter on the already rendered frame. (See https://sh.itjust.works/comment/24367414)

From my understanding, it may be possible to work around some of this, since the program is meant to hook into the game in a number of different ways. Its very possible that an “importance” mask could be added as in input, for example. This wouldn’t fix everything, but would still give a way to separate game elements from environmental details.

That said, theres been so much focus on how it looks. IMO, its completely overblown, especially when all of this needs to be manually configued on a game-by-game basis. Devs can tweak the settings to their own preferences, and make things more or less extreme.

The part thats much more worthwhile of mockery is the fact that they’re demoing a consumer product on professional grade hardware, during a hardware shortage. They couldn’t even get the demo working on a high-end gaming PC, and they think this tech is worth advertising? That is the funny part of all this.

Edit: This could change, but most of Nvidia’s marketing around developer control of output is currently bullshit. (See https://sh.itjust.works/comment/24367414)

Yes, there’s a huge difference between selling something with transparent pricing versus offering it as a gambling prize.

The issue is not the price, it’s the addictive gambling mechanic. It’s not about making sure steam doesn’t rip people off, it’s about making sure steam doesn’t get kids addicted to gambling.

Yes, exactly my point. Whether you paid previously, and whether its available without gambling has no impact on the definition of gambling or if it is bad.

I mean, currently Counter Strike already has (had?) an ESRB M rating, as did TF2. Dota isn’t rated, but would clearly also be M, given abilites like Rupture. Do you think we just need to reduce the normalization of it?

Bought from valve directly? Because I don’t think saying you can buy the skin from the Steam marketplace for $1,000 is the slam dunk argument you think it is.

Technically, yes, bought from them directly, but I’m not sure how that distinction matters one way or another.

Either way, you either spend about $1000 on lootboxes, gambling to get it, or you buy it from another player for about that much. Given that the value is player set based on supply and demand, the price will be in the same ballpark either way. You can argue that the price is absurd and abusive, but thats an argument against high prices on worthless digital items, not one against lootboxes.

Honest question I’m curious to hear peoples opinions on: Gambling is obviously dangerous, and I think we can all agree that exposing kids to it easly is bad. At the same time, for any form of virtual gambling, how do you ensure that kids can’t access it without putting a significant limit on adults’ freedoms? Like, Lemmy is very pro-privacy, but would this be a case where the (few) merits of ID based verification would be justified, or should we be just be banning all gambling outside of designated casinos, or…

Edit: Honestly, thinking it over and reading responses, my personal thoughts are to require clear disclosures on products that include gambling (physical or not), possibly put stricter regulations on how it is accessed, such as a safety warning before accessing it to add another step of friction each time, and put limitations on the mechanics of it to prevent rigging the odds in ways that are manipulative or abusive. Be curious to hear people’s opinions on this too.

Secondary argument: if you buy a game, you shouldn’t have to gamble to get the game’s content.

This one doesn’t apply to Valve’s games, both because the base games are free and because the items can be bought directly. The rest of the gaming industry on the other hand…

Dota 2 is great (I’ve got thousands of hours, and am still on the low side in my circles) but its hardly something I’d recommend for those who don’t want to spend time learning. Its like 50 hours to learn the basics, then another hundred to understand basic positioning and strategy.

And with good reason, given that high quality content is expensive. Even for a channel that is purely something as simple as video essays, if you’re doing a good job, its going to take hundreds of hours of research and writing, nonetheless something more demanding.

As someone who doesn’t pay attention to niche fighting games: Guilty Gear games are still being made? I thought they were a retro game or something. I think you’re overestimating it’s prominence. The only moden fighting games that come to mind as someone who has no interest in competitve play are Street Fighter, Mortal Combat (and Injustice), Smash Bros, and 2XKO. I’m don’t have confidence to say that fighting games aren’t growing, but the only news/attention I’ve seen for the genre since the launch of Street Fighter 6 has been a couple 2XKO trailers.

This isn’t a tier list tier list. Its clearly a tier list tier tier list.

Correction: asked my friend, and shoes off is the normal expectation in Nigeria. Slippers are just a personal preference, so the chart is just wrong.