This new edition concludes the Half-Life 2 development story, with never-before-seen concept art from Episode One and Episode Two, along with ideas and experiments for the third episode that never came to be.

Not that it should be a surprise to anyone, but is this the first time Valve has openly admitted that Episode 3 is officially cancelled?

It depends. Of course it’s fine to have no opinion about, say, which sports team should win the big game, because that doesn’t matter. And even on bigger issues like fiscal policy, it’s okay to just admit you don’t know enough about a complicated subject to have an informed opinion. While I do think it’s important to educate yourself as much as you can, no one can reasonably learn everything about everything in order to have all of the right opinions all of the time.

But some issues are both important and clear cut. Like, if someone says they have “no opinion” on whether LGBTQ people deserve equal rights… no, no I will not accept “no opinion” as an answer here. You don’t need to read mountains of theory to disavow bigotry, and if anyone tries to give an excuse for why they won’t, I’ll consider that complicit.

There’s an entire genre of fantastic arcade/versus puzzle games not named Tetris. And that whole genre lies forgotten in ruins now. The one game that survived the longest was Puyo Puyo, but ironically, you can blame Tetris for killing that IP in the end.

I wish any developer luck in trying to do anything at all with this genre, give me something new and I will be first in line to buy ten copies. But I don’t think Pajitnov, or anyone else for that matter, will ever find even 1% of the success Tetris did. I just don’t think audiences still want this genre anymore, they just want Tetris and only Tetris.

This dumbass contacted Nintendo to taunt them about how he’s gonna stream leaked pirated copies. Hard to have sympathy for this idiot for poking the bear.

Mobile very quickly turned into a race-to-the-bottom. When the market is flooded, any paid title has an incredibly difficult time standing out. So in order to get players in the door, you gotta make it f2p. And in order to maximize profits for a f2p game, you gotta employ all the worst dark patterns, because that’s what all your competitors are doing too.

And this has led to a feedback loop of consumer expectations. People understand that this is just what mobile is now, so people who want anything else have given up on mobile and are instead buying games on other platforms. Releasing a premium title on mobile is basically just trying to sell to the wrong audience.

Biden is one of several reasons. Pelosi is another.

Do they though? The biggest and most profitable games right now are all live services. Consumers are very much voting for live services.

Rivals has found its niche, but I don’t think even that is pulling in the kinds of numbers Warner expects for a AAA they sunk this much money into.

What’s a foot long and slippery? A slipper.

What’s red and smells like blue paint? Red paint.

Why did the blind man fall in the well? He couldn’t see that well.

A man goes to the doctor and says “I think I have hearing problems.” “Can you describe the symptoms?” “Sure! Homer’s fat and Marge has blue hair.”

Did you hear about the huge sale at the Lego store? People were lined up for blocks.

I sat down for dinner at a restaurant, and the waiter asked me, “Do you want to hear today’s special?” I said, “Yes please.” “No problem sir. Today is special.”

I’d tell you a time travel joke, but you didn’t get it.

I used to work at a toy factory making plastic Draculas. There were only two of us, so I had to make every second Count.

You don’t have to tell me the other guy is terrible. I know he is.

But did you actually watch the debate? The fact that he came out of that debate arguably looking even worse than Trump - in the eyes of voters, don’t even try to argue this one - was a clear red flag.

There was never any ‘advantage’ here, and Biden stepped down because even he knew it.

If you want to “do everything you can to win”, step one is not running the guy who was borderline incoherent in the debates. Staying by that would’ve been shooting yourself in the leg.

Did we watch the same debate here? There was never any advantage coming out of that one.

I’m basing my analysis on the observable trend that incumbents lose when the economy is poor. As well as, y’know, Biden’s abysmal poll numbers after the debate, the reason he dropped out in the first place.

You’re the one who started insisting incumbent advantage would’ve been a thing here, where’s your crystal ball?

Encumbant advantage? In this economic climate, it’s exactly the opposite. People who are feeling increasingly fed up with a world in which they cannot make ends meet vote against the status quo.

4 years of Trump got people to vote against Trump. 4 years of Biden got people to vote against his VP.

Biden himself would lost even harder than Kamala did.

I can’t stop thinking about how in 2016, my conservative grandmother watched the primary debates and told me she actually thought Bernie made a lot of good points.

And then she went on to vote for Donald Trump in November.

This, I think, is the disconnect the DNC keeps failing to recognize.

We just keep nominating milquetoast centrists whose message is little more than “maintain the status quo”, when nobody is happy with the status quo.

But we have to run centrist candidates, they say, or else we’ll lose all the voters in the center!

If that’s how it works, then why is the GOP winning by doing the exact opposite?

In a world where rent keeps going up but wages stay the same, people are scared and frustrated, and they don’t feel like their frustrations are heard.

Along comes a smooth-talking con man who tells them, “I know you’re angry at the world, and I’m going to give you a scapegoat to blame it on. It’s the immigrants’ fault. It’s trans people’s fault. It’s the woke left’s fault. It’s whatever target I tell you to hate next’s fault. And if you elect me, I will stick it to these people in order to Make America Great Again!”

Meanwhile, the best we can do is “Vote for me because everything that other guy said is horrifying.” That’s it. That’s the only real sales pitch we have for Harris. But no matter how terrible the other guy is, it reflects horribly on us that we can’t even talk about our own candidate’s merits at all.

We need to run a candidate who can say, “I too know you’re angry at the world. And I’m here to offer real solutions, not snake oil, and more importantly, not the status quo either.”

The difference between the right and left here is that the right actually likes their guy. And if not even we like our candidates, why should voters?

Alas, we learned nothing in 2016 and I suspect the DNC will continue to learn nothing now.

Is what we’re doing right now getting anywhere?

I’m much more scared of Trumpism than I am of the man. The next guy is taking notes on how to wield his rhetoric, and will actually be competent at pushing through even greater evil.

The system is rigged. Rent keeps going up, wages stay the same. The world is going to shit, and people are feeling increasingly desperate.

Along comes a smooth talking con man who tells them all the problems they’re facing, it’s the immigrants’ fault, it’s trans people’s fault, it’s the woke left’s fault, it’s whatever target he paints next. He knows they’re scared and angry and he leverages that fear to tell them that only he has all the answers.

And they’re desperate enough to believe him.

Lie down, try not to cry, cry a lot.

You can tell this is the one issue he has no real stance on. His handlers are telling him he has to pander, but he’s comically bad at it.

This means that for everything else, if you ever wonder if he truly believes the shit that comes out of his mouth, he absolutely does. We know what he sounds like when he doesn’t.

If felons should be allowed to vote, I don’t think it’s worth carving out an exemption for one particular felon. His vote is a drop in the bucket anyway.

What’s more important is that this felon should not be allowed to run for office.