there is a deep sadness to how often people talk about how we can more effectively simulate meaningful social bonds with video game characters. like guys. please. you need friends. the cast of persona is not going to fill the void in your heart, ever. you need actual friends who love you.

i think a lot of people (incorrectly) view art as a substitute for having real experiences. they want to climb a mountain, but either can't, or won't. so they play a game about climbing a mountain, and they get mad it doesn't simulate filtering your own piss to make drinking water out of.

radical and crazy opinion but i think "conservative" game design is when you take something that was bold and risky in its era, sand down all the rough edges, and insert a mechanic from the last hit game to come out. many indie developers are deeply conservative in a way their inspirations were not.

i say this in reference to shmups but it's really the whole medium. games from 30 years ago that were and still are deeply experimental and weird are "conservative," because they're old, but a game from this year that plays like "slay the spire clone with a slight twist #5 billion" is "innovative."

every year, this guy gets to go on stage and tell you and everyone else which video games deserve to be called art and which do not. he licked boots and kissed ass until he had proven he deserved the Dorito Crown, and now he gets to use it. oh how i hate this absolute worm.

my boring unpopular answer is that there are literally thousands of actively running manga at any given time and if you're looking for well realized female characters you should go somewhere other than McShonenJump.

Pretty sure Steve Jobs knew what he had when they cooked up the iPhone. I think Tim Sweeney and Sam Altman also know what they have, and know it isn't an iPhone.