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DC Gamer Club / "Early Access" games come to GOG
« on: January 28, 2016, 04:17 PM »
GOG just announced that they're now selling some "Early Access" games which are still in development:

Excellent hand-picked games, 14-day refund policy, always DRM-free.
We want GOG.com to be the home of games that are both excellent and really worth your time.

In today's gaming world, we're seeing more and more titles that become hits before development dwindles down. We want to give you a way to enjoy what these games have to offer, a way that's comfortable and fair to you — the GOG.com way: that means evaluating each and every game, a 14-day no-questions-asked refund policy, and more.

Some may be (understandably) wary of buying an unfinished product, especially given some of the poor results we've seen from Steam's Early Access program. But GOG thinks things will be different for them:

The GOG.com way.
First and foremost: we're hand-picking only the games we can truly stand behind. Offering a selection of the most promising titles, and those most highly requested on the Community Wishlist, is our way of avoiding bloat and ensuring that every game will be worth your time.

It takes some confidence to discover games that are still being shaped — and to build that trust, every game in development comes with a simple refund policy: 14 days, no questions asked. It doesn't matter if you're having technical issues, if you don't think the game is sufficiently fleshed out, or if it simply doesn't click with you — all games in development can be returned for any reason within 14 days of purchase.

The GOG Galaxy client should also come in handy for games in development. It lets you control updates manually if you want, while the rollback feature allows you to easily restore any earlier version of your game if an update breaks something or makes unwanted changes. For games in development, rollback will also track and create historical snapshots throughout a game's development. That means you can always revisit any point in a game's history — for fun, or for science.

Just before I found out about this announcement, I was just thinking to myself that I wish I didn't have to update my Early Access games to be able to play them on Steam. One in particular, ARK: Survival Evolved, has frequent updates of about 20GB. I'd like to be able to play it occasionally without having to download such a huge update, due to my ISP giving me a data cap. I was thinking maybe they could have multiple deployment branches where one version is only updated, say, once per month, while you could opt-in to a faster branch that is updated weekly (or whatever their normal update schedule is). That problem is solved from the get-go in GOG's Games In Development program. :Thmbsup:

I also like the idea that it in some cases it will no longer be necessary to purchase a game on Steam to get access to it while it's in development. I have a pretty large Steam library, but more and more I'm disliking Steam (for various reasons) and opting for GOG and other DRM-free options. I quite like GOG and their new GOG Galaxy client. It seems like it has most of the benefits/convenience of the Steam client, without most of the drawbacks.

Anyway, for more info about GOG's Games In Development, including info about the first titles to be included in the program, see the link below:
https://www.gog.com/news/introducing_games_in_development

157
There's a new browser called Brave in town which is focused on solving the awful situation with advertisers (malvertisers) through two steps:

1. Block intrusive ads natively. No ad blocking extension needed.
2. Built-in micro-payment system (via Bitcoin?) so you can easily support the websites you visit and/or disable the non-intrusive ads.

It's your device. It's your time.
So make it your Internet. The new Brave browser blocks all the greed and ugliness on
the Web that slows you down and invades your privacy. Then
we put clean ads back, to fund website owners and Brave
users alike. Users can spend their funds to go ad-free
on their favorite sites.

Speed comparison video:



Brave is also focused on security/privacy with the following features:

  • Brave blocks harmful advertising
  • Brave redirects sites to HTTPS
  • Brave blocks Tracking Pixels and Tracking Cookies

There's also a relatively short writeup about the purpose of Brave, but I'm having trouble picking out a self-contained segment to include as a quote, so just read it all yourself:

https://brave.com/#about

158
DC Gamer Club / Archive.org's MS-DOS Games Library - Over 2,500 Games
« on: January 18, 2016, 03:31 PM »
I just discovered this a few days ago. The Internet Archive (Archive.org) has over 2,500 MS-DOS games, which can all be downloaded or played in your browser, for free. :Thmbsup:

Archive.org MS-DOS Library.png
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

Pretty much every DOS game I can remember playing as a child is there, only this time they're full versions instead of the shareware demos. :)

Combined with Archive.org's Internet Arcade (a collection of MAME/Arcade games) and the Console Living Room, you should be able to keep yourself occupied for quite some time.

159
Living Room / Smart TVs now "smart" enough for malware
« on: January 11, 2016, 08:53 PM »
Personally, I would much prefer a "dumb" display than a smart TV.

If a TV can surf the web, it can be hijacked or pick up malware.

Read more at the link:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160108/07020333277/tvs-now-smart-enough-to-get-hijacked-pick-up-malware.shtml

160
Yet another reason why I'm never ever ever ever ever disabling my ad blocker:

For the past few weeks, Forbes.com has been forcing visitors to disable ad blockers if they want to read its content. Visitors to the site with Adblock or uBlock enabled are told they must disable it if they wish to see any Forbes content. Thanks to Forbes’ interstitial ad and quote of the day, Google caching doesn’t capture data properly, either.

What sets Forbes apart, in this case, is that it didn’t just force visitors to disable ad blocking — it actively served them malware as soon as they did.

Read more info at the link below:

http://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-readers-to-turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware

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