The "Post-PC" era (smartphones)

[Mæstro]

Some time ago, a co-worker told me he prefers playing games on a phone rather computer. He's from gen Z.
I played Doodle Jump many years ago and tried a bit of Assassin's Creed: Pirates, but generally, playing games on a phone doesn't appeal to me. Bigger screen is just better.
Though these days, I just can't get into it anymore like I used to. It sucks as it was one of the few things I could genuinely enjoy.

The friend I am talking about is early Gen Y, but we had only met in 2018, so I know nothing of his habits as an adult before smartphones. He likes gacha games: Fate Grand Order especially, although he has also played Bang Dream (which he introduced to me as an anime), Genshin Impact and others regularly before. The only smartphone games which I ever played were some of the very early ones, of which I mostly remember Dumb Ways to Die and an Alchemy (1997) clone (not Doodle God). Once the novelty wore off, I stopped playing smartphone games, which is one of the many reasons why I was ultimately able to abandon them without difficulty. Beside Flash games, in adolescence and early adulthood, I mostly played DOS games. This habit only lapsed in 2022, when I needed to reinstall Linux and did not bother with DOSBox.

Most likely he was given a phone extremely early in his life; so it's become something he grew up with and it being his entertainment from a young age.

I find this thought in particular rather sad, not least because it is multiplied on so vast a scale and has crowded out many usual childhood experiences for so many. The thought of being addicted to smartphones for literally as long as one can remember makes me shudder.

[UCyborg]

Interesting, so he's older gen Y. I heard of Genshin Impact, but only because people reviewing smartphones seem to always use it to gauge graphics performance. My Unihertz Jelly Max was noted to run it fluently, which is supposedly not the norm for its price range, because it's one of rare models without extreme resolution cramped onto small screen. Can't say Samsung at work feels smooth even in menus.

DOS games though, these are too old for me. Welp, the ones I played benefit from 3D environment.

I was considered an addict (to games) in the past. But now that I'm stuck in 8-16, that's fine? How many hours we sink into jobs to get by, it's crazy.

[Mæstro]

I took to playing games from before my time, simply because abandonware sites were so comprehensive before GOG of the land of Magog appeared. Although too young for DOS, I quite enjoyed Sid Meier’s Civilization Ⅱ (1996), especially its Second World War scenario. My greatest campaign in it was won about ten years ago. Hearts of Iron and friends always seemed too complex for me. It is worth noting that this friend has played various trading card games at tournament level for at least twenty years.

Probably within a few hours, whenever this older Gen Y friend comes online (he lives in America), I might face perhaps my biggest challenge yet with respect to others’ smartphone usage. After consulting with some other friends on the matter, I have determined the day I knew since 2019 would someday come is at last coming, and I am announcing my intent to abandon Discord by month’s end. My only reasons not to do so immediately are to afford friends time to switch to Jabber and so they do not think it is a kneejerk, panicked reaction to bad news, a legitimate concern given my flamboyant conduct until 2024. Said friend had got his Skype friends to move to Discord when it shut down, and described Discord’s planned changes as ‘obnoxious’ and ‘annoying’. We will see how this goes, but I have got my other close friends’ and my parents’ backing. Finally, I will leave my last tie to mainstream IT behind. I hope nobody is lost along the way.

[Gemmaugr]

I took to playing games from before my time, simply because abandonware sites were so comprehensive before GOG

There aren't that many games from before my time, but I'm a huge gamer (indie mostly). I also use GOG, as I abhor steamDRM and their monoculture. Civ 2 was quite good, and so are many other 4X games. It's among my fav genres. Including STACS and Diablo-likes and Survival Builders and Metroidvania.

I am announcing my intent to abandon Discord by month’s end.

Quite understandable. https://reclaimthenet.org/discord-to-de ... scan-or-id

I will not be providing either, so if that limits or makes me unable to use Discord.. That's one less google-dependent thing I'll be using (google also just changed the youtube list layout I used and forced an ugly mobile grid/tile style. Luckily I found a greasemonkey script to remedy it).

[Mæstro]

Quite understandable. https://reclaimthenet.org/discord-to-de ... scan-or-id

I will not be providing either, so if that limits or makes me unable to use Discord.. That's one less google-dependent thing I'll be using[.]

Yes, this article is a sound overview. Because I have always disabled personalising Discord, the underlying analysis necessary for age inference does not exist for me, so if I were to stay, I would become subject to the limits imposed on teenagers. A friend with whom I have been discussing this on Jabber said that any workaround we could devise would be a ‘stopgap’. He is right. Discord’s new CEO has already proposed and quietly discarded stupid ideas, as seen in January’s survey about integrating LLM, and there have been rumours about Discord going public in the mainstream press since then also. Platform decay was inevitable for a site like Discord, so it is only wise to quit while it is respectable to do so.

[Moonchild]

As far as Discord goes, if they demand my passport I'm not even legally allowed to let them store it, since Discord is an unregulated commercial entity and AFAIK the state issuing it does not allow those to store the full range of my passport data in any way or for my passport to be used as a security. Limited data that may be stored or made a copy of would exclude the passport photo and my national ID number; which would be essential for "ID verfication companies" to collect for this so-called "age verification".
So even if I wanted to, I can't without breaking the laws of my country of citizenship ;P
I bet lawmakers/discord execs/ID verification companies didn't really think about that.

EDIT: I looked it up to be sure and yes, I was and am still correct. The only companies/orgs that are allowed to have a full, unredacted copy of my passport are those with a legal obligation to do so, which are regulated, e.g. banks, casinos, credit card companies, my employer, a notary, or national life insurers in the country of citizenship.
Others aren't allowed to either use my passport as a security or copy it or store full unredacted details (including scans).

[frostknight]

I also use GOG, as I abhor steamDRM and their monoculture

I use GOG as well, but as for steamDRM, I can tell you, there are way worse DRMs.

Anything that requires kernel level access is trash.

Also, Steam at least tries to respect their customers.

Nintendo, Microsoft and others think of everyone as monetizatible to the extreme and they keep pushing enshittification hard.

But yeah, I don't like DRM either. To be more specific, I cannot stand anti-features.

Features that are put in that don't need to be there except to please the creators or owners of software are just not needed.

Greed, Greed, Greed! This kind of stuff is why I dislike big tech and why i think copyright shouldn't be legal for hardware/software. Because in current state, copyright blocks removal of antifeatures unless you do some clean room reverse engineering. This method of reverse engineering is supposedly insanely hard to do. ReactOS is a good example of this idea... so theres that.

[Mæstro]

To avoid disputes about whether DRM is even capable by definition of respecting users, I should note the following from two years ago:

[Abolishing Windows 7 and 8 support] is required as core features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.

Whatever you think about Steam itself, it indirectly advances Chrome usage, and hence Google.

[moonbat]

it indirectly advances Chrome usage, and hence Google.

Every so called desktop app today does because nobody but Google get to decide what the web is. Steam at least isn't an Electron app and uses CEF to render the web parts of itself. As of today Chrom(e|ium) is the only browser that offers an embeddable browser component (which itself seems to be fading as a concept since the modern trend is to wrap a website along with a Chrome instance and call it a day). For the rest of its features(networking, process management, in-game overlay, downloads etc), it is a proper C++ app, the Chromium stuff is only for displaying the store and online content.

[UCyborg]

AFAIK, you practically can't load Steam without Chromium these days, there were supposedly working command-line parameters to avoid Chromium in the past versions while still having working library access, but not today.

[frostknight]

AFAIK, you practically can't load Steam without Chromium these days, there were supposedly working command-line parameters to avoid Chromium in the past versions while still having working library access, but not today.

Waterfox and other firefok non-uxp forks work I am sure. Tried before. Also even palemoon it has worked somewhat under.

[UCyborg]

I'm talking about the Steam client, not the website.

[Gemmaugr]

I also use GOG, as I abhor steamDRM and their monoculture

I use GOG as well, but as for steamDRM, I can tell you, there are way worse DRMs.

I call it steamDRM because it's (usually) a low-level basic (but constant) valve DRM in almost every game they publish (https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Digit ... Steamworks).

But that's only a part of why I hate steamDRM. The other part is that they do the same "convenience", centralization and integration monoculture (only horizontal instead of vertical) that google does.

When you buy a PC game in the store now, it's just an installer for the steamDRM launcher. Almost every time a game is mentioned anywhere, it's always a steamDRM link. Game forums have been transposed to steam communities (and google discord). Mods have become centered around steam workshop (and nexus, which has its own issues). Game release notes are on steam. Guides and Walkthroughs are on steam communities (and google YT). Game updates are auto-updates from the steam client (a google CEF program). Multiplayer servers are steamDRM servers. Achievements are no longer in-game, but coupled to the client. Not to mention how they abuse sunken cost fallacy, and introduce gambling and FOMO mechanics with points and cards and trading etc.

[frostknight]

When you buy a PC game in the store now, it's just an installer for the steamDRM launcher. Almost every time a game is mentioned anywhere, it's always a steamDRM link. Game forums have been transposed to steam communities (and google discord). Mods have become centered around steam workshop (and nexus, which has its own issues). Game release notes are on steam. Guides and Walkthroughs are on steam communities (and google YT). Game updates are auto-updates from the steam client (a google CEF program). Multiplayer servers are steamDRM servers. Achievements are no longer in-game, but coupled to the client. Not to mention how they abuse sunken cost fallacy, and introduce gambling and FOMO mechanics with points and cards and trading etc.

Fair enough, although at least they don't support pedos like robolox, or go to insane hoops like Nintendo.

Nintendo has gone to a whole new level of awful recently with their switch 2 DRM.

Their switch 2 DRM, makes them allowed to brick your device if you do anything that they consider a wrong usage.

And moreover, they been trying to limit only one user to a console via email and then you cannot put that email into a different console.

On and on...

I have heard these and other things on youtube. Not that DRM isn't bad no matter who uses it, but I think Steam is lower on the bar of awful than Nintendo, Sony and other gaming console stuff.

At least Steam is giving linux gaming a chance to grow. Which is more than i can say for their competition...

Their competition goes against linux hard. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo seem to have some sort of agreement on not letting any games into their orbit if they are open source or w/e.
I am not sure about specifics though beyond that.

[Gemmaugr]

At least Steam is giving linux gaming a chance to grow. Which is more than i can say for their competition...

Their competition goes against linux hard. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo seem to have some sort of agreement on not letting any games into their orbit if they are open source or w/e.
I am not sure about specifics though beyond that.

I'll give steamDRM a point for Proton, so there's that.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft either. I just don't think their reach is as great as steamDRM, although individual aspects may be somewhat worse (especially Nintendo).

Although, since I'm a PC Master race, consoles do affect me negatively with their lowest common denominator, cross-platform, controller scheme. I can use all the keyboard keys and mouse precision on PC, but if the game is also to use controller buttons and joystick, it leads to greatly diminishing the input formats. Resulting in hold-to-press mechanics, quick-draw inventories, quick-time events, scripted actions, no re-binding, etc etc.

[moonbat]

Steam essentially brings the console online experience to PC. One single interface for purchases, managing installed titles and community interaction. And Proton may just end up being the reason for gamers to finally be able to kick Windows to the kerb.

[UCyborg]

Old Android versions have the option to turn off Wi-Fi automatically when phone is not in use. Why was this removed?

I also wonder, is it possible to decrypt data partition without losing data? Supposedly there are ways to run with unencrypted partition, but have to start over.

Things are just simpler in older versions, but at some point, certain apps just don't run anymore.

[Mæstro]

Elsewhere, we have discussed how compilers can restrict software to younger OS than they could otherwise (or ought, judging by their functionality and resource use alone). DRM measures like Steam do the same. Until the EU ruled the practise illegal, these principles have been strictly enforced by Apple and Google in how they control software distribution. Even the ruling does little more than offer an obscure alternative.

Android seems to have removed many sensible features, presumably because they were unpopular and would annoy clumsy users when enabled accidentally. Probably, this is also what happened to landscape mode. Touchscreens encourage an oversimplified interface with only the most popular choices for this reason; the medium truly is the message.

[moonbat]

Old Android versions have the option to turn off Wi-Fi automatically when phone is not in use. Why was this removed?

Not a standard feature AFAIK. There's plenty of automation apps starting with Tasker that can do that for you anyway.

[UCyborg]

It was a standard setting called WiFi sleep policy. Perhaps you didn't use Android long enough. My first was Android 2.2 on Samsung Galaxy Mini.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5n5_3K3O9w

Now most that's left is a non-functional system prop. I read somewhere (here) it was already scrapped in Android 8.