relic_

This is the real issue. Companies/shareholders won't accept stable profits, so they will do anything possible to increase profits. AD-free subscriptions will be a thing of the past in the next 10 years and we will be right back to cable. Bundled subscriptions with cancellation terms and ads.

I also need to also underscore that the vast majority of profits are NOT going to the people who actually create the content, so these increases are just lining the pockets of shareholders and executives.

I won't aim to change your mind but I'll add that one of the reasons they're so expensive is, at least in the US, there is simply a struggle to build mega engineering projects. From project management to the blue collar skills required (nuclear isn't the only large scale engineering project with cost overruns). Things were more favorable in the 80s when plants were built somewhat regularly and the country had collective experience completing these projects.

Renewables are similar too on both the installation and design side. More experience in manufacturing, developing, and installing helps to lower costs.

Worth mentioning it's actually quite small by mass (only 1% or so of what goes in), but only a few places actually separate out those isotopes.

You gain brouzouf...

Is there enough gear/experience to just skip the open world stuff? It wasn't clear to me when playing if I would hit a wall and needed to grind on the open world to progress.

Yeah your understanding about the towers is correct. I don't think it's inherently bad, I've even enjoyed it in some of the AC games, but in rebirth it just feels like a bad chore list. Some of the combat challenges can be interesting but the ones with the summon stones (I forget the name, but they reduce the power of summon fights and do other things) and scanning the life springs are just terrible imo.

This is a pretty bad take and I feel like you must have not really played tribes very much. Comparing tribes to CS? Really? You think the popularity is because of the team sizes?

The fact that they are only implementing 16v16 seems like a warning flag to me. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up as a mediocre experience with a few tribes mechanics just largely trying to cash in on name recognition.

That applies to the software itself, sure, but only if you bring your own infrastructure. Large scale FOSS infrastructure services are going to be the exception not the norm.

Nah I'd disagree. Infinite growth motive doesn't necessarily apply to private companies. To suggest there's unbridled greed present in every company is just a falsehood.

If you're not paying for a service, then you're the product. I never understood the expectation that people should just provide you email and storage for free, because?

I would agree with this, I use Nvidia cards for professional work on Linux and I've never had a problem. Yeah there's some upfront work configuring the drivers, but I've never had it take more than an hour to setup.

This drives me crazy every time I see it so I'm glad to see others recognizing this. Yes game production has gone up, but the market has massively increased. Your costs are fixed; doesn't matter if you sell 10,000 copies or 10,000,000. More people are gaming than ever so when I see all these attempts to squeeze more money from consumers to address rising costs I have no sympathy for the publisher.