Mitten Squad. Guy popularized challenge runs with his fallout and elder scrolls playthroughs, and his deadpan delivery gets me every time. Unfortunately passed away after a long battle with alcoholism. I miss that dude. I don’t think he realized how much light he brought the world.

If anyone is curious

Because in normal play it’s very hard or impossible to do. The batter is facing away from the catcher, who is the one signaling. Now that there are more high-tech ways to do it (telephoto lens cameras, ways to communicate things to the batter, etc) it’s just become a much bigger problem. A properly hidden signal would be visible to 2nd and maybe 1st/3rd bases, and the players there would have a harder time seeing and communicating signals. Nowadays, someone with a high-powered camera and a radio in the bleachers behind center field can see and relay things to team members and coaches with extreme ease. And past success doing it has only emboldened people

Go to shows at small venues, smaller shows have smaller prices. I’ve seen some great shows from headliner artists for under $50. Cheapest I ever saw was a few years ago, $9 to see Slipknot from 10-50ft away. And by a few years I mean 2 or 3, not 10 or 20. Sign up for newsletters from local venues and your favorite artists, check websites for schedules, you’d be surprised what pops up.

Also never had someone poop on the ground at one of those.

I mean, I see it as more like AAA games are dying. I’m honestly not sure if that’s the case, but I know my personal hype for any AAA game announcement has dropped considerably in recent years. And it’s not hard to see how that’s a culture problem at these huge studios run by MBAs not people who play games. A culture of “Your boss is right, don’t rock the boat” can be seen as directly responsible for enshittification when that chain of command ends at the CEO or CFO. Sterilization, over-monetization, and the general fight for survival studios face is at an all-time high from my memory. Was a time when I was psyched for a Ubisoft or even EA title. Now all they get from me is an eye-roll.

My guess is all this talk comes from numbers interpereted by marketing people and the visible death of a lot of staples gamers took for granted. Big studios making crappy games and wondering why no one is buying them anymore. No one is lining up to buy Madden NFL or Call of Duty. Frequent releases and the proliferation of GaaS means missing a title doesn’t exactly break your flow, just get the next one. Releases have no build-up, no spectacle, no real hype. Indies are popping off like you said, though. Idk, as much as the general player count has to have increased dramatically over the last decade or so, I also feel like the culture surrounding it has dwindled a bit.

I agree games are not dying, but there’s also a part of me that understands how you can look at the overall industry and see a noticeable decline. Not sure by what metric, but it’s there. Games with soul, and love put into them, works of passion that have a something to say, those are the gems i think we’re seeing fewer of, if only by volume.