PostiveNoise

Almost all of the activities in game apart from gradually upgrading your ship and multi-tool are optional, and mainly ‘for fun’. So, focus on learning more about what upgrading your ship would actually entail, and the same for the multi-tool. Overall the game is fairly easy, so enjoy the ride rather than seeking out ‘end game’ or serious challenge. I think of it kind of like a fantasy of american Car Culture combined with a focus on exploring a bit of many cool looking worlds. You find a really badass car/ship you love, and tweak it out until it’s amazing. You also do other stuff if you want to, maybe coming up with your own RPG style story that you invent just to give yourself other goals. You will probably get rich before long, so then you maybe collect more ships and pimp them out and build a cool base (or 5), or get into the Mayor thing, or some of the other game activities. Or just wander until you have had enough of checking out cool planets around the galaxy.

Denouncing Microsoft.

Oh, and coining the term Ambient Music, and being an electronic music pioneer. …Nothing as historic as composing a chime sound for windows, once, however.

But isn’t doing laundry totally optional? Or maybe my Imaginary Friend is giving me bad suggestions again.

I switched to a mini pc about 1.5 years ago, and it’s been working out fine. I’ll probably get another one when it’s time to move on. One thing I like about my new setup is it’s more modular. I have 2 external SSD drives and a USB hub, both of which I can continue using when I swap out the ‘main’ pc. I have a fancy audio interface hub as well, so I’m not concerned about any lack of enough audio ports on the mini pc.

People do talk about this. At least, they do in the game industry. It’s well known that when an independent studio gets bought (usually by a publisher they have been working for), this often results in the studio closing down a number of years later unless they crank out hit-after-hit. Of course, sometimes that doesn’t happen and the studio gets more stability and more financial support, now that they are part of a larger company.

In regards to the people who sell their studio (founders), it’s important to keep in mind that for most of these people, selling their studio while the studio is fairly popular results in life-changing wealth. Maybe selling the studio and becoming rich by doing so was not their original goal, but it should be no surprise that studio founders can be very tempted to sell the studio (at the right price). Owning an independent studio can be a gigantic amount of stress, and a huge financial reward that also allows the founder to simply get rid of all the headaches and stress is nothing to sneeze at.

Everyone who works at an independent studio knows the risks involved (to their own job eventually, if the studio is sold), and they often have mixed thoughts on what the founders are doing, but they don’t all demonize the studio owners, since they would be tempted by the same potential rewards if they owned the studio.