Hacker Cinema
Watch Dogs
2023 · TV series · 1 season
A 'fly on the wall', partially unscripted comedy looks at incompetent, dysfunctional night-time security guards as they cause more harm than good, dealing with prostitutes, turf wars with private school boys and everything in between.
1 mixed4 neutralfrom 5 commenters
Where to watch
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5 comments on Hacker News
I think it comes from recent popular media, like the Watch_Dogs games and the TV show Mr. Robot. Hoodies are a way to prevent people from seeing or identifying you, so media people use it as a visual shorthand for "this person wishes to conceal their identity". Back in the 90s, hackers were all cybergoth ravers; this image is more in line with the $CURRENT_YEAR zeitgeist in which pervasive surveillance is a top issue.
> The idea of "seeing the ending" of Factorio undermining its appeal seems disconnected from my own experience. I'm not sure how giving up a game with no micro transactions helps that issue with the gaming industry either.
I guess it was the stark realization that the Industry was in the midst of shifting to this predatory business model and that I (seemingly) was also prone to the pitfalls of its optimization that did my head in... I didn't need to divert my attention away from my work or my relationship, and yet I still managed to spend 6 hours a day playing and researching how to get the most efficient layout and upgrades for a game I only found by a random impulse purchase.
I'm well aware that Factorio doesn't have micro txs, as I mentioned: I paid for it in BTC.
I guess it seemed like in my absence the gaming Industry took what was once a seemingly innocent, fun thing you did to pass the time or play with friends with known upfront costs for development/expansions and hardware into an altogether exploitative trap that was refined by what appeared to me at least, as the same addiction based conditioning beavhiour patterns seen in Social media platforms.
Fortnight went on to make over a Billion dollars, countless of stories of kids stealing their parents credit card in the process (and then uploaded to social media) showed how effective their strategies were, at least on impressionable minds; so, I'd say my intuition turned out to be right.
So much so it became a meme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbAMrNpMrg8
I guess when I saw how underwhelming something like Factorio is when it ends it made me realize I need to cut my losses and focus on something that actually enhances my quality of Life? Facrorio seemed more like a distraction to me, then and now.
Factorio was mildly amusing at best, it reminded me of a more intricate look at what the building up resources portion of RTS games could be; by contrast I'm looking forward and prepared to sinking tons of hours on Cyberpunk 2077 and AoE 4, but that's mainly because they've been in development for so long and I've followed them closely since the beginning.
But, in practice I'm fairly sure that my initial excitement will fizzle out to my other hobbies, as I have so many.
Another anecdote to support this observation: I bought Watch Dogs 1 and 2 for PS4 when 2 came out to support the genre/studio, but I hadn't owned a console since PS2. They sat in their shrink wrap for years.
I recently got the time/chance to play and got a friend to lend me his PS4 when he went on vacation. I played 1 and it was fun in a GTA kind of way and I got to the last mission in about 2 weeks, which I couldn't beat so I went youtube saw the ending(s) and was satisfied enough to then start 2.
I must have gotten 4 hours into it before I lost all interest and just watched the no commentary 'cut-scene movie' someone uploaded in the background while I went back to working on other stuff. I can't even remember how it ends now, which goes to show how much I was paying attention. The plot was solid, and entertaining, I just preferred to do other stuff instead.
Yikes I had not even thought of that. How long till they install CT OS from Watch Dogs? I mean really that game is now about to be a documentary of the future. I hope not.
My favorite hacker reference so far in Season 2 was the Watch Dogs one (I hope a lot of you caught that :)
There was a study that came out years ago that stated that the closer something comes to looking real without being real, the more it is mentally rejected.
I like the eye candy I've seen in beginning of the PS4 gameplay of Watch Dogs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PODJJN3fTME
But I really notice the roughness, like when he slows down after running across the street, and the unrealistic smooth circular pans that don't accelerate and decelerate like a normal panning movie camera would.
And, of course I think the Atari 2600 was the best home gaming console ever invented.