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I'm certain it's due to artificially limiting goods for sale is a tried and tested method of driving up demand, and by driving up demand they can eventually drive up prizes.
It's another way of tricking the costumer into thinking what they're buying is rare and exclusive and that they have to buy it soon before it becomes unavailable again,
just as all big chains do with seasonal versions of their video game DLC/latte/hamburgers, not because they can't produce that all year round, but because it drives up
sales once they do have those things for sale.

I tried drawing a funny Idea I got in my head:

Windows can be awful sometimes, but at least it isn't Mac.

Steam is giving away Company of Heroes 2 again:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/231430/Company_of_Heroes_2/

Great work!

Happy Birthday, Snarky! And happy belated one, Blondbraid!

Thanks!

I haven't seen any problems using GOG on chrome.

I still end up using Steam mostly since I already have a big library there and there are free Steam key giveaways every once in a while.
But while Steam is still fine for now as long as you only want to buy games you already know about, it really grinds my gears that they
absolutely refuse to curate the content on their store, and will only remove broken files, asset flips and troll games once enough people
actively go out of their way to protest and report them. There's even been reports of straight up bitcoin mining scams being sold masquerading
as "games" on Steam, all which could have been avoided if Valve required any form of application process for their games other than just paying a fee.

And the 100$ fee might sort out a few kids trying to upload their projects for fun, but it will not actually deter any of the scammers and and
charlatans hoping to make it back by tricking gullible gamers.

What really grinds my gears is the increasing trend of AAA single player games needing to be connected online to the game company servers,
and lagging and freezing whenever your internet connection acts up, despite this being 100% unnecessary due to the games being single player,
they shouldn't need to be connected at all. It's just there so greedy executives can shove micro transactions and redundant sharing-your-progress features in the game.

IT REALLY, REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS THAT SOMETHING AS GLORIOUS AS THIS IS TURNED INTO SOMETHING AS TRITE AS THIS FOR THE SAKE OF LAMETARDS WHO NEED THEIR DAILY DOSE OF WARM-FUZZIES TO COPE.

That story has already been retold at least a hundred times before, but with different treats, the oldest version came from a 1912 short story where a lady misstakenly takes 5£ from another woman on a bus, beliving that she had stolen it from her. It's basically an urban legend at this point, and being annoyed at one version is basically like being annoyed at a Robin Hood movie. No bother, they'll just make a new version to replace it next season.

And if you'r taller than 1.50 nine out of ten times clothes your size will be already sold out.

150cm? That's pretty short.

Exactly, but every single time I try shopping for clothes nearly all the larger sizes have been picked off and maybe if you're lucky there's one left behind the pile of S and XS sized clothes.
I've no idea why stores even bother ordering so many surplus tiny clothes, but there's always a pile of them when I shop.

Let me grind something related: I'm tall and left-handed, so tools and clothes for me are both rare AND expensive.

There are similar problems when shopping women's clothes. No pockets, shirts and cardigans that can't be buttoned all the way up, and weird tailored sleeves that doesn't let you raise your arms comfortably.
And if you'r taller than 1.50 nine out of ten times clothes your size will be already sold out.

It's always bothered me when people overuse acronyms while taking it for granted that everybody knows what they mean.

Interesting example Blondbraid. And just gave me a thought:

Perhaps one extra reason why they show the treasure trove in the background in the live action version is because it's an actual set they spent money on and want to show it off as much as possible to justify that. Whereas in the animated version it would have cost extra money to show it in the scene where it wasn't needed so, wisely, they did not.

But the problem is that most the backgrounds in the remake is CGI anyway, so it would still take time and money to animate, and there is no way to justify that terrible blue light that take away all depth and contrast from the image.

As for the original shot, it's still Disney. If they wanted more background detail, they could have afforded it. Making the background empty was a deliberate artistic choice.

If you're lamenting CG, the ballroom sequence of Beauty and the Beast (1991) is a strange choice. The backdrop is pretty famously CG:

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/25-years-ago-cg-secrets-ballroom-sequence-beauty-beast-145174.html

That's true, but the CGI is well integrated with the 2D animation, and more importantly, it's a good example
of different animation techniques combined to create a mood and artistic expression, and it's stylized to look magical
and fit the fairy tale tone, compared to the drab colors and poor design choices in the remake meant to be "realistic".

I never cared much for Disney anyway but I agree it's rather pointless to remake all their old back-catalogue in live action. I guess they don't have to pay any writers.

One Disney film I did like was Aladdin. I know they're remaking that, too. I'll definitely be interested to see how they do it but I won't be rushing out to watch it on the first night.

I really didn't like the teaser I saw for the Aladdin remake, it looked like it had all the same problems as the other remakes. For example, compare this shot in the trailer:

To the corresponding scene in the animated movie:

The cinematography in the above shot is simply terrible, everything is a cluttered mess and all is drenched in the same blue color,
making it hard to tell what is even going on. It honestly took me several seconds just to see where Aladdin's arms were because it was so busy.
Meanwhile, in the animated version, the camera is deliberately angled away from all the treasures in the background when Aladdin picks up the lamp,
because the lamp is the focus of the scene, and likewise, the colors of Aladdin and the lamp is clearly contrasted against the simple blue background.

So it's not just that the remakes are creatively bankrupt, but they actively ruin all the great visuals and cinematography of the originals too.

I don't think that Disney-thing is aiming to nostalgic, more to who don't like to watch an 20 years old cartoon. There are people that if a black and white movie runs on tv think it's broken!

Well, then it's their fault for missing out on some truly great films just because they are in a different format than what they're used to.
But the classic 2D cartoons still looks as beautiful as they were decades ago while 90% of all CGI effects in live action movies look dated five years later.
I get that not all people like animated movies, but can any sane person honestly say that this:

Looks better than this?

All the vibrant colors are drab in the remake and the beast looks like he's right in the uncanny valley,
while the original still looks like a storybook illustration brought to life.

It grinds my gears that Disney is churning out pointless live action remakes of their animated movies. Not only has all their remakes looked ugly, visually cluttered and even terrifying, because cute and pretty things in a simplistic cartoon-style doesn't automatically translate into cute and pretty in live action, but their single reason for existing is because they want to cash in on the nostalgia of people who loved the original movies but are too cowardly to admit that they love cartoons, so they need a suitable live-action substitute instead. It's the ridiculous mindset that live action movies with CGI are inherently more serious and grown up than animated movies on full display, despite all you'd need to see how insane that claim is to compare this movie clip to this clip.

These movie titles just look funny when placed next to each other:

How fun, congratulations on the good review!

I agree, I'd much rather see a MAGS with two good, complete entries than ten entries where about eight are little more than a title screen and a two minute demo.
One of the reasons I don't participate in MAGS more is that if I'm going to make an entry, I want to make a concept I like and believe in and I want to have time to
make something that's playable from start to finish and has real graphics rather than placeholders. It just doesn't feel worth it to spend time and energy on something
I know I won't be able to finish and no one would vote for just for just for the sake of it.