They patented a very specific algorithm for a very specific kind of game. You can still do knock-offs of the system in the same way you can make RTS games without asking Blizzard’s permission or platformers without asking Nintendo’s.
I would suspect that SoM’s system is complex enough that nobody’s been eager to try and replicate it. But they high level concept of randomized enemy generation isn’t something you can patent. Neither is randomizing story elements between NPCs.
Why did the Romans fail?
I remember learning that the Romans fell because they were too gay and debauched and woke, so they lost their manly vigors.
Nevermind, history doesn’t like copypasta
I suppose its worth noting that the Roman Empire lasted centuries (millennia, if you see the Byzantine/Ottoman Empire as a continuation of Roman history). The UK is more comparable than the US, which flourished after WW1 and made it barely a century before fumbling.
But also, the book is hardly closed on the US as an empire. China, India, Persia, Rome, France… they all had their ups and downs.
The US writes the history books, runs the universities, and manages the international media networks.
Class solidarity. The bourgeois defend one another while the proletariat are easily divided.
One of the more novel takes I’ve heard recently is to describe the current Trump ICE beef up as a war of the Unemployed against the Working Class. He’s literally vacuuming up jobless white men and turning them into an armed force against the migrant labor force.
I am so fucking disgusted in the 88 million idiots who voted for Trump…
Trump won 2024 with 77M votes to Harris’s 75M. Where you are finding the extra 11M?
Traitorous scum, every last one of them.
Liberals call them Terrorists
Conservatives call them Freedom Fighters
Here at CBS, you can get the facts and think for yourself. Join us as Bari Weiss sits down for tea and biscuits with a very enthusiastic meth addict and two used car dealer salesmen as they explain what really happened five years ago today. Then come back later for the debate, as we invite a blue haired college student and the world’s oldest man to explain why their radical left-wing views can no longer win elections. At CBS, every angle is covered. We Report, You Decide.
How much TrumpCoin did the host country buy in advance?
Forming an agreement to protect Poland at all costs and calling it the Warsaw Pact.
What? No? Is that one taken?
In fairness, this would be both a more accurate and more German style name.
The US is a liberal democracy dedicated to universal principles of personal freedom and civil justice.
Like tankie never really meant anything before
I mean, its historically described Soviet policy in Eastern Europe and Chinese domestic policing (Khrushchev putting down the Hungarian fascist revolt with armored infantry and Deng sending tanks into Tienanmen Square).
Now it just means whatever the opposite of neoconservative policy is, updated daily.
Being against tanks makes you a tankie at this point.
Everyone knows that if you’re against US tanks, you must be in favor of non-US tanks. You’re either with US or you’re with the Tankie-rists
Maduro is the Trump of Venezuela
I remember when liberals were claiming Bernie Sanders was the Trump of the Democratic Party.
Jesus this is a bad take
80 people were killed, cities were bombed, and we’ve got shits on here doing “it was an inside job, aktuly”
Fucking vile.
Look up the stats on defensive gun uses. Just Google it.
The vast majority (90+%) end with no shots fired- the criminal sees the gun and runs away.
Because it’s regularly over reported.
People call the police and claim they saw/heard a thing, then grabbed a gun. Police arrive to investigate and it is - predictably - nothing. Resident self-reports that they must have scared the ephemeral assailant of. Cops dutifully write it up without further investigation.
Gun-as-security-blanket is registered as successful defensive use.
They are so understaffed these days that they are no longer fast anymore.
The food itself is pre-prepared and re-heated on the spot. Go when there’s not a rush on and you can get your food in minutes. Go during rush hour and you’ll still be in and out much faster than at a sit-down establishment (that’s also inevitably understaffed).
They’ve got people addicted to 7,000 times the amount of recommended daily sugar, fat, and salt content.
I’ve heard this line and I think there’s an element of truth to it. Food really does taste differently if you’ve been eating the high salt/sugar junk for an extended period.
But you can get junk food anywhere. You don’t need McD’s to make it for you. Gas stations have soda fountains. Grocery stores have microwaved meals full of preservatives and sweeteners. You can just make yourself a hamburger at home, it doesn’t have to come from a store.
It just takes time, a certain degree of skill, and a kitchen with functional appliances that you’re going to need to clean up after you’re done. McD’s just goes in the trash afterwards. Far faster to buy a burger than cook one.
Historically, it was one of the cheaper items on the menu. In college (20 years ago) I could get a large fries for under $1. Back in the 80s/90s they were practically free. Like, loose-change free.
Also one of the tastier meal items given that they went so fast you could safely assume they’d be fresh, why the sandwich options could be sitting in the warmer for half an hour or longer depending on the speed of business.
I don’t get the point of fast food chains anymore.
It’s all in the name. You can get through a fast-food drive through in about 5-10 minutes. Dining in and cooking tends to take thirty min to an hour.
With 15€ i can go to an actual restaurant, why would I go to a fast food place?
Because you’re fighting traffic on your way home to feed your spouse and kids.
Crazy to see people smile benignly while US Presidents shake hands with Saudi Kings and Egyptian Dictators, only to discover their love for democracy when a socialist they don’t like secures a 7-pt election lead.
If the J6ers had all been Venezuelan, I wonder if liberals would have stood back and let the US Congress get lynched?
But it’s just vanilla combats with predictable outcomes.
So they invented… the first dozen seasons of the Pokemon cartoon?