Microsoft keeps finding innovative ways to make owning its products feel like renting them. You buy the Xbox, buy the game, maybe pay for Game Pass, and Microsoft still patents a way to interrupt you with ads. At this rate, the final boss will be a 30 second unskippable commercial.
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2026
524 points (98.9% liked)
Technology
88784 readers
3474 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
They fucked themselves when they went on their buying spree of studios. Their idea was literally that they would own every game studio, making a GamePass a necessity that they could charge whatever they wanted for.
Their quest inflated the price of every subsequent studio they acquired, leading them to take on so much debt that they had to shutter the studios they'd just purchased, and now they have to make a ton of money on every game--but that's not how games work.
Just capitalism things...
But they didn't even have to shutter many of the studios. Many of them were profitable. Microsoft just didn't want the competition and they decided the studios weren't obscenely profitable
Pretty clearly they were looking to corner the market, then. Disgusting. I would hope they went out of business, but that would leave Playstation as the de facto monopoly, and they are already killing themselves to enshittify as it is.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The only winning move for the final boss is to put down the controller and go outside.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, would you be so kind and repeat after me: abandonware and indie games are the future!
Entertainment these days is only found in the shadows of society
Yes, that's how plenty of 60s' and 70s' sci-fi stories were about finding gems in the dust, and much of XIX century gothic stuff.
That's sarcasm. Each time is like no other, but also the grass is always greener 100 years ago, and it's always somehow better and worse at the same time.
But then, of course, there are tendencies and periods which won't be remembered kindly or won't be remembered at all.
I have only one question about that title - why the hell would anyone play a game with ads? People play games to relax, to get some rest from society, or to have some personal time with their friends mowing down cockroach hordes or something like that defending their city-fortress.
Until competitors are able to develop and sell games without such ads, people will just play those.
and it’s always somehow better and worse at the same time.
Humanity is always on a meandering route between utopia and dystopia, never arriving at either.
why the hell would anyone play a game with ads?
It's Microsoft. They made Embrace, Extend, Extinguish their way of life for decades. They can't conceive competition. And they're not really that interested anymore in the consumer market. They want to squeeze whatever they can from there before the market shrinks and aim their products more at the premium and business market who has all the money these days.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Isn't there some kind of group that patents awful ideas so nobody else can use them?
Apparently that group is called Microsoft.
Damn, by patenting it they're actually doing us all a huge favor.
Everyone will simply avoid microsoft games and no other gaming company can copy their stupid ideas.
Based
OK, hear me out, let's start a patent troll corp. and file for all the enshittification ideas ahead of the studio owners.
That's... genius. So there's gotta be a law against it already
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
BRB gonna put a game on steam where you can shoot aggressive advertisers in the face.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I’m bout to invent a patent called I’m not gonna play anything that microslop has its sloppy little hands in.
Guess I'll just keep sailing the high seas. Someone let me know when businesses want to act with some semblance of good faith to their customers.
Places that advertisers have not yet turned into a vehicle for ads:
- ~~Radio~~
- ~~TV~~
- ~~Movies~~
- ~~The Internet~~
- ~~Video Games~~
- Classical Fine Art
- The Moon / Space
- Grave Markers/ Headstones
- Inside Eyelids
- Your Baby's Smile
- Brain Implants
I'd say this is close enough for you to strike another off your list. https://nichefacts.com/findagrave/
Hopefully they don’t license this patent out so it’s really easy to avoid
load more comments
(3 replies)
Drinks a verification can
So anyway, archery is cheap, fun, and there are no ads.
We trully live in an Age of Technological Devolution.
And Environmental Devolution.
And Political Devolution.
And Economic Devolution.
But the richer have never before been this rich.
Who's got that copy-pasta about drinking verification cans to play their games? I think that fits here.
2018
wake up feeling sick after a late night of playing video games
excited to play some halo 2k19
"xbox on"
...
"XBOX ON"
"Please verify that you are "annon332" by saying "Doritos™ Dew™ it right!"
"Doritos™ Dew™ it right"
"ERROR! Please drink a verification can"
reach into my Doritos™ Mountain Dew™ Halo 2k19™ War Chest
only a few cans left, needed to verify 14 times last night
still feeling sick from the 14
force it down and grumble out "mmmm that really hit the spot"
xbox does nothing
i attempt to smile
"Connecting to verification server"
...
"Verification complete!"
finally
boot up halo 2k19
finding multiplayer match...
"ERROR! User attempting to steal online gameplay!"
my mother just walked in the room
"Adding another user to your pass, this will be charged to your credit card. Do you accept?"
"NO!"
"Console entering lock state!"
"to unlock drink verification can"
last can
"WARNING, OUT OF VERIFICATION CANS, an order has been shipped and charged to your credit card"
drink half the can, oh god im going to be sick
pour the last half out the window
"PIRACY DETECTED! PLEASE COMPLETE THIS ADVERTISEMENT TO CONTINUE"
the mountain dew ad plays
i have to dance for it
feeling so sick
makes me sing along
dancing and singing
"mountain dew is for me and you"
throw up on myself
throw up on my tv and entertainment system
router shorts
"ERROR NO CONNECTION! XBOX SHUTTING OFF"
"PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN TO CONTINUE"
load more comments
(1 replies)
Just don't play Microsoft games. They crippled or outright destroyed all their former good game studios anyway. So it's not like they will be making great games you can't live without anyway.
I'd patent my well-honed technique for not playing Microsoft games but I want to share it with the world, free of charge.
Move to Bazzite. https://bazzite.gg/
It's not the OS doing it, it's the game itself adding the ads to pause screens, loading screens, etc.
load more comments
(1 replies)
EA did this years ago
"… while you're playing them." — that's ambitious at this point.
That’s So Microsoft!™
Never more proud of my decision to drop Xbox in favor of my Steam Deck.
Like it just keeps getting better and better
Good call on their part. Wouldn't want anyone to steal their dog shit idea.
Micro$oft will be the next Google advertising company, with a browser & software as it's side hustle. Advertising is a cancer.
Microsoft patents technique for me not buying another game from them ever
Fuck yeah, this is going to save some serious time. Will cut down the non video game ad watching time I need to do by a lot probably.
Its so amazing that we had so many routes to make things better and better. Technology promised such an amazing future. Of course, greed ruined that and here we are. We fumbled the bag people...
load more comments
(1 replies)
This is going to happen, too, I guarantee it. Gamepass basic with ads coming next year.
Oooo, that happens and I'd make it a point to contact the manufacturer/creator of said advertised product or service and politely inform them that because of the interruption of MY TIME, while relxing in a game, I will now never, ever consider their company, goods or services.
Make it formal, concise and final and if possible send it to the CEO. You want that one to come down on the head of whomever decided to insert themselves into a player's game - get them in trouble with the boss - with a vengeance.
It often works.
load more comments
(4 replies)
view more: next ›