as i watch @glitchwolfe play the new metroid prime remaster, she tries to take a screenshot & post it anywhere; realizing it can only go to two places: facebook or twitter. she claims "This isn't fun anymore. Musk ruined everything"
and I sit there, thinking: no, corporations fucked this up. you see, dear user- dev side, there is no Grand Manual Of Stuff We should Provide. once upon a time, you'd press a button, you'd get a screenshot- or you'd get capture hardware and manually do it in the feed. Did this make it harder for end users to take screenshots console side? yes. But now you have the option to post to two defunct social media platforms: Twitter, and Facebook- they're not just failed cyberstates, they're the real walking dead.
Because I want you to ask yourself something: do you foresee a future at all, ever, where your Nintendo Switch can upload a screenshot directly to Mastodon? How about Cohost? No? Tumblr maybe? Maybe. And that's what they've taken from you, the ability to post a JPEG. Why? because it's an oversight- and the minute anyone tries to integrate that internally devside, the suits will take it away while going "???? The fuck is a 'chooste'?? Looks gay, is this for quares? no thanks." except they'll say it as "this is a security risk not relevant to our market share" or whatever
much to your horror- major games & 'private' closed source software is just a bunch of people trying desperately in a room to get something productive done, with a suit randomly interrupting them to say stupid shit like "we should add machine learning!" "my kid loves that mario guy... Can we make this shooter protag more like him?" as they spin their chair to face a wide window, now lost in their phone's email. you are fucking lucky to have any quality of life, accessibility, etc features or functionality and it is DIRECTLY the result of anyone who Gives A Shit and definitely is not Paid To Do So. It is a matter of personal pride & dedication to making the world better to put up with this garbage to make sure your stuff works good.
The "ideas guy" isn't the designer, or the artist- it's the CEO. It always was.
general tech rant below on screenshots / image search etc
This is one of the reasons why Windows, weirdly, is going to be my Ride Or Die for like, Forever. Besides all the, you know, "it's where all the actual programs I use, or 98% of the games I want to play, live" stuff.
Running on a PC, and not a Proprietary Bullshit Walled Garden1 With A Controller, I have buttons on my keyboard that have done the same damn thing since I first started using PCs in the 80s2, and thanks to MS needing to keep backwards compatibility with like, Everything Windows Ever — this is the part where we knock on wood — they will keep doing those things in perpetuity.
Bringing it back to the original chost:
If I press my nifty Print Screen Button, it takes a screenshot and stores it in the copypaste buffer, in glorious uncompressed 24 bits — because there's not much transparent about my screen, no matter what years of sci-fi movies have tried to tell you.
And then I can just do whatever the fuck I want with it.
I can even, get this, open any other program I want to use it with, or save it, to a place of my choice, with a name I chose.
Wild, I know.
(And don't get me started on my little buddy Pause/Break, the MVP.)
1: Of course, being Yet Another Fucking Garbage Megacorp, MS sure are doing their very best to turn PCs into walled gardens too. Luckily, they've failed so far3. Also, PCs will always have... looks around for *nix Witnesses let's just say, other options...
2: Okay, some buttons got added, but the important stuff that was there, stayed there.
3: Remember UWP? This is the part where we laugh our heads off.
