Ask Paul: February 25 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s another great round of reader questions to get the weekend started a bit early.
Site updates
goodbar asks:

How is thurrott.com dark mode coming along?

Short answer: it’s not coming along at all right now, sorry.

More nuanced answer: we only have one web tech guy (Nick) and he’s been working to get the redesigned version of Petri.com, our other site, going. Once that’s done, we have a long to-do list for Thurrott.com that includes this feature. For now, I recommend using the Dark Reader browser extension. (It’s what I use.)

hrlngrv asks:

Since the only thing left on the right side of the top-level window is Forum, why not list more Forum items?

I have asked for this. I agree there’s room for more. The only issue is that the Forum block isn’t the only thing over there for non-Premium users. And I’m not sure if we can have different-sized blocks for different types of users.

Also, is there any plan to sort them by latest comment rather than by original post date+time? That's the way the Forum section worked a while ago, and the current approach is a regression.

This falls under the note above about site work and Petri. But there’s some debate about the “right” way to display that stuff. Ideally, it could be sorted by the user and saved as a setting. But, yes, this is on the list as well.
Gaming forward
helix2301 asks:

Where do you think Activision and others stand on free to play (example: Fortnite)? Many games over the last year have came out with free version, Call of Duty Warzone, Pubg, Starcraft and Destiny just to name a few big ones.

As a key contributor to Activision’s success with Call of Duty, it’s obvious to me that there are no new ideas there, and that they have been just reacting to what’s happening elsewhere in gaming. When PUBG and then Fortnite swooped in and stole away gamers and e-sports dollars, I figured their response would be to make a battle royale multiplayer mode for Call of Duty, because that’s all those games are: a single mode. But instead, they made a direct competitor in Warzone. It seems to have done well, overall, but it’s just one choice of several.

What do you think this is a better business strategy released the game as paid then once the game sales slow down release it as free to keep getting revenue from in game purchases or release free from the beginning like Fortnite?

I’m not sure if free to play---which relies on gamers making in-game purchases---and subscription gaming are all that different. It’s sort of like streaming music services that have free, ad-based and paid tiers, two different ways to make money. But with Activision and Call of Duty specifically, I’d rather see them go the subscription route, where you pay $60 to $100 per year to play multiplayer and there are some number of seasons each year with content drops and then a huge drop annually. It’s probably what most COD fans want, and it’s...