Everyone does the moment steam gets sued by consumers. It’s like the bar is set by epic or something and we can’t expect better things from any of them because of it.
If Epic spent half as much money as they are suing organisations and instead funded developing their shop into a gaming community platform like Steam, they’d probably have caught up by now.
To be honest, Epic is doing a good job of tearing down walled gardens in places like mobile, and we’ll probably be better off for it. But yeah, they’ve done a terrible job of competing with Steam.
Of course, but…broken clock, you know? A large percentage of personal computers will be freed from Windows in large part because of Valve, even though they profit off of legalized child gambling addiction. And walled gardens in mobile will be broken down in large part because of Epic, which uses dark patterns to trick people out of their money in pursuit of a cultural hodge podge of nonsense that won’t even exist in a few decades.
it’s often more risky and expensive to hire, train and develop systems and communities like that, especially when doing it against the tide, than to just try to trip up the competition. It’s not just that it’s dificult and it costs money, but it’s not preferred because investors abhor risks.
Isn’t this seen in global politics all the time. When US says China is too dominant in X and we need to fight it. They are not saying that US will invest in shit that will help them compete. All or 90% of the actions is to try to trip up, sabotage and sanction the competition.
They are being accused of price fixing with the whole “can’t sell games for cheaper on other store fronts compared to the steam listing” thing
warm@kbin.earth explains it better below:
It only applies to Steam product keys though, so developers cannot sell cheap Steam keys on other platforms while still taking advantage of Steam’s services.
It only applies to Steam product keys though, so developers cannot sell cheap Steam keys on other platforms while still taking advantage of Steam's services.
I believe the problem is that it isn’t just Steam keys. There’s apparently emails from Valve employees that state that it’s all versions of the game, and that seems to be the real crux here. And if that’s true it’s pretty shitty, and they might actually lose this.
It only applies to steam keys though. Like if you want to sell on other storefronts (like Epic) for cheaper, it’s perfectly fine. You simply can’t sell steam keys on other storefronts for cheaper. It’s not really “price fixing” as much as it is “Steam ensuring their servers aren’t used to download the game unless the dev has properly paid them for the key”…
Like imagine a company wants to sell more copies of their game. So they set up their own site to sell directly to consumers, and it’s cheaper than buying on Steam. This is totally fine. Consumers can still choose to add the standalone version as a non-Steam game to be able to launch it via Steam.
It’s only a breach of contract if they start offering steam keys for that same (cheaper) price, which allows the game to be downloaded via Steam, includes achievement integrations, includes Steam’s friend list “join game” multiplayer, includes Steam Deck/Steam Machine optimizations, etc… If they want all of those nice Steam integrations, they need an official Steam key. And that Steam key can’t be sold cheaper than on Steam’s official store.
ah yes, they are price fixing by saying devs can't set the price on steam (which the devs control) higher than the price on other platforms (which the devs also control)
Which isn’t accurate and is more nuanced involving Steam keys like another user said. For instance, Prey is on sale for $6 on the PlayStation store but still $30 on Steam.
As per my understanding (which isn’t saying much), Steam takes a 30% cut of each sale. In UK, someone with a specific agenda claimed to represent gamers as a class and sued reasoning that the 30% cut inflates the price of games globally even beyond Steam’s store, harming everyone.
Did i understand it right? No idea. What’s the actual goal here? Also no idea. Is Steam the “good guy” in all this? Of course not.
I think devs actually get quite a bit for that 30%. Let’s present a hypothetical. What if Valve offered an option where you could list your game on Steam with no restrictions and they’d only take a 10% cut, but the tradeoff is, they won’t promote your game at all? Like, it won’t show up in any Steam storefront advertisements, can’t participate in sales, etc. - it’s still there if it’s linked to from off-Steam or if someone searches for it, but it won’t be promoted, period.
How do you think that would work out for developers? I’d argue not well, especially for small studios.
The promotion those games get applies to the game as a whole, not only through Steam - someone can see the promotion on Steam, then go shop around and buy it elsewhere. Why should Valve promote a game if they aren’t getting a cut of the sales?
At the risk of sending you down a rabbit hole, there are some people who use Reshade on non-online games to do “game photography”. You could go as light as overlaying a grid, or more complicated stuff like simulating lens focal length, removing fog, adjusting colors, adding bloom, bokeh, etc.
It’s meant for overlaying complex graphical effects while you play, but there’s a small dedicated community of people using it to set up the perfect still shots. It’s definitely a deep rabbit hole.
I tried getting into it for a little bit, especially when playing Arkham Asylum with some of the more advanced tools like freecam. Reshade i’ve had a few brushups with though, and even used it to simulate a CRT effect on Halo CE/2. The only downside is i have to remember to manually turn Anticheat off, which thankfully isn’t too hard, just i forget too and then get confused why it won’t run. I might try experimenting with it though for some more artsy screenshots. I’d love to start going in that direction with screenshots, or at least some of them
I’m offered a variety of things to review, but since this is a friend’s site, I’m not paid to review nor write, and there’s no ads on the site…I’m lucky enough to not have to review everything to survive. Or even to keep the content machine going like most YouTubers have to. I just do this for fun!
I just accept the handhelds I find interesting to me, the ones I find most unique.
But I’ve written for a few years now in various gaming spaces, so I do understand why I get asked :)
And I also feel very lucky to do so! I really love gaming handhelds, its a passion of mine :)
Thanks for this review!
I haven’t found any information regarding external controllers or DisplayPort at the USB-C output both at the sepcifications and your review.
I’m aware that it is not the intended use case to make it a kind of stationary console. But to be honest, I’d very much appreciate being able to attach it to an external monitor and use a separate controller when playing at home.
I figure this is the wrong type of device for me then, but wanted to ask you just to be sure about it.
Yes you’re right, this handheld won’t do video out. That’s both a software and hardware limitation on this one, but so many of these handhelds do that with ease. Its just a case of narrowing down which one is right for you.
The last two devices I tested for and utilized video out on for reviews were high-end handhelds (the AYN Odin 3 Max and the Anbernic RG477V), but again…a huge variety of that for you!
Thank you for your reply, it helps a ton!
I plan to complement my SteamDeck with a tiny portable emulator, but would love to use it at home in the same way as the SteamDeck, which is in part stationary.
I’m aware that the SteamDeck could do the emulator part well, but taking it with you and whipping it out for a short gamining session is not one the SteamDeck’s strong suites.
Aren’t those attempts to jack your steam account? I remember hearing something a few years back about people being able to “recover” an account by having a certain number of friends put in a ticket saying it was stolen.
Or maybe that was discord. Either way, as a result I don’t add randos.
I hadn’t heard of that one, a kind of social engineering attack. Definitely something to keep in mind!
as a result I don’t add randos
This is generally my attitude, and it sucks really that ignoring random friend requests is usually the sensible thing to do. Anyway so far this person does seem to be genuine and hasn’t tried to get me to add a load of their friends or anything like that.
It’s 1.4.5 and there’s many QoL features (building platform is finally doable without cursing) and stilistic choices (all characters have cute portraits). Even the door and items handling has been improved, now selecting and closig doors is fast and easy. Also npc can now use stairs so they won’t be isolate to their respective level Beyond that there is a new npc with a dead cell collab (you’ll see it’s the room with the hanging bottles) and even a kingdom hearts one too. I still can’t tell the whole of it because there is a lot of stuff in a single update
I’m currently waiting for an Anbernic rg-35xx to arrive, but this was definitely on the shortlist during my research! In the end, availability and the joysticks were the deciding factors, but interested to hear how you think those two compare.
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