I would say the marketplace is a form of enshittification. They’re not burrowing headfirst into the shit like some platforms, but it’s an inevitable trend regardless.
Plus who knows what happens when gabe isn’t around any more. Best case scenario is he leaves the company to the workers as a co-op and then it has a chance to be a lasting legacy, but maybe it goes to someone who puts it up to be publicly traded and that’s game over.
The steam marketplace is an attempt to monetise the user base by creating a bunch of microtransactions and taking a cut for the store. They have created a speculative market, which is essentially gambling, and made it available to minors. This market is designed to exploit people’s psychological weaknesses.
Yes, users and devs get a cut too, and that’s better than some sites will do to you, but creating a market also has a bunch of externalities - extra problems that are offloaded onto other people and not borne by valve.
So suddenly we’ve got a bunch of scammers creating accounts to make money, which obviously can scam users, plus it generats spam, and it creates a need for user-hostile security. Now I can’t friend my kid’s account without spending money on it for instance,
Also there’s the item spam. Now when I get a notification I don’t know if it’s a community forum reply, or just more worthless junk in my inventory. The inventory could have just been a way to store game gifts and other things of actual value, now I never look at it because it’s just full of trash.
Some of these are minor inconveniences, but that’s how enshittification happens. It’s little, creeping annoyances that get worse and worse until it starts to make people look for alternatives.
And like I said, it’s not as bad as other places. Steam is still the best distribution platform out there, but it has enshittified a little bit. It has to, because the interests of the owners and the interests of the users are fundamentally at odds - more money spent means more money for the owners.
Some of these are minor inconveniences, but that’s how enshittification happens. It’s little, creeping annoyances that get worse and worse until it starts to make people look for alternatives.
Ok, maybe my definition of enshittification is off then. I thought it was when some company offers some product/service for a certain price (or free), then gradually removes features from that product/service while increasing the price. Am I off?
If that definition is right, I don’t understand how the steam marketplace, a completely optional (borderline tangential) part of the steam platform, qualifies as enshittification.
And I’m not trying to defend the steam marketplace, I think it’s stupid and terrible and at minimum needs age restrictions. But like, you can absolutely just not use it and your experience using the steam platform is totally unaffected.
That’s one way it happens, but in general the term appears to be about decline in quality for the purposes of profit-seeking, regardless of whether services were offered for free or not.
Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is the term used to describe the pattern in which online products and services decline in quality over time. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.
Other articles I looked at seem to agree with this basic concept.
And like I said, spam from scammers and inbox spam are examples of shittiness that seep in regardless of if you engage or not. There is no “no marketplace plz” option, and even if there were scammers can still send you friend request spam.
Eh, maybe I’m being pedantic, but I still don’t really see how the addition of the steam marketplace is an example of the steam platform declining in quality. It was a feature that they added a long time ago, and it doesn’t interfere with or worsen the experience of buying, organizing, or playing my video games. Sure it’s a needless addition (in our opinions), but one that I can easily ignore because it’s so isolated from the main product. Plenty of other products and services out there have features that some don’t like or don’t use, but that isn’t the same thing as enshittification. And I feel like the spam would happen regardless of if the marketplace was there or not. That feels more like a moderation problem, not an enshittification problem.
Sure, if you ignore the worst parts of it that I explicitly laid out and only focus on how it makes you feel personally, then I can see how you might feel that way.
I’m not ignoring anything, I just don’t agree that the steam marketplace, and all the stuff you’re talking about related to the steam marketplace, fits either of our definitions of enshittification.
Okay, I don’t understand how and you haven’t explained it, you’ve just said that you don’t personally care about it, which isn’t an argument I can respond to. You’re free to have your opinion, but I don’t see how it’s relevant here.
It was a feature that they added a long time ago, and it doesn’t interfere with or worsen the experience of buying, organizing, or playing my video games… Plenty of other products and services out there have features that some don’t like or don’t use, but that isn’t the same thing as enshittification.
Yes, you ignored the worst parts of it in favour of things you could dismiss for yourself, and then you ignored me pointing that out. I’m not going to keep explaining this to you any further.
The only one ignoring things is you. You’re ignoring my whole point. Which is that your personal bar for enshittification is lower than any of the definitions we’ve given in this thread, because it’s basically “anything I think is bad is enshittification”
Yes, I’m so angry and salty that I checks notes wrote a detailed and even-handed analysis of the situation with appropriate caveats. How dare I state facts with sources and explanations of my reasoning.
I’m just absolutely raging. It’s embarrassing, frankly. I’m making a fool of myself. I can’t believe I lost control like that and said words that I believe to be true. Who does that? Unhinged behaviour. Just wild. I should be banned.
Goddamn, I miss those days! Got a real graphics card for TF2 (edit: I meant TF Classic) so I could see through water. Rocket jumping and cluster bombs, ahhhh. There was a mod with a grappling hook that was amazing.
Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov (the lead artist) formed their own company Red Info in 2023. I will only recognise a game as Disco Elysium’s successor if it comes from them.
This might be a controversial opinion, but please hear me out: this guy is absolutely overhyped.
I saw the entire ZA/UM situation from the outside without having ever played Disco Elysium before, so I don’t have any stake or bias in what happened. In my personal opinion there are 2 important notes: Yes, Kurvitz is responsible for the creation of one of the best games of all time. He also is a massive asshole who abuses his workers. Both of these can be true and don’t contradict each other.
I can really recommend the Documentation by People Make Games about it, I think they made great and very neutral reporting on it, getting everybody’s side of the story. But one think becomes increasingly clear throughout the video: the original creator is a huge egomaniac.
I came to dislike him the more I heard him talk. He spouts how he comes from this underground punk scene, but also betrays every value that he should hold. He doesn’t think his workers are important and that they should just endure his wrath at all times. He doesn’t see how multiple people can be of importance to a project besides him of course. As soon as the money came in he threw every value he said he’d hold aside to become a huge capitalist, even going so far as making his own shell company that preemptively held the rights to a sequel just so he can profit from it more.
This entire situation is his fault. A “punk” ignores all his anticapitalist values, gives all his intellectual property to a capitalist, capitalism ensues and he becomes bitter because he didn’t get a greater slice of the pie.
Let me be clear: I think a sequel should involve him. But I also believe he shouldn’t be in a lead game designer position, more of a “lead story designer/writer”. He has shown to not be all to competent in that and he WILL abuse his workers again. Somebody needs to be above him to manage his insanity.
Nothing against you, but I think endlessly hyping him up won’t lead to that or even a good outcome. He will squander everything that he will be given. He is not a good person, he is a “Rockstar Developer” and I mean that as an insult.
Shitty people are abundant in the creative industries, I have no delusions about that. Probably even more of those that have no public presence. But that has no bearing on whether or not he should retain sole ownership of his work. It’s an entirely separate issue. Andrzej Sapkowski is also a massive douchebag, but nobody would deny that The Witcher is his property.
I totally agree. Problem is just that he legally sold it, so he kinda fucked himself on that. It’s also interesting to see how nobody in that situation seemed to have good intentions, just a bunch of assholes all around
I’m not convinced that is the case. The studio was purchased by a holdings company, then its CEO bought four early sketches of DE from the studio for pocket change. When Kurvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere (writer) objected, they were demoted and later fired. Unless another exchange took place, I don’t see how this would amount to Kurvitz selling his rights; at the very least, he still owns Sacred And Terrible Air (with DE itself naturally belonging to the studio).
There are also some pretty chill creative people who don’t care about the money and the fame much. Even though having money is nice and makes your life much easier.
People already got invited? I guess that means I wasn’t invited. Would have been nice to at least get an email telling me I was not picked. Like when you go in for an interview and they tell you they will call you but never do. Like, just tell me I am not getting hired lol.
That sounds idiotic and likely staged to increase the actual “accepted” price.
And this is especially funny since I am sitting here wondering if I need to get PS+ to use mine in a week or three? And now realizing I care about Avowed a LOT more than a sunbro run.
Yup. I can sit next to a fellow programmer for hours in a pit, but you put me next to some Account Service jackass who’s on the phone all day and I’ll snap!
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