Can confirm. Here in Canada, nobody works. We all sit at home and play video games instead. There’s no industry, no shops, no hospitals. Only video games.
Yeah, most people I know don’t have jobs! We just run extension cords between our igloos to power our video game machines. If it weren’t for them we could totally be like the States. 🤦🏻♂️😂
Can confirm, only video games in the UK too. Certainly not the 6th largest economy in the world worth £3.84 trillion. Nor a labour force with 74.9% in employment, that would be silly!
Norwegian living in Denmark. I moved from Norway because everyone was just gaming, but I wanted to go to gigs, so I moved. Turns out everyone games in Denmark all the time too! It must be why the Northern European countries score so high in the happiness rating: all we do is game all day. It’s not like these countries have any money, especially Norway.
I am so fucking tired of gaming, could someone for the love of fuck get rid of my healthcare?!?!?! I wake up, gaming. For lunch I game. Dinner? You guessed it, gaming. At night I just constantly game. I don’t know how I get out of this, but at least my health is fucking fantastic!
In Québec we all own a state mandated PS5 (no Xbox’s allowed, that would be illegal) and play a variety of Fifa, Marvel Heroes and Valorant because it’s said to sharpen our skills and better society. Many women knock on my door saying they want me to grant them children, but knowing that my KDA might suffer from their demands I know not to give in, and to instead keep grinding until my next government granted dialysis appointment. Mon dieu que j’aime le Québec 🙏
I've been browsing older Forgotten Realms sourcebooks and the love that the authors put into those is amazing. It hurts to see D&D and the worlds I grew up loving destroyed by a soulless entity that cares only about profit.
If it’s at all of interest to you, there are a bunch of good novels set in the Forgotten Realms, too.
There’s a pretty great thread from just a few years ago on the Candlekeep forums where someone read through every single book and gave a brief review of them. I can’t remember their opinion in great detail, but the biggest authors (Ed Greenwood and Bob Salvatore) were relatively lowly rated, while Elaine Cunningham and Erin M. Evans consistently rated much more highly.
I’ve never read Cunningham myself, but I’ve read all of Evans’ FR novels and am a huge fan. Plan to read her non-FR novels once I’m finished with what I’m currently working through, if I can find a copy that’s not from the rainforest company.
Was trickier to find than I thought because of the unorthodox title. But here it is.
It’s a 35 page thread with others chiming in with their thoughts as the original author makes his way through the list, and some summing up on pages 33 & 34. And technically still ongoing as new books slowly trickle out, though most of it was finished in 2020.
Unfortunately it looks like the author never fully finished his wrap-up either. He said he was gonna do favourite series, fav individual books, fav authors, and misc comments, but only ended up doing the first two of those as far as I could see.
Personally I mostly read through the reviews of Evans’ books back when I first saw the thread, and my vague recollection was that he/others liked them and mentioned also liking Cunningham, but I could be misremembering.
Happy to provide my own review of Evans’ work if interested.
I’m in a rare slump of not knowing what to read. I’ve been meaning to dig in to forgotten realms for a while, and wanted to start out with Drizt, but heard mixed things.
No worries! If you didn’t already see it, I wrote a fairly lengthy review of the Evans novels in response to another user a few comments down in this thread.
Regarding Drizzt, my understanding is that “mixed things” is basically right. Some of the books are very well-liked, and others are not so much. My own personal experience is only that I’ve tried listening to the audiobook of The Companions, the Drizzt novel which is the first of The Sundering series. But I’ve ended up bouncing off of it twice, just not really caring about the characters.
I’ve been searching all around for Cunningham books and I can’t find any. Not any libraries around here, virtual or physical. Not any used book stores. No where!
I’ve really struggled with the first of Evans’ Brimstone Angels series for a long time, too. The rest of the series was easy to come by, but the first one goes for over $100 second hand.
My local library had it for a while, but seems to have gotten rid of it. Thankfully, all Evans’ books are excellently narrated in audiobook, and are also available in ebook (including easily pirated, which I don’t feel too bad about considering I’ve bought the physical copy of all but the first, as well as the audiobooks of all of them).
I would guess the same should be true of Cunningham’s works, though I haven’t looked. (And the quality of the audio narration may not be as excellent. I know the narrator of the small number of Greenwood books I read was less than stellar.)
Audiobook unfortunately isn’t much of an option for me due to attention issues. All I know is it’s been impossible for me to find the Starlight & Shadows series.
If you have any recommendations for Evans’ books I’d love to see if I can check those out, as well.
Evans only has one standalone novel and one 6-book series.
The standalone: The God Catcher is set in Waterdeep, and is about the daughter of a minor noble who flunks out of wizard school and becomes a rogue, getting caught up in the scheme of some dragons who have found a way to bypass Waterdeep’s mythal and get into the city. It’s a fun ride.
The series is the Brimstone Angels series, about two twin tieflings abandoned at birth and adopted by a curmudgeonly single dad dragonborn. The prologue shows one of the twins accidentally forming a warlock pact with a devil. The biggest ongoing appeals of this series are:
the nature of an infernal warlock pact and the relation between the warlock and patron
the experience of a race that internally is absolutely no different to humans (unlike, say, half-orcs, which are canonically actually more likely to be aggressive) but which are perceived as evil
the politics of the Nine Hells (her patron becomes, especially as the series goes on, a sort of deuteragonist of the series, and we see a lot of internal political dealings, schemes, etc. between different devils of different ranks)
If you’ve read the 5e Player’s Handbook, the quotes that are at the start of the tiefling and dragonborn racial entries both come from this series. The tiefling one is part of the prologue of book 1 (Brimstone Angels) and the dragonborn one is—from memory—from book 5 (Ashes of the Tyrant). The last two books are especially good if you’re interested in dragonborn, or if you like creative fantasy world building in general, because Evans’ background before she got into writing was in anthropology, and the dragonborn culture was not very heavily fleshed out previously, so she had a lot of leeway to do some really cool unique work with them. She’s got a number of articles on her blog about draconic language and dragonborn culture as sort of fun supplemental material. Here’s part 1 of “playing a Dragonborn in the Forgotten Realms”. There are also parts 2 and 3 of that series, plus 2 posts of the draconic language.
Book 4 is set in Cormyr, and deals a lot with Cormyrian politics. The closest parallel to which in more popular fantasy that I can think of is Wheel of Time’s Andoran succession crisis
Book 3 was explicitly part of WotC’s The Sundering, a series of books set around the time of the Second Sundering, the in-world explanation for the rule and setting changes between 4th and 5th edition. But Evans was allowed to set all of her remaining books 3–6 during the intermediary period, so book 6 climaxes basically right as the Sundering itself is hitting the world, which plays into her story threads in a major way.
There’s stuff about how Asmodeus came to be a god, how tieflings came to look like they do in 4th and 5th edition, how Azuth returned to life after being presumed dead, and a brief excursion to Toril’s twin plane of Abeir, the magic-less land ruled by dragon tyrants from which the dragonborn escaped.
There’s one other of her blog posts that I’d like to recommend, but I’m putting it down here because it’s a little different. It’s less a lore thing and more something interesting in the writing. Good if you want interesting ideas for narrating at a table, maybe, but mostly interesting if you’re interested in hearing about the writing process. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys seeing the “behind-the-scenes” of movies and the like. It’s this one where she’s talking about how she weaves in a game mechanic into the narrative in a seamless but necessary way. Specifically, how she used a 4e “healing surge” in the first book, a mechanic that was often derided by people who didn’t like 4e because of how unrealistic it was, but which she utilised in a way that was both flawless and entirely necessary (because the character doing it had used an ability that required they be below half health, and then later in the same scene used one that required they be above half health, to be faithful to the game rules).
But yeah, it’s safe to say that I’m a huge fan, and highly recommend her. Unfortunately if audiobook is not an option, book is the only way to get the first Brimstone Angels book, unless you’re lucky enough to have a library with it. But at least when I was buying 6 or so years ago, all the other books in the series were easy to get a hold of.
Oh, I’ll just also add that she’s got two other books set in her own world that I know of. I think at least a third is planned. And next year the classic MMORPG RuneScape is releasing a book set in its world’s past written by her. I’ve not read any of these, but plan to.
Larian pls make a new series based on the Pathfinder ruleset. I think the success of BG3 has helped the mainstream to get used to DnD ruleset. Although Pathfinder is more complex, I think they have the chops to make it more accessible to the masses.
Forgotten realms is basically the IP for standard fantasy. This is an enormous strength for an IP. Divinity doesn’t have this strength, it doesn’t speak naturally to everyone like this.
Frankly I was really excited for the Divinity project they dropped for BG3, precisely because I like the “high middle age/early modern” feel of, eg. Pillars of Eternity that FR kinda lacks.
Pathfinder was created as an updated version of D&D 3.5, which was very complex. PF food streamline parts of it, but ended up just as complex at some point, mostly due to the massive variety of options available through splat books.
Meanwhile, D&D 5e was released to be much less complex by getting rid of stacking bonuses and the vast majority of math.
Parhfinder 2 (which I have not actually played yet) did not do that. They opted for streamlining the existing system by combining several similar subsystems into one (i.e. everything is a feat now). But the math is still there.
Parhfinder 2 (which I have not actually played yet) did not do that. They opted for streamlining the existing system by combining several similar subsystems into one (i.e. everything is a feat now). But the math is still there.
I disagree. I’ve played 5E and GM PF2E (so I’m biased, but informed). In PF2E there’s no stacking bonuses of the same type, and there’s only 3 bonus types now.
Also, while there’s a ton of feats, Paizo didn’t just toss everything into feats.
PF2E is built off of a few frameworks for subsystems, one of which being character creation. There’s also the monster creation framework which allows homebrewing creatures and encounters that follow challenge rating suggestions. There’s even guidelines for building your own subsystems for thibgs like investigation, chases, research, etc. That are easy to learn get you fairly close to what Paizo would design themselves.
Meanwhile, the streamlining of 5E that you’re hinting at is WotC stripping out almost all character options. I always got tired of D&D campaigns by level 5 because your biggest meaningful choices are at 1st and 3rd level unless you start making multiclass abominations. And there’s also little support for GM’s, requiring each one to come up with their own rules for things like how ships work or designing magic items.
I’d rather have a system like PF2E that provides options, because you can always choose to ignore them and build your own thing. If you’re playing 5E, you don’t have that choice
Pathfinder 1e was pretty much just straight-up continuing D&D 3.5e, but with some tweaks. Pathfinder 2e overhauled a lot of stuff, often simplifying things, but still pretty complex.
Compared to D&D 5e, Pathfinder has more rules, but those rules often make things easier, or (IMO) get you more return for the effort. So, for example: The feat list is bigger and more complicated, but in practice, it means you only need to look at a handful of them when you level up, which is easier (and the rules give you guidelines for swapping things out if you don’t like them). The monk has more decisions to make with stances and attack types, but that’s… kind of what you want with a monk to make combat interesting. There are rules for boats, and holy shit how does 5e not have rules for boats.
The last example might sound silly, but it’s part of what convinced me to switch. It’s an annoying omission in and of itself, but also speaks to a broader pattern of 5e just not supporting Dungeon Masters, letting them fix the either broken or incomplete rules, or else take the blame for them. Pathfinder actually supports Dungeon Game Masters, as though their time, effort, and fun were just as valuable as anyone else’s. /rant
Pathfinder 2e is what I’d play if I wanted something like 5e, but runs differently. If I wanted something similar, I’d pick something else, but that’s a longer, even more off topic discussion to go into unprompted. :P
That sounds cool. My only exposure to Pathfinder was the Pathfinder: Kingmaker game, which felt a lot like the predecessor to Baldur’s Gate 3. I haven’t played it on Table Top. I’d definitely try it if someone had the books though. I already have a lot of D&D books, which makes it my go-to game.
They just launched some new Pathfinder books that are effectively pathfinder 2.x, with a lot of small (and some larger) tweaks, but technically the previous 2e books are still able to be used interchangeably.
To that end, there’s a Humble Bundle going on where you can pick up a TON of that legacy 2e content in official PDF form, so if you’re interested you should check it out! I believe most tiers include the Beginner Box, which has an intro adventure for new players and includes some sort of single player content that would give you a glimpse into how the game runs :)
Yeah, it’s definitely in the same wheelhouse as modern D&D, so if you like that general experience but want to try something new, it’s worth checking out. It’s my pick when I want high adventure, superheroic fantasy, with engaging set piece encounters, which is the vibe both games are going for.
@machinaeZERO is also right on the money. There’s going to be a revision coming up, but the old stuff is still compatible and in Humble Bundle right now. (Pathfinder does that periodically, and they’re pretty sweet deals!) One more thing is that all the rules are free, legitimately. There’s a wiki called The Archives of Nethys, which has ALL the rules content from ALL the books. Paizo allows it, and explicitly gave the site the green light to do that. The books are still nice to have, and you still need them if you want adventures or lore, but you never have to buy a book just to get some rules in it, like a class or feat or whatever.
Yes it is. Pathfinder made for builders who want to create a character with hundreds of options to choose from. It is rule heavy in the tradition of dnd 3rd edition. Pathfinder 2e is much more refined, but I doubt they went away from this philosophy. It’s still very rule heavy.
Pathfinder was to get around WotC dropping D&D 3.5. Paizo was started by veteran D&D writers to sell adventures, which they still do as adventure paths, rather than a system. When WotC updated to 4e, meaning no more print books that Paizo could reference in their adventures, Pathfinder was a way to print new 3.5e PHBs and Monster Manuals.
Paizo didn’t initially change much in PF1e. There were a few balance tweaks. The books were better laid out than 3.5. The players did the math on things like combat maneuvers in advance. In practice the game played pretty much the same, my groups jumped over seamlessly.
Having run and played both, I do think Pathfinder 2e is counterintuitively simpler in play than 5e D&D. 5e plays fluidly almost immediately, move and act. PF2e is pretty demanding for the first hour or three, the three action economy and Conditions ™ are an armful, and many players need to unlearn some D&D habits. Once a player has below average system mastery PF2e is as fluid as 5e. Beyond that PF2e shines. The rules scale better to complex scenarios, giving players more clear options of how they could act and giving the GM a better framework to figure out exactly what someone needs to roll. I also think it’s easier for players to go from average to good system mastery in Pathfinder, it’s mostly just learning how to optimize their character and learning more conditions and spells that work in the framework the player already understands.
For new players in session 1 D&D is simpler, in session 5 Pathfinder pulls even or maybe ahead, and in session 50 Pathfinder still sort of works where D&D falls apart.
PF2e character customization, though, is much more complicated, which some people like and others do not.
Personally I would love if they made something based on FATE. I would have absolutely no clue how to do it in a CRPG, but I love the system for actual pen&paper.
I don’t really think it is possible. FATE rules do not contain a game in a traditional sense and the game itself is created during play via Aspects. A computer game that attempts to do FATE right would just end up with a FUDGE adaptation. Maybe when the LLMs are much better…
I was impressed by how good Larian made BG3 in spite of using tabletop mechanics, but the Divinity games still had much better game play. I hope they start a new IP and add more of the roleplay options that made BG3 great, but with their own mechanics (hopefully without a charisma stat)
I hated the magical + physical armor parts in the D:OS mechanic. I think using a DnD ruleset instead of their own helps BG3 mainstream success. This is anecdotal evidence but I have a friend that is unable to play D:OS2 but loves BG3 very much.
I can understand why people familiar with DnD mechanics and setting would find it easier to get into BG3, but they’re certainly not easier to learn. You have 4 separate tabs of actions, loaded with different icons (half of which you probably won’t use). I’ve played 5e for years and even I found it pretty cumbersome, especially when 90% of the time your best option is just to press attack. Now that I say it though, maybe that’s why it’s easier. Divinity’s armour made sure you engaged with a variety of different classes and abilities whereas you can go through BG3 just whacking everything on the head and ignoring all your abilities. I’m glad they reached so many people with BG3 but I hope they go back to great tactical combat in the future
PF2e is a lot more approachable than 1e. It’s a lot harder to truly botch a character in 2e, while preserving variety of options. The 3 action system is also much more intuitive than action types.
This would be my absolute dream. I loved BG3 but the weakest part of me was being based on D&D 5e. PF2 is just a better system in pretty much every way imo.
If they could make a PF2 CRPG, that would be incredible.
Any chance you might be able to give some highlights of what you consider significant differences between 5e and PF1/2 (your choice)? My only experience is 5e tabletop and BG3.
PF2 quick highlights:
Action economy. You get three actions and can spend them however you want. Attack three times? Sure! (Note: there’s a -5 penalty for the second attack and a -10 penalty for the third attack on the same turn (note: some feats can mitigate this eg. one that drops them to -3 and -6 respectively)). Move three times? Yeah! Move attack move? Attack move attack? Cast a spell (typically consumes two actions) and then attack? Sweet. Got a feature on your spell where you can funnel more actions into it for a bigger effect? Very cool.
Degrees of Success: Roll more than ten below the DC? Oof, that’s not just a miss, that’s a miss where you also fall on your ass. Ten or more over? That’s a critical! You get sweet (and clearly defined) bonus effects. Roll a natural 20 or 1? That bumps you up or down a success tier instead of being an automatic failure or success. You might just be turning a critical miss into a regular miss on a 20 (given extreme DCs) or even a regular miss into a hail mary shot, like Bard hitting that gap between Smaug’s scales.
Counteract as a broad mechanic: Counterspell is now just one implementation of a greater and robust counter mechanic, wherein you make a bid and possibly get a better result. The counterspell example is that you can counter a spell of up to three spell slot levels higher than the one you spent just by rolling high (see degrees of success above). This is also how you disarm traps and dispel auras.
Counterspell itself gets way more granular. It is very different depending on which class you’re pulling it from, which means it feels way more satisfying, not having been smashed into a one-size-fits-all shape. You can build it up with feats, playing with the resource economy and requirements. My personal favorite is a feat which allows you (GM’s discretion) to counter spells with thematically relevant spells, like fizzling a fireball with create water. It’s intricate, it’s interesting, you get way more control over your kit, and you get to feel really cool when you do cool stuff. Which applies to the system on the whole.
There are consistent rules that are written out pretty verbosely. This can be scary at first but also ‘generally’ prevents a lot of table discussion. There are tons of characters choice and it is pretty hard to make a low power/high power character; also encounter/monster building rules actually work. Price of this is that there are a lot of options that were balanced out of their fun. Thankfully they have been getting better at this.
Personally I think 5e sits at a weird point. There are games like PF2, 13th Age, etc. that deliver better gaming frameworks with depth and there are better ‘simple’ games like WWN and numerous retroclones that provide the bare minimum and empower GM to improvise. Where as 5e has had an approach more like the former to the rules interpretation and character complexity, with tons of unofficial official rules clarifications and specific character, while having the actual rules written out more like the latter group providing very little guidance to how to use them. It awes with fun abilities yet provides little on how they interact. It is not a bad game if the GM knows what they want out of it, but most games I have been in was a disparate mix of ‘things others do’. A lot of the blame lies with the DMG.
I played em both and even did a secret ending run. Love both but it’s based on PF1e and it’s still built with RTWP by default. I love the various origin characters that Larian made for BG3 and D:OS2 that made your party members feel like real characters that have their own motivations unlike other RPGs that have your companion to be more like henchmen.
Yes they have. They've just recently nuked on the Switch emulator.
And you can bet that if they could, Nintendo would go out of their way to sue any other emulator developer that emulates their games. The only things saving some of those emulators is technicalities like open-source.
They've just recently nuked on the Switch emulator.
Because it was being used for piracy. As in, had support in the emulator's code for unreleased games. Nintendo rarely goes after emulator devs that don't use their code.
I'm not defending Nintendo, dude. I'm explaining how they're able to shut down emulators. It's possible to make legal emulators, and Nintendo won't touch them.
Supporting unreleased games does not mean they used Nintendo code. The whole point of an emulator is to perfectly reproduce the original system. That means working on any switch game, regardless of whether said game has been released or even thought of. In practice it isn’t that simple because they are attempting to replicate a very complex system, so there will usually be patches whenever giant games come out that use the system in different ways. However, that doesn’t mean Nintendo code is being used at all.
Right, but Yuzu did, tho. That's how Nintendo shut them down. Yuzu overstepped and handed Nintendo their own noose. They probably would've been just fine if they hadn't given out builds with those tools built-in.
AFAIK the Yuzu accusations of containing code from the Nintendo SDK haven’t been proven and also didn’t come out until well after Yuzu had already shut down (it was drama surrounding the Suyu “devs” that tried to succeed them). The whole case was about them profiting off of their patreon and optimizing their emulator for a game that hadn’t been released yet.
It’s not that Yuzu used stolen code, it’s that they released updates that optimized for the leaked copies of Tears of the Kingdom, and charged money for it. If they waited to release builds until after the release, or if they had been doing it for free, they probably wouldn’t have been shut down. You might think this is a small difference, but it really isn’t because having the binary file of a game is not the same as having the code that made the binary. Realistically, if you are good enough at reverse engineering binaries that you can figure out the code well enough to make optimizations for it in the 2 weeks that the game was leaked for before it came out, you are probably getting paid enough that steaking your income on a community-driven emulator would be unthinkable.
Either way, Ryujinx, which didn’t profit like Yuzu did (and is written in a completely different programming language from Yuzu, with a completely different set of developers) still got shut down. Nintendo isn’t doing it because of stolen code, they’re doing it because it’s an emulator that exists.
They didn’t use any code. Any keys were dumped from an existing Switch. Yuzu got taken down not as a result of a lawsuit, but because of the threat of one. Famously Bleem won their emulator lawsuit from PlayStation, but still went bankrupt anyway, so most emulator projects don’t even try to fight any legal battles.
Here's some more quotes from the same page where Nintendo is viciously anti-emulation:
The introduction of video game emulators represents the greatest threat to date to the intellectual property rights of video game developers. As is the case with any business or industry, when its products become available for free, the revenue stream supporting that industry is threatened. Such emulators have the potential to significantly damage a worldwide entertainment software industry which generates over $15 billion annually, and tens of thousands of jobs.
Distribution of a Nintendo emulator trades off of Nintendo's goodwill and the millions of dollars invested in research & development and marketing by Nintendo and its licensees. Substantial damages are caused to Nintendo and its licensees. It is irrelevant whether or not someone profits from the distribution of an emulator. The emulator promotes the play of illegal ROMs , NOT authentic games. Thus, not only does it not lead to more sales, it has the opposite effect and purpose.
Personal Websites and/or Internet Content Providers sites That link to Nintendo ROMs, Nintendo emulators and/or illegal copying devices can be held liable for copyright and trademark violations, regardless of whether the illegal software and/or devices are on their site or whether they are linking to the sites where the illegal items are found.
Nintendo's been openly emulating their own games since about that time. IIRC, the SNES Virtual Console on the Wii had code from SNES9X in it.
The distinction (which seems nobody cares about) is that Nintendo's going after copyright infringers. If your emulator doesn't use any of Nintendo's code, they ain't doing shit about it; they're just gonna steal it, if anything.
Somebody has fed you or you have invented bad information. Neither Yuzu nor Ryujinx, the two Switch emulators which recently ceased development due to intervention from Nintendo, included Nintendo's code. The Yuzu settlement required those developers to acknowledge that
because our projects can circumvent Nintendo’s technological protection measures and allow users to play games outside of authorized hardware, they have led to extensive piracy.
There was never any mention of them stealing Nintendo code.
Ryujinx, we know even less about, because the agreement went down privately, but there's literally zero indication of any stolen code. We know that Nintendo contacted the developer proposing that they cease offering Ryujinx and they did.
Obviously, Nintendo was bothered in both of these cases because the emulators do facilitate piracy, but that's not the same as them having infringed on Nintendo's copyright by using their code which you are claiming. Both of these emulators were developed open-source; if they were built using stolen Nintendo code there would be receipts all over the place. That was never the problem.
Yuzu supported unreleased games. To do that required using Nintendo's code, and getting that code through unauthorized channels. Nintendo's code may not have been distributed through Yuzu, but it was used in a way that was not permitted in order to engineer a way to circumvent the copy protection of those games. That was how Nintendo was able to go after them.
Dude why are you digging this hole even deeper. They are going after emulators. That’s a proven fact. You can try to handwave it however you wish, but that won’t change reality. Nintendo goes after emulators, after modders, after content creators playing those mods. An emulator can play games, that’s what it’s there for. I don’t see how an emulator would work otherwise.
Because Yuzu emulated the Switch, while PJ64 emulates a long gone platform they don’t care about anymore. They’ll release a sloppy emulated game on switch for games from that era and call it a day, and get barely any sales. For switch they think that removing an emulator cuts their sale numbers in half which is insane. Nintendo hates community projects in all aspects. They don’t want emulators. They don’t want mods. They want people to buy their console, go to their store, buy a game from them and end it there. Buying a game from the store and playing on PC is unacceptable for them.
PJ64 emulates a long gone platform they don't care about anymore.
No. PJ64 was around when Nintendo was still actively making money on N64 titles.
PJ64 never got shut down because they made sure to always keep their project legal. Nintendo could never do shit to them, and it's been over 20 years now.
Nintendo couldn’t do shit to Ryu either, except overwhelm them with lawsuits.
How much are they paying you to blatantly lie? Just because a corporation has billions to throw at frivolous cases doesn’t mean that they’re right, it simply means our court systems are fucked beyond repair.
Neither Ryu or any switch emulator has used Nintendo code. One of then simply boasted about a leak which got them in a lot of trouble.
You sure do seen to love a company that hates you. I mean, go try and post a video of you enjoying Mario kart on a switch, see how long it takes for it to be removed. Any game company that cared about its customers would let you have fun.
To be clear, fuck Nintendo, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least bit to find out that Yuzu was using proprietary information to make so much progress so quickly. In fact, I’ve long assumed that they did. Many details of these suits will never come to light, but it would easily explain how Nintendo was able to take down forks like Suyu so quickly as well, if they can prove that it wasn’t clean room reverse engineered.
I kinda get that they’ll do whatever than can to shut down an emulator for a console still selling and available on the shelves though. Not that there aren’t legitimate cases for it (homebrew software and games), but that’s not what Nintendo is concerned about.
But screw that for legacy consoles, game preservation is important too.
I kinda get that they’ll do whatever than can to shut down an emulator for a console still selling
If I hadn’t downloaded Yuzu and BOTW, Nintendo would’ve probably missed out on several hundreds euros my brother spent on buying a Switch, several games, controllers and supplies, albeit some of the supplies are 3rd party so Nintendo probably didn’t make profit off them.
Piracy definitely increases sales. I would have never bought a Switch in the situation I was in some years back, but having downloaded it and gotten very into it, my brother wanted to as well and he didn’t care to pirate, and had actual uses for Switch’s properties that you don’t get on emulators, like online play and the portability of the console itself.
It’s just that it’s hard to actually quantify, so the shareholders will prefer to go with enforcement that forces people to buy the games and console than taking a risk on hypotheticals.
Personally, I never bought a Wii U/Switch and played my fair share of games through emulation only.
They also shut down Yuzu forks using the DMCA. If they paid Ryujinx’s dev it was the equivalent of the Mafia bribing a judge while waving a picture of his family.
That, and when Nintendo's code is used in some way to develop the project. Japan has very strict laws on reverse engineering any software, which Nintendo is always set to capitalize on.
I don’t disagree they are their games, but is it their emulator, or did they just download one of the many online? Really doesn’t matter, just love to see companies bitch about something, then turn around and do it themselves.
I understand needing to protect your IP, in some sense, but what I’m getting at is that when a fan game is made, it is a homage to a beloved franchise that fosters love for the IP. If you were a smart company, you would foster this love for your franchise, to entrench the fans you already have, and to gather more fans because you are seen as the company that “does no wrong”, which in turn also increases your profits. Imagine if instead of taking these love letters to your franchise down (which makes you look like an absolute fucking ass to most), you made a feature of it on an official channel. Look at Scott Cawthon and his Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise. He encourages people to make fan games using his original ideas and that encourages people to not only love his own games, but to go out and start developing their own little games that include ideas that Scott may not have even thought about including before. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is a good way of protecting your IP by taking down blatant rip offs of your game that want to steal money from your fans, and cause confusion to new fans. Then there is the bad way, which is taking down these passionate love letters to your franchise that encourage others to look at the original source and see why they even decided to take the time to create the fan game in the first place. IF the fan game is trying to monetize, then by all means, send a warning. Tell them to not monetize it, and they are free to continue. If they continue, Cease and Desist. Hopefully that makes sense.
If they would carte blanche allow fan games of their IPs then that would weaken the IPs, which could lead to them loosing the IPs completly. For that it is irrelevant if the games are monetized or not.
Nintendo would need to implement some kind of process for developers of fan games to get them officially licensed. But for that to be effective as a tool to protect the IP they could not just give such a limited fan game license to everyone who request it, so a complex request process with multiple steps would be needed, and they would need to deny lots if not even most of the requests.
And this gets even more complicated when the very complex japan software patent system is added to the mix.
Could Nintendo be less shitty? Oh yes they could, but they decided to go the Cobra Kai way and strike first, strike hard, no merci!
Yes, like many things in the space of copyright and patents, this should be changed and defanged.
But the only changes we will ever see is making it more and more into a weapon against consumers. Nintendo, Disney and all the other big IP holders will never allow for anything else, they will use their money and power to prevent it.
Well yeah, as the owners they have the exclusive right to determine what’s okay. They’re just following the rules as they’ve been laid out by centuries of corporate lobbying for more exploitable copyright laws. Those are what we need to focus on if we want more fair use of intellectual property that the rights holder has already sufficiently profited from - the thing that such protections were initially meant to ensure to a much more reasonable extent.
But they DO have the exclusive right. People want to be told the world is different - that it’s better - but if we want to change it we need to see it for what it is. If we say “They don’t have the right!” before we’ve done the work necessary to strip them of the right, then we’ll never even understand how to start fixing this broken system.
I completely agree with that take, I was just making a joke about how the first sentence reads like the start of a comment that’s about to defend Nintendo
Would you want to enter a legal battle with Nintendo? This system is broken in a lot of different ways, one of which is the incredible expense of legal fees even if you’re in such an open-and-shut case as someone clearly using your intellectual property without your consent. The one with deeper pockets wins regardless of what the law says.
Wait are we arguing that the owner of something isn’t entitled more than someone who bought it?
FTFY. The problem is not with Nintendo being against emulators because of piracy, they’re against emulators even if you own the game and the hardware but want to preserve the hardware (just like they do in the museum).
And if the counter-argument is that you don’t own the game when you buy it, then by that same logic you don’t steal it when you pirate it.
A) Yes, if you buy a game you don’t own the game. Only a license to use the software (in this case the game) was bought. This was, in general, even the case back then when games were sold on cartridges or discs. And it is for sure the case now with digital distribution.
B) Also yes, pirating a game is most of the time not theft but it is still against the law to use a unlicensed copy of any software.
If Nintendo were only showcasing games developed AND published by Nintendo, that might be the argument.
They’re not though, some of the games they’re showing they didn’t develop or publish.
Nintendo says emulation is transformative, that due to the recompiler, it’s a new work. Do they have permission from all the rightsholders for third party games to make a transformative work?
Do they even have the permissions from artists who might have licensed their work to Nintendo for X game, but not for the newly emulated ‘Y’
Exactly! No venture capitalist has ever taken something that could be monetized but wasn’t, bought it out, and then proceeded to monetize it into irrelevancy before…
I cannot wrap my head around why the game industry hasn’t already unionised massively—I hear horror story after horror story and everyone working in the industry seems to have convinced themselves they’re special and it won’t happen to them
It’s not that hard to understand. The whole gaming industry is filled with people who are super passionate about games, like passionate to a fault. This makes it very, very difficult to unionize as there’s almost always some other game dev out there who would take the job for less pay and more hours.
I actually know a friend like that. He was job jumping a lot, looking for game dev roles almost exclusively. He finally landed such a role. Far as I heard, he’s working overtime a lot (voluntarily) and he earns less than half of what I earn as a “regular” software developer.
Yeah, like the music or movie industry, it’s rife with abuse because there are so many young people who dream of working in it that there’s always fresh meat for the grinder.
And selection pressure means the industry veterans in charge are people who somehow thrived in this environment, so they’re unlikely to change things.
I have a friend who worked in vfx on some very high-profile movies and shows, stuff you have definitely seen. And that industry actually seems even worse! Everyone is a contractor, so you work on one project, and then you don’t have a job anymore, and you better make the bosses happy if you want to get another contract ever again. Everything is stunningly poorly planned, with deadlines that are impossible to meet without working all night, constant last-minute changes from fickle directors and incredible amounts of nitpicking and demands of perfectionism.
This is likely exactly the type of industry they are turning game development into. Because it’s maximum profit with minimum responsibility. Hire the best in the world, squeeze the most work in the shortest time you can out of them, and then toss them to the wind when they’re spent.
AAA dev here; it’s not that. It’s that attempting to standardize development in a highly fluid and innovative sector can kill your competitiveness as a studio if you’re not careful. That being said, unionization is also desperately needed. Blizzard recently unionized across their while studio, which is probably the best model out there right now; allow companies of a certain scale to unionize so that positive and competitive aspects of company culture/organizational structure can be maintained/improved while ensuring worker’s rights against exploitation from the top-down and abused of shareholders/management. Games, and by extension their studios, are intended to be things greater than the sum of their parts, and this is reflected by each company’s unique internal culture; every studio operates differently, and this is directly reflected in the games they end up putting out (OG Valve is a great example). How many big studios have you seen shed a sizeable amount of senior devs, after which they no longer seem to be able to make the same quality games as before? Happens all the time, and this is why; the internal culture and proprietary knowledge-base has had a paradigm shift wherein a lot of the studio’s previous identity has been lost. That’s the magic of gamedev studio culture and the people that create it, and that needs to be protected while also upholding workers’ rights simultaneously. The best way to do that is to allow all members of said culture to create their own rules of union governance from within, not necessarily to have standards that maybe disrupt said culture from without. This is obviously a generalization, as you could additionally have a looser external unionization framework protecting and binding/collectively bargaining on behalf of gamedevs as a class of worker; there is more than one way to skin the cat here. Obviously there’s a “who watches the watchmen” situation that arises here, so this needs to be done in accordance with reforms in worker advocacy laws holistically, because I don’t even need remind anybody of the deluge of “toxic company culture” Kotaku exposés over the years; we certainly need an external and legal framework to push back against that. It’s a tough nut to crack, and it’s why things seem to be moving so slowly. We’re pushing a boulder up a massive hill here while fighting bad actors and neoliberal capitalism at the same time.
To be in the entertainment industry you got to really really really want it. And when you want something that bad you learn to eat a lot of shit because the people with the money that can make it happen know how badly you want to be there.
I am in entertainment too and right now i pretty much work for free because that’s just how it is.
Yeah this would be completely illegal in a lot of countries.
You need to either make the position redundant and then you cant hire anyone for 9months or you show 3 separates instances where they failed to meet the job requirements and were notified. You can’t just fire people for the fuck of it.
They’ll never release HL3. They are not a developer anymore. They are just a game store/directory. HL3 has been overhyped so much that anything released would be a disappointment. The gaming market has changed too much from when they made a game engine and released half life to showcase that game engine.
I can probably list a million more reasons why they’ll never release, but those are the big points.
Half-life Alyx was HL3, just it was better to name it not HL3, because fans would lose their minds.
On the one hand, yeah. On the other hand, HL:A ended with an obvious sequel hook, and that hook was the ending of HL2:E2. Spoilers, I guess, but the game’s been out for a while.
Of course, that doesn’t mean another game is coming, but it does mean that HL:A doesn’t mean another game isn’t coming, either.
Lol that comparison was also going through my head. I remember it being a fun game though, more than any Bethesda games from the past decade or so, but frankly that bar wasn’t really high either.
Absolutely. I mean, I love the fact that GOG has DRM-free games. It's really incredible how many games are available without DRM because of them.
But I'm not going to make Valve out to be the bad guy here. Valve is like 99% of the reason why gaming on Linux is viable right now.
Valve seems like a great example of how, if you don't sell your company to venture capitalists, you can just be cool nerds that make good products. As much as I want DRM-free to be the norm, I'm also not going to vilify a company that is one of the best examples of not enshittifying right now.
A lot of Steam games are also DRM free. It’s up to the individual developers whether they enforce DRM checks or not.
I’ve copied files from Steam folders directly to a flash drive, plugged them into an offline, Steam-less computer that I don’t have rights to install anything on, and ran them perfectly. But it is a game-by-game thing.
The info is here and none of that “DRM” means you can’t in the future, after the servers are down, install the game from your copy of the offline installer and play it.
None of that is DRM in the sense we’re talking about here: the kind of mechanism that allows the game to be taken away from you or won’t let you install it or play it in single-player anymore when the publisher decides they don’t want to pay for servers anymore.
It is, none the less, a deviation from the No-DRM promise, IMHO.
If we’re talking about DRM as in a measure to prevent copying, or require online security check, or anything like that, then no GOG game has DRM. One of GOG’s core policies is that all of their games are DRM free. However, some people have stretched the definition a little to include other stuff. For example, if an online multiplayer game requires GOG Galaxy to connect to its online servers, some people consider that to be DRM.
There are some posts on GOG’s official forums where people try to list all the games that have “DRM” of any kind. So if you’re interested, that’s where you could look. But if you just want to have confidence that you’ll be able to install and run the game in the future, then don’t worry about it. No GOG game has anything that would prevent that.
Not in the sense we’re discussing it here, they don’t.
There’s a list of about 20 games said to have DRM in Gog and when you actually read the list rather than just it’s title it turns out none of them has what we would call DRM - any sort of phone-home validation or anti-piracy measure.
It’s mainly things games with add-on content that requires you use Gog Galaxy or register online, some that send analytics to a server and stuff like that.
Whilst it’s still nasty and still shouldn’t be happening, none of that makes the game unusable in the future after the servers are down if you still have the offline installer.
Yeah, the only caveat is that you don’t get an installer with steam, so if you copy the installed game onto a pc that doesn’t have all the correct dependencies installed (like the correct DirectX version for example), then the game won’t launch. But it’s not too complicated to install the dependencies manually
Lmao, he is colluding with the rest, not holding up the bar.
There is nothing rhat differentiates Steam from Microsoft or Nintendo. The only difference between Gaben and Bezos is that valve has a really good advertising team that’s managed to convince everyone he “isn’t your average billionaire”.
They charge 30% because they have a soft monopoly, it’s basically robbery and it is affecting the indie scene and the quality and amount of games we receive.
Gaben has 6 mega yatchs and a number of submarines. The yatchs alone are worth around 1 billion and cost an estimated 75 to 100 million per year just to maintain.
Now I sit and wait for the Gaben simp squad to come compare him to Jesus and tell me how “he has the only good monopoly”. Both of these things literally happened last time.
No one thinks Gaben is the second coming. His platform just, actually doesn’t suck, and genuinely functions as a service to its users. It’s a low bar, sure, but it’s a good one. Comparing it to Microsoft axeing any studio that produces something worth talking about while they force more datascraping malware and adware into Windows is just dishonest.
Your comment reads more like you get off on being controversial than having actual insightful thoughts and the comparisons in what these three companies you listed are actually doing.
Ya well if it’s such a fucking low bar, it’s probably because they aren’t holding it up which is my point.
They do the absolute minimum, yet receive mountains of praise. Call me when he brings down the cut to something reasonable like 5% or just let’s dev choose what price they sell their games for on other platforms ffs.
Indie companies are closing left and right, these mega stores and their soft monopoly is having a net negative impact on the industry.
Stop defending billionaires. If steam was fair, he wouldn’t be able to afford a billion dollars worth of fancy boats.
Okay, so to be clear, I’m saying they don’t have enough difference between them when it comes to being a gross monopolistic company to warrant the praise.
All four of them suck, I’m saying they are all in the same group of shifty companies that take advantage of the gaming industry and it’s clients (us).
There’s not enough nuance to justify drinking Gabens sweat.
Why is he the only billionaire that gets his own little simp squad. Can you imagine going into a thread about how Elon Musk is being a dick and 90% of the comments are praising him?
Amazon is super convenient, yet people still can understand the nuance of it and how it’s harming small businesses, how the government should probably do something and deal with the dragon at its head that’s hoarding all that wealth.
Where’s your nuance? Other than “I like steam and I use it, so it can do no wrong”.
The nuance is here in this thread, in multiple comments that have clearly demonstrated that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
But you’re too busy backpedaling and jerking off about how much you hate billionaires to actually engage with any of those points. Or more likely, you know you’re too ignorant to respond to them.
They charge 30% because they have a soft monopoly, it’s basically robbery and it is affecting the indie scene and the quality and amount of games we receive.
Gaben has 6 mega yatchs and a number of submarines. The yatchs alone are worth around 1 billion and cost an estimated 75 to 100 million per year just to maintain.
This is from my first post, I’ve repeated myself 4 times now (over two threads because you have answered mutiple different comments). I won’t be answering anymore of your comments, all you are spitting in my face is childish rhetoric.
And, to be clear, Capitalism is bad. I’m on board. But riding Gaben’s dick, or the dick of any boring dystopian billionaire instead of the people actively fighting to maintain the system is just grossly missing the point
Not all evils are equal, and any perceived slight by Steam is honestly smoke for the thousands of disgustingly rich venture capitalists constantly abusing the system that exists and lobbying the shit out of any attempt to fix it. I don’t blame Gaben for owning more yacht’s than anyone needs, because, at the end of the day, he’s providing a quality service through an unfair system. He’s not the one fighting to provide shittier and shittier systems, demanding fatter and fatter paychecks and encouraging us to blame each other for the state of the world while he runs off with the largest slice of the cake.
Should he have the wealth he has access to? Fuck no. But, again, the dishonest and disgustingly simplified argument that homie is making is only idiofying the cause. Target the problems, not the lucky guys who are providing halfway reasonable services through our broken-ass system.
Its kind of a shame that you respond to him instead of me, you are literally circle jerking each other.
Homie over her is just tired of seeing simps defend this pos billionaire and his company. The fact is the government will never act if this is the kind of vibe they’re getting from the community. Bootlickers are holding us back.
He is not just part of the unfair system, he is 1/4 of it. You make it sound like poor old gaben is a victim here and was forced to participate in collusion and robbing a whole industry blind.
I respond to people when they say something worth responding to. You think my post makes Gaben sound like a victim. Either your reading comprehension has completely failed and you aren’t capable of having a real conversation, or my first comment about being far more interested in saying controversial shit than thinking things through was spot on, and you’re arguing in bad faith and/or to pleasure your ego. Since it’s not my job to educate you, nor satisfy you, even giving you this much recognition is a compliment. Have a good one.
You responded to him not only to get his praise, but so I’d miss it and wouldn’t challenge your opinion. It’s the definition of a circle jerk. And you literally talked about me and my previous inputs in the comment in a derogatory way. It’s rude.
I don’t blame Gaben for owning more yacht’s than anyone needs, because, at the end of the day, he’s providing a quality service through an unfair system.
This is what I mean by bootlickers being the problem. I’m exaggerating when I say you make him out to look like a victim, but this praise is way too heavy. He is the unfair system. He could have taken a step back after his first mega yatch but he choose to keep the ball rolling with his buddies at Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.
You responded to him not only to get his praise, but so I’d miss it and wouldn’t challenge your opinion.
Seek help. The fact that you need to create such insane delusions is a problem. The real answer is I ignored my phone, went about my day, and enjoyed my time with my hobbies and loved ones. When I found the conversation later, I stepped into the most recent comment. And I had much more to add to their comment than your inane ramblings, so it worked out.
Yes, I have been rude to you. As you have been to the imaginary “bootlickers” you have created, and defined everyone who disagrees with you as. I think you are so busy creating enemies out of everyone who is on the other side of something from you, that you fail to differentiate between the problem and the symptoms. And I don’t think I can convince you of that, so this is honestly a waste of time.
If you are arguing with someone, and then stop doing so to respond to others that are arguing with him instead, so you can pat each other on the back, it’s a circle jerk.
If you don’t want to be called a bootlicker, stop defending billionaires.
They leveraged open source to compete on the console front without actually investing dev time. If he could have created a closed system for the same cost, he wouldn’t have hesitated. It was nothing more than a smart business decision, not a nice favor because he likes you.
Most of the Gaben simps just throw back the same thing, “well, they aren’t as bad as microsoft”.
Mussolini wasn’t as bad as Hitler, can you image defending him though? Stop bootlicking billionaires.
I’m also not saying Microsoft is better, I’m saying they are all in the same club and they all suck.
They leveraged open source to compete on the console front without actually investing dev time. If he could have created a closed system for the same cost, he wouldn’t of hesitated. It was nothing more than a smart business decision, not a nice favor because he likes you.
I asked you a question. Show me contributions to open-source on the same scale by Xbox and Nintendo. If it’s so much cheaper, why aren’t they doing it too?
Most of the Gaben simps just throw back the same thing, “well, they aren’t as bad as microsoft”.
Mussolini wasn’t as bad as Hitler, can you image defending him though? Stop bootlicking billionaires.
I’m also not saying Microsoft is better, I’m saying they are all in the same club and they all suck.
No, you said they were exactly the same and that Gabe was colluding with them. Now you’re backpedalling because you realized how stupid of a take that was.
Microsoft contributes a lot of stuff to open source but that’s really far away from my point. I’m not back peddling, I’m explaining myself because you are being a child and taking my words way to literally. Microsoft being slightly worse does not make steam “good”.
Valve can run and offer the same services it does now on a fraction of what they charge.
They could easily properly compete, every store could drastically lower their pricing, but they don’t, because they like having a soft monopoly.
“Explain it to me or you lose” is insanely childish behavior, specially when I just explained that’s not what I meant and you are being too literal but I mean, here:
Explain to me why you think Gaben deserves a net worth of 4 000 000 000 $.
That is who you are being a mouthpiece for, stop defending billionaires.
Microsoft contributes a lot of stuff to open source but that’s really far away from my point.
Microsoft is not a fair comparison to Steam, hence why I refocused to Xbox.
I’m explaining myself because you are being a child and taking my words way to literally. Microsoft being slightly worse does not make steam “good”.
“Obviously I didn’t mean what I said, don’t be a child!” 🙄
Valve can run and offer the same services it does now on a fraction of what they charge.
They could even do it for free, out of the goodness of their hearts!
“Explain it to me or you lose” is insanely childish behavior, specially when I just explained that’s not what I meant and you are being too literal but I mean, here
“I was told there would be no fact-checking”
Explain to me why you think Gaben deserves a net worth of 4 000 000 000 $.
Wow, those goalposts are really movin’ now!
That is who you are being a mouthpiece for, stop defending billionaires.
See my previous comment about how boring and smug your take is.
I’m not moving the goalposts, I’m making fun of your attitude.
My point is that steam is a piece of shit company like the rest, not that they are exactly the same. Two PoS will still stink even if they aren’t exactly a like.
That’s what I mean man, sorry if it wasn’t clear before and then the next two times I explained it again.
They could even do it for free, out of the goodness of their hearts!
Are you being sarcastic about being robbed? The money’s coming out of your pocket, either directly or in terms of the quality and quantity of games. Is their cut justified in your eyes, even after I outlined his networth and how much money he’s racking in?
They leveraged open source to compete on the console front without actually investing dev time.
This is just false.
Valve has funded a lot of extra work though to get things like DXVK and VKD3D-Proton for the translation from Direct3D to Vulkan into a state where performance can be really great! Valve also funds work on Linux graphics drivers, Linux kernel work and the list goes on.
The included improvements to Wine have been designed and funded by Valve, in a joint development effort with CodeWeavers. Here are some examples of what we’ve been working on together since 2016:
vkd3d, the Direct3D 12 implementation based on Vulkan
The OpenVR and Steamworks native API bridges
Many wined3d performance and functionality fixes for Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 11
Overhauled fullscreen and gamepad support
The “esync” patchset, for multi-threaded performance improvements
Modifications to Wine are submitted upstream if they’re compatible with the goals and requirements of the larger Wine project; as a result, Wine users have been benefiting from parts of this work for over a year now. The rest is available as part of our source code repository for Proton and its modules.
In addition to that, we’ve been supporting the development of DXVK, the Direct3D 11 implementation based on Vulkan; the nature of this support includes:
Employing the DXVK developer in our open-source graphics group since February 2018
Providing direct support from our open-source graphics group to fix Mesa driver issues affecting DXVK, and provide prototype implementations of brand new Vulkan features to improve DXVK functionality
Working with our partners over at Khronos, NVIDIA, Intel and AMD to coordinate Vulkan feature and driver support
You should try doing some research before making such claims. Valve has been directly cooperating with, contributing to, and financially supporting several open source projects related to gaming since at least 2016.
Valve had 71 peoples working in their steam division in 2021. 31 where admin so that leaves 40 people for all their hardware. I’m going to take a wild guess and say maybe 3 to 5 were working on things linux related.
Edit: They had 79 in 2021 for Steam, and 41 for hardware
I’d call that leveraging at that amount of people, for a company that brings in an estimated 6.5 billion a year, and the fact that most of the code was already there.
Edit: They brought in 10 billion in 2021 (covid helped)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad linux got a boost out of it but there’s no doubt in my mind he would have built a private OS if it could be done with 5 people. It was a bargain for him, it wasn’t a favor.
I’ve never actually blocked someone on lemmy before, but you’re just following me in the thread and answering every one of my comments with mindless dribble lol. Grow up bro, learn to actually form an argument.
This isn’t hard to find. I don’t give sources when it’s literally in the first few links on Google.
Edit: The actual quotes are below. I missed the mark on total number of steam employees by 9. They have 79 employees total for Steam. 71 or 79, it is still an insanely low number of employees when you take into account that:
it is estimated that Steam generated more than 10 billion U.S. dollars in revenues in 2021
This is from the statistica article that is the first link on Google. I moved my other links to the other comment so it would reply to the guy that couldn’t be bothered to even open them apparently.
One data point I found interesting: Valve peaked with its “Games” payroll spending in 2017 at $221 million (the company didn’t release any new games that year, but that spending could have gone toward supporting games like Dota 2 and developing new games like Artifact); by 2021, that was down to $192 million. Another: as of 2021, Valve employed just 79 people for Steam, which is one of the most influential gaming storefronts on the planet.
“Hardware,” to my surprise, has been a relatively small part of the company, with just 41 employees paid a gross of more than $17 million in 2021.
From the verge article
Here’s the topline from 2021: Of those 336 employees, 79 directly worked on Steam, while a whopping 181 remained in the “Games” department—pretty much the reverse of what I expected, given Steam’s importance to company profits and how rarely Valve releases new games. There were just 41 employees working on hardware development at that time
From the PC gamer article right under.
Literally the first two links after the statistica link (which also has it but you have to make an account), at least for me. Are you done being an idiot?
Just so we’re clear here – you pulled your original numbers out of nowhere, but made them oddly specific (71) to give the impression that you were citing an actual source.
That is hilariously pathetic.
And barely even matters since you’re ignoring 90% of the comment you replied to (financing and partnerships).
Just really paints a picture of how boring, basic, and uninformed your opinion is, for all the cockiness you came in here with.
Note that most people that valve pays to work on open source were preixisting maintainers and not actual employees, or employees of companies like Blue Systems
I’m guessing you don’t remember what the market was like for indie games before Steam. Valve’s platform has done a lot of work to expose small game developers, and made it economically viable to work on and publish games independently. Before this it was very difficult for small titles without the advertising budget of a AAA publisher to get any attention at all, let alone actual sales. There’s nothing else like Steam for small studios trying to find buyers for their games, and Valve does deserve credit for that because it’s improved the video game market overall to have more people making more games and able to earn a living doing it.
The other major effort that Valve has made is Linux compatibility. Even before their work on Proton, Valve released native Linux versions of their games (they were one of very few publishers to do so at the time). I’ve been gaming on Linux since 2006, and Wine was great but rarely easy or complete. Proton has made things so straightforward that people have forgotten just how difficult it was before.
Credit where it’s due. No other major publisher has contributed to the gaming community the way Valve has, except maybe id Software when they just handed the entire Quake 3 Arena source code to the open source community in 2005 which spawned countless new open source game projects.
Indie games came about because of multiple factors, steam only being one of them but they did help a lot. That being said, they are currently having a detrimental effect and I think Gaben has been more than properly rewarded.
It’s not the early 2000s, steam is bringing in massive amounts of cash and I’m tired of seeing an other indie company go under because Gaben wants another boat in the 9 figure range.
The government will never do anything if we aren’t vocal about it and the community is doing the opposite.
25% more of the profit can go a long way, if Steam were to only take 5% for example. And it’s not only about bankruptcy, it’s budget for more features, dealing with bugs and potential sequels. The quality is affected as well and Steam, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony don’t deserve all that money instead of the devs, just for being the middle men.
belt-tightening can often mean simply shutting down.
Sheffield says it’s hard not to feel guilty when other studios go under, even as his own struggles. “We’re all kind of fighting for a tiny slice of the same pie,”
“When an indie doesn’t get funding for its game, you just quietly never see their work again,”
The industry is struggling because steam and the other stores keep them on the brink, they have no leeway. I don’t know how steams greed could be seen as unrelated.
Do you know of any other company that racks in as much cash and gets defended this hard? All I’m seeing is people defending an other billionaire cunt just because they use his product.
Would you tell me to shut up if I was denouncing Elon Musk or Bezos? You can’t be anti-capitalism and pro-Steam. The moment you defend a billionaire, you are part of the problem.
Sure man, keep condescending me, that’s really helping you and isn’t indicative of anything about you in any way. You’re really doing a good job of representing us out here in the internet trenches.
Reread our conversation. You are the one being agressive.
I shouldn’t have to be silent in what I believe in because you think it makes you look bad by association. It’s a silly reason to begin with and mostly imaginary.
You have basically called me an idiot multiple times and threw colorful language like dogshit at me. I dont mind but it does make your perceived slight seem hypocritical. Stop playing the victim, no one is asking you to respond.
I’m also not here to represent you. Im not part of your club. For one, I can’t be because I hate all billionaires, not just the ones that aren’t popular.
I’m not playing the victim, I’m pointing out why your rhetoric is counterproductive and bad optics. If you want actual change to occur, you’re going to have to fix that. Or you can just keep making things worse, if you really want to. Go for it. It’s really worked out for you well so far, hasn’t it?
And… again… I didn’t say I support steam or Gaben. See how you’re using strawman tactics on people that agree with you? That’s what makes us look like idiots. You’re doing a great job, bud.
I don’t care about this argument anymore, keep doing what you want, I hope you’ll realize that engaging in public humilitation on the behalf of anticapitalist ideals is counterproductive to normalizing them.
You are genuinely in the midst of a mental health issue at this point. Please just take a step back from this specific argument thread, just the one between us, and take a deep breath. I’m sorry I riled you up so bad.
I’m highlighting when you responded to the same comment three times in quick succession.
Your one word lol replies imply I’ve lost my cool but the above behavior kind of points to the opposite and that it is in fact projection.
You came into this conversation angry, seeing as how I insulted your hero. You came in barging saying I was embarrassing you and called my opinion “dogshit”.
Remember that you sought me out and responded to my comment, and have continued for quite a bit of time.
I suggest you revise the conversation and review your behavior in a more critical way, so you can learn from it. I’m not judging you but this isn’t very productive so have a nice day.
Heck, even if you want to blatantly ignore every other platform and site you can buy games from, which there are plenty, Valve gives devs a supply of Steam keys they can sell anywhere they want, they don’t even get a cut from those despite providing the bandwidth to distribute the files.
The reason they hold most of the market share is not because of bad business practices it’s because the opposite. People use their service cause it’s the best.
The gov only considers a large business a monopoly if it’s doing anti competitive practices to maintain or grow it’s market share. That description in no way fits steam or valve.
The reason they hold most of the market share is not because of bad business practices it’s because the opposite. People use their service cause it’s the best.
I have physical copies of PC games that require a Steam Account.
Which is why you don’t have physical copies of those games - you bought a steam key, exactly like you could have done digitally from humblebundle of greenmangaming or myriad of other stores, this one just had it printed on a piece of paper instead of sending you an email.
Helped you (and Valve) to save some bandwidth. But yes. If it requires a Steam account to play, you bought a license allowing you to access a game and not an actual game you own.
Valve is holding up the bar not because valve is great but because everyone else is so shit. I’ve had a ton of issues with steam throughout the years and it’s just… nothing else is better. I was actually excited for the epic store launch and it’s… Well, not the worst, because being the worst is a challenge some places take seriously, but certainly not a good steam replacement especially for low data people.
Steam may not let me control the updates to steam, but it won’t force refresh my library causing ping spikes all the time as an intended feature.
You didn’t fuck up. You can always still pirate. Wait it out and see what happens, the moment it goes to shit put on your pirate hat and don’t give a fuck.
And check your local inheritance laws. Some places will take pre-death gifts into account depending on how long the time between gift and death is. The UK, as an example, looks at gifts made up to 7 years before a person’s death. It’s messed up.
If they can prove you got a bunch of gold with a loan and then your descendants suddenly have a bunch of gold, but they can’t prove it’s the same gold, is that enough to make the descendants pay back the loan?
What if you did it with Monero to make it impossible to prove it’s the same money?
My dad did this. Was almost 70k in unsecured debt at the time of his death. I gave most everything away except his fishing stuff. He had so much shit.
Only one credit card company said “it’s good you are taking over the payments”. Told her I never agreed to that, just informing you of his death, and if they contact me again my Saul level lawyer is going to enjoy that lawsuit. Never heard from them.
Aw damn, I’m glad you knew better, that’s downright predatory and should be illegal. You know there are people out there now paying their parents’ credit card bills, thinking that that’s just how things are. I hope that when those people find out, they are entitled to getting every penny back with interest.
Most debt actually can't be inherited, instead debt collectors get first dibs on inheritance assets until they're made whole or the estate runs out of assets, whichever comes first.
That doesn't mean that debt collectors won't try to convince family members to pay. Just tell them where they can shove it.
But it’s dangerous to incentivize it, because you get short-term gains by firing anyone, whether or not it’s the right long-term call.
It’s also just difficult to identify bad performers. Fundamental attribution error is a bitch. And because we’re really bad at seeing the entire system surrounding someone’s productivity, we tend to blame operator error only to find that the next operator we hire has the exact same problem.
Exactly. It’s just goosing the numbers. The company made this much in profit, and the cost-cutting from firing people will save money immediately, so it looks great… on paper… for a little while. It doesn’t matter if the company is gutted, because the CEO and most of the investors will dip before things get too bad, and go onto the next thing. The employees will suffer and the customers will be upset, but CEOs don’t answer to them, they answer to shareholders, and shareholders just want the line to go up this quarter.
I don’t know whether valve has violated anti-trust law or not, and I certainly don’t think gaben deserves any more protection from covid than the general public but;
this is a stupid ruling. Why on earth can’t he appear remotely, as he requested? They can’t “adequately assess his credibility”? Are they gonna have an FBI body language expert on hand? Check his forehead for sweat droplets? There’s nothing they can ask him in person that they can’t ask him over a camera.
Feels like the plaintiffs are doing some kind of lowkey spite thing here, and I’m surprised the judge played along.
You’re going to need a lot more than just I’m afraid of covid to get out of being in person for a trial. People with actual fears of being killed for testimony, still appear in person. At this point with vaccines making any serious complications nearly impossible for covid, it’s a really desperate attempt to avoid attending.
I was a juror last year for a civil case, half the witnesses were cross examined over zoom before the days of the trial and played back for us. The judge made it explicitly clear that we were to take remote testimony the same as any others done in person
This isn’t a criminal trial with Gabe Newell as the defendant, it’s a civil trial against the company Valve.
Because you would expect the people in charge of the company to answer questions regarding the actions of the company.
If you were driving your truck and crashed into a traffic light, and it was caught on camera, you would be expected to answer questions about that. Even if you weren’t driving, as the registered owner you’re still going to be asked about it, or at the very least to identify who was driving.
Gabe isn’t just a tertiary witness, he has direct responsibility. Not that I think he’s done anything wrong here, I’m just saying it makes sense to have him answer questions live in court, rather than give a pre-recorded interview. Doing it live but remote invites other issues, such as poor connection quality, which would rather be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
Another thing with the trial I was a jury member on was the plaintiff themselves were not always present, most days it was just their lawyer and paralegal. The judge reminded us each day that we can’t hold their physical presence or lack thereof for or against them.
I’m no lawyer, but if neither the plaintiff nor the witnesses needed to be physically present I don’t see how they can justify forcing Gabe Newell to be. Despite being CEO he’s still not the defendant.
I mean he is pretty close to being the defendant, up to the limited liability of the company he owns and operates.
It’s also a fact that different courts, and even different judges, may treat things differently. I have no idea how Seattle handles things, but I reckon this is in line with other cases they’ve heard.
Having everyone in court wear masks absolutely does help protect him. However, what would protect everyone better is proper ventilation systems - but that would cost businesses money, rather than passing the cost and responsibility onto individuals.
Leaving the mask on the entire time is the only way it works. If everyone is taking it off to talk, they’re gonna be spreading shit around every time they talk. What state is this court in? Texas?
Everyone leaving their mask on the entire time is the most effective way it works. The judge is seeking a compromise, presumably with the intent of being able to clearly hear him speak and see his facial expressions. I don’t think anyone else will be taking their masks off, not even the lawyer asking him questions, so in that regard Gabe will still be somewhat protected.
Like I say though there are far more effective measures involving good ventillation. If you spend a long enough time in a sealed room with someone infected, even the mask won’t be enough protection, but if there is good ventillation then you won’t be breathing in anywhere near as much of other peoples’ germs.
Accordingly, Mr. Newell is ORDERED to attend the deposition in person as noticed. (See Dkt. No. 165-2.) In hopes of alleviating Mr. Newell’s health concerns, the Court mandates the following additional health measures: all participants (including questioning counsel) must wear a tightly fitting certified N95, KF94, or KN95 face mask throughout the deposition. At his discretion, Mr. Newell may provide those certified masks to participants. But Mr. Newell shall remove his mask when responding to questions from Plaintiffs’ counsel.
The bit about Gabe providing the masks makes me raise my eyebrow a little, but I think everyone would still be required to wear a mask regardless of whether or not Gabe hands them out at his own expense - I think it’s just so that Gabe can be sure everyone’s mask is up to snuff, if he’s concerned about that.
So they are still not absolute in that the users still get to buy a PC or an Android phone or get satellite connectivity via a global ISP, which boils the issue down to inconvenience/cost/hardship, not the absence of alternatives.
It’s the logic of the comment I responded to. The existence of this upcoming trial alone is proof that the mere presence of alternatives is not enough to claim there’s no monopoly in the relevant market.
The (my) comment that you responded to presented you a list of actual monopolies that have no alternatives on their platform. There was no “logic” presented, it was a statement of observation.
The existence of the lawsuit does not mean there is proof, it means that Wolfire has enough of a case to begin discovery on two of their claims that the court is interested to find out more. That’s it.
One of the claims is also very weird and I can’t actually find any information corroborating the claim besides the claim itself (re: Valve acquiring and shutting down World Opponent Network). The only thing I see is that Sierra was acquired by Havas who made WON into it’s own entity, then merged it with PrizeCentral under the name Flipside.com and the last WON game was released in 2006.
The only thing relating to Valve I can see is that Valve announced Steam in 2002 and then they removed WON from their own games, which they had every right to do so.
WG’s strongest claim is the MFN clause, and they actually have to prove that it’s for anticompetitiveness.
I was watching Mo1st play Helldivers the other night and he mentioned someone’s comment about it having the kernel anti-cheat, and one of his buddies immediately said “that guy’s a redditor.”
I had never felt more attacked yet agreed with something so much.
If people knew what devs said (justifiably) about players when nobody is looking, the internet would implode.
Like, I’m not trying to be an asshole, but holy fuck gamers are the worst about actually knowing how games are made or the consequences of various decisions they want made.
I don’t know why 80% of gamers think playing games means they know how to make games, but it infuriates many of us to no end. We get that it’s just misguided desire to see the games improve but jfc it makes life incredibly difficult (especially for the CMs)
EDIT: Imagine someone told an architect “You should just remove that load bearing wall. This other building doesn’t have one in that position and it’s great. Why is it so hard for you?”
Oh they definitely say that, and some are dumb enough to shop around for engineers they can bully. Just look at the Millennium Tower in San Fran. Idiot investors found engineers they could bully, built an inadequate foundation, and are now trying to save the building. A huge building they just built.
Yeah, and anyone with an ounce of common sense will point at that and be like “See? This is what happens.” But an outrageous chunk of gamers seem incapable of applying the same logic to game development 🤷
Edit: btw this is why knowing how to give good feedback is a really good skill to learn
Bad feedback: “You should remove this button, it sucks and I don’t want it”
Good feedback: “It disrupts my experience when I go to press button A but accidentally press button B because it’s so close.”
I totally believe it. Just based on complaints in gaming subs and communities I’ve seen over the years, I can confidently say there isn’t enough money in the world to convince me to make a game and have to deal with all the grief from certain types of gamers lol.
“If people knew what devs said (justifiably) about players when nobody is looking, the internet would implode.”
I feel that applies to every profession. Im a mechanic and sure we get a bad wrap on the internet for all the dodgy work and ripping off we do.
But when we’re dealing with customers and their cars are filthy gross and full f rubbish and they’re in for the dumbest of shit you just wish you could come back at them with facts and keep your job.
I’ve attempted to do public-facing technical support for a game and dear Christ you’re spot on. I love people for wanting to engage with something I’ve spent a substantial part of my life putting together and trying to make it run okay, and am sympathetic to people feeling frustrated when technical issues prevent them from fully enjoying an early access game. Early on when the community was small I had a great time shitposting with the players, but once we hit release the environment turned toxic pretty much overnight as the community suddenly grew.
But like, none of them know how hard we crunched to get even a playable version of the game out, nevermind one that’s playable on the lowest of netbook specs. None of em know how complicated the system is that’s breaking preventing them from logging in, that that’s not actually my area of expertise and that I’m just feeding them information from the matchmaking team who are all freaking the fuck out because this is the first time we’ve tested this shit at scale. None of them know that we were getting squeezed by our publisher, who wanted us to do a progression wipe that we didn’t want ourselves, but like they control if the game gets shipped at all so… not really a choice there. And we can’t admit any of this because accusations of incompetence come out pretty early, tend to stick around, and leave devs very little room to make bad decisions (which happens a lot!)
And like, being trans now on top of that? Hell no, I’m never touching a public server again if I can help it. Slurs and mistrust were already flying before, I can’t throw myself in front of that bus again. I’m gonna miss it because I cared a lot about connecting with people playing the game and for a while found a lot of joy in responding to bugs and fixing individual system issues and integrating into the community. And there were some amazing people who were great to talk to that I really missed when I left. But the inherent abuse that comes with that gets so overwhelming and it drained my desire to even work on games at all for quite a while.
I totally understand this. I used to do CM work and support stuff, and took the first chance I got to switch to a technical role.
It takes a special type of person to not be permanently fucked up by some of the stuff that gets said and done. I have the utmost respect for the CMs that are able to brush that stuff off over and over again. Cause I sure as shit can’t
Especially the bit about publishers making bad decisions and being unable to even talk about it. That stuff hurts
I don’t think it has kernel anti cheat tho. Runs just fine on Linux without root permissions
Damn, getting downvoted for just stating my experience. It doesn’t require kernel level access on Linux and runs fine—it’s not a stretch to think it doesn’t have kernel level anticheat (it doesn’t on Linux, just on Windows).
From what I understand, it does not get kernel access on Linux. That’s why the game wouldn’t run the first couple of days. After they patched it, it just makes a web call and lets you play the game.
I don’t know if this makes me “a redditor” somehow or what, but…
As a dev, I am deeply troubled by the gaming industry so calmly walking into kernel anti cheats. It’s insane and being tossed around like it’s nothing.
Helldivers especially, since they picked one of the sketchiest ones and it’s a game that entirely doesn’t need it.
I have no idea if Reddit has suddenly picked up on this, but I’ve been pissed since at least Valorants release, but have seen more YT videos talking about it recently.
I really do not understand how server anti cheat is not way easier. I feel like devs are caught up on realtime anti cheat and not willing to do anything asynchronous. Or they really like paying licensing fees for client-side anticheat. I just don’t understand how any competent software engineer or systems admin or architect trusts the client so fervently.
Game servers are incredibly expensive, and server side anticheat is more costs.
Whether or not the studios can afford it (they can.) is irrelevant, it’s simply cheaper to go for flawed client side because the client will do most of the processing.
Any software developer worth their salt simply does not trust the client, but management is gonna manage and the engineers have to come up with a solution to “we must have anticheat because we said so, and you must keep server costs per user below x”. It’s easy to forget that most implementation choices in video games aren’t made by developers who like games, they’re made by middle managers who view games as a money-generaring industry.
I really do not understand how server anti cheat is not way easier.
In a clean slate, it is. It’s also way more effective (except for things like wall hacks, aim bots, recoil suppressors, etc, but most of those things are only really important and popular in competitive FPS). It’s also much simpler to understand and to leave no “holes” behind. It also lives in the developers domain so it can’t be “compromised” or circumvented.
The thing is that client side “anti cheat” can be commoditized. Every game with server authority/anti cheat needs specific server software to run their game logic. Client anti cheat is basically “look at everything else running on the system and see if any of it seems suspicious”. As such, there’s not really anything “game specific” to these - they basically are just a watch dog looking for bad actors - so as such, one company can come along, make one, and sell it to other devs.
This being “off the shelf” and not something the dev team has to think about besides a price tag means that management is just going to buy a third party solution and check off the “anti cheat” box on their task list.
I feel like devs are caught up on realtime anti cheat and not willing to do anything asynchronous.
First, this is a management problem and not the devs. Any dev worth their salt knows this isn’t really a good solution.
But I’d say the more relevant and prominent thing here is that game companies just don’t want to have to run servers anymore. It’s a cost, requires dev time, and requires maintenance, and they don’t want to do that. If these games had servers running the game world like games used to, they’d inherently have their own “anti cheat” built in for free that wouldn’t necessarily catch everything but would do a better job than some of these. And it could be enhanced to cover more bases.
But studios don’t want to do this anymore. It’s easier to make the game p2p and slap an off the shelf anti cheat and call it a day.
Some games still require matchmaking servers etc, but the overhead there is way lower.
Or they really like paying licensing fees for client-side anticheat.
Not that I agree with the decision, but it is definitely cheaper and faster than the alternative. But picking something like nprotect totally fucking baffles me. There are better options.
I just don’t understand how any competent software engineer or systems admin or architect trusts the client so fervently.
In some ways, same. Every project I’ve been on that has gotten anywhere near client side trust I’ve fought adamantly about avoiding it. I’ve won most arguments on it, but there are some places where they just utterly refuse.
But then there are things like New World… I don’t know how the fuck that shit released like it did. The number of things trusted to the client were absolutely baffling. I expected Amazon’s first foray into gaming to be a fucking joke, but I was totally appalled at how bad it turned out. They even touted hiring ex blizzard talent to get my hopes up first.
I imagine what makes it more of a grumble-fest for developers is that these days, a high majority of players will be coming from consoles. While cheaters do exist on consoles, they’re far less common, meaning that a majority of your playerbase is using game clients they can’t plausibly modify - meaning MOST of the clients can be trusted. So, signing on with something like EAC is really only resolving a cheating gap for a smaller percent of players.
There have even been situations with cheat-heavy games when console players will request the option to disable crossplay in order to assure they aren’t matched with cheaters, who are often on PC. Sea of Thieves may have been one such instance.
It was something I was aware of and against when I was on Reddit ever since I first heard of them.
And they don’t even make cheating impossible. Cheats don’t need to be running on the OS that is running the game. It could be running in a VM. I believe many VM implementations will let the guest OS know that they are running on a VM, but that isn’t mandatory. Other hardware in the system can have full access to the memory space and do reads/writes without the OS knowing (though caches complicate this). Some cheats just act as a display and mouse, processing the display as it passes through the device to the monitor, and modifying the mouse input to correct aim based on what it sees. If it spoofs a monitor and mouse, nothing in the kernel will necessarily see any difference.
The joke of these games is that they aren’t notably more weird than titles Bethesda and Bioware were famous for turning out. Hard to get more weird than Fallout’s more esoteric vaults or Morrowind’s bizarre cults and exotic cultures.
BG3/KC:D have been, if anything, a direct successors to the old classics. They’re faithfully propagating the fundamental ideas these old titles represented in a way the new studios are unable to reproduce.
Also, honorable mention to the poor bastards who released Disco Elysium and then got their studio stripped out from underneath them by their financiers. Absolute gem of a game and you should feel free to pirate it without a twinge of guilt.
I’m not talking about video games I’m talking ruining someone’s life and stealing their intellectual property, the fucking performative humiliation he put those guys through. You think a rich CEO who would fuck people over that hard is really redeemable?
Edit: But no, you’re right that he shouldn’t be murdered, he doesn’t necessarily have blood on his hands like a healthcare CEO. He should simply be torn from his home and have all of his property and assets liquidated and distributed as compensation
I am sensing a lot of anger here and given the current state of the world it just seems so misplaced. Like dude, there is really shit going on with real villains and real people siffering, maybe direct that anger there.
Why the fuck would you think it’s not? There’s a lot of goddamn villains in the world, an entire ecosystem of cruelty where people abuse those who they think are below them because of unchecked wealth and power, and people get personally fucked by individuals of that ecosystem every day. Just because there are bigger fish doesn’t mean small fish are exempt. Don’t presume that a frustration with a lesser evil means a blind eye to the greater ones
“Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all!”
Greedy CEOs, MAGA supporters, Islamists, Nazis, Tankies, all the same. If all of those people stopped existing tomorrow, then the world would undoubtably be a better place. I’m ready to die on that hill!
But is it even evil? Like there were contracts involved with terms and conditions. Its not like some guy with a handle bar mustash just swiped the IP and walked away. Someone agreed to the contract that resulted in the loss of their company/IP and if they didn’t read it or consult with legal lawyer who’s bad guy?
Yes, yes it is! On what world would stealing someone’s intellectual work and booting them out of their own company for the sole purpose to keep all of the money for yourself not be evil? Funnily enough, making people sign unfair contracts is literally the most devilish thing ever. It’s the one thing demons and devils do in pretty much every interpretation they appear in. This is why we need more people like Luigi!
help me understand then, because if its a bad contract you don’t have to agree to it. so in what way are these people forced to sign contracts, and what are these terms and conditions that let people steal IP?
Not everyone is literate in contract law, so most people won’t notice these kinds of hidden clauses that allow this. In this case it was a combination of signing over the IP to the developing company which they coowned. because that’s pretty standard procedure. Together with the investors managing to get a majority share of the company and forcing the original devs out by vote.
Just one of the reasons why smart people just license out their IPs. This way no one can take it from you. But again, you have to know quite a bit about contract law to know how this works.
So what yoy are saying is, if they had gotten a lawyer and done some research they could have avoided this issue. Now compare this level of injustice to the genocide that has been happening in the middle east, of these two, which deserves my emotional energy?
What had happened to the people in ZAUM (or what was once that studio), is a tragedy, and a huge shame. I’m not even a cRPG/dnd person, but that game has singlehandedly opened my eyes to a whole new world. It’s easily in my top10 games of all time, and I wish we could get another one eventually
Just finished Disco Elysium few days ago, watched the credits roll from start to finish to see all the great people working on it, such a great game…now I am sad for what happened to them, I didnt know that
New IP comes out, people are apprehensive if they know nothing about it.
Sequel to popular IP comes out, people trust it because they know and like the earlier game, and assume a sequel will be more of that.
And if a sequel ever deviates from the proven model of its predecessors, people lose their shit and send death threats to developers.
That’s why you see so much recycled garbage come out, because trying something new usually results in more risk and lower returns. Not always, but usually.
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