given M$'s heinous bullshit tactics lately, i wouldn’t put it past them to pay some tech writer to take a linux build to some big public event, deliberately fuck it up, windows to the rescue, and then write an article about why linux isn’t just unstable, but downright hazardous to your job
for my own part, everything i’ve had to put up with as a linuxnoob has been 100% worth the result of flushing windows down the shitter where it belongs.
I find it hard to believe. He was using ubuntu and both his wifi and trackpad and the lot broke. I remember in the aughts when a student came in to proudly say he through th latest suse on a laptop and everything worked out of box. Yeah things can have issues but much like windows its often just an update which even with windows you have to be ready to have a physical network connection or you could be screwed with wifi. I have not seen any issues with ubuntu. Did he intentionally say to not use 3rd party drivers which is what my thought is which to blog about that afterwards without repeating using third party sounds like a hit job.
Wait, I thought this game was a depiction of what we subject horses to, using a horror lens to drive home the point? I’ve never heard of something less sexy?
My understanding is that there was a scene where a young girl rides a naked man/woman around. Apparently it has since been changed to make the child older, but… I can perfectly understand why anyone would be hesitant to accept such a game based on that description alone. Even if it’s not intended to be sexual, the developers were certainly pushing the line
That’s not how this works, you don’t get to decide what is acceptable for other people. It’s people like you who galvanize Mastercard and Visa in trying to control what kind of content we’re “allowed” to purchase.
To be clear this all sounds repugnant to me, but i realize Im not the sole arbiter of taste and have no interest in telling other adults what (legal) things they are and aren’t allowed to do.
If the game is so bad it’ll tank, it doesn’t need outside forces influencing it.
That’s not how that works. You don’t get to decide what a store does and does not sell. Steam refuses hundreds of games a year, this one doesn’t get special treatment.
Saying “I understand why (store) would not want to carry this product” is not the same as saying “no store should carry this product.”
I’m not admonishing the store, as you said it’s up to them to carry what they like. I’m admonishing you and people like you for trying to exert pressure on the store to not carry something you personally don’t like, because again, you’re not intended to be in charge of what others sell.
Earlier this year steam updated its guidelines to prohibit content that “may violate the rules and standards set forth by steam payment processors and related card networks”
Visa and Mastercard pressured steam to remove a game because they didn’t agree with its content. Visa and Mastercard only care because they believe they end users care - that’s you, a potential end user of visa and Mastercards service. Valve only cares because visa and Mastercard care.
You saying “I see why they wouldn’t want to sell the game” helps them to pressure steam into self censorship.
You’re speaking with an awful lot of confidence on stuff you don’t seem to be very well versed in.
For example, you somehow missed the fact that just months after payment processors forced steam to remove a game, they’re suddenly self-censoring.
Um, he didn’t say he was deciding for others, he said he could understand how others would be hesitant… sounded like he was supporting your very point that people have a right to have their own opinion.
The only reason someone wouldn’t want to sell something is because of pressure from others - you boil it down enough and the logic is “I don’t want to sell this because others will judge me”, which stems directly from others judgement, being my entire point.
You can claim “Valve doesn’t want to sell it for moral reasons”, but they’re not a moral body, they’re a corporation - their only job is to earn money.
The more people feel they can dictate what a retailer sells, the worse it gets for all of us, and retailers choosing to drop things rather than “roc k the boat” is a problem.
Sure, this is a pretty repugnant case, but the slippery slope starts somewhere.
I regret my short hand of “slippery slope” but it’s not a coincidence that less than 6 months ago payment processors used their influence to get a game pulled from steam and now all of a sudden steam is self censoring based on content.
Whatever the non-fallacious version of “there’s an escalating pattern here” is what’s happening.
You claimed Steam banned this because of the payment processors. The same payment processors being used by stores that didn’t ban this. Seems a relevant point to the discussion we are having.
The article from July explains why Steam banned this game last month, despite Itch (which stopped selling certain games due to the payment processors) is selling it?
Who is this article writer that can see 4 months into the future?!
Along with the official release date of the game (December 2), the statement revealed that Horses was indefinitely banned on Steam in June 2023 – days before it was set to premiere on IGN’s Summer of Gaming event.
This is useful information I was not aware of - thank you.
While I was wrong about Horses, the issue with payment processors forcing censorship on Steam is still true and an enormous issue - Visa doesn’t get a say in what I purchase.
People are free to pressure retailers on what to sell and what not too. Saying they can’t would be far worse. And the retailer is doing the job of making money… by following the 2ishes of the populace. This is the free market capitalist society we live in. Completly sucks, but it is consistent.
I don’t disagree, I’m just calling the people who choose to complain morons, because again I don’t believe they should be the arbiters of what is acceptable.
Basically, you’re free to have your opinion, but keep it to your fucking self and your fucking echo chambers you regressive fucking failures (the general you, not you specifically)
Interesting point. But in general, who are the people complaining in the wrong spot. I suspect people basically are complaining in thier echo chambers… social media. And likely noone cares. But then the media jumps in and picks it up. So is the media to blame? I read a story about a lady in Britain I think who had like 89 followers and made a statement. It went viral. Suddenly her statement to her echo chamber was in the news. It ruined her life actually.
So are we saying the media should be banned on reporting what is said inside echo chambers, or are we saying public posting of opinions should be banned?
Neither. I’m saying that visa and Mastercards opinion on what I’m buying means fuck all to me, it’s none of their fucking business. I don’t care who writes you a letter, posts on face book, what the media says, it’s not their job to police my purchases.
They’d be 100% in the clear just ignoring these people (the kind of morons who have time to cause this kind of trouble either don’t need credit or don’t have a choice in the matter, so no loss of customers), but they decided to interject themselves in a place they don’t belong. So fuck em, and anyone who tries to enforce limitations on the legal things I do via crybaby disingenuous public pressure.
If everyone felt like me, these attempts would fall flat on their face. Sadly, too many sheepish pearl clutching morons.
On the visa and Mastercard thing I very much agree. In theory they are a business, and can chose who to do business with. But the free market pressures don’t exist to impact the decisions they make. So instead of them being influenced by customer sentiment, they are actually influenced by large organization with an agenda. That agenda is usually just a BS reason to build the organization and make specific people rich. It doesn’t represent the will of the people. So… they should be treated more like a utility. Places are refusing to take cash these days, so it is an easy argument that they function like a utility.
GTA will proceed to break all media sales records because why do the right thing when you can buy a new shiny toy to spend your hard earned capitalism bucks on
why do the right thing when you can buy a new shiny toy
It’s not like they’re plastering “We Busted A Union To Get This Game Out Six Months Late” on the packaging. The overwhelming majority of retail customers have no idea how the sausage is made. Those that are curious enough to ask typically aren’t the ones going in on the “Rape And Loot Simulator” franchise to begin with.
Gotta get off this hobby horse of blaming the anonymous gooner gamer at the bottom of the food chain for decisions made in a smoke-filled board room long beforehand.
The “anonymous gooner gamers” or uninformed consumers are why the companies get away with shit like this. Because they keep throwing money to buy the next best thing
No they aren’t. Games flop all the time and the companies don’t quit this bullshit. No business executive has ever walked out of a tense call with their investors and re-committed themselves to being nicer to the staff. You’re delusional if you think people not buying a game results in the quality of life of that game’s staff improving.
What improves the lives of game developers is going indie and doing well. What improves the odds of doing well as an indie developer is producing games that can compete with the GTAs absent the absurd marketing budgets. That requires a symbiosis between indie games media, indie developers, and early adopters. But the gooner gamer is at the end of the line in any event. They don’t even know the game exists until it gets a splash ad on the Steam Store.
Your retail consumer market is a consequence of industry practices, not a cause.
The biggest crime here is that people are actually looking forward to a game that will INEVITABLY be the same GTA slop we’ve been playing since the turn of the goddamn millenium.
Graphics are no longer a selling point, we can make anything look like anything now. Unique gameplay and immersive narratives and interactive mechanics are now the way games stand out. Look how popular far simpler social games are like Repo and the like. look how well a goddamn knockoff of S.T.A.L.K.E.R did (Misery) and it was the most basic survival mechanics and it was made by one person and it looks like it crawled out of a Playstation 2… but it was engaging and addicting because it was trying new ways to do old things.
All that aside, yeah our countries hate unions and hate workers and everyone in power hates you and wants you to die.
Just to address the potential for US defaultism, “our country” in this case should be read as the United Kingdom, where Rockstar is headquartered and the union busting in this instance took place.
Hype around a game is directly related to the marketing budget. If people are looking forward to the next edition in a franchise, it is inevitably because they’ve been bombarded with “NEW THING! NEW THING! NEW THING!” radio/TV/streaming ad reels for months prior.
All that aside, yeah our countries hate unions and hate workers and everyone in power hates you and wants you to die.
We’re going to replace all the working class schlubs with AI, haven’t you heard?
Just so nobody forgets, North Face planted ads on Wikipedia, and then threw one of their regional managers under the bus when they got caught, as if to claim that it wasn’t really the real company doing it.
An outright confession of what sure sounds like blatant astroturfing—a deceptive marketing campaign that’s meant to look like natural, spontaneous conversation—is probably not the sharpest move for any company that wants to attract or keep new clients.
The clients are just fine with it. This guy was off talking about it to market his company; publishers that he attracted did so because of what he was doing.
The users being astroturfed are the ones who aren’t going to like it.
What the client is going to be pissed about is that the guy mentioned their actual game while trying to promote their astroturfing company:
Still, Beresnev did what he could to put space between War Robots developer My.Games and Trap Plan, telling Kotaku the intent “was to experiment with a more organic way of promoting games on Reddit—without using bots or fake accounts—and to build a new case study we could use in the future,” and that mentioning the game and studio by name was a mistake.
“This was entirely our initiative and not commissioned or endorsed by My.Games in any way,” Beresnev said. “We understand this was a mistake and have since removed the case study. We sincerely apologize to My.Games and the War Robots: Frontiers team for the misunderstanding and any confusion it may have caused.”
I mean, I would imagine that they may well do that, but there are businesses that buy and sell social accounts. Like, the point is that a legitimate user accrues reputation. I mean, that’s an important element of how humans interact with each other — provide useful information, and I give your opinion more weight and stuff. Social media tends to try to leverage that too. But when someone doesn’t want their account any more for whatever reason, their reputation has value, and so it can be bought and sold.
Reddit Account Marketplace: Sell Your Reddit Accounts Securely
Have an aged Reddit account you’re not using? Turn it into cash. REDAccs is the safest place online to sell Reddit accounts with post karma and history.
AccsMarket offers verified Reddit accounts for marketers, businesses, and automation engineers. They are useful for engaging in discussions, promoting content, running marketing campaigns, and managing multiple accounts for outreach or growth.
So they could develop their own “fake” accounts. Or they could just buy accounts from real, actual users, step into their skin and acquire their reputation. Or they could buy accounts from people who intentionally try to karma-farm — I imagine that that’s probably its own industry.
EDIT: Oh, sorry, maybe I misunderstood — you were quoting the astroturfing guy, using whatever his meaning was. I have no idea what he calls a “fake account”, and I don’t think that I’d consider him to be incredibly trustworthy in the first place. But he might mean that he doesn’t rely on an army of sockpuppet accounts to upvote his astroturfing, I suppose.
We are basically getting a casino shoved in our faces most online games we play now. Not sure why this isn’t outlawed, it is absolutely having an effect on the population, not the mention the growing population specifically (growing as in kids being shoved this in their face while they grow up).
“read the runes” … people need to stopping believing that money is money. Money is money AND strings attached. It’s totally different to get 1 EUR from a friend vs 1 EUR from a brank vs 1 EUR from VC vs 1 EUR of public subsidies. Money NEVER comes without string so one must be cautious they are not getting a noose around their neck while signing a contract.
PS: IMHO NLNet is an example of “good” money. Other examples welcomed. In software in the game “industry” specifically I don’t know where one can find non “bad” money so please if you have examples, do share.
Well there was just some base level of hope in the back of some people’s minds that one day they might get their shit together and now that hope is entirely gone.
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