bbc.com

mathematicalMagpie, do games w Idris Elba: Actors in video games like Phantom Liberty is 'sign of the times'

I’m not really a fan of real A-list actors’ faces in games. Inspired by real faces? Sure. I know the term “immersion” is mocked a lot, but few things force me back to reality than seeing Hollywood megastar multimillionaires in my fantasy world.

ilickfrogs,
@ilickfrogs@lemmy.world avatar

I have to agree. I always preferred an A class voice actor for a character that isn’t of celebrity likeness. Honestly hope this doesn’t become the norm.

Edit: I’d also like to add that Idris Elba is a phenomenal actor and I’m excited to play the expansion.

Powerpoint,

Pretty much this is how the metal gear series ended up losing my interest. I want a good voice actor rather than just celebrities. It’s enshittification.

scottywh,

I feel like it generates interest and helps the medium gain more mainstream acceptance at a minimum.

gila,

I’m curious if you feel the same way watching movies? It’s not as if Idris Elba’s live-action movie roles depict “reality”. What is it about the presence of a real actor which breaks your immersion in games but not movies, or do you just feel similarly about both?

mathematicalMagpie,

It’s not unusual to have big stars in movies. There are movies full of nothing but A-listers. It’s been the norm since before any of us were born. However, I find there are some big actors where their presence overshadows their character (if that makes sense). I do tend to enjoy movies with smaller actors that I haven’t seen quite as many times already.

stardust,

When it comes to live action I do greatly prefer it when a great performance is from an individual I don’t recognize from previous works. So I don’t see oh it’s blank from X. I only have the reference of seeing only the character, which sells the immersion so much more.

And voice acting when it comes to animation and games has been an area like that where if a woman is voicing a boy, but the voice acting is good I only see the boy. Or someone voices a lovecraftian monster I only see that monster. Or someone who is a different race voices a different race it doesn’t matter because I only see the character and how well the voice suits the sculpted character like Kratos.

The best voice acting performances to me have been ones where I don’t recognize the voice actor. I only see the character, and due to voice acting providing the opportunity where how you look or what your original voice is doesn’t matter. It gives actors the chance to really disappear into a role, but then just showing up as themselves it feels like a lost opportunity.

Like one I think of is Kiefer Sutherland voicing Snake was something I like much more than Norman Reedus in Death Stranding. In MGSV I only saw the character of Snake not Kiefer Sutherland. In Death Stranding I just kept thinking oh hey it’s Daryl from Walking Dead, and I had to actively keep trying to disassociate the actor from the character.

XbSuper,

Not op, but I don’t look to be immersed in movies, they’re just something to pass time.

dangblingus,

I do look to be immersed in movies, and yes, massive actors are immersion breaking.

Tom Cruise, Idris Elba, Meryl Streep, Leonardo Dicaprio, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger (except Terminator 2), and Hugh Jackman. Can you actually watch these movies without thinking to yourself 99% of the time “wow, Tom Cruise looks cool af in that jacket”?

stardust,

Yeah, what I’ve always liked about voice acting is that how the person looks or even what their original voice is like doesn’t matter. It’s purely about the voice which makes it much easier for the voice to take center stage, and it allows people to voice other genders, races, species, objects, etc.

This real life person being present as themselves is not a trend I’ve liked. Good voice acting to me has been one where I am emotionally moved by the performance but don’t automatically recognize the voice due to how well and unique the performance is. Plus, I don’t like more regular voice actors being pushed aside by a listers.

FooBarrington,

I know what you mean. I love JK Simmons voice, and he’s a great VA. But if I compare his role as Omni-Man in Invincible to Ketheric Thorm in Baldur’s Gate 3, I definitely enjoy Omni-Man more, even though Ketheric is modelled after his real face.

Duamerthrax,

It’s also pretty big immersion break when the va changes between installments, so the character model changes. Between Halo War 1 and 2, Professor Anders changed not only the specific person, but the ethnicity of the character.

quams69,

For me it depends, if the game is a big bombastic hollywood esque block buster then cool, but I don’t see how Keanu benefitted 2077’s story in any way, no matter how much I love him

dangblingus,

He didn’t. CDPR just knew that he had a lot of memes about how he’s a really nice and down to earth person, and they figured that that was the kind of good will they needed for their oft-delayed title that was earning them a lot of fury even before it launched.

Kolanaki, do games w Steam owner Valve accused of ripping off 14m UK gamers
!deleted6508 avatar

Aren’t these rules specifically for Steam keys?

Like it’s fine if they sell their game on Steam for $40 and another store for $60 as long as the thing on the other store is for that platform and not a key to activate it on Steam.

They just want the price of a game that’s on your Steam library no matter the source to be the same no matter where you purchase it.

RedWeasel,

That is my understanding. Additionally I have seen no evidence that it is actually enforced either. You could get Ghost of Tsushima for $59.99 on steam and for like $51.xx on another site using keys. Same happened with forbidden west.

Kolanaki,
!deleted6508 avatar

The agreement is only between the dev and Valve; 3rd party key sellers like G2A or Eneba usually obtain their keys through trades, buying them from the original seller, or by stealing them (which is an entirely different can of worms). They’re entitely user-driven marketplaces selling second-hand merch.

stardust,

Doesn’t even have to be sketchy resellers like ones mentioned like g2a. Normal ones like fanatical and humble bundle sell cheaper. Those aren’t user driven market places.

Just have to take a look at isthereanydeals which anyone should do before buying a game.

Kecessa,

Enforced or not, the fact that it’s part of the contract is the issue as there’s always the chance that they’ll enforce it.

Chickenstalker, do games w Idris Elba: Actors in video games like Phantom Liberty is 'sign of the times'

Lol. Mark Hamill was far ahead of the curve.

FaeDrifter,

Some of the best performances in some of the best ever games.

dangblingus,

Mark Hamill is an accomplished VA in his own right. It makes sense that he’d eventually be in games. No one really cares that he used to be Luke Skywalker.

MeekerThanBeaker, do games w Legal action over 'unfair' Steam game store prices given go ahead

Somewhat unrelated, but I have over 600 games on Epic Games. All free. Haven’t played a single one on that platform.

I have over a thousand on Steam, most of them I paid for (usually heavily discounted) and I play those on that. There’s a reason why I prefer Steam.

fyrilsol,

I don't know why people feel the need to weirdly flex about how they do this. What you're saying is, you've wasted time making an account at all, going through the process of checking what game will be free next, then processing the order to get free game.

So, good for you on wasting time and effort? While most of us just simply don't bother with Epic's launcher, market and them in general.

dan1101,
@dan1101@lemmy.world avatar

Think of it this way, claiming the free game costs them bandwidth. Downloading the game costs them even more bandwidth. Yeah my bandwidth isn’t much but collectively with everyone claiming the games that adds up. I have played and enjoyed a few like Dead Island 2, but I would never give Tim Sweeney and Epic game store money. I will just cost them money.

fyrilsol,

That...still doesn't make sense.

They waste money anyways. They have to be spending a lot to developers who are willing to have their games be given away for free.

Let them spend and waste on that, as well as just the sheer volume of bothering to stay in business. They must also be spending a lot to get so many licenses on Fortnite too. That's far more wasting than just bandwidth.

MeekerThanBeaker,

I don’t feel like I’m flexing, just stating numbers, but whatever. I’ve already had an Epic account from way back, and it takes like 20 seconds of my time each week to claim the free game(s). I have such a large backlog of games on other platforms that I just don’t go to Epic first to select something to play.

I keep them in case there’s something I want to play on a particular day that I don’t already own on another platform. And there have been a few recently that I’m becoming more interested in.

My original point is that I go with Steam because I enjoy their interface a lot more than Epic’s. Epic needs to do more work. GOG as well. And Valve seems to be a better company overall, so my money goes to them.

lofuw, do games w Legal action over 'unfair' Steam game store prices given go ahead

alleges Valve “forces” game publishers to sign up to conditions which prevents them from selling their titles earlier or for less on rival platforms.

As always, these moves are being perpetuated by scumbags who just want to make more money without putting in any additional effort.

If Steam is worth releasing a game on in the eyes of the developers, then they have to pay the price to do it. If it’s not worth the price, then they are under no obligation at all to release their game on Steam.

Most games on Steam fail to gain any traction. If your game fails, it’s not because it isn’t on Steam; it’s because it’s a pile of shit and you’re not special because you made something.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Plenty of great games are not immune to failing even when they’re on Steam. The market is tough. But at the same time, it makes perfect sense that Steam has a rule preventing you from taking advantage of their infrastructure for marketing and communicating with customers while you make it available on Epic first for less money.

Goodeye8,

And to add to this, allowing a lower price on a different storefront isn’t going to make the game cheaper to purchase. Either it’s not going to have any impact on pricing, unless a competing store has money to burn and will pay the publisher extra to sell the game for cheaper (which will actually hurt only the smaller storefronts), or it will lead to games being overpriced on Steam which is a near guaranteed controversy to any publisher pulling this stunt, at which point it would be cheaper to not change pricing or just go full exclusivity.

It’s an argument on paper but in practicality it’s bullshit. If Steam removed this clause or wouldn’t be a net positive for the consumer and worst case would be a net negative.

atrielienz,

It’s crazy to me that when they sell a steam key on another store front, steam takes none of the profits from that at all, the key is free to generate for the dev, and the only stipulation is that they have to sell if for the same price it is on the steam store front.

protogen420,

the main reason this lawsuit is even moving is that leaked emails that indicate valve has a price parity policy even for non steamkeys, I really doubt those leaked emails since I have seen first hand plenty of cases of games having different prices, sometimes even extreme differemce in pricing, for example, mindustry is paid ln steam but free on itch.io, google play store and fdroid

even if those emails are true, that only is proof of one case not a proof that there is systemic policy of doing that

many other, even more questionable claims are raised withour evidence or drawn very dubiosly in the law suit

this lawsuit is pure theatre

beyond this, plenty of companies have even more and clearly anti competitive with their practices extending beyond game selling and distribution, namely apple and google, who control respectively iOS’ (very genericly poorly named) apps store and play store who clearly display anti competive behaviour and are clear monopolies

Sonotsugipaa,

Mindustry is straight up open source, it is available on github under the GNU GPL v3

False,

It’s worth giving the dev his $5 though. Great game and open source

Sonotsugipaa,

More like 3.33$ (or 3.33€ in my case) plus fees, but agreed

chiliedogg,

It’s more nuanced than that.

Choosing not to release on Steam isn’t easy because it’s not a balanced market, at all. It’s trying to release a Disney-style animated movie, but only in adult theatres.

Steam is the 900-pound gorilla. Yes, they have a good interface, but they take a ludicrous portion of game revenue. Epic has a shit interface, but they take well-under half of the fees Steammdoes for the same game.

Gabe is not your friend. He’s a billionaire yacht-collector. Half-Life 2 wasn’t designed to be a great game. It was designed to launch a digital storefront that allowed Valve to rake in 30% of all revenue for games sold on the platform - which is often a larger percentage than is paid to the actual people making the games.

Why are we defending a system where the fucking checkout system is valued as much as the people making the games?

lofuw,

It’s more nuanced than that.

It’s not, though. If people actually want to play your game, then Steam isn’t going to get in the way.

Look at MMOs. Look at fortnite. Minecraft. Roblox. Those games can succeed without Steam because people want to play them.

If a game can’t succeed without being on Steam, then Steam isn’t the problem.

Why are we defending a system where the fucking checkout system is valued as much as the people making the games?

You’re asking the wrong question here. You should be asking why you’re defending the developers who just want to make more money and don’t care about how it may impact the experience for their customers.

Gabe isn’t your friend and neither are the whiny/greedy developers.

Stern, (edited )
@Stern@lemmy.world avatar

Yes, they have a good interface, but they take a ludicrous portion of game revenue.

They take the same cut as Microsft, Nintendo, Google, Apple, Sony, and more. You wanna argue 30% is excessive? I agree, but Steam isn’t an outlier here. At least Steam has enough extra shit they do for devs to make that 30% almost feel worth it.

chiliedogg,

They take the same cut as companies that monopolize the app stores on their hardware.

They take more than other PC platforms.

Stern,
@Stern@lemmy.world avatar

IIRC Gog takes 30% but not sure we can count them owing to what they distribute.

The only actual competitor store (i.e. not reselling steam keys) at present is Epic with its 88/12 split after a million in sales, and as far as I know it hasn’t been profitable since it opened in 2018, despite straight up giving away product and buying exclusives to try and build a base, so not really the best argument.

Obligatory LOL if we’re going to seriously note either the EA or Ubisoft stores in this discussion. MS probably falls into that pile too but tbh haven’t looked into them much.

ToTheGraveMyLove,

Half-Life 2 wasn’t designed to be a great game. It was designed to launch a digital storefront that allowed Valve to rake in 30% of all revenue for games sold on the platform - which is often a larger percentage than is paid to the actual people making the games.

Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. It was used to launch Steam, but it was also an objectively great game because Valve cares about their craft.

mnemonicmonkeys,

Choosing not to release on Steam isn’t easy because it’s not a balanced market, at all.

It’s not Steam’s fault that the majority of the competition sucks ass.

but they take a ludicrous portion of game revenue.

It’s a standard cut for online storefronts, even today. And they even reduce their once game sales hit certain mile stones. It gets down to around 20%. The only reason anyone talks about it is because Tim Swiney harps on it nonstop because he wants to be the one with the monopoly

DebatableRaccoon, do gaming w Sega considering Netflix-like game subscription service

No Sega. Bad Sega. Down boy. Don’t make me get the spray bottle…

Damage, do games w Actors demand action over 'disgusting' video game sex scenes

Sex scenes in games (and movies) are useless 90% of the time

FeelzGoodMan420,

Yep. It’s usually always cringe fan service. The sex scenes in cyberpunk are awful.

Damage,

I don’t even understand who enjoys them. Just go on the internet for your smut!

Carighan,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

And also largely nonsensical in how they occur and are written. It’s so boring. I mean I would love an actual intimate relationship to contact such a broken world but the devs of course won’t let me, instead I get fanfic writing.

unexposedhazard,

The remaining 10% being games that exist solely for the purpose of being interactive porn.

dependencyinjection, do games w 'He was an incurable romantic': The boy who lived a secret life in World of Warcraft

That was sad, heartwarming, and inspiring.

I’ve never been into RPGs and didn’t really understand the appeal. I now regret missing out on the communities that these games can seemingly foster. I was more into Minecraft on my own, which allowed me to escape but the loneliness was probably made worse and thus any low mood that followed.

Really glad I went against my initial instinct that I wouldn’t enjoy this programme as it was really well made.

thatKamGuy,

As someone who was lucky enough to get to experience those first ~6 years; it truly was lightning in a bottle.

20 years on, I am still friends with a number of those I met in WOW - and an in contact with a few more beyond that!

Unfortunately, it does feel like that sense of community those early years fostered are long gone, save perhaps a blip when Classic first launched.

Who knows when the next game will come along, which will be able to foster such relationships.

dependencyinjection,

Thanks for sharing your experience in this world.

Do you have any idea what changed over that time to make the game evolve to lose that sense of community?

Is it a numbers thing in that it got so large it became more difficult to build longstanding communities? Or something else.

I’m just very interested in this now.

switchboard_pete,

video

can't answer for wow but i imagine the change is similar for runescape, where

  • people engage with the game more efficiently than before, which slurps the fun out
  • people have jobs now, so they don't have as much free time to play games
frank,

I was hoping that’d be a Dan video. He has another one about how it’s Rude to Suck at Warcraft, which I found enlightening on how things have changed in WoW

KoboldCoterie,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

Not only WoW, but most old MMOs were built around being social experiences. The really old ones (Everquest, most notably) were basically chat rooms with games attached. The gameplay was very slow, and you relied heavily on other players to progress, so you spent a lot of time just chatting with people, either in zone chat or in groups or in guilds. Over time, you started to recognize the same names showing up in the same places, or as you progressed, the same players would be progressing at the same pace so you’d keep seeing them as you moved from zone to zone.

It was also a lot easier to build friendships for otherwise socially awkward people. You had an immediate common interest and common goal (advancing in the game), so you had common ground to talk about, and a common activity to enjoy together, but during the downtime, conversation would often shift to other things - where you lived, how old you were, what your hobbies were… so you’d get to know people ‘outside the game’, too.

Nowadays, WoW and other MMOs are much more fast-paced, and much more solo play oriented. There’s still group-required content, but it’s very action-heavy; you don’t have a lot of time that you’re just sitting around chatting, and groups are much more short-term things. 15 or 20 minutes, whereas once upon a time, it was 3+ hours as standard.

I met my oldest friend in an MMO about 24 or 25 years ago… we accompanied each other to a few different games over the years, and now we aren’t playing anything together, but we still talk. I flew across the country to attend his wedding a couple years ago. Similarly, I met my wife in WoW. Our first “date” was killing bugs in Silithus together. We’ve been together for about 18 years.

Old (as in, early-late 2000s) MMOs generated a lot of friendships; this isn’t at all an uncommon story to hear from people who played them at that time.

thatKamGuy,

I doing think it was an one thing, but more-so a build-up over time - a death of a thousand cuts, if you will:

It was a cultural moment generally, just think back to all of those celebrity commercials (“I’m Mr. T and I’m a Night Elf Mohawk”). All cultural moments pass eventually.

The third expansion (Cataclysm) was quite weak to begin with; coupled with a lack of content in the tail-end of the second (Wrath of the Lich King), which itself was incredible - narratively wrapped up the story that began all the way back in Warcraft 3.

So a lot of people chose that time to bow out of the game, as it required a fair bit of time dedication and seemed like an appropriate time to do so - given the narrative pay-off.

Lastly, the introduction of a number of game tools to automate the group composition process meant that the impact of player reputation on servers was severely diminished. Before then, there players who were toxic (stealing items, intentionally killing the group, failing quests) were infamous on a server.

Once this tool was further opened up to allow for groups to form across multiple servers - the sense of community was shattered as you would have no way to know if the person from another server was good/bad etc. it stopped being about bringing in the individual player, and just getting a body in to fill a role.

Minnels,

Most games now have all the “qol” features that remove the need to communicate if that is even possible at all. It is a sad world we live in where everything has to go faster all the time. More dopamine per minute.

I also was in for the first couple of years in wow and even played Dark Age of Camelot before that and some Ultima online also. It was a different world back then. As a gamer I had all the time in the world to sink into these games. As an adult and a parent I got no time to sit down for hours upon hours to play like I did back then but I wish that kids that grow up today should have the same opportunity as I did to experience this.

Nithanim,

I read of such stories once in a while. Sadly, I cannot relate because I always played singleplayer games back then, so I missed out on that. But I would like to add that joining pve world events in guild wars 2, there is some chance that there are people chatting publicly like they have known each other for a long time. Not sure what is is worth, though, but it always give good vibes to work together. Me playing mostly wvw (pvp) we (me and my friend) somehow found some likeminded people who invited us to their private voice chat and talk there while playing together. It is not very often, but it is a start, I guess.

Not sure where I was going with that but I though I add what I could I guess. Thank you for reading!

Nuke_the_whales,

It’s odd, even games like Halo 3 back in the day. I was also a solo player and never thought I fit into a team. I’m a Leroy, I will rush in grenades flying, shotgun blasting so I prefer to play alone. But one time I joined a group and they kept inviting me and we became a unit. They liked that I would rush in the back of an enemy hiding place and flush everyone out with my grenades, shotguns and screaming. I may get killed rushing in there but I’ll take at least one down and flush out the rest for my teammates to pick off.

I miss that group

Delphia, do games w Actors demand action over 'disgusting' video game sex scenes

Yeah, that sounds like some pretty fair demands.

Damage, do games w Fake retro video game ring worth €50m smashed in Italy

Ok at first I thought the title was about a fake prop from a video game which somehow was worth 50m

ExFed,

I hate headlines like these. It feels like they’re intentionally ambiguous.

Tangent5280,

maybe ambiguos titles draw in more people if only to know what it means?

capt_wolf, (edited ) do games w Ghost in the machine? How a 'haunted' N64 video game cartridge terrified children around the world

Must be a slow day in the news if the BBC is just now covering Ben Drowned…

Edit: link to the creepypasta page for the unfamiliar

I also recommend the Godzilla creepypasta for anyone who’s never read it. The ending gets a little too cheesy, but it’s definitely a classic.

simple,

NOTE: Do NOT post Cleverbot conversations in the discussion area or anywhere else on the wiki. Doing so will result in a ban.

This note was added over 10 years ago… Some things never change.

Potatos_are_not_friends, do games w Steam owner Valve accused of ripping off 14m UK gamers

It says Valve “forces” game publishers to sign up to so-called price parity obligations, preventing titles being sold at cheaper prices on rival platforms.

Ms Shotbolt says this has enabled Steam to charge an “excessive commission of up to 30%”, making UK consumers pay too much for purchasing PC games and add-on content.

This is actually the norm on a lot of platforms unfortunately. Apple. Google Play. Not at all unique to Valve.

Zedstrian, (edited )

Just because it’s the norm doesn’t mean it’s not excessive. In contrast, Apple’s implementation of a 30% cut is even worse, since with an iPhone you can’t just install an app from another source (and even when you can in the case of the EU, there are recurring costs for doing so). Since Steam accounts for the majority of PC video game sales, with AAA titles only not releasing on it when they have a clear financial motive not to, Valve’s use of a price parity clause effectively makes it the arbiter of what the industry standard markup on PC should be.

lorty,
@lorty@lemmy.ml avatar

Still shitty. No need to defend it just because it’s valve.

CrazyLikeGollum,

That 30% cut is also done on the Xbox and Playstation stores. I would assume Nintendo does the same thing.

It also sounds like Valve’s price parity agreement only applies to Steam keys. So, if a developer or publisher wanted to provide the game through their own storefront or on another third-party platform then they could charge whatever they wanted.

As for the 30% cut being excessive, I don’t know if it is or not, but storing data at the scale that Valve does costs a lot of money, not to mention the costs associated with ensuring the data’s integrity and distributing the data to their users all over the world at reasonable speeds. In all likelihood they are running multiple data centers on multiple continents with 100s of petabytes of storage each with some extremely high speed networking within the individual data centers, between the data centers, and out to the wider internet. Data hosting, especially for global availability, is damn expensive.

Kecessa, (edited )

As I mentioned in another thread, if their running costs were close to the revenues they make then their owner wouldn’t be a multiple yachts owning billionaire.

Their cut is a %, which means that as games become more expensive they make more money. But their running costs actually go down as they improve their tech and code.

An internal memo was made public and they make more revenue per employee than Microsoft.

We’re overpaying for games but people just got used to it.

otp,

Taking a cut isn’t a big deal, but effectively forcing price fixing seems much more sketchy to me

PieMePlenty,

Forcing you to sell at the same price as on steam when customers will be downloading from steam servers anyway is not sketchy but very fair.

As a developer you could set the game price on steam to a high number and sell keys on your own site for cheaper. Anyone who buys a key then used steam resources to download it. The dev keeps the 30% since its not a sale through steam. Yeah id like free file hosting with terabytes of bandwidth too please.

If you sell the game yourself and provide the files, you can set lower prices. This is fair and valve doesn’t restrict that.

otp,

If you sell the game yourself and provide the files, you can set lower prices. This is fair and valve doesn’t restrict that.

What about setting lower prices on other stores like GOG or Epic Games?

Potatos_are_not_friends,

There was a indie dev, the Spiderweb games guy, who refused to use Steam for years and he sold his games on his website. I think it was from like 2008 all the way to 2022. Refused to give Valve a cut.

Then he finally released it on Steam and he wrote a blog post how his niche games sold extremely well and regrets leaving so much money on the table for years.

I tried to find the blog post but no luck.

Godort, do games w Legal action over 'unfair' Steam game store prices given go ahead

Valve got to where they are by simply being the option that offered the most convenience to end users.

All the things this lawsuit is challenging are true. Valve does have a defacto monopoly on PC games distribution, they do not let you buy DLC on other platforms for games you own on steam, and they do take a 30% cut of sales.

Having these be limited by government regulation is a good thing. It would increase interoperability and increase competition in the space.

If those things get changed, people will still continue to use Steam because they continue to offer a service that “just works”. Every other storefront that has attempted to compete seems to either trip over itself by trying some anti-consumer behavior to increase short term profit(EGS, Uplay), lack discoverability features(itch), or not offer enough benefit to endure cost of change(GoG)

wreckedcarzz,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

I’ll be that guy and say that I do prefer buying from GOG, going as far as paying more money in doing so, so the issue isn’t really ‘friction’ but ‘mfs don’t bother offering on GOG’.

My hate for drm has only grown over the last two decades, and so I’ll get stuff wherever I can that isn’t plastered with it. But it’s not even a rounding error in comparing the number of games available of steam vs GOG. You’d have to go so far out with zeros that you fall off the page before encountering a positive value (0.00000[…]00001%). Which is upsetting and frustrating, since the other option is steam or piracy. And I do like rewarding developers for their work, so that leaves one option basically all the time.

Truscape,

There are games on Steam that don’t have DRM (since it’s not a requirement from Valve). The most prominent examples I can think of are games from Toby Fox and Klei Entertainment.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I’d love to see this as an official tag on the store page.

Infrapink,
@Infrapink@thebrainbin.org avatar

Steam is a DRM system.

I am not being flippant or facetious. Steam is literally a DRM system with a shop grafted on top. That is what it has always been. If a game is on Steam, it be definition has DRM.

SkyeStarfall,

But for the games without DRM you can just download them and run the executable. Bypassing Steam

Sure, if you stop using steam you can’t re-download or update the game, but if the game didn’t have DRM, you can just keep copying the existing executable

Truscape,

Steam is a distribution platform, with DRM provided as an optional feature for the developer. If I wanted to play Deltarune without using the steam launcher, I can go to the downloaded directory and simply launch the executable. For convenience’s sake, most users will use the steam client to launch their games, and some games force you to due to developer choice. In order to play the game I wanted to play though (Deltarune), steam only served as a storefront and a download repository.

ech,

In terms of straight numbers, isn’t Steam’s large “advantage” there it’s offering of independent, mostly unregulated games from small time devs? Are those really using drm? Even if there are, I don’t really think most users are choosing Steam over GOG for access to “Asset Flip ”.

wreckedcarzz,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

I thought the small indie devs were mostly on itch?

ech,

Itch is exclusively indie devs, afaik, but since Steam started their Greenlight initiative, the number of games released per year has rocketed up. 2012, the year Greenlight started, only 441 games were released on steam. Two years later in 2014, almost 1500 games were released. 2017 released 5600. 2021 released 10,200. And last year had over 21k. How much of that do we think is really DRM’d, AAA published software?

phx,

Indeed, and now what GoG is pursuing stronger Linux offerings I may shop there more, but Valve had contributed more than just a shop and launcher. The Linux work with Steam Deck and Proton has been invaluable.

PlzGivHugs,

Every other storefront that has attempted to compete seems to either trip over itself by trying some anti-consumer behavior to increase short term profit(EGS, Uplay), lack discoverability features(itch), or not offer enough benefit to endure cost of change(GoG)

I’d argue that GoG also falls into the lack of discovery catagory.

That said, I’d argue that the lack of discovery isn’t just a player issue, but ties back into the other side: publishers and devs. These storefronts/launchers are unessisary middle men. A software company can run its own store, and make its own launcher. Just look at so many of the big titles over the last two decades: Minecraft, League, Tarkov, War Thunder, Roblox, and more recently Hytale. Looking at players is only half the puzzle, the other half is how these storefronts compete against each other, and even against direct-to-customer sales for publishers.

So, for publishers/devs, what does Steam offer?

  • Payment processing
  • Distribution
  • A very robust support system
  • Discoverability
  • Tools for online play and social features
  • Lightweight DRM for those who want it
  • Modding tools
  • A community forum
  • Tools to add compatibility to your games
  • A plethora of extra features that improve your product for the players

And at what cost?

  • 30% cut
  • Tied to a forum, whether you want to be or not

Now to compare to, lets say, GOG:

Offers:

  • Payment processing
  • Distribution
  • Some user support

Costs:

  • 30% cut
  • DRM is banned

Because of this, its no wonder that they can’t get more of the market. Why would someone choose to sell there over Steam, or even over direct-to-consumer?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

A software company can run its own store, and make its own launcher. Just look at so many of the big titles over the last two decades: Minecraft, League, Tarkov, War Thunder, Roblox, and more recently Hytale.

This is also survivorship and selection bias though. Not only would you not have heard of the ones that failed, but these are the games confident enough to not launch on Steam in the first place. Several of them are so old that Steam was in its infancy and not the de facto storefront when they came out.

PlzGivHugs,

My point is that it is an option, and still a competitive one, when so many still use this option. If it wasn’t, these games wouldn’t have succeeded and/or would have died off. Its an option middlemen have to out-compete, and I’d argue many don’t.

ToTheGraveMyLove,

Steam was the defacto storefront when all those games came out.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

In 2005 when Roblox came out? No. League of Legends came out in 2009, and I had barely started shopping on Steam for non-Valve games back then. Most of us were still buying games on disc at Walmart. Minecraft was doing early access before Steam had the feature.

ToTheGraveMyLove,

Jesus Christ, I had no idea know Roblox was that old. (2006 btw, not 2005) I thought LoL and Minecraft were the oldest, which both came out in 2009, and Steam had already cemented itself by then. It was definitely past its infancy, and what other digital game store was it competing with back then? I was already using it, and there was nowhere else I downloaded games from other than individual game’s websites. It WAS the defacto storefront. Walmart is a store, not a storefront.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Steam was a launcher for games most people still bought on discs back then. I remember 2007 was the first time I bought a game on Steam, and it wasn’t a regular habit for years after that. It wasn’t about which other digital store you used; it was that, as a digital store, it held no power in the market compared to brick and mortar. Plus, back then, PC gaming was definitively second fiddle to consoles.

ToTheGraveMyLove,

Except your original comment said nothing about the power it had against brick and morter, you said several of the games listed were old enough that steam was in its infancy and not the defacto storefront when they came out. The only one that came out when Steam was in its infancy was Roblox, and as for the rest, if there’s no other storefronts around to speak of, then its the defacto storefront.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

If consumers’ regular buying habits at the time were not to buy on Steam by default (which they weren’t), then it’s unimpressive, and not a feasible poster child, for one’s game’s ability to survive in the modern market without Steam. That’s the point I was making. Brick and mortar was the de facto storefront for PC games at the time that most of those games came out, so it was not strange for an always-online game to sell itself online-only on their own web sites. These days, skipping Steam is not a path most will take, and for good reason.

ToTheGraveMyLove,

You’re moving the goalpost, have a nice day.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I think you just internalized this to be only about online shopping, but that was never what I meant.

NotMyOldRedditName,

You left off the newer steam deck which opens your games up to a mobile audience.

ech,

Just to be clear, distributing on Steam adds nothing functional to a game’s playability on the Steam Deck (afaik). A game from GOG can be played in a Deck just as well as one from Steam, albeit with slightly more effort.

That said, I know customers will flow toward the path of least resistance, so even a little more effort will push them towards a different source.

NotMyOldRedditName,

albeit with slightly more effort.

customers will flow toward the path of least resistance

I think that’s the crux of it. It can be done, but I would bet the vast majority are just playing steam games on SteamOS

So if you launch on Steam, you can reach PC users and Mobile users, and someone might decide to buy the game on steam knowing it will work easily on both.

ech,

unessisary unecessary

Just a little correction.

REDACTED, (edited )

I’m seriously failing to understand why is Lemmy suddenly defending a corporation and a billionaire from such things. The lawsuit isn’t even about the 30% cut, but that’s also greediness. The “tax” hasn’t changed since the times 100GB HDD costed around thousand of dollars, internet was metered in megabytes and the infrastructure was just not there yet. Still taking 30% from all devs is clearly corporate behaviour. Valve is literally called “Valve Corporation”. Sure, they’re less evil than EA, but is that everything gamers need to settle down?

EDIT: All hail Gabe and his fleet of super yachts, gimme upvotes. Redditors.

glorious_goldfish, do games w Gamers frustrated as Hollow Knight: Silksong crashes stores on launch

Yeah I’ve been really annoyed with modern “news reporting” and this article is no different. The store went down for like, a few hours. It was no biggie. It’s frustrating to me how the news exaggerates headlines like “gamers angry as…”, “outrage as”, “fury as” etc. Like they’re telling people to be angry if they aren’t already; telling them they should be.

I’m not angry. It’s a massive achievement on Team Cherry’s part. A team of three launched a game so in demand that it bought a service ran by a major corporation to its knees. I think this happened in huge part thanks to them actually pricing the game reasonably. Massive props to them.

FrostyCaveman, do games w 'He was an incurable romantic': The boy who lived a secret life in World of Warcraft

I’m gonna watch this, but it’s gonna make me cry man haha

I also had a friend on WoW who also had an incurable illness and eventually passed away. We spent hours together on Ventrilo back in the day

We were Horde though, lol

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