Disagree. It takes very little time to pirate something. Anything.
Also, there are a lot of numbers between 0 and 60 that someone may be willing to pay to play a game. But for a modern game with DLC and stuff, more like 120.
Why support our play those games. There are developers and games out there that are far better than the AAA mess that gets delivered year after year. There are more games on itch than you could play on your lifetime but you’d rather waste time pirating games that you don’t like enough to pay for.
I used to do that a lot and realized that most of the games I played weren’t worth my time.
Also most games go on sale for at least half off. So if there is another price point you want, just wait. Actually support the developers.
It’s like the gamer equivalent of hatefucking. I don’t get it either.
Like, if you know you’re not going to enjoy something why the hell force yourself to do it, if it’s just going to end up with you complaining about it on the internet?
I should clarify, I haven’t pirated a game since prototype 1. At least a game that I could buy. I have pirated games I have emulated, but this is clearly a different thing.
You can also use pirating to send a message. If a company does something really bad, like loot boxes or micro transactions, you can pirate take money they likely got from someone who’s addicted to gambling.
I’m more against pirating and using excuses to justify it rather than what other people play. If it’s not worth paying for and supporting the developers it’s not worth your time to play.
Piracy is literally the only method by which a lot of media is preserved in the era of subscription services and abandoned properties. It’s a public service that ensures that some of the most significant art of the last century isn’t lost.
The archives of pirates are a digital museum for a culture that can’t be bothered to preserve its own legacy.
preserving it years to decades after release is vastly different than pirating and playing it the same year or 2 after release. Also when it comes to preserving it, nothing stops you from actually buying a copy and preserving it personally for yourself. If this conversation was about preserving the games it’d be very different but it’s not, it’s about taking a game without paying for it. In the end, you are just trying to justify stealing from artists.
You’re not buying a copy, but a license revocable at any moment, not to mention that you need a service to leverage that license, too, so when that service either dies or prevents you from accessing what you paid for, you can kiss goodbye to it, and your only option is to cash out again.
I’m actually not giving them shit because they’re salaried and have been (undner)compensated for their labor during the course of their employment. They’re not going to suddenly eat less if I simply don’t pay for the product - this is identical to watching a trailer of a game and then deciding that you’ll completely ignore the game; no purchase was made, yet no property was stolen, because the game is still intact. It’s not the same as coming to a store and stealing a copy, preventing others to pay for it and bring profits for the store.
Again more excuses. It all depends on the scale of the studio. Lots of studios give bonuses and profits to the workers for them taking a smaller salary. Getting it for free means you likely would pay for it on sale just to check it out. Lots of the games profits come from lower sale prices. You are stealing because you would have paid for it in some way otherwise. You might argue you wouldn’t but we both know that’s a huge lie, if it’s not then it’s not worth playing at all.
I’m sure you know better than I do what I’d spend money on to be so confident in your claim that’d I’d pick up on a sale Anyway. Not to mention that sometimes you just don’t have the option to purchase the digital product because the vendors aren’t selling it you, as is the case with some counties and companies.
Some practices also just don’t sit well with you and you’re basically voting with your wallet by not paying for the game.
As for the theft argument, let’s say you have an expectation that I should you give you a certain sum of money, but it’s just that, an expectation - like I promise to wire transfer you billions of dollars, plus some fees and taxes, but I never do; did I just steal from you? You have absolutely everything you had before, but didn’t receive the money you were expecting.
Or I made an identical copy of something you have and am now using it, too - you still have the original, though, you’re no worse off in any way because the original object is still cometely intact, and I would have never gotten it otherwise if it wasn’t for the identical copy that took you no effort. Did I take the original from you, i.e. stole anything from you?
Listen, you’re going to make all the excuses you can to protect your mental state. It’s fine. I used to pirate almost every game that came out and then I realized what I was doing. You might or might not one day figure it out for yourself but at this point, you aren’t engaging in good faith.
I’ll leave you with a simple video www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM2R5xV3bbY think of it in the same vain as pirating a video game and you might see how artists aren’t able to continue living off of the games they make.
Except I’m not profiting off the games I pirate, and neither does anybody else these days (hasn’t since 00s).
You don’t even see the dissonance in your arguments: you’re trying to tell me how bad it is and how nobody should pirate of they can’t or don’t want to pay, but the benefactors don’t get paid either way, but I case of the latter, we’re somehow not talking about ripping someone off; it’s a sale that’s not being made either way, and assuming that the people pirating the content would’ve bought it if it wasn’t for piracy is just wrong as evident by a lot of research done on the topic.
I still haven’t seen your arguments as to how exactly it hurts people outside not closing the deal that, again, wouldn’t have been closed anyway had piracy not been an option.
it’s a sale that’s not being made either way, and assuming that the people pirating the content would’ve bought it if it wasn’t for piracy is just wrong as evident by a lot of research done on the topic.
That’s not true at all, the only decent study to suggest that was a self-reported survey done by the EU that has since been debunked.
Determined to make an objective inquiry, the researchers looked at 25 studies on the subject. Nearly 90 percent of these studies (22 out of the 25) found a statistically significant, harmful impact of piracy on sales.
Except I’m not profiting off the games I pirate, and neither does anybody else these days (hasn’t since 00s).
So first that isn’t true, people pirate games and stream/create videos of them to gain views which converts to monetization. Second, we can both agree you gain something. Does money have to be the thing you gain to see it as wrong or does enjoyment count as well? Or are we in such a monetary society that we must have monetary gain from work you didn’t make for it to be wrong?
Overall, the end of it is 1) even if you pinky promise that you wouldn’t have bought the game (the fact you would play it says otherwise because if you would enjoy it then it’s really a dollar price argument, which is covered by sales but ignoring that obvious flaw in your argument…) you 2) still end up contributing to a culture that makes it easier for people to get games for free. You can’t speak for all pirates and there are clearly many (90% of) studies showing that these folks are reducing sales numbers. 3) as we have seen just copying something can hurt something. This is why trademarks and copyrights even exist. It’s why the courts don’t stop at monetary gain. If you break copyright even for personal use, legally the copyright holder can come after you. Sometimes pirating produces an inferior copy of the game. People going to the pirated game to even judge it to see if they should buy the full game means the developers are hoping that the pirates didn’t completely ruin the binary somehow. Demos exist for a lot of games out there since Steam started Next Fest which features demos of games. Steam has a 2-week or 2-hour of game-time refund policy. The excuse of “I just want to check it out” for pirating is debunked.
So as a game developer, pay for our games. If you can’t afford it, message us. Give us insight into what is fair. If your region is unfairly priced, let us know! That stuff is automatic on Steam and sometimes really unfair. Price points can be adjusted until you can feel happy with your purchase. A lot of indie devs simply want people to enjoy their games fairly. After all, we all still have to eat.
Oh, now that’s the real culprit! That honestly explains a lot in this conversation and makes me see you less of a corporate ally for absolutely no good.
As for the “piracy le hurts” reports, I’m really not surprised that you were able to find these, mostly debunking anything stating otherwise. As if we didn’t live in the massively lobbied society where corporations and money-turners have much more leverage than anything else to manipulate the popular opinion on anything that “hurts” them, be it anything legit or simply perceived.
So first that isn’t true, people pirate games and stream/create videos of them to gain views which converts to monetization.
I don’t really know where you got that from, as any content creator that has any worthwhile numbers to make their monetization off of pirated content a problem, in fact, never mentions anything positive above piracy. Following your logic, though, are these content creators supposed to share their revenue with you if their content is based on your game?
Second, we can both agree you gain something. Does money have to be the thing you gain to see it as wrong or does enjoyment count as well? Or are we in such a monetary society that we must have monetary gain from work you didn’t make for it to be wrong?
By that logic, I can’t share games with my friends and family, because while they get some fun time, they pay nothing for the game. I’m sure that’s an absurd idea even in your books - consider every pirate my friend and family, especially when it comes to distributors and publishers I have zero respect towards. Sometimes a game is made using and promoting damaging practices, and while the game is good in its own merits, I choose not to support the developers or decision-makers monetarily.
While I’m at it, you seem to think that I just don’t for any games, like, ever, which I assure is not the case - I have a massive Steam library and some games I bought in EGS and GOG, many of which I deliberately bought as a thank you and a sign of respect only after I’ve played/beaten their pirated copies.
Demos, though, are still a minority. Starfield doesn’t have a demo, neither does Cyberpunk 2077, nor most (if not all) games that have prices so high that people even consider piracy in the first place. You strike me as a smaller developer that I may actually find during Steam Next Fest (love these, by the way, barely skip any), and you may provide demos, for which I say thank you, and it may even earn a purchase from me specifically; however, it still is an exception more than it is a rule these days.
If you have any games on Steam, I’ll be happy to check 'em out, either during a Steam Next Fest or otherwise. Most likely, you’re not charging an absurd amount of money on a bunch of lies and predatory practices, and if that’s the case, I won’t think twice about paying for a digital revocable ticket that I can only access via a single gateway (being Steam), but you won’t suddenly find yourself with less money if I simply choose to ignore your game, and you certainly won’t start losing money from your bank account if I download multiple copies for free or even make multiple copies of a legally purchased one.
But if you’re Bethesda, telling me that I can do impressive rounds of exploring in your game for dozens or hundreds of hours, or even months, or even years, but I have to pay at least $60 to enjoy the game… only to find out that this massive selling piece was a lie and once I’ve seen one POI, I’ve basically seen every POI of that type, down to enemy, object, and loot placement, yet you’re still going to sell me DLC(s) and expect the community to patch the game for free, then sorry (not sorry), I’m not going to spend any money on your product and make you think that treating your customers like that is okay in any capacity. Is it possible that I enjoy the game despite such flaws? Yes, but it doesn’t mean it’s worth the money for me, not now, not later, because it’s a predatory marketing strategy built on deceiving your buyers, and if you believe that pirating games hurts the companies that are supposed to receive the money, then I’m happy to pirate their games thousands of times to punish them for being absolute dickheads.
The reports and courts supporting those with the big wallets in this regard is identical to how climate change is still a prevalent problem that’s being put on shoulders of people like you and me, while oil and gas and tech and other industries get subsidies, leverage, and bail-outs from the governments.
Oh, now that’s the real culprit! That honestly explains a lot in this conversation and makes me see you less of a corporate ally for absolutely no good.
I don’t really see anyone defending corporations for no reason. Everyone defends their own way of life or potential way of life.
As for the “piracy le hurts” reports, I’m really not surprised that you were able to find these, mostly debunking anything stating otherwise. As if we didn’t live in the massively lobbied society where corporations and money-turners have much more leverage than anything else to manipulate the popular opinion on anything that “hurts” them, be it anything legit or simply perceived.
I understand your point but that’s kind of a weak, non-factual way of debunking them which what I linked goes into details and facts.
I don’t really know where you got that from, as any content creator that has any worthwhile numbers to make their monetization off of pirated content a problem, in fact, never mentions anything positive above piracy. Following your logic, though, are these content creators supposed to share their revenue with you if their content is based on your game?
I’ve seen it with a few streamers, it’s uncommon but it happens. Now we are also seeing the rise of paid pirating platforms which are clearly making money off of others’ work as well.
By that logic, I can’t share games with my friends and family, because while they get some fun time, they pay nothing for the game. I’m sure that’s an absurd idea even in your books - consider every pirate my friend and family, especially when it comes to distributors and publishers I have zero respect towards. Sometimes a game is made using and promoting damaging practices, and while the game is good in its own merits, I choose not to support the developers or decision-makers monetarily.
Yeah, that’s absurd but the point is that clearly there is a line there and it’s not yours to draw. It’s the copyright holders. Some people offer Steam family sharing, being there physically or sharing a Steam account requires 1 copy of the game and can only be played by one device at a given time. That’s the line developers draw and it’s on us to determine how we want to share our artwork. I think that’s pretty fair. If I make something, I can determine how I share it, it’s not up to anyone else to take my creation from me, even if that means I don’t lose the original copy.
While I’m at it, you seem to think that I just don’t for any games, like, ever, which I assure is not the case - I have a massive Steam library and some games I bought in EGS and GOG, many of which I deliberately bought as a thank you and a sign of respect only after I’ve played/beaten their pirated copies.
To be honest, I’ve met a lot of pirates who don’t buy a single thing. There are certainly lots of pirates who do not buy anything for whatever reason.
Demos, though, are still a minority. Starfield doesn’t have a demo, neither does Cyberpunk 2077, nor most (if not all) games that have prices so high that people even consider piracy in the first place. You strike me as a smaller developer that I may actually find during Steam Next Fest (love these, by the way, barely skip any), and you may provide demos, for which I say thank you, and it may even earn a purchase from me specifically; however, it still is an exception more than it is a rule these days.
Price is relative. I’d also think that demos aren’t a minority anymore by count but by AAA release, you don’t see many demos because they don’t need a demo. Most people will watch the marketing or gameplay videos and decide from coverage. The smaller indie developers (yes, like myself, I tried AAA for a while and felt like a cog, go figure) need demos to prove their game is worthy of a purchase and thus they feel to me that they’ve become more common. Although most multiplayer games can’t really have demos.
If you have any games on Steam, I’ll be happy to check 'em out, either during a Steam Next Fest or otherwise. Most likely, you’re not charging an absurd amount of money on a bunch of lies and predatory practices, and if that’s the case, I won’t think twice about paying for a digital revocable ticket that I can only access via a single gateway (being Steam), but you won’t suddenly find yourself with less money if I simply choose to ignore your game, and you certainly won’t start losing money from your bank account if I download multiple copies for free or even make multiple copies of a legally purchased one.
www.underflowstudios.com/games These are the games I’ve worked on. The Away Team: Lost Exodus is the one that I’ve made within my own studio. It’s likely to be so small to not even have a pirated version. You can buy it on Steam or Itch, DRM-free and with the majority of the code for the missions, characters, and textures in loose files to allow for modification. It’s completely DRM-free and in theory, you can buy it on Itch, and get a Steam key. Both versions will provide you with a game that’s just raw files. I choose to draw my line around consumers having a lot of freedom but I also respect those who don’t.
But if you’re Bethesda, telling me that I can do impressive rounds of exploring in your game for dozens or hundreds of hours, or even months, or even years, but I have to pay at least $60 to enjoy the game… only to find out that this massive selling piece was a lie and once I’ve seen one POI, I’ve basically seen every POI of that type, down to enemy, object, and loot placement, yet you’re still going to sell me DLC(s) and expect the community to patch the game for free, then sorry (not sorry), I’m not going to spend any money on your product and make you think that treating your customers like that is okay in any capacity. Is it possible that I enjoy the game despite such flaws? Yes, but it doesn’t mean it’s worth the money for me, not now, not later, because it’s a predatory marketing strategy built on deceiving your buyers, and if you believe that pirating games hurts the companies that are supposed to receive the money, then I’m happy to pirate their games thousands of times to punish them for being absolute dickheads.
I mean at that point why play it though? I figured you’d just see the gameplay videos and move on. Maybe you want to go in entirely blank? Honestly, and controversially I feel the same about a recent purchase I made, Red Dead Redemption 2. I played 26 hours and feels like I barely played 2 hours worth of enjoyable content for myself. That said, my friend’s dog did the mo-cap for the dogs in the game and it’s nice to see.
The reports and courts supporting those with the big wallets in this regard is identical to how climate change is still a prevalent problem that’s being put on shoulders of people like you and me, while oil and gas and tech and other industries get subsidies, leverage, and bail-outs from the governments.
I can’t disagree. You should always look at these reports and rulings yourself and form your own opinions.
We’re getting really lengthy here, and while that was fun while it lasted, we’re clearly both set in our ways, so I’ll answer to only a few topics that don’t simply revolve our beliefs. I know we’re just going to back and forth, ultimately saying “I’m right, you’re wrong” anyway.
I mean at that point why play it though? I figured you’d just see the gameplay videos and move on. Maybe you want to go in entirely blank? Honestly, and controversially I feel the same about a recent purchase I made, Red Dead Redemption 2. I played 26 hours and feels like I barely played 2 hours worth of enjoyable content for myself. That said, my friend’s dog did the mo-cap for the dogs in the game and it’s nice to see.
You’ve proven my point by saying that despite having spent 26 hours playing the game, barely 2 of them were worth it, and no Steam refund is going to listen to your definition of the amount of hours that count for an actual refund. You had no demo to try, and no amount of gameplay videos is going to answer the questions like “How would I play the game?” and “How would I enjoy that?”; to a certain extent, demos don’t either, because they’re not a complete experience and complete experiences count, but they’ll definitely give you a much better feeling of whether you should spend your money on the game.
That’s one reason to pirate a AAA game: you know you might like it, but you don’t want to become a metric on another chart for the sharks to pat each other on the back and say “See? We did it! We were right! They bought the game!”, even if for a 0.001% of the original price.
Kudos for casting your dog there, though. Good boy/girl.
I’ve seen it with a few streamers, it’s uncommon but it happens. Now we are also seeing the rise of paid pirating platforms which are clearly making money off of others’ work as well.
Now, we all generally denounce people making money off any sort of pirated content, be it cinema, books, games, or anything else. It’s about a lot of things, really, but none of them is profit - certainly not these days.
Yeah, that’s absurd but the point is that clearly there is a line there and it’s not yours to draw. It’s the copyright holders. Some people offer Steam family sharing, being there physically or sharing a Steam account requires 1 copy of the game and can only be played by one device at a given time. That’s the line developers draw and it’s on us to determine how we want to share our artwork. I think that’s pretty fair. If I make something, I can determine how I share it, it’s not up to anyone else to take my creation from me, even if that means I don’t lose the original copy.
I buy a book you wrote. Would you insist that I don’t share that book with anyone else and instead tell them to go get their own copy? You’ll most likely say ‘no’ once again, that’s something we both agree on, and a game is no different. Nobody is taking your book away from you, it still is yours in every regard, but you don’t get to control whether people can lend it. It’s sharing, i.e. caring, and sharing often leads to increased sales and exposure through various channels.
You even said it yourself that “there is a line there and it’s not yours to draw”, yet in the same paragraph you say “If I make something, I can determine how I share it, it’s not up to anyone else to take my creation from me, even if that means I don’t lose the original copy.”
Make what you will of it, but you stumbling like that over there clearly shows how neither approach is universally correct and simple, especially given the amount of people and their individual circumstances involved in each case of sharing, piracy, or buying a single copy exclusively.
Games go on sale faster than any entertainment. All you really have to do is wait. Hell to play starfield is 10 dollars. That 10 dollars also gets you access to hundreds of other games.
For some, $10 is not a sum they can spend on non-essentials. Some don’t want to wait for various legitimate reasons. Some want to be able to try the game out before making up their mind on whether they’ll pay for it. Some just don’t care about giving money to a massive corporation that’s definitely not suffering from the lack of money, for one reason or another: one of them, a very prominent one, is to avoid supporting the greedy corporate practices with your wallet, such as the lack of proper optimization and control over the graphical fidelity wrapped up in the “Oh, we just wanna preserve the look for everybody” bullshit.
Lastly, if you really insist on defending paying against piracy, you should know that pirates either never pay in the first place, so it’s not like some poor big corp lost some sales, or they’re one of the most consistently paying customers for a given media, as has been the case for decades now.
As for whether $10 is a lot… it’s really not up to you to decide when someone can or cannot afford to spend their money on. Not to mention that there’s no reason to defend a company that has more money than you can imagine, ripping off its employees only because of greed rather than lack of funds, yet they still decide to outsource basically the entire game to a gazillion of other studios, resulting in a game that’s kinda good, but very flawed with massive inconsistencies and “play it safe” decisions coupled with good-for-nothing premium editions and confirmed upcoming DLCs only to squeeze more money out of their consumers.
If the game’s worth it and I can easily obtain it legally at a sensible price, the pirating the game isn’t my first urge for sure… Again, if I pirate something I was never going to buy in the first place for one reason or the other, there’s no theft to speak of.
Maybe I could transfer you several billion dollars right now, plus some change to cover up for the fees and taxes that may come up, but I just don’t - would you say I stole that money from you? You probably wouldn’t, because that was just a expectation and you never had the money in the first place, so there was no way for me to take it, and the fact that you expected to have more, didn’t get anything as a result, and did not actually lose anything does not constitute a theft.
Hey wait a minute, this guy is trying to trick us into getting out of our chairs too! Get a steam deck in each hand and write mean things about him on both.
I have a genetic disorder that causes my tendons and ligaments to be weak, so I get sprains and dislocations easily. I’ve sprained a finger pushing an elevator button before, and dislocated a knee standing up and taking a step. My hands are so stupid weak I couldn’t even get a Switch, I had to get a Switch Lite. I can’t use Xbox controllers because the D-pad and left stick being switched caused me to accidentally dislocate my thumb once.
The Steam Deck is just slightly too heavy for me to hold for long, because you carry some of the weight on your middle fingers when you’re holding it. When I was trying it, a middle finger joint started to go out of place.
The ergonomics of the Steam Deck were great; so I was so upset when I felt my finger starting to give. I had only played for about 10, 15 minutes before I started having problems, and I had to tape my finger after I got home from trying it.
I’m a rare case, I know, but usually new versions of electronics tend to be slimmer and lighter, so I’m hopeful.
On the plus side, you can use any Bluetooth or USB compatible controller that you find comfortable and a cheap stand to make your experience more comfortable. Steam’s controller support is fantastic.
Yeah, but that’s not going to be very easy to do on the train, or laying down in bed, and having to carry around a controller kills a lot of the portability, which would be the whole point of a Stream Deck for me. And if I’m going to play at home, I’ve already got a gaming PC.
If there's one thing the Deck is good for is customisation. It's not ideal but I wonder if it's possible to design handles that don't put so much pressure on your middle fingers or grips that wrap around your palms.
As you can tell, I'm not someone who specialises in ergonomic design.
There's a lot of rambling here but your points are centred around battery life so I'll hit that.
The Steam Deck's battery life isn't amazing.
The most I've seen is Stardew Valley running for 5 hours.
There's two sides to this; the Steam Deck's power consumption settings and how long you actually want to spend playing.
The Deck allows you to control how much power a game is allowed to consume. I'm playing Fallen Order atm and that game would probably run for 2-3 hours of continuous play. I'm playing on mostly medium settings with textures on high.
There are certain other games that will utterly drink battery life, like Baldur's Gate 3. I would personally argue that you shouldn't be attempting it as a regular mode of playbut I tried it myself and it doesn't look terrible. But you have to go in understanding that BG3 is a graphically intensive game and the Steam Deck isn't exactly built for it.
On the second point, I personally can't spend more than 2 hours of continuous play. After a while, I get tired of holding the device. I live in the UK so our travel times aren't long. I also don't travel very often either. My time on the Deck is usually just before going to sleep. The way the device is, I'm not sure that you could be playing one game for that long. Sure, you can play Titanfall 2 but that's a very fast-paced game and it's probably not going to translate well to the Deck. It's better if you plug in KBM but then you're having to carry those around as well. At that point, you may as well be on a laptop or PC.
There are certain games I've decided that I'll play on the Deck like Fallen Order or No Man's Sky. I've also got emulators loaded if I ever want to play those games. If you want a Steam Deck, you should be getting it because it allows you to play a huge breadth of games, not the latest ones at high graphical settings. If you want that, get a PC, you'll be happier with that than the sacrifices you'll have to make on the Deck just to get the game to run well.
Thanks for writing out how your experience is. It’s how I imagined it. I would need to have more battery life to make it worth it to me to buy it. For example, a long trip without any way to plug it in. I definitely wouldn’t expect it to run AAA titles.
It is possible to get a USB power station. The Deck can charge at up to 45W.
I wish that power stations acted more like "external batteries" (would automtically be flipped on by devices when their internal batteries get low, will be charged after their internal batteries are charged), but even as things are, they do let one extend battery life on portable devices dramatically.
They don’t want to compromise battery in favor of performance and I agree. With smaller games like Hades or cult of the lamb my steam deck battery will last and last. On more demanding games like cyberpunk or Armored Core I get a little over an hour out of it best case scenario.
Beefier graphics hardware will only make that issue worse.
I so often use mine plugged in as I’m not walking or in a park, I’m on a bus or train which can often have a plug, so not much of an issue there, however I’m not playing high-end games, it’s so good for stuff like Hades and whatnot.
The thing that made me reconsider buying one is the screen. Make an OLED version and I‘m gonna get one. I‘m not worried about the performance, I‘d get a deck for stuff like Dead Cells and Spelunky, not for stuff like Cyberpunk.
If they made an OLED version and offered replacement screens for burn-in cases in x years, that‘d be absolutely amazing.
Kinda wonder what kind of effect a more powerful nintendo device will have on the whole ecosystem. Nintendo devices are automatically probably going to run smoother watt for watt just because developers will likely prioritize optimisation for that device, so it’s all a bit of an uphill battle for the steam deck there
Nintendo never makes anyhow powerful devices, they juat rely wntirely on developer optimization and only certain dwvelopers are willing to put in the time well and money to publiah for their propriatary and expensive frameworks in the first place.
The WiiU wasn’t more powerful than the competition but the old ones where, they gave up on compeating in terms of specs with the Wii and the Swit h uses a mobile processor that was old and slow even when it came out and can easily be surpassed by most phones if it wasn’t for the insane optimisation. They continue to proof that games matter more than specs and that’s a very profitable and well working strategy so idk where you got those rumors from but I am 99% sure the next switch will have a relatively slow ARM processor again and there is nothing wromg with that if it’s enough fun, it just requires a lot of work from the game developers that not all of them are willing to put in. About the typos, no keyboard in the world can fix my drunken typing and I am fairly happy with mine but thanks for the suggestion I guess…
I can’t really comment on the earlier consoles, but those are some pretty biased comparisons.
The GameCube is more powerful than the PS2, but then the Xbox was more powerful than the GameCube. Then you have the Wii. But then WiiU being more powerful than a console coming out 6 years prior? What kind of argument is that?
The argument for the Switch doesn’t prove anything when there’s very little investment in the handheld console market when the Switch came out. And also, who cares if the Switch’s successor can beat a decade old console? I swear, my phone probably can run a PS4 game based purely on its processing power.
The switch 2 is rumored to be more powerful than the ps4 an old console at this point in time that also had relatively seeker hardware than it could or should of at the time (same with Xbox the and jaguar cores were not that good)
I mean it has a place in the market. Even though facebook sucks, they are the leaders/pushers of VR at the moment. No new person wants to spend 1000+ dollars on something they may end up hating especially with the rumors around the quest 3 lite. Like meta makes up about 60% of the market-share of those who take part in the steam hardware survey.
So does Pixmax, HTC, Valve, or Pico no longer exist? VR is facing issues with adoption. I'm sorry but to the VR snobs even though I love VR having people argue you can't experience it unless you spend close to a grand on something that many people's feelings towards it are take it or leave it is a bit too much for most consumers. Meta is problematic with buying up so many of the vr game makers but at the end of the day these companies chose to sell themselves and lets be honest here the VR market isn't hot right now and prior it was fucking worse.
Yk a monopoly can stilll have competition and be a monopoly right?
And like by definition buying up all the competition is monopolistic, no matter if the companies wanna sell or not, they were influenced by the size of meta (and their financial backing), which gave them an unfair advantage against the competition. Entirely unrelated to hardware or software, both of which are dogshit in comparison - they were able to take a market share cause they can undercut all the competitors, exactly why their headsets are cheap.
Cmon man have like a single thought for yourself that ain’t propaganda
The irony of saying "Cmon man have like a single thought for yourself that ain’t propaganda" while just defaulting to "FaCeBoOk BaD" is peak. I already made mention of how facebook or whatever they are called is shit but you have to be braindead to see before meta entered the scene, VR was dead in the water. So yeah they tried to establish their little stupid metaverse thing and it thankfully failed. You aren't even addressing my point of no consumer wants to pay 1000 fucking bucks on something they likely hate. Most consumers drop off hard on VR. So cheap headsets are a net good thing for VR, even though the cunts who make them are dick heads.
Game devs aren't just going to be developing games if there is no fucking audience to play/buy them. So yeah many of those devs got bought out since Meta was the only one handing money out for VR related tech/games. It was a devil's bargin as shown with Echo VR and many others but I can't fault the devs since getting food on the table pretty fucking important than sticking with the values of some idiot VR snobs who think the only way VR should work is via pc connection on a pc that is valued in the 1k to 2k range on top of the previously mentioned VR headset that can set you back another 1k to 2k. Like I have the opportunity to have a pc in that range and I see how the quest 2 is very inferior to many other headsets but you have to be a fucking moron to invest thousands on something you will play with for a fucking week. So I'm thankful Meta (who is likely spying on its users) gave me an opportunity to try out VR at a "decent" price so now I know I'm into it and can invest further into the industry but nah. You stick with your idiotic groupthink of "MeTa BaD" when I will say I'm glad exist since people can take advantage of this deal and see if they want to further invest in the medium. I can't wait for they to die out but I ain't looking a gift horse in the mouth when they are ones who are the only pushers of VR right now. Apple doesn't give a shit about gaming and while Sony pushes out a pretty damn good headset, they don't let you use them on PC where most of the enthusiasts are. Console players don't want to spend the price of the console they are playing on to possibly play a handful of games with little support afterwards.
Sucks they bought up most things but those devs chose that option and I can't fault them since lets be honest here, VR market is utter garbage, there is very little money in it. I don't like meta, they fucking suck but the quest series has basically provided the option of the common person to actually try vr. Not many people want to spend close to 1k to 2k on a thing they will maybe fucking hate. I wouldn't say they are the sole reason its dogshit but the reality is people need an entry point headset. The market wasn't providing that and now that it does, people can finally get into VR even though it may lead to technical downgrades since the market is targeting those users.
Hell even though the PSVR 2 is a fantastic headset, most console gamers aren't going to spend more money on a peripheral than they actually spend on the console they are playing it on. Hell I would love Sony to give the drivers to PSVR 2 to pc players since shit a bang for your buck for specs but that ain't happening.
I don’t like Meta for a lot of reasons but without them VR would probably be fucking dead by now. Yes, Zucks Metaverse is absolute garbage but the stuff Reality Labs is doing thanks to Metas funding is absolutely amazing.
I gave up on VR for years after buying a Rift in 2017 because it was a janky, horrible to set up, tethered, nausea inducing mess that i paid what, 700 bucks for?
Recently got a used Quest 2 for 200 bucks and it’s fucking amazing. Completely wireless, hand tracking, much better clarity and i can stay in VR for hours without feeling sick.
I wish they would push high quality content a bit more like they used to instead of their shitty Horizon stuff but if it wasn’t for the millions of headsets they sold, no one would be able to develop shit right now for VR.
To say they ruined VR is absolutely delusional imo, sorry.
You got it for $200 because you're paying with your privacy. It's an absolute dumpster fire of a deal that's not remotely worth it. They could pay you $100/hour to play it and requiring an account with them, in and of itself, makes it the worst possible theoretical version of VR.
Facebook is absolutely the reason VR is fucking terrible. Their involvement, in and of itself, completely destroyed the community, many of whom abandoned the space entirely when they took away viable options to replace with privacy invading crimes against humanity. Turning enthusiasts from advocates into activists against their product is the reason there's no money left.
I’m not paying anything, my Quest runs completely offline. I use a separate router for streaming and the Quest is mac address blocked in my main router (just to be sure). ALVR is side loaded onto the Quest so i can play Steam VR games without the need for the Oculus app on my PC at all. It’s not that hard to do if you care about your privacy.
I’m not exactly sure which community they “completely destroyed” but your whole reasoning for that sounds extremely subjective to me. Facebook controls 90% of the VR market, followed by Pico with 4.5%, which is basically a Chinese reverse engineered Quest with ports of Quest games.
Without FB there is no VR market and there is no scenario where Oculus could have managed to sell a similar amount of headsets if Facebook hadn’t bought them.
That being said, i sincerely hope Facebook loses this race and I am pretty terrified of the future when it comes to VR.
Probably for the best. The Deck certification process on games would probably be annoying if they had a whole bunch of revisions with only like 10% difference in performance.
Wait a few years and make the next one a meaningful jump.
Exactly. I’d like to see a few significant improvements for the next gen - namely in screen and performance to match, but my dream would be to see Valve license Framework’s module system (or build something similar of their own) and integrate one of those somewhere on the deck.
It’d be great for the obvious, like adding high-speed storage, but just imagine the possibilities for a handheld gaming console of attachments people could build with a module system that locks in place like that.
Obviously the module thing is a pipe dream and unlikely to happen, but I just feel like there’s a ton of additional potential for that form factor that’s unexplored, and I’d like to see longer generations not only for support, but also so that larger iterative work like designing a module system or whatever can be prioritized over rushing out regular performance upgrades.
I would upgrade for a slightly smaller, more battery efficient Steamdeck with an OLED screen. I know that's a lot to ask for, but definitely performance is the least of my concerns.
I’m holding off until a new version. Doesn’t necessarily need to be faster, but I’m sure they’ve learned a ton with this release. Interested to see their 2.0 release.
Only thing I would ever want more is battery, but I’ve never even drained it and I carry my power brick with me everywhere for my phone/ laptop anyway so. I’d just get this version on the next discount (if I did not have a similar device).
Fair enough, it seems like we’re starting to see smaller performance gains per generation especially in battery devices. Makes sense to not force an update until real iterative performance is available. Asus’s ROG Ally was 1.5-2 years after Steamdeck and seems mostly on par.
Most resources have been diverted to the single player campaign for a while. (Squadron 42)
They communicate what is being done for the persistent universe (Star Citizen) but it’s a slower trickle of features due to the resource allocation.
Generally, they made some really great gameplay engagements over the years but features are being prioritized based on the S42 needs. They only update on S42 once a month, but the updates have been looking like they are nearing feature completion (community speculation, not announcement) just due to them moving more toward bug fix/QA type stuff in recent months.
The next big information dump is scheduled for October at the convention that’s coming up.
They’ve given up on giving dates because the community is very unforgiving if the dates are missed. And in software, dates are almost always missed.
They have a progress tracker on the website that shows the various components that are left to be worked on and which game is for. robertsspaceindustries.com/…/deliverables
Always take the dates with a grain of salt because they usually only list about 1-2 quarters only. But until recently, most of the bars were in S42 rows. I’m hoping for big news around it in October.
The other big indicator for their focus on it was last year when they relocated a bunch of senior leadership in the org to the UK with the stated reasoning of focus on S42 with the trans that were already working on it.
It’s still moving towards completion. At a snail’s pace but it’s moving. To their defense they’ve done some really cool tech with the game engine and stuff but idk if that justifies the timeline imo.
My money is spent regardless though, so I’ll zoom around in my leather interior ship whenever it does release.
Lol arguably, you can actually walk around the interior of your ship in SC. The FPS portions are pretty good. But last time I played (like two years ago) I fell through a staircase.
They have decided to adjust all development focus on being able to stimulate the perfect realistic animation of a poop crowning out of an in-game dog's ass.
The previous world record holder before BG&E2 was Duke Nukem Forever which took 14 years to develop and 9 years from the initial announcement in 2001 to the release in 2010.
Half life 2 episode 3 is supposedly still in the works and supposed to have been out in 2007. You might argue it was cancelled in 2011 when they announced half-life 3 was in development. Half life 3 has yet to be officially cancelled and leaks came out a few years ago of it being an active project.
Counterpoint: Consolidation in such a fast paced industry with a low barrier to entry isn’t as bad as physical goods consolidation. If Microsoft acts in bad faith, people just won’t buy games from that studio anymore, developers will just leave the company and start a new studio, free lance, or work for another party. It’s not like ABK was lighting the market on fire either. Microsoft is buying a trash heap and hoping to turn the internal culture around to bring back neglected IPs
Counter-counterpoint: When Activision bought and consolidated Blizzard an Blizzard North, they made it worse and people still slave away for them, and enough people buy their objectively inferior products to keep them going on life support to be sold again.
They became a poster child of what’s wrong with the industry (Diablo Immortal) and nobody learned anything. Baulder’s Gate 3 did more to further a healthy ecosystem than any merger has.
And how many dozens of indie games came out that same week whose studios folded afterwards? Or how many devs didn’t even release their first games because they ran out of money during development? Or how many smaller studios who were making fun games got irresistible offers from big studios to buy them out? What about the engines that are becoming increasingly more hostile towards devs?
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Aktywne