for me mine are 1. Elden Ring, 2. RDR2 3. BOTW, all because they genuinely blew my mind when playing them for the first time and changed how I saw and played video games.
I love the Metal Gear series but the Cold War setting of 3 works so well with the theme of the game. It also features crab battles and the ladder boss.
Subnautica really captures the feeling of being lost in some alien world and slowly making it your new home. The electronic voice assistant manages to send chills up your spine with lines like “oxygen.”
Papers, Please explores complex moral decisions in such a simple way. I wish to live my life more like Jorji.
I find it hilarious that the reason these payment companies requested sites pull their NSFW content was due to direct action by a puritanical activist group but people upset by it not only don’t care enough to participate in direct action themselves but won’t even put their real name on a petition. Recently signed by: Crazy crazysmile. Thanks for the support Mr. Crazysmile!
Say what you want about right wing nut jobs, but they at least care enough about their ideas that they go out and make a difference.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. People fought wars to end monarchy, slavery, fascism. Wanting to be left alone isn’t the mark of a good person. Good deeds are what make a good person. It is your actions, not your beliefs, that make you a good person.
You don’t need to bombard people with your ideas. You need to stand up for them.
I have a friend who is a solo dev. He applied for some funding once and was denied because he said he intended on using it to pay himself. They told him it’s not just free money for anyone saying they’re making a game; it’s meant to support businesses. He would need to incorporate, have monthly expenses, and multiple employees. I’m assuming this funding also works like that. It’s stimulus for the economy, not funding for art projects.
As the title suggests, over the last couple of days there’s been an influx of doomer comments over the SKG petition. While it’s fine to disagree, I’m finding it suspicious that there weren’t comments like this posted a week or 2 ago
I have posts being critical of it from over a year ago. I’d assume most people who have criticism don’t leave a comment because it’ll get you massively downvoted and your inbox will be flooded with angry replies.
I don’t understand why there’s such a hyperfocus on petitions. The only thing being attempted is signing petitions in various countries. Every country has declined to do anything and the last hope is the EU parliament which is being treated like some all or nothing final bet. Why just petitions?
Why not directly put pressure on some of the worst offenders like Ubisoft? Lots of people are saying they’re not buying another Ubisoft game again. Cool! Start an official boycott. People who cant sign the EU petition can sign a boycott promise. It wouldn’t be binding or anything but it could create more solidarity around not purchasing their next big release. Companies care about their bottom line.
You know the hate campaign against piratesoftware? Why not do that to the official Ubisoft account instead? They’re the company that is actually causing the problem. You might not like piratesoftware but he’s not the enemy. He hasn’t killed any of his own games. He didn’t make the decision to shut down the Crew. The offical Ubisoft account shouldn’t get to post a single thing without pressure from the movement. Critical memes should be made about the company and shared on social media. The CEO shouldn’t get to speak to an audience without being booed. Companies cave to negative PR all the time.
These things can be done in addition to the petitions. Personally, I don’t think any petitions are going to bring about the change people are looking for. Governments rarely listen to them and the EU isn’t much better. There are just 10 citizens initiatives that have passed and all their responses have been pretty lack luster. Even if the EU enacts the exact laws people are hoping for, what about everywhere else? The idea seems to be that other countries will get trickle down consumer protections. Americans are pushing Europeans to petition the EU parliament to make law changes hoping it will cause American companies to change how they sell products to Americans. It’s just such an odd strategy to me. Again, it can be done, but there’s no reason more direct action can’t be taken in tandem with the petition.
I get lots of downvotes and angry replies for this take which I’m not sure why. I can only assume people don’t like hearing that petitions are largely useless.
I agree. I also think if you’re not European, you’ve not done anything. There wasn’t even a petition made in the US so Americans haven’t done a single thing, yet are the most vocal about it. That’s the part that confuses me.
Yes, that’s why I didn’t suggest Americans start a petition. A boycott and/or social media campaign is something Americans could do rather than just hope and wait for Europeans to fix everything.
This is probably going to seem wildly low-effort compared to my usual posts here, but I’ve found a bit of a treasure trove of print media gaming ads from magazines and sites. And they’re amazing. I found it so fun to see what companies used to do to promote their games....
Give me an example of a “successful one”. I’ve read only two initiatives have lead to law changes. One on the minimum cage sizes for farm animals being slightly bigger and one on banning pesticides that ended up with slightly more oversight on their use. All the others that passed only resulted in a statement by the government with no legal changes.
How? I genuinely believe something along the lines of an organized boycott would be far more impactful than a hail mary petition. The reason I think it wouldn’t work is because most people couldn’t commit. That’s why I said this isn’t activism.
It’s not activism if you’re not putting in any effort. I don’t care if people downvote me, but at least post an actual opinion. Have an actual stance. I’m glad others have posted some, although all of them seem to be along the lines of “this petition will definitely fix everything so we don’t need to try anything else”.
My point is that the movement should be doing more than just signing an online petition. What happens if the EU parliament declines to make any changes? Nothing? Oh well we tried? What will you do?
If the SKG movement doesn’t organise, that’s all we’ll get: a communiqué to shut the hell up.
Over a million Europeans have signed a petition in less than a month. Why only Europeans? Big ecelebs like PewDiePie and Critikal have made videos on this. It’s got a lot of people interested. Why not get everyone in on something more direct? Something international? Why does the world need to sit and wait and hope the EU parliament fixes everything? It seems like a waste of momentum. It needs to be more than just a European petition. A call to boycott the worst companies until they change their EULA and TOS would be a great start.
Today’s game is the Last of Us. I made it to the part where you try to get the car running with Ellie today. So far the game is holding up amazingly to my opinions yesterday. The clickers especially are scary. Usually Zombies don’t scare me, but it’s so hard to tell if they saw you or not so it can make it scary and lead...
Making great progress! Bill is such a great character. He’s turned his town into a fortress occupied only by him. Sounds great until you realize he’s been alone for years. It’s less of a fortress and more of a prison and, with the way he talks to himself, you get the sense that the isolation is starting to wear on him. Even then, when given the opportunity to leave, he doesn’t. He’s going to die alone in that place because he sees trusting others as a weakness. Something he tries to impress onto Joel. But does Joel want to be like Bill? Does he want to be like Tess? Such a great chapter!
Today’s game is The Last of Us. Nearly 13 years it’s been out and i am astonished it took me this long to pick it up. And jesus christ am i glad I bought a copy instead of borrowing one or other things for my PS3. It makes me glad to see Naughty Dog’s story writing skills are still stellar....
I loved this game so much! You’re in for a treat! Last of Us certainly has a way of making the apocalypse look gorgeous. All those reclaimed by nature cityscapes are amazing.
If you like the scenery and gameplay of this one then you’ll enjoy it in the second game too. Maybe lower your story writing expectations a bit though…
I’d say the story of part 2 explores a different theme. The writing and acting are still top notch, it’s just not a theme people wanted to explore. The gameplay and scenery are arguably improved so I’d still recommend it.
Ubisoft has updated its End User License Agreement, and it’s instructing its users to remove and destroy their games completely should the title be taken offline....
If you search “EULA deleting all copies of any materials or software in your possession” you’ll see this shows up in pretty much every EULA for every piece of software, including most games. Phasmophobia, Baldur’s Gate 3, Risk of Rain 2, and Steam itself show up on that list.
You become a subscriber of Steam (“Subscriber”) by completing the registration of a Steam user account.
TERM AND TERMINATION
A. Term
The term of this Agreement (the “Term”) commences on the date you first indicate your acceptance of these terms, and will continue in effect until otherwise terminated in accordance with this Agreement.
B. Termination by You
You may cancel your Account at any time. You may cease use of a Subscription at any time or, if you choose, you may request that Valve terminate your access to a Subscription. However, Subscriptions are not transferable, and even if your access to a Subscription for a particular game or application is terminated, the original activation key will not be able to be registered to any other account, even if the Subscription was obtained in a retail store. Access to Subscriptions ordered as a part of a pack or bundle cannot be terminated individually, termination of access to one game within the bundle will result in termination of access to all games ordered in the pack. Your cancellation of an Account, or your cessation of use of any Subscription or request that access to a Subscription be terminated, will not entitle you to any refund, including of any Subscription fees. Valve reserves the right to collect fees, surcharges or costs incurred prior to the cancellation of your Account or termination of your access to a particular Subscription. In addition, you are responsible for any charges incurred to third-party vendors or content providers before your cancellation.
C. Termination by Valve
Valve may restrict or cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time in the event that (a) Valve ceases providing such Subscriptions to similarly situated Subscribers generally, or (b) you breach any terms of this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use). In the event that your Account or a particular Subscription is restricted or terminated or cancelled by Valve for a violation of this Agreement or improper or illegal activity, no refund, including of any Subscription fees or of any unused funds in your Steam Wallet, will be granted.
I get that they say this in interviews, but that is not what their user agreement says. They can remove games from your library and revoke access to your account. To my knowledge, they’ve never abused this power but it’s still in their agreement. My point is nearly every company has agreements like Ubisoft has. There’s no reason to single out theirs.
Upon termination all licenses granted to you in this Pact shall immediately terminate and you must immediately and permanently remove the Game from your device and destroy all copies of the Game in your possession.
10.2.3 you must immediately delete or remove the Game from all computer equipment in your possession and immediately destroy or return to us (at our option) all copies of the Game then in your possession, custody or control and, in the case of destruction, certify to us that you have done so.
So why Ubisoft? It’s common in lots of games. Do people want to change EULAs in general or just want to hate on Ubisoft for doing something that’s common?
Upon termination for any reason, You must immediately uninstall the Product and destroy all copies of the Product in Your possession.
Even though this clause seems to be in most EULA I’ve never heard of it actually being enforced. I’m guessing it’s to prevent some kind of loophole where you can agree to an EULA, install a game, and then terminate your agreement in order to use the game without needing to follow any rules. If you can terminate the agreement at any time without needing to delete the game, then why not always do that?
As a Subscriber you may obtain access to certain services, software and content available to Subscribers or purchase certain Hardware (as defined below) on Steam. The Steam client software and any other software, content, and updates you download or access via Steam, including but not limited to Valve or third-party video games and in-game content, software associated with Hardware and any virtual items you trade, sell or purchase in a Steam Subscription Marketplace are referred to in this Agreement as “Content and Services;” the rights to access and/or use any Content and Services accessible through Steam are referred to in this Agreement as “Subscriptions.”
It’s in the quoted text: “Including third-party games”. I’ll bold it.
B. Hardware, Subscriptions; Content and Services
As a Subscriber you may obtain access to certain services, software and content available to Subscribers or purchase certain Hardware (as defined below) on Steam. The Steam client software and any other software, content, and updates you download or access via Steam, including but not limited to Valve or third-party video games and in-game content, software associated with Hardware and any virtual items you trade, sell or purchase in a Steam Subscription Marketplace are referred to in this Agreement as “Content and Services;” the rights to access and/or use any Content and Services accessible through Steam are referred to in this Agreement as “Subscriptions.”
I can’t find it on GOG’s but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in most EULAs. I’ve seen emails saying “confidential, if you are not the intended recipient of this email you must delete it.” There’s no way to enforce that. Ubisoft isn’t coming to your house to review the contents of your drives. I’m guessing it’s to stop some loophole like “you said I can’t resell your game so instead I sold my hard drive (that has the game installed on it)”.
Interesting. It seems to be one of those live action dating sim games where hot actresses play your secretary or childhood best friend or whatever and you click through dialog options in an attempt to marry them at the end.
Except the theme of this one isn’t to marry your favourite girl but to get revenge on a group of relationship swindlers. It doesn’t say what they mean by “revenge” but it seems like a game directed at incels.
Rocket League. I find myself going back to it because I like the concept but you need to have chat turned off completely and even then the games usually devolve into one or more players throwing a hissy fit a minute into any match because something didn’t go perfectly.
Or are people just venting because the initiative is struggling to succeed
It’s this one. He lives rent free in people’s minds because he made a video 9 months ago that has 1 million views where he says he doesn’t support it because it would cause undue burden on developers. Focusing on YouTuber drama is really taking away from the message of consumer rights.
Interesting video. For people who can’t tell from the title alone, this is Chet Faliszek, who worked for Valve on titles like Left 4 Dead, talking about making the game Anacrusis playable after his company shuts down. The game was meant to be a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, but was dead on arrival with player counts at all time lows after leaving early access.
I knew game companies license stuff but had no idea just how much content in a game can be licensed. In-game voice chat, art assets, music, and matchmaking all done by third-parties under licensed agreements that were really difficult to work around.
If his company stops paying their subscriptions, then the in-game voice chat and matchmaking stops working. The art assets and music he licensed can only be used in very specific ways and prevent handing over raw files.
It seems like he was able to get past most things by having Steam host everything as well as handle the matchmaking. His company can go out of business but players can still play through Steam (with some stuff removed like the in-game voice chat). Of course if Steam shuts down then the game truly does stop working.
The only way around these issue were if he never licensed anything and did absolutely everything in-house, which would be a huge burden. He just wants to make a game, not worry about load balancing matchmaking servers. That’s why he got another company to handle that part. Making development easier seems to also make end-of-life accessibility harder.
Nobody? Why start a hate campaign against a person because a petition didn’t get enough signatures? The vast majority of petitions don’t get enough signatures. It’s nobody’s fault. Stuff like this just makes me think supporters of SKG are entitled man children.
Again, you truly believe his video is the only reason a million Europeans did not sign this petition? If he did not release the video, the petition would have all the signatures and the EU parliment would be enacting regulations to preserve video games? You honestly think that?
It’s what I’m claiming. Why hate on someone you don’t believe prevented the success of the petition? If the petition would have failed in the absence of his video, then why post this kind of content? He had nothing to do with the failure.
I think this whole conversation is mixing two types of disagreements and is going to end poorly for that reason.
Absolutely! People who support it because of philosophical reasons are getting very upset over people giving practical criticism. Portability and maintainability of software are complex issues people make entire careers out of solving. You can’t just make it illegal for software to stop working.
That doesn’t mean companies should be allowed to purposefully brick your games for no reason, but there are cases where ensuring a game works forever would be a huge burden. The petition offers no exceptions, no practical guidelines, and no suggested punishment. It’s just “If you sell a game, that game must work forever, or else”. I see that affecting more small indie devs than large greedy corporations.
I’m concerned that some of the petty drama is poisoning the well and nobody will take this seriously in a long time because of it, because I do think action is needed and is urgent.
Me too. Any post about this petition instantly gets filled with toxic comments like “fuck that cunt piratesoftware!” and it seems to have overshadowed everything else. I initially approved of the movement until I saw all the cult-like zealousy surrounding it. Hopefully other consumer protection movements like right to repair can make ground without devoling into internet shitflinging between youtubers.
what are in you're top 3 favourite games of all time? angielski
for me mine are 1. Elden Ring, 2. RDR2 3. BOTW, all because they genuinely blew my mind when playing them for the first time and changed how I saw and played video games.
Petition to tell MasterCard, Visa, and activist groups to stop censoring legal fictional content (www.change.org) angielski
Some notes based on frequent comments:...
UK announces £30 million funding package and tax breaks as it aims to be the 'best place in the world to make games' (hotminute.co.uk) angielski
Does anyone else find it suspicious that there wasn't any criticism on here about Stop Killing Games until after it hit 1.4M signatures? angielski
As the title suggests, over the last couple of days there’s been an influx of doomer comments over the SKG petition. While it’s fine to disagree, I’m finding it suspicious that there weren’t comments like this posted a week or 2 ago
Is that a mod on the device that you own? angielski
Vintage gaming advertising pictures: a gallery angielski
This is probably going to seem wildly low-effort compared to my usual posts here, but I’ve found a bit of a treasure trove of print media gaming ads from magazines and sites. And they’re amazing. I found it so fun to see what companies used to do to promote their games....
European Commission preparing token gesture for angry gamers and game developers (www.euractiv.com) angielski
Day 358 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing angielski
Today’s game is the Last of Us. I made it to the part where you try to get the car running with Ellie today. So far the game is holding up amazingly to my opinions yesterday. The clickers especially are scary. Usually Zombies don’t scare me, but it’s so hard to tell if they saw you or not so it can make it scary and lead...
Day 357 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing angielski
Today’s game is The Last of Us. Nearly 13 years it’s been out and i am astonished it took me this long to pick it up. And jesus christ am i glad I bought a copy instead of borrowing one or other things for my PS3. It makes me glad to see Naughty Dog’s story writing skills are still stellar....
Ubisoft tells players to “destroy” games when online support ends (www.dexerto.com) angielski
Ubisoft has updated its End User License Agreement, and it’s instructing its users to remove and destroy their games completely should the title be taken offline....
Ubisoft EULA demanding consumers destroy delisted games adds fuel to Stop Killing Games movement (www.notebookcheck.net) angielski
A Viral Game Targeting ‘Gold Diggers’ Has China Arguing Over Gender: Praised as anti‑fraud education and slammed as sexist fantasy, ‘Revenge on Gold Diggers’ has sparked widespread debate online. (www.sixthtone.com) angielski
'Death Stranding 2' proves more video games need to get weird, experts say (news.northeastern.edu) angielski
What is your personal favorite multiplayer game and what is it's fatal flaw? angielski
Original question by @StarvingMartist...
[Lvl2Frog] Tips and Tricks angielski
What did consumer rights ever do to this dude? (fedia.io) angielski
So you want to make your game accessible after your company fails (youtu.be) angielski
Killed the greatest gamer initiative out there for content (fedia.io) angielski