I think the reason why valve is doing this is because people might buy a game at a higher price, either on Steam or another storefront, and then complain that it was cheaper on Steam or another storefront and start demanding refunds or demand that Valve reduce the game’s price on steam.
What do you do then?
If you don’t address it, you’re automatically seen as the asshole even if it was the developer’s choice.
You can give out refunds, which makes you look like the good guy, but that also looks bad to companies like Visa or PayPal (my understanding is that large numbers of refunds tend to look bad to payment processors, even if the refund was initiated from the company and not the consumer). Granted, Valve is a big enough company that they shouldn’t have issues with that kinda thing, especially since they already offer refunds, but my understanding is that it still doesn’t look good to payment processors and can make them upset.
You can ask the developer to reduce the price on steam, but what if the dev says no?
You can force the dev to reduce the price, but now you’re even more of an asshole.
You can lower the cost on your storefront and cover the difference yourself, but now you’re potentially losing money. That, if I’m not mistaken, is actually anti-competative from a legal standpoint.
You’re kinda screwed if you’re trying to be the good guy.
That’s not even getting into how bad it looks if it’s cheaper on steam than somewhere else when you have a marketshare as large as Valve’s.
IT’S MUCH EASIER TO SEE WHEN THINGS ARE IN MOTION. EITHER WAY, IF SOMETHING MOVES, SHOOT IT. NO ONE CARES. EVERYONE IS EVIL. YOU JUST WON’T GET PAID FOR THE BODY. YOU’LL GET THE HANG OF IT IN NO TIME.
LISTEN UP ASSHOLES. IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED THIS GODDAMN GAME, GO DO IT. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE. EAT SHIT, PLAY CRUELTY SQUAD. I WILL NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER.
Suing valve. Like, valve is the only company I’m okay with having the amount of marketshare they currently have. I’m legit worried that if they go too hard on the lawsuit, it could result in the monkey’s paw curling (“I wish valve didn’t have so much marketshare” “granted: steam has been spun off into its own company. Without steam, valve goes under and “steamcorp’s” new management goes public”)
No, humble bundle isn’t run by them anymore. They haven’t been run by the wolfire guys since 2017. If I’m wrong and they are then I’m probably not buying anything from humble again.
I think there was more to it than that. It seemed more like a situation where they could kill two birds with one stone. They could destroy, or at least severely damage the stock market by ensuring the hedgefunds couldn’t buy back the shorted stock, and even if they didn’t, they had the chance to become extremely wealthy while trying.
It probably would have worked too if it weren’t for those meddling kids stock brokers like Robin Hood working with hedgefunds to claw back stocks and the SEC towering over them with potential charges of market manipulation.
VRChat. What does that mean? Do I literally get teleported into vrchat as I am irl? Do I have a little menu that’ll pop up on my wrist to change avatars/bodies? Can I go to new worlds or am I stuck in the last world I was in? Am I by myself in some kinda limbo-vrchat where it’s not actually a game but some kind of other universe that just appears to be vrchat, or can I actually meet up with other people? Can I get hurt or do the same rules of physics, health, food, etc apply? Is vrchat even a game?
If vrchat isn’t considered a game, then Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. It’ll be cool to be in the future I guess? The game itself is fun, but if I show up as the person I am irl, then it’ll be kinda boring. I guess I could always learn how to do sweet tricks and grinds though.
Yet another reason to avoid Activision Blizzard. It’s amazing to me how their corrupt and broken internal culture is apparently widespread throughout the company and their subsidiarys, and no one stopped to be like, “hol’ up, we can’t act like this” while the culture was taking form. So now you end up with people like the article trying to fight against it and getting doors shut in their face.
Also, it should be pretty easy to prove whether or not she resigned voluntarily. The resignation form would either be missing her signature or have a forged signature. Dunno what Activision Blizzard is doing trying to claim she resigned voluntarily.
Edit: I thought Bungie was still owned by Activision.
I mean, half-life recently got a new game. It wasn’t Half-Life 3/HL2:EP3, but it was more recent than L4D and TF2; which tend to be forgotten about until people start complaining.
Hylics 1 & 2. There’s actually a sorta sleeper cult around the games where it seems like a lot of people know of them or have played them, but no one ever talks about them. Pretty standard action-rpg but everything’s claymation. Oh, and the second game changes genre multiple times.
Cruelty Squad. Amazing immersive sim. Looks like trash, best gameplay I’ve encountered in a while. That game goes hard.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. I thought this was more popular, however considering how many people give me a “what’s that” when I mention it, it makes me think it wasn’t as popular as I thought. It’s a very well made spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio Future. Even has JSRF’s composer on a few tracks.
QT deserves more eyes on it for being an incredibly cute and wholesome parody of PT. There’s a free “demo” version on Itch.io, and if you like that then I’d highly recommend buying the full version on Steam.
E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy. This game is… hm. Basically it started off life as a Warhammer 40k game, but got released as something else due to the studio failing to secure the licenses they needed for WH40K. It’s a much older indie game from back when Valve had standards regarding what made it onto steam. It’s also kinda special because it’s one of the few times the Source engine was used commercially outside Valve. It’s also pretty jank, but overall pretty fun. It’s got some pretty decent RPG mechanics on top of a first person shooter, complete with classes. You can hack basically anything but also anything can hack back. A door can hack you.
I wish we’d get another Left 4 Dead, and while I don’t feel like TF2 really needs a new game, it could probably do with a fresh coat of paint (like PBR materials).
Some researchers did a study several years ago and found that adding a virtual nose decreased motion sickness significantly. However, I don’t think I’ve seen any developers try this. I wonder if it’d help.