teawrecks

teawrecks, 7 miesięcy temu

This should be a legal requirement, imo. It’s unreasonable for them to sell a game to people, and then make it impossible to play because they weren’t making enough anymore. That’s like making a movie unwatchable because dvd sales dropped

teawrecks, 7 miesięcy temu

I would use the term “licensing” rather than leasing. A video rental store “leases” the license.

But the point is, they’re selling you a license to play the game, and then at some point after sale, without you knowing when or why, they rescind the license without compensating you. Any reasonable person would think that purchasing a game means a license to play it indefinitely, especially if you received some kind of binary in exchange for money at the point of sale.

It’s the difference between Uber offering a subscription model, but then a year later suddenly saying they don’t offer it anymore, vs Tesla selling you a car, but a year later disabling features on it, saying, “you were merely licensing/leasing those features”.

teawrecks, 7 miesięcy temu

“There are dozens of us!”

teawrecks, 7 miesięcy temu

Ask ZA/UM how it’s going for them.

The expected profit margin when you try to make a genuinely good passion project is razor thin, if it’s there at all. There are two kinds of games that make money: outliers and whale hunters. When we think of good games proving the games industry wrong, we’re thinking of outliers. The rest of the industry is whale hunters.

In theory you could create some kind of game dev collective where a bunch of indie devs all work on their own thing under the same umbrella, and if any of them make it big, they all split the take to fund the group going forward. But you run into all the same logistical difficulties that normal communism runs into: what does leadership look like? how do you hold members accountable? what does contributing look like when development hell can look like not delivering anything for years, or forever? who pays the lawyers who have to figure that all out?

Silicon valley often had “incubators” which are kind of a middle ground between collectivism and capitalism. An investor funds a shoe string budget to several start up ideas to create minimum viable products. If one looks promising they all switch to shipping that and they’re all part owners.

I’m kinda surprised we don’t see more game dev incubators. Maybe indie outliers are just that rare.

teawrecks, 7 miesięcy temu

Apart from preferring Kirby in Smash, the only Kirby game I’ve played is Kirby’s Dreamland on Gameboy. They hadn’t yet figured out how to persist save data in those cartridges, and it didn’t have any codes. So you had to beat it in one sitting, which I could do as a kid, which was no small fear for that era of gaming. Replaying it meant finding where the secrets are, making runs quicker each time.

I kinda like this concept of no save, I think there aren’t many games, even retro-themed ones, that make use of it as an element.

teawrecks, 7 miesięcy temu

Yeah, I generally don’t like most rogue likes though, because they often lean on procedural levels and there’s usually not an “ending”. So I play it enough that I feel like I get it and then I’m done.

Minit is one that comes to mind. It would actually be rad if someone put Minit on an OG Gameboy cartridge. I think it totally would have worked as a Gameboy game with no save data.

Edit: ah I forgot that there is a bit of info retained between runs, like spawn position.

teawrecks, 8 miesięcy temu

I would steer clear of any chairs that

• function as a billboard for themselves (high back with a logo that’s clearly visible on a twitch stream)
• are built like a bucket seat from a race car
• or are otherwise marketed toward “gamers”

I would try looking for a second hand expensive one. I found a guy on CL who restores Herman Millers; sold me a lightly used Aeron for like $300.

The one I used before that was the Ikea Markus (also purchased on CL for $100, barely used).

teawrecks, 8 miesięcy temu

This will be the real challenge. No matter what game is picked, with 15 people someone will feel meh about it. So plan on having a few options, and everyone should agree to at least give them a shot even if it’s not their first pick.

teawrecks, 8 miesięcy temu

I think you can do private games of Stumble Guys with that many people.

teawrecks, 9 miesięcy temu

This game is such a neat idea and impressively well executed given that I believe it’s just one guy working on it. I know Starfield was memed into the Innovative gameplay award, but if the award were real, it really should have gone to this game. Can’t wait to see where it goes, it clearly has so much potential.

teawrecks, 9 miesięcy temu

I’ve also heard it called “evergreen”.

teawrecks, 9 miesięcy temu

I was also going to suggest this. No, she won’t be able to understand what she’s doing in it yet, but the game is a celebration of exploration.

teawrecks, 9 miesięcy temu

I don’t know what the rules of this community are regarding piracy or DRM, but I think backing your content up is generally protected, while sharing the content or encouraging people to copy something illegally is possibly not allowed.

teawrecks, 9 miesięcy temu

No one refers to people who despise X as “fans of X” or “fanatics for X”.

teawrecks, 9 miesięcy temu

Conspiracies are a real thing, you can just say conspiracy.

Conspiracy theories are often bogus.

teawrecks, 9 miesięcy temu

Ahh, that’s a systemic issue; a system where an undesired outcome is inadvertently incentivized. Aka an emergent phenomenon.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

Buying a CD/DVD was never ownership of the media that’s on it. It’s ownership of a piece of plastic and a license to play to the content on the plastic within certain limitations. If it was ownership, you would be allowed to project the DVD on a wall and charge patrons to view it, but legally you can’t, because you don’t own anything but the plastic. Buying a CD/DVD was always just a more convenient version of buying a ticket to a concert/theater to see the same thing. You’re paying for the experience of viewing their artwork.

So, as long as you also agree that sneaking into a concert/theater to view a show without paying also isn’t theft in any way, then I can’t argue.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

Just want to highlight how unnecessarily antagonistic your response was. Not sure if that was your intention, but I don’t care to engage with it. Cheers.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

That’s a fair distinction. Congrats, I’m finding there are very few people willing to engage in productive discussion on here.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

When you buy a painting, do you only have a license to view it?

That’s a good question. My guess is that the rights to create prints of the painting usually remain with the artist. You own that painting, you probably even own the right to display it for an entry fee, but unless the artist has granted you a license to the artwork, I don’t think you can freely create copies.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

I think we can all agree that would be bad.

You’d be surprised. There seem to be vanishingly few people here willing to honestly discuss the legal questions around piracy and copyright. The vast majority are just here to circle jerk about how much corporations suck, completely forgetting about the rights of artists they’re defending in the anti-AI circle jerk one thread over. I honestly think they spend more time flaming anything they disagree with than actually putting any thought into the matter. The dogmatism rivals that of conservative forums.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

I‘m all for sneaking into concerts and everything else

Then as I said, I can’t argue.

But you should keep this in mind when you go to the next thread and join the anti-AI circle jerk, pretending to defend artists for upvotes.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

If you think I’ve been antagonistic, please let me know how. I’m here to have a productive discussion, but so far I’m here by myself.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

If I’ve said something false, let me know. As far as I’m aware, what I’ve said is how the law works (at least in the US). I understand if you don’t like those laws, but that doesn’t make them not exist, nor does it make them irrelevant when someone makes a reductive statement like “if buying isn’t ownership, then piracy isn’t stealing”. The fact is, in some cases, it is.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

If you think I’ve been antagonistic, please let me know how.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

Yep, this is a valid point. The volatility of access seems to be a convenient side effect of modern streaming technology. I agree that there needs to be regulation around this as it’s currently too easy for a company to suddenly say “we’re pulling access to the thing you paid for right now, sorrynotsorry”.

It’s not reasonable to expect that they have to have servers available serving the content 24/7 indefinitely, but either govts need to force companies to clearly label access to digital media as some sort of “rental agreement” similarly to how renting a video on youtube or amazon works, and making it clear that the user will only be able to access the stream for a minimum of some specified amount of time, and/or they should be required to offer a download of the media for a certain amount of time.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

“Fraud” would imply a crime. I’m always happy when some european country has a law on the book that enables people to hold a company accountable for their shitty behavior, but in the US, we have some work to do there.

“Enshittification” is a…surface-level description of what is happening. I’m more interested in the “how we got here” and “what needs to happen to prevent it”. Because no company has “make the experience objectively shittier” on their list of new features. Blaming “enshittification” holds as much weight to me as blaming “the deep state”. It’s not a real thing, it’s just how you perceive the emergent result of a system with certain rules and incentives. The real question is, which rules and incentives should we prioritize, and how can those changes most effectively be implemented.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

although I could picture you wanting to be if that makes sense.

From my perspective, it sounds like you’re reading my posts with an unwarranted intention behind them. I have to assume this stems from you disagreeing with what I am saying, but to my knowledge, nothing I’ve said is incorrect. If you could point to something I’ve said that’s incorrect, I’d be glad to discuss it. Also, if you could refrain from the namecalling, that would also be appreciated.

teawrecks, 9 miesięcy temu

I think we agree and could learn from each other, but I agree, I don’t think that’s in the cards here. Have a good one.

teawrecks, 9 miesięcy temu

I respectfully disagreed with the top level post, and stated facts about why. If that was interpreted as not in good faith, I’m sorry, and I’m open to any counter arguments. So far, two people have pointed out that physical media can’t remotely have their licenses revoked, and I agree, that is relevant to the discussion. If you have anything relevant you’d like to contribute, I’m all ears.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

Looking at that logo…

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

I wish someone had taught my friends and me how to play D&D when I was 10, but my parents were part of the “satanic panic” generation, and had zero interest in anything to do with fantasy or improv. Once you get out of highschool, finding a night that everyone can meet up for D&D gets exponentially harder, let alone finding someone who wants to put in the time to DM.

teawrecks, 10 miesięcy temu

Let’s be real, D&D is a gateway drug to alcohol. And lots of doritos 🤭.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

CMV: if No Man’s Sky’s gameplay was identical to Starfield in 2016, people would have been even more disappointed than they were. The only reason people gave Starfield a pass in 2023 is because we’re so conditioned to being disappointed by Bethesda that fanboys shrugged it off, and everyone else just looked at them weird. I legitimately believe NMS when it first released was a better game than Starfield.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

I don’t know how accurate this data is, but it would seem NMS and Starfield had a similar number of players in their first month:

• No Man’s Sky
• Starfield

And I expect they were a very similar audience. So I don’t think the bar for what to expect was very different. If anything, the bar should have been much higher for the AAA game.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

I would use EGS, but they don’t support Linux. Additionally they are deliberately building a walled-garden version of NFTs where you exchange “Vbucks” for emotes and skins that can work across UE games, thereby encouraging more devs to use their engine, and more customers to play games on their engine. That feels gross, centralized, and anti-consumer.

Steam lets devs use any engine, and enables players to use any OS via proton. Any DRM or anticheat present is up to the devs. Yeah, I have a library that is centralized on steam, and that’s not ideal, but it doesn’t feel like they’re exploiting that…yet. Epic doesn’t even have market share yet and it already feels like they’re exploiting everything they can.

Valve’s push on Linux is THE reason that Microsoft isn’t forcing Steam, EGS, EA Play, etc, to go through the Windows Store, which would allow msft to take 30% of all their sales. Both Valve and Epic are fighting the same battle, just valve is fighting with innovation and pro consumer options, and epic is fighting in court against the same kinds of walled gardens they’re building.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

I don’t think “pro consumer” is mutually exclusive with “because of competition”. In fact, I would say the two necessarily overlap. If a company does something pro consumer that isn’t driven by competition, then it’s just charity, not “capitalistic” at all. The point I’m making is that, Epic often seems to be on the other side: taking actions that are driven by competition, but not good for consumers. As I stated above, the linux push by valve is the same fight that Epic is battling in courts vs Apple and Google; the difference is that consumers benefit from the linux push, whereas mostly just Epic benefits from their court battles (and maybe some other companies).

• I don’t think steam refund was driven by EA offering refunds on EA-exclusives. It was in direct response to Early Access titles being posted that were just obvious scams, with no recourse once you’ve purchased the game (maybe you read EA as a motivator somewhere and assumed Electronic Arts rather than Early Access?)
• I agree valve could afford to take a smaller cut. I do believe Epic is directly to thank for all the Sony exclusive ports to PC.
• linux support is 100% motivated by valve’s business interests, but also, it’s good for consumers
• I’d need to know specifics about reviews over the years. I don’t read reviews, but I know they have to make a deliberate effort to prevent review bombing. “Curators” are a waste of everyone’s time.
• TBH I feel like the Steam UI changes at a glacier’s pace compared to almost any other UI. It’s really not that different from what it was 20 years ago.
• Yeah, the key/lootbox stuff is a valid criticism. I don’t like any digital economy that’s clearly fishing for whales.
• AFAIK, steam’s price parity policy only requires that free steam keys not be sold off the platform for less than what they’re sold for on the steam store. Which makes sense, as that would open the door to just freeloading your game on the platform. I could post my game on steam for $1,000,000, never sell any copies through steam, then generate free steam keys, and sell them over on my own site for $30, keeping 100% of the profits. If allowed, every dev would just do that, and no one would ever purchase through steam. But it sounds like their policy would allow for a game to be $50 on steam, and $40 on EGS.

Meanwhile, EGS is constantly signing exclusivity deals on their platform, preventing them from selling on any other platform at all, which is very clearly anti-consumer.

The fact that Valve can just charge 30% even if a developer didn’t use “any” steam feature

The fact that the Valve is facilitating streamlined distribution of the game (and any updates) to thousands, or millions of players at the same time alone means they are already taking advantage of steam’s features. That is a huge amount of bandwidth savings and complexity that the developer just doesn’t have to think about.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

Yeah, I was aware of the case, but I’m confused because it does sound like Valve’s policy only explicitly restricts the sale of free keys for less. Obviously, I’m all for Valve being held accountable if they’re actually requiring the game be the same price on a completely different platform.

I don’t think there’s any difference between “justifiable” and “simply because they can”. If they can, then they can. Yeah, I do support developers, but I’d be lying if I said steam doesn’t add any value to my experience. If it wasn’t 30% worth of value, devs wouldn’t choose it. And I’m all for EGS undercutting them to attract developers, I think that’s the right way to combat it.

If there is any regulation that needs to happen to combat monopolies, then I think it’s the same regulation that needs to happen on all content distribution and streaming platforms, which is: there should be a standard API for accessing content in a cross-platform way so that open source front-ends can be trivially developed. If steam (or netflix, or spotify, or google, or whatever) has established too much power, it’s because they’ve locked their users into their user experience, and it’s inherently inconvenient to have to switch between different platforms and UIs. But if regulation forced a common API, and open source front-ends were developed, people wouldn’t be locked into a specific user experience. You could switch between EGS or Steam or GOG or whoever, and the only thing that would change are the games that show up in your front-end of choice. IMO that’s the real way to solve it.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

Their question didn’t come off as inquisitive, it sounded rhetorical and a bit sarcastic.

Like asking your roommate “what happened to cleaning our dishes after we eat?” to have them respond with “those are yours”.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

When it comes to windows, the devs working on kernel-level anti-cheat systems are working closely with microsoft on the implementation. To the point that, if you were to try to reverse engineer it on your own machine, in all likelihood msft could convince a court that you are hacking their system, not the other way around.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

I’m not smart enough to see a world where Linux and effective client side anti-cheat can cohabitate. Nothing can ever stop someone running a custom linux kernel that hides any nefarious code from the games they’re targeting. PC gaming can only head that direction to the degree that they take kernel-level control away from the user.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

Which was 5 years ago.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

I’m fine with that. My backlog is so large, I’m definitely going to die before getting through it.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

Lol I know it sounds like I’m treating it like a job, but it’s more like wanting to travel the world but knowing I’m not going to have time in my life to see everything (which is both a metaphor, and also a thing I would actually like to do that competes for time lol).

We have to prioritize some experiences in life over other experiences we also want to have, and that’s just how it is. So if they could just stop making new things for a while, that would really make my job easier 😝.

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

Keyword “launch”

teawrecks, 11 miesięcy temu

Savor the moment. In 15 years you’ll be sick of all the GTA6 re-releases 😂.