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Anonymousllama, (edited ) w Unity May Never Win Back the Developers It Lost in Its Fee Debacle

If the changes were launched this way, being tied to a new version in 2024 then this would have been a perfectly fair approach, you could stick with 2022 / 23 LTS for your projects and only if you want ‘new’ features would you pick up 2024 LTS and agree to the new terms.

I’ve honestly not seen much difference between major versions e.g. 2021 - 2022 LTS, so unless these new versions come out with amazing new features, devs can still stick to these old reliable versions.

It’s much better overall but the way they’ve handled this has been shithouse

Blizzard, w Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly

This is a great opportunity to mention 15th Anniversary of GOG.

lambda,
@lambda@programming.dev avatar

If only they supported Linux better, or really like at all… I know you can grab the files and install without DRM. But, the whole lack of a client makes it a nuisance to use. I used to buy everything on GOG when possible. Since I got a Steam Deck that’s changed. I shouldn’t have to use Heroic Launcher IMO…

bouh,

Why shouldn’t you have to use heroic launcher or lutris? The whole point of drm free is that you don’t need a specific launcher connected to Internet.

NightOwl,

Yet, ease of access is what appeals to the average consumer which leads to preferring steam for Linux for the same reason people get hardware restricted consoles. If a company wants to appeal and expand their market making themselves more accessible is how they do it. Otherwise alternative is to be an overlooked option.

Gamey,

Not directly related but this Gabe quote still seems somewhat fitting: “Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem”

NightOwl,

Yeah, had Valve tried to push Linux again without trying to make it accessible for the average user it would have flopped like the Steam machine. Or at the very least users would have tossed Linux for Windows. Accessibility is very important, and technical users should not be looked to as guides on what is acceptable for the masses.

lambda,
@lambda@programming.dev avatar

Because they should be able to make a launcher that works. The Windows GOG launcher (GOG Galaxy) is a joke. They want to make one launcher to rule them all but it struggles with almost every one. I have a Windows computer for games that require it (Valorant mostly for me) and even on PC I use Heroic. I don’t want crazy features. I just want an officially supported GOG client that works well on Linux and Windows.

bouh,

Galaxy works fine on windows. It’s far more stable than steam btw.

In the meantime heroic or lutris work very well. So why is there even a need for something else? I’d argue it’s better if a company don’t hold your game hostage for you to play them.

ECB,

“It’s far more stable than steam btw.”

I’ll admit I’ve only used Linux for the past 5-6 years, but I think the last time steam crashed for me was almost a decade ago or something? Is it not stable on windows anymore?

DualPad,

It is stable.

bouh,

It does crash regularly, or it stops working and you need to restart it, and it always did this kind of thing. The obnoxious “I need to update before you’re allowed to play” is hardly a selling feature. The videos and the adds are both obnoxious and intensive on resources.

Galaxy has its ups and downs, but overall I feel its lighter and much more responsive. The interface is much less cluttered, much more logical and clear. And it’s not a fucking drm.

I thank vavle for what did for Linux gaming. Proton is brilliant and incredibly useful and valuable. But I also despise them for steam being litteraly a DRM. So I will forgive cdpr if they need time to develop galaxy on Linux and I’ll use lutris and heroic game launcher in the meantime.

aBundleOfFerrets,

It is trivial to disable all the video content (and some more) on steam if you happen to be on low-end hardware that needs that (or just if you don’t like it, really)

bouh,

I’m not on low end hardware.

aBundleOfFerrets,

I explicitly addresed that possibilty in my comment.

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

It does crash regularly, or it stops working and you need to restart it, and it always did this kind of thing.

Then you use it wrong. No idea how that’s possible but I run Steam on Windows, macOS, and Linux and except very early in the life cycle of the Steam Deck, I can’t remember Steam ever crashing on me in the last 10 or so years.

bouh,

“you use it wrong”… Of course… It cannot possibly be the fault of a shitty software and it must be me…

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

It cannot possibly be the fault of a shitty software and it must be me…

If you were correct, there’d be widespread reports of crashes. While no software is always free of bugs, if a piece of software is crashing for you all the time and hardy for everybody else, it’s the logical conclusion that the underlying problem is on your side, probably by installing unstable drivers.

bouh,

Hahaha like people will fill a bug report everytime a software crash… I wonder whether you’re delusional or blinded by your faith into this piece if shit of a software.

lambda,
@lambda@programming.dev avatar

I have the exact opposite experience as you. I have never once seen steam crash. My steam account is now 9 years old. I was absolutely stoked when I saw GOG Galaxy was trying to handle not only GOG games but games from other platforms as well. But my experience with that has been so bad. It’s fine for GOG games, but I’d much rather just add all my games into steam at this point. So as for stability, I don’t see any way that GOG Galaxy could ever beat Steam.

For Linux support, Steam is a DRM which is a detractor. But with all they’ve done with proton, steam input, steam deck OS… I’d say that Steam is definitely doing more for the Linux ecosystem than GOG.

bouh,

Steam has been working on the steam deck for how long now? 5? 10 years? Gog has that much time to catch up.

And as I said, I don’t deny the role steam played and is still playing for Linux gaming. But it’s still a drm. And that’s something I simply cannot ignore.

I do use steam mind you. But I’ll use and support gog everytime I can. If steam did the most for Linux, gog did and still do the most for players.

rambaroo,

Because consumers are lazy and don’t care about ownership.

A10, w Unity May Never Win Back the Developers It Lost in Its Fee Debacle
@A10@kerala.party avatar

It might now win any new developers but people who work many years to build things like custom simulations have no way of switching to other platforms.

nanoUFO,
@nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

It’s not impossible to switch engines on new projects lots of devs have stated this. Devs have switch engines for far less or made their own.

Zacryon,

It depends on a lot of factors though. Creating your own engine is by far not an easy task. The more feature rich it shall become, the more work it will need. Especially if it should have high 3D graphics quality while also running performant. That alone can cost a good team at least 2 to 5 years.

Switching engines also depends on how portable your work from the old engine is with regard to the new engine. It may not be impossible but can still be a lot of work. The earlier that decision is made, the better.

If the devs are determined enough they can surely do a switch. But they might sweat a lot. And especially for smaller studios, or studios without sufficient funding, this quickly becomes a matter of financial survival.

So it’s not impossible, yes. But don’t take that lightly as well.

SmoothIsFast,

Switching engines also depends on how portable your work from the old engine is with regard to the new engine. It may not be impossible but can still be a lot of work. The earlier that decision is made, the better.

Not to mention I’m guessing a good amount of indie devs are not abstracting every detail of interacting with the engine from the getgo in the chance they want to swap engines down the line. I’m sure some more experienced studios due for that just incase measure or to make migrating past breaking changes a bit easier when they crop up. But generally speaking I can’t imagine that’s a common tactic. But even if it did your still going to have to recreate every new implementation for your interfaces and there are bound to be differences here that are gonna take some time.

IWantToFuckSpez, (edited ) w Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly

A monopoly is a monopoly. Just because Steam is a good store today doesn’t mean they deserve to hold a monopoly over the pc gaming market. So what happens when Valve has crushed every competitor? Gamers and devs have nowhere to go if Steam turns to shit. Eventually there will be a change of guards at Valve’s C-suite when Gaben retires or is dead. There is a good chance that those new execs will hollow out Steam and extract all the value out of it for their own benefit by screwing over the customers and developers. And they can get away with that if there is no competition. Competition is what keeps Valve in check.

nanoUFO,
@nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

Ubisoft, Epic etc… have done nothing to make the market better or make it more healthy. Epic is even more anti competitive than it’s competition.

IWantToFuckSpez, (edited )

Doesn’t matter. It’s still competition. They motivate Valve to create a better store and keep it that way. Since that is Valve’s unique selling point and what distinguishes them from the competition. Therefore I believe devs should make their games available on every storefront. Not just the best one, to give customers a choice.

nanoUFO,
@nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

Steam was great before epic and has been adding killer features since before egs came along. EGS tactics to win over steam users is to be anti competitive…

IWantToFuckSpez,

Ok but competition is always good for the customer even when the competitors are shit.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

Ok, but as a consumer I’m fine with the shit competitor existing but I’m not going to use it.

NightOwl, (edited )

Like Walmart coming into a town to compete with the stores already there and then putting them out of business? Then moving onto the next town to compete again?

nanoUFO, (edited )
@nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

competition is good when the rest of the competition is able or good. EGS is so shit it has to buy exclusives and give out free games and it still doesn’t work. There has to be some equality in quality to have any chance of making steam better otherwise they just exist to make anti competitive moves, what is steam supposed to do? Also pay for exclusives?

Kolanaki, (edited )
!deleted6508 avatar

If that was true, then why complain about Valve’s “monopoly?” It has competition. The competition is just shit.

leftzero,

When their launcher is literal malware or they engage in anti-consumer practices like exclusives, no, they are not good for the customer.

(Not that any publicly traded company can be good for the customer, mind; by definition they can only be good for the shareholders; any benefit they might accidentally provide to the customer or to society is an inefficiency that will eventually be corrected through enshittification. The only reason Valve isn’t entirely harmful is that they aren’t publicly traded yet.)

XLRV,
@XLRV@lemmy.ml avatar

Tell that to Epic.

stillwater,

Doesn’t matter. It’s still competition. They motivate Valve to create a better store and keep it that way.

Explain. What specific examples can you point to regarding the UPlay store that forced Steam to improve something?

Kolanaki, (edited )
!deleted6508 avatar

The only thing Valve has done with Steam that apparently is anti-competitive, is actually having a decent product with good features and no one else is capable of actually delivering parity with it to be a viable competitor.

A natural monopoly is a far cry from one built through anti-competitive practices, and easily toppled by competent competitors.

Perhaps if Valve’s competition was competent, there would be better options.

IWantToFuckSpez,

True. But Google became the number one search engine by creating a better product and basically got a natural monopoly. And now look what kind of monster the company has become.

Just because Steam is a good store today doesn’t mean it will stay that way in the future. Therefore I rather not see Steam be the only game store left in the pc gaming space.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

But Epic is a shitty store today. I’m not going to use it out of fear the Steam might become a shitty store tomorrow.

IWantToFuckSpez,

That’s fine, neither do I. Because as a customer we have a choice. But we only have that choice if devs make their games available on all stores.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

Epic has in the past declined hosting games that don’t agree to exclusivity, so it’s not always the dev’s choice.

Kbin_space_program, (edited )

Well no. Google used to steal results from other search engines initially.v And then suppressed search results for competing products for at least the last 20 years.

rambaroo,

deleted_by_moderator

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  • Kolanaki, (edited )
    !deleted6508 avatar

    Then get mad at the weak-ass competition. Start a fire under their asses to make something that is actually just as good, if not better.

    Punishing the one good product for being good is just gonna lead to there being no good products and only shitty ones just as much as your slippery-slope scenario. 🤦‍♂️

    conciselyverbose,

    But they haven't crushed any other competitor through any mechanism but having a dramatically better product.

    They don't force you to be exclusive to be on steam. They don't force you to implement any of their Steam stuff. They are very permissive unless you do shit that potentially exposes them to liability down the road, like the NFT nonsense.

    And they let you generate keys for literally free to sell on other stores.

    All their stuff companies use is because it's things customers value.

    Kbin_space_program, (edited )

    When they started, they did used to force you to use products edit: aside from their own games(fair cop), some 3rd party games like Lost Planet also required it.

    Certain games, and not just valve games, you'd buy in a store and the disc would force you to install and create a steam account to play the single player offline game.

    conciselyverbose,

    They're a distribution mechanism. If you buy a Steam game you need Steam. Allowing developers to require Steam to play their game is not anticompetitive or in any way unethical.

    They didn't force any developer who wanted to sell games on Steam to only sell games on Steam. That's what would be anticompetitive and abusing their market position. Games choosing to only distribute through Steam because there's no other storefront that wouldn't be a worse value if it was free isn't Steam doing something wrong.

    Kbin_space_program, (edited )

    My point is that they did initially to force usage. I'll edit the post with the game name when I get home.

    Edit: Lost Planet. It had a disc but required you to sign up for and use steam to play it.

    conciselyverbose,

    A publisher only distributing through Steam when it does things others don't isn't forcing usage.

    Forcing usage is requiring developers to only distribute through Steam.

    There is no scenario where the first is wrong, and there is no scenario where the second is OK.

    Zorque,

    Looks like it was a console exclusive before it released on Steam, if you're talking about Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (which is the only one I can find by that name).

    Do you have more information about the release? Or perhaps it's a different game?

    stillwater, (edited )

    They didn’t force any game to use Steamworks, developers and publishers chose to use it because it offered a lot of good middleware. And of course it requires Steam to use Steamworks.

    This is a very soft idea of “force”.

    lvxferre, w Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's leads have some conflicting opinions on the term JRPG
    @lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

    [Nomura] And I’m not really sure what the intent behind that is.

    You can’t be sure of the “intent” (whatever this esoteric word means) behind anything except your own actions and words. As such, it’s useless to ponder about it.

    [Nomura] It just always felt a bit off to me, and a bit weird. I never really understood it – or why it’s needed

    JRPG and WRPG are effectively two RPG subgenres. They could as well be called “storyline-driven RPG” and “mechanics-given RPG”, but given the relative prominence of Japanese designers behind JRPG, they ended being labelled based on being made in Japan vs. Europe+Canada+USA.

    And just as any words referring to media genres, you aren’t supposed to take those as well-defined groups. It’s perfectly possible to get a bunch of Japanese game designers make a WRPG, or a bunch of Western/Canadian/American ones making a JRPG. In fact you’ll often see mechanics from one subgenre in the other. (Good examples of that would be Pokémon Red/Blue on one side and Undertale on another.)

    [article writer] it’s always good to keep in these kinds of perspectives, and consider whether we need to drop it or not.

    The association isn’t even remotely othering, given that it highlights the relative prominence of Japanese games in the RPG market.

    [Nomura] Certainly, when we started doing interviews for the games that I started making, no one used that term – they just called them RPGs

    And I bet that plenty people simply called it a “game”. Context. Use it, Nomura.

    rikudou, w Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly
    @rikudou@lemmings.world avatar

    I’m one of the few who actually like the existence of Epic. Like, not necessarily Epic itself, but some serious competition is needed. I personally would’ve loved it if the competition was GOG, but it seems consumers don’t particularly care about ownership, so we have Epic.

    BaroqueInMind,
    @BaroqueInMind@kbin.social avatar

    I personally would’ve loved it if the competition was GOG, but it seems consumers don’t particularly care about ownership

    What the fuck are you saying? Of course consumers care about ownership, otherwise Stadia would be dominating the market, and we can see that it's not.

    Virkkunen,
    @Virkkunen@kbin.social avatar

    Ownership is not why Stadia failed.

    BaroqueInMind, (edited )
    @BaroqueInMind@kbin.social avatar

    If you are trying to argue that ownership was not even a part of the multitude reasons Stadia failed and is off the table, you should seriously need to consider evaluating your critical thinking skills.

    Gamey,

    It wasn’t, it works for Nvidia, people just don’t want to pay for their games twice and that broke Stadias neck…

    stillwater, (edited )

    This was supposed to be the comment where you show why ownership was a major factor in why Stadia failed, not a comment where you huff and puff and complain that something you insist on isn’t being accepted.

    nanoUFO,
    @nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

    The problem is that all the competition to steam is far far inferior to steam in technology and ideology and future prospects. Steam isn’t a publicly traded company, has features that are pro consumers, is supporting other OS’s and doesn’t have a CEO that is a prick like epic.

    echo64,

    Sure. But what if Gabe newel decided to sell tomorrow. Just wants to retire maybe he’s pretty old. What if Microsoft buys it and you’re left with a monopoly you don’t like. That’s the eventuality of every unhealthy industry.

    nanoUFO, (edited )
    @nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Well it will be a sad day and Ubisoft, Microsoft and Epic competition won’t fix anything if steam goes to shit. Steam is basically the unicorn and once it becomes extinct we won’t get anything half decent to replace it with. Publicly traded companies are the bedrock of unhealthy industries.

    echo64,

    Competition in the marketplace is the only thing that has any chance of saving you when that day comes.

    You are in lucky days today. Tomorrow won’t be so good, but you can choose to support an industry controlled by a monopoly, or you can support an industry with healthy competition.

    I would hope that Gamers aren’t so near sighted, but I’ve been proven wrong over and over again.

    nanoUFO,
    @nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

    When steam shuts down and we have Ubisoft and Epic to replace it with I’m just moving to itch.io and probably torrenting my steam library if it comes to the worst. Also I might actually stop playing games since steam is pushing proton development forward and without them I have no reason to play or buy anything new. Epic’s shitty CEO has made toxic remarks against linux before and Ubisoft just couldn’t care less. I’ll support a company that supports my interests, epic doesn’t so I don’t simple as.

    CileTheSane,
    @CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

    “Supporting competition” is not a good enough reason to use a shitty service. If I start a service that charges twice as much as Steam and has none of the features would you use it in order to “support competition”?

    If the only reason to purchase from Epic is “they exist” that’s not good enough.

    I will happily avoid Epic’s attempts to be a monopoly now over worrying that Steam might be shitty in the future.

    echo64,

    It’s super weird to me that you guys think epic is trying to be a monopoly. Epic had 0.00001% of the market. In their wildest dreams they might expect to get ten percent.

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    Epic had 0.00001% of the market.

    The numbers for Fortnite, available on EGS but not Steam, tell otherwise.

    CileTheSane,
    @CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

    Just because they aren’t good at it doesn’t mean they aren’t trying very hard to do so, and will clearly be very shitty if they ever achieve it.

    Zorque,

    That would be helpful if they actually tried to be competitive on the same level.

    Unfortunately they're only competing for profit, not as a service. Which is why they're failing.

    Competition bettering service only works if people want to compete to create a better service. That clearly isn't the case.

    leftzero,

    Then we’d go back to sailing the high seas, until a better alternative shows up; as Gabe said, piracy is a service problem.

    Kbin_space_program,

    I feel Steam vs competitors is like how after 1st wave MCU, everyone was jumping on that bandwagon, but instead of putting in the groundwork just skipped ahead, or like the monsters one just abandoned it because of one bad movie.

    Kecessa,

    Epic launches my games, Steam is full of bloat that I never use… 🤷

    Zorque,

    That "bloat" is 99% of the reason people use it.

    Kecessa,

    No, 99% of the reason they use it is that they were first to market, made it mandatory for their first party games that were extremely popular at the time (and even today) and became defacto mandatory for many third party games as it made it simpler to control piracy to just sell through them or include a key in the physical copy and force people to install Steam. The majority of Steam users are casuals that couldn’t care less about their forums, cards, social profiles and so on. It’s the same thing in everything, there’s enthusiasts that think everyone is as crazy as they are about their hobby, the majority are just casual users that will never know/use half of the possibilities available to them because they don’t care.

    rambaroo,

    Lol. You think 99% of people give a shit about forums or Linux support?

    Kecessa,

    I personally don’t include Linux support in the bloat, but forums, social profiles, trading cards, reviews, achievements… Yes, that’s bloat.

    Honytawk,

    Hey!

    Linux has almost a 2% market share on Steam, I have you know!

    So it is only 98% who don’t care.

    Zeus, (edited )

    i would love for steam to have some competition. i will gladly switch over to the first competitor that has

    • a big picture / controller-friendly interface
    • controller configurator that
      • is more powerful than rewasd
      • is editable in the overlay
      • has import/exportable configs (incl. with the community)
      • supports the best controller i’ve ever used, the steam controller
    • cross-platform client
    • cross-platform cloud saves
    • workshop/modding support
    • proper reviews system
    • community page for each game
    • etc.

    and doesn’t

    • buy exclusivity rights to games
      • i don’t mind revenue deals for exclusivity, but buying existing games takes the biscuit
    • actively worsen existing games
      • e.g. removing the impeccable siapi support in rocket league, and making it run on the shitty epic servers so it disconnects all the time

    particularly now that steam has switched over to electron, so the client runs like shit

    i do sometimes use gog because i like their ideology, but they’re missing quite a few from this list. any gog or itch.io games i buy, i inevitably add to steam as a non-steam game. which adds a lot of these handy features, but not all

    unfortunately, until a competitor brings along something new to the table, i’m quite happy to wait and pay more for a game on steam. it just has too many features i can’t give up

    ayaya,
    @ayaya@lemdro.id avatar

    particularly now that steam has switched over to electron, so the client runs like shit

    It uses CEF not Electron, which it has used for over 13 years. This isn’t something they just added. If it’s running slow for you you probably have an issue with hardware acceleration.

    Zeus, (edited )

    It uses CEF not Electron,

    fine. i was simplifying. that wasn’t the main point of my comment. forgive me.

    which it has used for over 13 years. This isn’t something they just added.

    no…?

    you mean that the store has been an embedded browser? in that case yes

    but the whole steam client? has always been vgui, not electron . did you even read the link you sent? just because there is reference to chromium in the commit log doesn’t mean the whole thing’s built in chromium, and just because a programme can render web content also doesn’t mean it’s built in chromium. when firefox switched from xul to html did you go “akshyually, it was always able to render html content so it hasn’t switched at all”

    If it’s running slow for you you probably have an issue with hardware acceleration.

    it’s not just me who has performance issues. at one point it was everyone on linux with an nvidia gpu. which is supposedly fixed (and it’s definitely better) but it’s still unusably slow on both linux and windows. also, so what. “it works on my machine” isn’t a great excuse to ignore the biggest gaming gpu brand, and electron is notoriously non-performant (if my pc can handle playing a video in ffx whilst playing recent 3d games, i think it should also be able to display my list of owned games without stuttering). my point was that i never had issues with vgui, and now i do.


    edit: ah, i’ve just looked through your comment history. i don’t believe anyone who’s not a troll has -10 karma and no negative comments (especially with some comments with >100 points), and i also suspect vote manipulation. i should never have engaged. sorry. i won’t engage any more.

    ayaya,
    @ayaya@lemdro.id avatar

    but the whole steam client? has always been vgui, not electron cef. just because there is reference to chromium in the commit log doesn’t mean the whole thing’s built in chromium.

    The “whole client” hasn’t been VGUI. Yes now every element is CEF but many, many pieces have been CEF for a very long time. “Switched over to Electron” implies it was entirely changed but it’s just using more of the thing it was already using. Those are two different things.

    it’s not just me who has performance issues. at one point it was everyone on linux with an nvidia gpu

    The issue you linked had nothing to do with Steam it was a bug with the Nvidia driver itself. Not sure what that’s supposed to prove.

    my point was that i never had issues with vgui, and now i do.

    And my point is that is not an inherent problem with Steam, that is something specific to your configuration. If it runs fine for other people it can run fine for you. I’m on Arch with an Nvidia GPU. I have zero issues with the performance.

    echo64,

    How is a competitor ever supposed to compete with a feature list like that? It has to come out of the gate with all those things? This is why monopolies exist.

    Zeus, (edited )

    honestly? i kind of agree. but gog spent a lot of dev time revamping their client into "gog galaxy 2.0" just to make it less controller accessible; and the epic client is just unusable

    i would have more sympathy if they were little indie companies. but the itch.io client is better than either. these companies are pouring money into breaking into a market, but not bothering to develop features

    that comment was more an example of why the egs isn’t yet a real competitor than a criticism of any as yet nonexistent competitors

    pimento64, w Jim Ryan on the future of PlayStation Studios. "These third person, graphically beautiful narrative rich games will continue to be the bedrock of our first party publishing business."

    PlayStation

    games

    I don’t know about that.

    burgersc12, w Xbox head Phil Spencer says he "always wanted us to go back and revisit MechAssault"

    MechAssault was fun, wish the bots walked a bit faster

    Blizzard, w Jim Ryan on the future of PlayStation Studios. "These third person, graphically beautiful narrative rich games will continue to be the bedrock of our first party publishing business."

    Is there more on this? Where is that quote from?

    nanoUFO,
    @nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar
    TenderfootGungi, w Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly

    Just like I am happy with Apple and Google taking a cut and running their app stores. If these big companies could make their own store, they would. Apple would lose a cut, but that does not affect me as a consumer. What does affect me is a gate keeper keeping terrible practices in check. Making it nearly impossible to cancel a subscription instead of having a handy menu to just turn it off. Having places to put credit cards that are not secure. Collecting personal data nonstop. Etc etc.

    darq, w Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    Gamers have gotten quite lucky so far that the company that has been in the position to turn the screws and establish a monopoly has been content to only make gobs of money, instead of trying to make all the money like pretty much every other entertainment industry.

    WolfhunterGer, (edited )

    Yeah, the reason why Valve can do that is that they are not a publicly traded company but a privately owned one. Gabe Newell doesn’t have a fiduciary duty to any shareholders, so they don’t have to squeeze every penny from their users or abuse their quasi monopoly.

    Molecular0079,

    The whole idea of investments always going up is an absurd idea that needs to go. At this point I infinitely prefer a private company over a publicly traded one.

    LwL,

    It’s a bit of an inherent issue sadly, if your goal is to multiply money why would you invest in a company whose profits stay the same over one whose go up? And you have no reason to care if the company eventually dies as a result, you just move your money into the next one.

    And most people investing money will be doing so with the only purpose of multiplying that money, as it’s mostly banks and similar institutions. In theory if the main investors of a company want it to prioritize user experience over profits, the companies’ duty to its shareholders would also be to ensure good user experience. But that’s never going to happen.

    doom_and_gloom,
    @doom_and_gloom@lemmy.ml avatar

    Multiplying your investments is the basis of capitalism. To speak to your point of it being an inherent issue - I find the idea of removing the profit motive from capitalist enterprise to hilariously reactionary. Not because I like capitalism, but because so many people that support capitalism want to “reform” it by ripping its heart out (one artery at a time, at least). I want to rip its heart out for the express intent of killing it - what strange allies we make!

    ColeSloth,

    It’s not even an “idea”. They legally have to do whatever they can to make it go up. It’s idiotic and poisonous.

    joelfromaus,
    @joelfromaus@aussie.zone avatar

    If Gabe ever leaves Valve and the powers that be decide to go public I hope it’s done in a way that gives power to the users instead of faceless investment firms. I don’t even know what that would look like but I fear the day that Valve comes under control of an ex-AAA game company CEO or the like.

    Gamey, (edited )

    I wish something like that existed, once you go public you are obligated to grow and that has limits so you always end up squeezing your users! :/

    ALostInquirer,
    @ALostInquirer@lemm.ee avatar

    Perhaps a transition to a not-for-profit organization structure might be what folks would prefer? It seems like a potentially better alternative than going public, but I’m not sure how it might work in practice for something like a digital storefront.

    In a weird way, one could almost argue that’s roughly how Valve’s been operating anyway, except I imagine they’ve been lining their pockets more than a not-for-profit organization’s owners/employees do.

    Gamey,

    I bet they make a shit ton of money but they certainly seem to reinvest enough of it too. There is a interesting concept called purpose companies here in Europe but it’s not especially wide spread or planned by regulators so the transition is extremly complicated and expensive. The search engine Ecosia is a relatively well known one, it’s basically a company in self ownership where no one from outside can become CEO and no one can sell or go public, they are obligated to their chosen purpose and that’s where their profits go (in the case of Ecosia that’s planting trees), not sure how it works exactly or if it’s doable in the USA at all tho.

    hedgehog,

    I said this elsewhere but that’s not true. The idea that publicly traded companies have a duty to maximize shareholder value is a myth, and anyone privileged enough to sit on a board of directors likely knows this. See this article for an explanation. Every time a board squeezes a company for short term profits at the cost of long term good will, long term profits, etc., that is because they chose to do so.

    Gamey,

    Well the relation is wrong but it’s a real thing, they have a duty to grow infinitely or the sroxk price will crash and since that’s impossible to achive they essentially have to squeeze their users for short term gains to seem like they still grow sooner or later

    hedgehog,

    it’s a real thing, they have a duty to grow infinitely or the sroxk price will crash

    This isn’t a thing.

    Here’s another article explaining why and how it isn’t a thing, and also why people like you think it is.

    Gamey,

    Honestly, I don’t care to continue this conversation, even the attempt to convince people like you is rather pointless

    hedgehog,

    “People like me” meaning “People who cite their sources and investigating claims before making them?” Yes, I can understand why you might find it difficult to convince “people like me” to believe something that’s trivially shown to be false.

    miss_brainfart,
    @miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml avatar

    Each game on your account represents a share.

    That sounds fun.

    aksdb,

    We should do this in the food industrie. Then I would become a steakholder.

    hedgehog, (edited )

    The idea that publicly traded companies have a duty to maximize shareholder value is a myth, and anyone privileged enough to sit on a board of directors likely knows this. See this article for an explanation. Every time a board squeezes a company for short term profits at the cost of long term good will, long term profits, etc., that is because they chose to do so.

    EDIT: See also This NY Times article. And note that I’m not saying that corporations, board members, etc., aren’t pressured or incentivized to maximize shareholder value - I’m saying that they do not have a legal duty to do so.

    AstridWipenaugh,

    It’s not a myth, it’s called Fiduciary Duty. The board, officers, and executives of a public company have a legal responsibility to put the financial interests and well-being of the company above other personal interests. The article you linked doesn’t deny this, and it also isn’t discussing the legal definition of it. It’s discussing what you might call “toxic fiduciary duty”, or more or less the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. It’s the idea that profit is the primary motive and should always trump all other considerations.

    Fiduciary duty is important to create a concrete stance against corruption and misuse of the company’s assets for personal gain. But when taken to an extreme, it becomes toxic and has negative consequences for the company. Employee wages are probably the most obvious example. There has to be a balance between underpaying and overpaying. If you chronically underpay, the best employees will seek more gainful employment elsewhere and the company will suffer from a poorly qualified workforce. If you overpay, like 100% revenue share with employees, the company will cease to make a profit and will be unable to function. A balance has to be struck to retain the best talent in order to drive success for the company; that is the point of the article you linked.

    TL;DR extremism is always bad

    (Please don’t mistake this for a pro-capitalism rant, there’s nuance to be had here)

    hedgehog,

    All of that is true, but it doesn’t contradict my point. Fiduciary duty isn’t a duty to maximize shareholder value.

    Jakeroxs,

    It literally is in practice.

    hedgehog,

    It isn’t. If it were, that would mean that in practice, board members act to maximize shareholder value because they are legally obligated to do so, and that simply isn’t true.

    In practice, board members and C-suite employees are incentivized to maximize shareholder value. They are not legally obligated to do so.

    Fiduciary duty is a legal requirement, meaning that if you don’t fulfill your fiduciary duty, you’re liable. But nobody has been successfully sued for not maximizing shareholder value when their actions were in line with the business judgment rule (“made (1) in good faith, (2) with the care that a reasonably prudent person would use, and (3) with the reasonable belief that the director is acting in the best interests of the corporation”). Successful lawsuits regarding breach of fiduciary duty (in the context of corporate law) require the defendant to have acted with gross negligence, in bad faith, or to have had an undisclosed conflict of interest.

    The closest instance of legal precedent that I know of (aside from “” of course) that eBay v. Newmark (Craigslist), which Max Kennerly took as meaning that corporations . In this case, Craigslist was found to have violated their fiduciary duties to eBay because Craigslist, in Max’s words, “tried to protect the frugal, community-centric corporate culture that was a hallmark for their success.”

    Except, if you actually read the case notes, it’s clear that the issue wasn’t that Craigslist wasn’t maximizing their profits, but that they were diluting the percentage of stocked owned and flexibility of selling those stocks of other stockholders. The issue wasn’t that Craigslist wanted to spend half their profits supporting charities or anything like that - no, it was that they were trying to artificially limit, thus directly devaluing, the shares they had already sold. In other words, I agree that this was a case about minority shareholder oppression as opposed to being an edict to maximize profits / shareholder value.

    And other than people threatening legal action, the most recent case we have (other than eBay v. NewMark) in favor of shareholder primacy is 124 years old - Dodge v. Ford. But the opposite is true:

    Shareholder primacy is clearly unenforceable on its own term because the business judgment rule would defeat any claims based on a failure to maximize profit. 40 Corporate managers formulate business strategy. A rule‒sanction is antithetical to the core concept of the business judgment rule. In over one hundred years of corporate law, there is not a case where a state supreme court imposed liability for breach of fiduciary duty on the specific ground that the board, in managing operational matters, failed to maximize shareholder profit, though it made the decision informedly, disinterestedly, and in good faith.41 That case does not exist. In fact, many cases show just the opposite. Courts have held that shareholders cannot challenge a board’s decision on the specific grounds that, for example: the company paid its employees too much; 42 it failed to pursue a profit opportunity;43 it did not maximize the settlement amount in a negotiation;44 it failed to lawfully avoid taxes.45 There are classic textbook cases where courts have rejected attempts of shareholders to interfere with the board’s decisions on the argument that their views of business or strategy would have maximized shareholder value.46

    The belief that a corporation is legally obligated to maximize shareholder value isn’t just wrong; it also:

    Jakeroxs, (edited )

    I said in practice, not in law

    Just pointing out I’m a different person lol

    DLSchichtl,

    Why any company I ever control will NOT be publicly traded. It’s a literal deal with the devil.

    Trainguyrom,

    One of the big reasons many companies go public is it’s naturally a really nice retirement package for the owners of the company. The owners of the company may have put so much time and money into building the company that they don’t have sufficient retirement savings, so by going public they turn a portion of their ownership into a boatload of cash as well as a boatload of wealth that can be leveraged, then simply elect a new CEO, retain their significant voting power on the board so they aren’t entirely abandoning their baby and then peace out

    jtmetcalfe,

    Epic is also private though I agree with your sentiment 100%

    pgetsos, w Yuzu Nintendo Switch Emulator Latest Builds Reduce Stutters and Improve Performance in Multiple Games
    @pgetsos@kbin.social avatar

    Lately the Android performance has improved a lot for me. Most games I want have become playable. Pokémon Legends Arceus needs some work though, last time I checked...

    z0rb, w Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly

    Valve supports linux gaming! The Steam Deck is awesome and with an even better configuration (or the rumored valve's own new steam machine) this is only getting better. So, only Valve gets my money.

    Aurenkin,

    I buy games pretty much exclusively on Steam because of the Linux support (my gaming PC runs Linux only).

    Hopefully more places follow suit because I believe competition is a good thing but for now it’s Steam all the way pretty much apart from Starsector and until recently Dwarf Fortress.

    pgetsos, w Godot Engine hits over 50K euros per month in funding
    @pgetsos@kbin.social avatar

    Just started lessons myself for it. Looks easy enough for basic gesture like the one I want to do!

    echo64, w Xbox head Phil Spencer says he "always wanted us to go back and revisit MechAssault"

    He’s been in charge for almost a decade and spent 60billion on cod. If he actually cared he would have done it. He has the ultimate power to green light it. He’s just chasing Armour core clout.

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