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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.

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”.

    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.

    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.

    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

    ArugulaZ, w Xbox head Phil Spencer says he "always wanted us to go back and revisit MechAssault"
    @ArugulaZ@kbin.social avatar

    I revisit MechWarrior every time I need to soft mod an Xbox.

    ArugulaZ,
    @ArugulaZ@kbin.social avatar

    I realize I said MechWARRIOR, not MechAssault, and now I must hang my nerd head in shame.

    nicman24, 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

    I d trust a privately own company with Gabe as the head than the asshats that proliferated micro transactions and shitty always online DRM for single player games.

    Molecular0079, 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."

    Good. The last thing I want is more live-service games.

    MentalEdge, (edited )
    @MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

    I would love to see some other genres covered, tho.

    RIP Studio Liverpool.

    At the same time I get that GoW and Uncharted sell better than WipEout… but come on, I want at least something more than different flavors of the same game type.

    RamSwamson,

    I need more arcade racers in my life. If there were a Sony equivalent of forza horizon I would be all over that.

    Caligvla, 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."
    @Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Thanks for letting me know I don’t need to bother with Playstation for the foreseable future, Jimmy boy.

    dan, 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

    But Steam doesn’t have a monopoly. There’s Epic and GOG and whatever Origin’s called now and probably others. They’re all free to exist, Valve doesn’t do anything to stifle competition, and even lets other companies sell games that start their launcher from Steam.

    The only thing you have to lose by using a different system is that it’s probably not as good.

    All they’ve done is produce a really fucking exemplary product and it’s become really popular because it’s honestly just good. The second it stops being good or Valve stop being awesome there’s plenty of alternative ways to buy games that I’m sure will be there to replace it.

    But for now… it’s pretty good.

    PM_ME_FEET_PICS,

    Steam is a boggy garbage client and the company was solely responsible for the 50 to 60 USD price hike on the PC market.

    Valve can get fucked. Hopefully the class action makes them rethink their choices and they sell to Microsoft.

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    Valve does not mandate any prices.

    PM_ME_FEET_PICS,

    deleted_by_moderator

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  • Snowpix,
    @Snowpix@lemmy.ca avatar

    “I have no argument, so I’ll just insult them instead. That’ll show them”

    Honytawk,

    Valve does mandate the price cut they take

    jikel,

    You forgot /s

    theragu40,

    Solely responsible? Lol

    When did we start blaming one private company for inflation? Games should cost $100 or more right now if they were increasing linearly over time.

    NightOwl,

    You want Microsoft to own everything? What?

    sugar_in_your_tea,

    Yeah, no.

    And Valve is perhaps the best PC store since they have continually pushed PC gaming forward, for example:

    • Valve Index - still one of the best, if not the best, VR headset out there; it made VR a lot more interesting
    • Steam Controller - didn’t make as big of a spash as they wanted, but it was really innovative and lead to…
    • Steam Deck - yeah, they weren’t first, but it’s affordable and made a big enough splash to get big studios to care; now we have a lot more options as well for handheld PC gaming

    Not to mention their Linux support, awesome customer support, free dev keys, and Steam Link app. What did other stores do?

    • GOG - DRM-free is great! But that’s about it.
    • EGS - free games and lower store fee are cool
    • Xbox Game Pass - pretty good for users, but it’s troubling long term, and it only works on Windows
    • everything else - can’t think of anything special here

    So no, I don’t think Valve is bad in any way. Quite the opposite, they’re the best behaved games store on PC.

    Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow,

    GOG Galaxy is actually amazing in what it accomplishes, GOG just don’t have the resources to make it frictionless.

    Gamepass is probably the main competition for Steam at this point. Publishers have been busting to make games run on the cloud, it’s the ultimate DRM, the ultimate goal of the erosion of ownership.

    There will be a time where there is a push towards partial-cloud gaming and then fully cloud gaming, and it will be hard for PC gaming to compete in the mainstream when you buy an Xbox dongle for $50 and game as soon as you plug it in. That’s the real threat to Valve.

    sugar_in_your_tea,

    GOG just don’t have the resources to make it frictionless

    They had enough budget to make Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3, I think they can handle making a decent desktop client. They just don’t prioritize it.

    But yeah, subscription and cloud gaming is where the industry wants to go, and I sincerely hope they don’t succeed.

    Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow,

    GOG loses money for CDPR

    sugar_in_your_tea,

    Then they’re either not meeting the needs of potential customers or not finding new customers.

    For me personally, I would buy more from them if they supported Linux with GOG Galaxy. I would but a lot more from them if GOG Galaxy had a good experience on Steam Deck. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s my price, and apparently it’s the most upvoted feature request for GOG Galaxy.

    I didn’t have a Steam account until they made a Linux client (they released in 2012, I made my Steam account in 2013). I bought a few Linux native games here and there, and when they launched Proton in 2018, I bought a lot more games. Before that, I mostly bought games directly from indie devs (Minecraft, Factorio, etc), or tried my luck buying Windows games and running them through WINE (e.g. Starcraft 2).

    That’s my price. If they want me as a customer, they need first class Linux support. That’s why Steam gets my money, and GOG could win my business by offering DRM-free games on top. But to me, a Linux desktop client is more important than DRM-free, so that’s why Steam gets my money.

    PM_ME_FEET_PICS,

    The Valve Index is the least popular VR option and doesn’t rank near the top of VR headsets. Still being beat out by entry level Oculus.

    The Steam controller was poorly made flop and has been discontinued. The vast majority of reviews put the controller well below the Xbox controller, which was already PC compatible.

    Steam Deck is very expensive and has a very poor battery life. Making the handheld cable tethered. It also went against its open promise by including locked down proprietary software.

    Steams customer support ranks the third worst of all top level game stores. Just above Ubisoft and Blizzard.

    You mention their Linux support yet the majority of games are yet to be supported and plenty of game will never be supported due to their nature or inclusion of anti-cheat. The only thing Valve has done was release the Steam Client to Linux.

    Steam popularized gambling for children and continue to be one of 2 PC companies that continue to do so.

    sugar_in_your_tea,

    Oculus

    Valve’s goal isn’t to sell a lot of headsets, but to show what’s possible with high quality VR and encourage more VR games and headsets. Valve’s ultimate goal here is to sell more VR games.

    Oculus wants to sell a lot of headsets so they can push some kind of SM interaction and profit from having lots of ads. The priority there is adoption, not quality or compatibility.

    Steam Controller was poorly made

    No, it was well made, it just wasn’t popular. And again, it wasn’t their goal to sell a ton of them.

    The goal was to design a flexible controller to build out their controller API and give an option for a decent desktop mouse replacement for a PC “console” format (i.e. Steam Machine). I think they succeeded at that, but the market wasn’t interested, probably because Steam Machines didn’t go anywhere. It was never intended to replace existing controllers, but to complement them.

    Steam Deck is very expensive

    It’s $400, which is really competitive. Direct competitors like the AYANEO cost ~$1k twice as much, or even more. The Switch cost $300 at launch (OLED is $350, even today) and wasn’t even competitive with current console hardware at launch, while the Steam Deck is competitive with both price and hardware.

    And it’s not cable tethered. I get a few hours of battery life as long as I’m not playing the most heavy games. Most of what I play are older AAA games and newer indie titles, and I get 3-5 hours of battery life, which is longer than my play sessions anyway. If I switch to a modern AAA titles, it’s like 1-2 hours, which is still enough for most play sessions.

    Their goal, again, isn’t to sell a ton and corner the PC handheld market, it’s to make PC handhelds popular so there’s more demand, thus more competition, and thus more game sales. They also want to show what’s possible with a Linux-based PC, so there’s a credible alternative to Microsoft (and most games seem to be playable, check out ProtonDB for a larger picture than just Steam’s official stamp; look at Proton DB medals, 77% are Gold or Platinum, which usually refers to “playable” and “verified” accordingly).

    Steam’s customer support

    You claim it’s worse, but you don’t give examples of services that are better. Here are some examples of worse customer service:

    • Nintendo estore - no returns
    • PlayStation store - no returns if you have started to download it, unless it’s faulty (e.g. Cyberpunk 2077), and even then you have 14 days
    • Xbox - within 14 days and don’t have “a significant amount of playtime”

    And Steam’s policy is 14 days and <2 hours playtime (so the same or better than above), yet there are countless examples of refunds being issued being both the time and playtime limit, provided you don’t abuse it.

    I’m not going to go through other examples because I believe I’ve proven my point, so now it’s your turn: give specific examples of other stores having better customer service than Steam.

    PM_ME_FEET_PICS,

    Refunds are your only metric for customers service? Get fucked.

    sugar_in_your_tea,

    No, they’re just one example, and perhaps the most clearly documented one, and IMO the most important one (i.e. the one that most users will need to use).

    If you want to discuss another metric, then please do so.

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    The only thing Valve has done was release the Steam Client to Linux.

    *countless improvements Valve engineers have made to the the Mesa OpenGL and Vulkan drivers as well as to the kernel graphics driver components. Not just to the AMD graphics drivers for benefiting the Steam Deck’s hardware but also to Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan and then other common infrastructure. But in this area of the Linux graphics driver support, Valve’s contributions and those of their partners have been incredibly beneficial to the Linux desktop ecosystem even outside gaming. *

    www.phoronix.com/…/Valve-Upstream-Everything-OSS

    harpuajim,

    Just want to say that as a VR enthusiast, the Index is nowhere near the top of the list of VR headsets.

    sugar_in_your_tea,

    I guess that depends on your priorities. It has a competitive resolution and frame rate, is a bit heavy, has fantastic controllers, and has Linux compatibility. It’s also expensive and is best to pair with high end hardware.

    So if you’re looking for Linux support (like me), it’s pretty much your only option, unless you’re willing to buy used or accept a lot of compromises. If you’re looking for cheap, lightweight, or compatible with lower end hardware, it’s not going to score well.

    But on the whole, outside of pricing, it does a good job in almost every category. If money is no object, the Index is one of the best.

    Gamey,

    The position makes a monopoly so I would say they are but they remain the good guys because they don’t engage in anti-competitive practices, you can have a monopoly wven if you don’t abuse it.

    CoderKat,

    Monopolies aren’t based on the mere existence of competition. It’s based on power and market share. Eg, Chrome has a monopoly. Firefox, Safari, and a few niche browsers exist. But Chrome is the utter vast majority of the market and has pretty much all the power on dictating web standards as a result.

    Microsoft had competitors when they got sued for their IE + Windows monopoly. But they had an utterly massive amount of the market share and used that to push their own browser.

    smallaubergine, (edited ) w Cal Kestis actor confirms Star Wars Jedi 3 during Comic Con panel

    I found Cal Kestis to be the most generic sounding and looking Star wars character. The games are fun but I found myself uninterested in him as a character

    InEnduringGrowStrong,
    @InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works avatar

    I agree with you, he’s kind of a blank slate.
    I think that works for a video game though.

    It’s also refreshingly NOT the chosen one or blood line thing that’s a bit overdone in Star Wars.
    (Crossing my fingers he’s not secretly a long lost Skywalker, Palpatine or Kenobi relative)

    Many stories introduce the protagonist in their prime, or when they’re at their most interesting, then eventually release an origin story.
    The first game felt like an origin story for a dude I didn’t know. (Haven’t played the second game yet)

    My guess (hope) is he’ll feel more interesting as he gets more exposure and character development as games come out and we kinda get to see him grow as we play.

    smallaubergine,

    Yeah I get what you're saying about him being a blank slate. I guess I'm just tired of generic white dudes as being the definition of blank slate. I hope he does get more interesting, I found the other characters far more fun to follow than Cal

    InEnduringGrowStrong,
    @InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Yea for sure, he could have been a blank slate without being as bland or generic. By that I absolutely don’t mean to imply the actor is any of these things, but that they played it safe in character design.
    Expecially in a universe of endless aliens.
    It’s not even a choice that has to be limited between our own human heritages.

    I vote Ewok Jedi myself.

    TheBlue22, 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

    Steam doesn’t have a monopoly, other platforms are just shit.

    Missing features, badly made features, fucking spyware, some barely working at all (I am looking at you, ubisoft)

    Perhaps if the other platforms tried a little bit, they would actually be a competition.

    Gamey,

    The position makes a monopoly, not the reason…

    TheBlue22,

    A monopoly is defined as a single seller or producer that excludes competition from providing the same product

    By this definition, Epic games would be a monopoly with its exclusives.

    Gamey,

    That’s not at all what a monopoly is, it’s simply the absence of competition aka the market position. You don’t have to engage in anti-competitive practices to havw a monopoly, I don’t get why that’s so hard to understand for many here…

    MomoTimeToDie,

    deleted_by_author

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  • Gamey,

    Other games aren’t a competition for a platform like Steam, that’s a different market. Steam has a monopoly because they have a extremely dominant position without real competition in their sector, they don’t have to engage in anti-competitive practices against games outside of steam to have that…

    MomoTimeToDie,

    deleted_by_author

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  • Gamey,

    Fuck, this is so stupid it’s hard to even responde… Steam has a monopoly on game distribution but Minecraft isn’t a Steam competitor just like Fortnite isn’t a Play Store competitor! I am done with this thread, it’s frustrating to try and explain so many people such basic things if they don’t want to hear them!

    DAMunzy, w Unity May Never Win Back the Developers It Lost in Its Fee Debacle

    They fucked themselves like WotC (Wizards of the Coast) did with the OGL (Open Gaming Licensing) changes.

    Eezyville,
    @Eezyville@sh.itjust.works avatar

    I wonder who is gonna fuck up like that next. I wanna start shorting them now.

    spacecowboy, w Star Wars Fans Launch Class Action Lawsuit Over Cancelled KOTOR 2 DLC

    Stop. Preordering. Things. How many times do people have to learn this lesson…?

    smeg,

    As long as there’s sufficiently few regulations to stop it being profitable for companies to market and sell vapourware then people will keep assuming they’re not buying into a scam

    thecrotch,

    Then those people are stupid

    smeg,

    Just because people are stupid doesn’t mean they deserve to be scammed!

    thecrotch,

    If they didn’t learn after the last 800 preorder dramas, they may not deserve it but they were sure as hell asking for it

    ILikeBoobies,

    Welcome to humanity

    Paradoxvoid, 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
    @Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone avatar

    People saying Steam doesn’t have a monopoly because other stores exist, is the same as saying Microsoft doesn’t have a monopoly on PC Gaming because Mac and Linux exist. Technically true, but ultimately meaningless because its their market power that determines a monopoly, not whether there are other niche players.

    While Valve and Steam have generally been a good player, and currently do offer the best product, they still wield an ungodly amount of influence over the PC gaming market space.

    Epic is chasing that because they really want what Valve has, though no doubt they plan to speedrun the enshittification process as soon as they think it safe.

    rtxn,

    When people say Valve doesn’t have a monopoly, they usually mean they don’t engage in anti-competitive practices (like making exclusivity a condition for publishing on their store, cough cough).

    Actually, Valve’s recent moves represent what free market capitalism should be about - when competing stores started to appear, they instead made massive contributions to Linux gaming and appealed to right-to-repair advocates with the Steam Deck. Now both of those demographics are suckling on Gaben’s teats, myself included.

    Gamey,

    I hate DRM but really like Steam, they put in a shit ton of work to achive that! It’s certainly a monopoly but I think one of the biggest differences is that it’s not a publically tradet company so they don’t have to chase that infinite growth many very influencial idiots don’t see any issue with and there for aren’t willing to destroy everything for short term gains.

    rena_ch,

    Despite not having pressure from shareholders Valve pioneered or at least popularized and normalized many of the worst practices in videogame industry designed to milk players dry: microtransactions, battle passe, loot boxes, real money gambling, you name it, Valve has it

    Gamey,

    True, their games have quite a few very questionable mechanics!

    HidingCat,

    Capitalism and a free economy are good when it's serving customers by making the best product or service possible, while balancing that with paying labour to make that happen.

    The problem is that nowadays, there's a third party to this for the megacorps: Shareholders, which is where the enshittification begins.

    Valve is a private company, so it is not beholden to any external shareholders, which is why it's been able to chart its own course. Still, I do worry what will happen when Gabe steps down.

    Poob,

    Even when capitalism serves customers well, it still takes the work of people who make things, and gives it to people who own things

    Jakeroxs,

    What does that have to do with Valve?

    Poob,

    Are you lost? I’m responding to the previous comment

    Jakeroxs,

    Who was replying to someone talking about Valve

    Poob,

    And benevolent capitalism

    Jakeroxs,

    I just don’t think that’s the case with Valve, they work on steam and add new features consistently, it’s not like they’re providing no value for the cut they take.

    I get where you’re coming from though and way too many companies get away with that kind of situation. Just what capitalism often gives us :/

    Poob,

    I’m not talking about Valve giving things back to us. I’m talking about the fact the owners of the company get money simply by owning the company. They take money they didn’t work for. Even if the company isn’t manipulative or scummy, they’re enriching people who don’t deserve it.

    Jakeroxs,

    Generally companies do provide a service of some sort, the problem is that the higher ups who generally do less actual “work” rake in way way more then the average worker of the company.

    Especially true for larger corps like Amazon

    Paradoxvoid,
    @Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone avatar

    That may be so, but that’s not the way that the initial tweet is using the term, and not the commonly understood definition.

    I’m not denying that Valve as a whole have been a force for good in the PC gaming market, but it’s pointless to argue semantics and make up definitions to better suit personal bias instead of debating the actual point that’s being made.

    dan1101,

    Valve releasing a video on how to break down the Steam Deck was one of the best things I’ve seen from a large company in a long time.

    asexualchangeling,

    I still love that video, ‘Don’t do this becouse it could be dangerous, but it’s your device, so here’s how’

    FreeFacts,

    they usually mean they don’t engage in anti-competitive practices.

    But they do. They forbid devs to sell their games cheaper on other storefronts (outside of timed sales). Basically they enforce anti-competitive pricing on products in a way that makes it impossible for the devs to move the platform costs into consumer prices.

    Devs could sell the product on Epic for example for $49 and make the same amount of profit as they do on Steam when priced $59 due to lower cut, but they can’t do it because Valve forbids it. It anti-competitively protects Valve and their 30% cut against competitors who would take lesser cuts, at the expense of end customers.

    GeneralEmergency,

    Epic is chasing that because they really want what Valve has, though no doubt they plan to speedrun the enshittification process as soon as they think it safe.

    Like what Steam did with Greenlight and the plague of early access asset flips that clogged its home page for years?

    stillwater,

    Greenlight had nothing to do with selling out the end user experience to cash out on providing value and leaving the service near unusable, unless you have some kind of compulsion where you have to buy everything on Steam.

    GeneralEmergency,

    The trading card feature created an ecosystem allowing cheap asset flips to quickly make the threshold. And make their money back, creating a positive feedback loop.

    Steam allowed its store to be flooded with these games at the expense of its customers because it got it’s cut.

    pkpenguin,

    I’ve never understood this complaint because it takes no effort at all to just ignore these games

    Jakeroxs,

    Do you think they wanted it to be abused? It’s pretty obvious they didn’t like the way it went which is why they got rid of it…

    Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow,

    A prerequisite for enshittification is to have a non-shit product, so Epic are actually a safe bet against enshittification.

    SnipingNinja,

    Steam is a natural monopoly, which although still not entirely good but are a wholly different beast from monopolies made by exploiting flaws in the system

    nora,

    What’s a natural monopoly? Valve currently has the freedom to implement anything they want within an extent because they’re so popular. If they decided they wanted to charge devs 35% would people stop using it? Probably not. Steam’s monopoly is as bad as any other for the same reason any other monopoly is bad.

    coltorl,

    A natural monopoly is when an industry is difficult to break into, making competition difficult or impossible. This favors incumbents, in fact, a lot of industries are natural monopolies (pharma, aerospace, chip production).

    The difficulty of breaking into an industry may be because:

    • new players cannot compete with established scale
    • start up costs require a nearly all-or-nothing approach, high risk
    • regulations tie the hand of new innovators
    SnipingNinja,

    Look it up? It’s an actual term, not something I made up for whatever reason you assumed to argue against something I didn’t even say. I already said it’s still not a good thing, it just would have happened regardless of whoever that was able to do it on scale first.

    stillwater,

    You may want to read up on Ma Bell or Microsoft’s legal issues with Internet Explorer in the 90s to see what specifically was so bad about monopolies like those, and then revisit this idea.

    WindowsEnjoyer,

    same as saying Microsoft doesn’t have a monopoly on PC Gaming because Mac and Linux exist

    😡

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