Calling people the things they literally are is not name-calling. For example, conservatives tried to overthrow our government, tried to overthrow our democracy, and have been sending elementary schools in my town bomb threats for weeks. It’s not name calling to say they’re terrorists.
Edit: To clarify, the bomb threats are because a librarian joked about having a “woke agenda.” These are the same types of people.
Not at all. I believe that people should have freedom of choice for how they want to play their games. Everyone has a different escape from reality.
I understand that Nexus Mods have the right to choose what they want to host, that’s not the point. I believe that the moderators of the site need to choose what really crosses the line. The mod itself is harmless. Do you agree with hosting the Kill All Children mod for Skyrim still? If so, why?
If the reality you want to escape from is that “sometimes people use pronouns that are different from the ones I think they should use”, you’re an intolerant bigot.
If someone made a mod to remove black people from the game because “sometimes I want to escape from the reality that black people exist” it would be entirely justified to call that person a racist. This is no different.
I’d like to clarify that my argument is centered around the role of platform moderation and how they determine what content crosses ethical or moral lines. While you’ve offered an extreme example with the hypothetical mod that removes black people, the comparison doesn’t precisely align with the mod under discussion.
I used the ‘Kill All Children’ mod for Skyrim as an example to point out inconsistencies in moderation decisions. The objective is to question where the line should be drawn and who gets to draw it, not to endorse intolerant or bigoted views.
No, I haven’t offered an extreme example. I’ve offered an identical example. Escaping from the reality that black people exist, and escaping from the reality that people can in fact just choose their own pronouns are not meaningfully different in any way. In both cases someone is trying to erase from their personal reality the existence of an entire group of people, in a way that is targeted on specific lines of bigotry.
If you’re not willing to acknowledge that simple fact then you’re not ready to have this conservation.
That’s why there is a meaningful difference between this and the kill all children mod. While tasteless and gross, there’s never been any meaningful indication that the people installing kill all children actually want to see children, as a class of people, erased from existence. They’re engaged in some extremely unpleasant roleplaying, but barring the rare exceptions that will exist in any sufficient sample size they’re not actively expressing views about the real world through this choice. OTOH the pronoun removal mod is very much about expressing a desire to, at best, refuse to acknowledge the existence of a group of people, and far more likely a desire that said group not exist at all. And if you don’t believe that desire exists in a not insignificant number of people then I beg you to look outside your window for once in your life.
We can draw a moral line between these two things by applying Popper’s paradox of tolerance; the only thing a tolerant society cannot tolerate is intolerance. There is a clear moral justification for the suppression of expression when it is an expression of intolerance. That is the moral principle that Nexus are applying here (whether they are conscious of it or not).
Not only can you be a defender of free speech and still support the suppression of intolerant speech; it is in fact absolutely necessary to do so. If tolerated, the intolerant will use their freedom of speech to destroy everyone else’s while pushing their intolerant ideals. It is therefore - paradoxically - impossible to support free speech while supporting the free speech of bigots. To be true champions of free speech we must be intolerant of the intolerant.
In response to the point you’ve raised, the issue of platform moderation does involve a complex balance between allowing diversity of opinion and restricting what is considered harmful or intolerant. However, it’s crucial to note that not all forms of censorship or moderation are created equal.
Your argument posits that the ‘Kill All Children’ mod and the pronoun-removal mod are qualitatively different, based on the intent or impact behind them. The latter, you say, has real-world implications, as it aims to negate the existence of a specific group, while the former is seen as “extremely unpleasant role-playing” that isn’t necessarily a call for real-world action against children.
Yet, the stance seems to be rooted in the assumption that everyone who would use the pronoun-removal mod does so with malicious intent to deny the existence of non-binary or transgender people. While that might be true for some, it could also simply be a matter of personal preference for others, without carrying any ideological baggage.
The use of Popper’s paradox of tolerance in this discussion is intriguing but might oversimplify the complexities involved in moderating a digital platform. While intolerance shouldn’t be tolerated, determining what constitutes ‘intolerance’ is often subjective and open to interpretation. Therefore, it’s crucial for platform moderators to engage in transparent and reasoned decision-making processes when determining what is allowed and what is not.
Your last point suggests that it’s not just permissible but necessary to restrict the free speech of those considered intolerant to protect free speech for all. However, this approach can easily lead to a slippery slope where the definition of ‘intolerance’ becomes malleable, potentially leading to an erosion of the very free speech rights that the policy aims to protect.
The issue is not straightforward, and the boundaries of what should or shouldn’t be tolerated in an online community are often fluid. Thus, there remains a need for a nuanced conversation around these topics, which goes beyond labelling something as intolerant and calling for its suppression.
While that might be true for some, it could also simply be a matter of personal preference for others, without carrying any ideological baggage.
Give me one single scenario in which a person needs to remove the option to select your characters pronouns, without that decision carrying, as you put it, ideological baggage.
A scenario that comes to mind is one where a player simply wants to streamline their game experience, eliminating any elements they perceive as non-essential to their gameplay. This wouldn’t necessarily imply ideological baggage; it could simply be an attempt to customize the game to better suit their individual preferences. However, I acknowledge that the topic is complex and there’s a lot to consider in the broader conversation about platform moderation.
Fair point about the default option being prefilled. However, the idea of what ‘streamlining’ means can differ among individuals. Some might want to remove elements they find non-essential, even if those elements are prefilled. It’s about catering to one’s own idea of what the game should be. Why should the interpretation of ‘streamlining’ be limited to your understanding?
Oh, now I see. It was never about the pronouns, it’s just about streamlining the user experience. How could I have been so stupid, thinking that the only intent behind this mod was bigoty, when in reality it was innocent streamlining.
…
Dude, the dog whistle isn’t subtle. Could you stop?
My aim is to discuss what types of content should be removed and why. The mod’s creator did include comments that violate guidelines, so its removal is justified on that basis. However, dismissing the topic as a ‘dog whistle’ doesn’t help us explore the larger questions around platform moderation and community standards.
If you wanted to discuss that, your first step would be to look for Nexusmods moderation policy and read it. Or if they don’t have one published to note that fact.
Then start a post discussing that moderation policy and asking how moderation should be done.
Instead you started your post by focusing on the removal of a particular bigoted mod, which of course makes it a needlessly charged discussion if you’re looking for purely rational discussion about how moderation decisions are made. Then you keep making these absurd arguments — like claiming this mod may have just been about streamlining. This looks like trolling. And it talks like trolling. You claim I’m missing the point. I don’t think I am. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck… it’s probably a maga troll that’s “just asking questions”.
While I acknowledge that the discussion started with the example of a specific mod, the intent was to use that as a jumping-off point for broader questions about moderation. However, I concede that the charged nature of that particular mod has perhaps overshadowed the broader discussion I was aiming for. I did review Nexus Mods guidelines, and the mod in question was rightly removed based on them. The idea was to prompt thought about how these policies are crafted and applied across a range of content. The mention of ‘streamlining’ was intended to explore the various motivations behind mod creation, not to justify this specific mod’s existence. I assure you, this is not an attempt at trolling but rather an effort to foster a meaningful conversation about platform governance.
If the primary objective here is to engage in constructive dialogue, then name-calling and overgeneralization serve no purpose and only fuel the fire. The issue at hand has been conflated to be about political affiliations like Republican vs. Democrat, when that’s not the core point of discussion at all. We’re here to debate the merits and drawbacks of mod removal, not to stereotype one another based on our political leanings or otherwise.
I must point out, albeit reluctantly, that much of the stereotyping and overgeneralizing in this thread seems to be coming from those who are in favor of the mod’s removal. This does little to advance a constructive conversation and only serves to deepen divisions.
If we’re truly interested in finding common ground or at least understanding the other side of the argument, we need to stop dismissing each other’s viewpoints out of hand. Only through respectful and open discussion can we hope to reach a resolution that considers the full complexity of the issue.
Mainframes are a dead end because local hardware is so cheap and powerful. This has been the case since… basically the invention of home computing. For all the promise of cheap dumb devices that roll with generational upgrades, Google can’t even keep Chromebooks up-to-date, and it’s not like old cell phones were actively supported by PS Now. It’s asking a subscription fee that people are already paying, but instead of them also buying and powering your hardware, you have to buy and power your hardware.
All so you can… what? Fuck developers out of even more of their money? You take a third of their revenue, straight off the top. The one feature every customer says they want is a buffet system, like streaming video, where they just play whatever. But Hollywood’s currently dead stopped over the clever business model of not paying people who make all their content. The games industry has been looong overdue for a similar unionization push, and nothing would hasten that like announcing these multi-year projects for gigantic publishers would be paid at some first party’s leisure. Like it’s not enough to have appropriate compensation and future employment dangled on the basis of sales figures pulled from the marketing department’s collective fantasy. Who’s gonna put up with a model where fraudulent accounting can claim every title “lost money?” At least the cartoonists indentured to toy departments can track a dollar figure for whether their wildly popular series is allowed to continue.
It’s absolutely going to cost more per-month.
It’s unfuckinglikely to cost less per-game.
How much cheaper does this have to be, up-front, before people say fuck that and build a PC? Or just go to mobile games, which are happy to suck out their brains and their wallets? The - I still can’t believe this is the actual name - Xbox Series S only costs $300. Like a Wii. It’s an impressive feat, and it underlines how much infrastructure can be brushed aside for a small investment by consumers. The kind that locks them into buying games from your pound-of-flesh storefront, and keeps that precious third of revenue away from Sony or Valve. Which you want, even if we super don’t.
Because whatever you’ve heard about the streaming market, I guarantee it has not praised consumers for brand loyalty.
It's a scifi roguelike where you lead a team of prospectors to try to recover valuables from across space to make enough money to retire.
Kind of in an odd spot source-wise, as the recent source code technically isn't open/available (last open releases were 10+ years ago), so it may no longer really fit, but seemed worth mentioning nevertheless.
I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t mind rentals if they are what you are intending. I miss being able to try out a game for a few days for a few bucks from renting it.
I don’t care for it in streaming, though, as when it’s a perpetual subscription I feel much more obligated to play the subscription games than those I’ve traditionally purchased to get my money’s worth. I like playing things when I feel like it. It doesn’t help that each time I’ve tried using Game Pass it’s taken hours to get it properly working and the games to function
I have room in my life for exactly one gacha game, which I don’t spend money on. Sometimes this is a fun little distraction, even though progress is slow without buying currency. This is how I felt about Record Keeper before they shut down the global version. I love FF7 so I’m giving this a shot, but it’s been a week and I’m struggling. There are so many superimposed mechanics that it feels like a new player starting a free to play game at year 5 or 6 of its life, after they’ve steadily added new mechanics, currencies, and other powercreep for years. But it hasn’t been out for years, it’s been out for a week and there are already so many things to keep track of. It feels like work.
Also, the “automatic” battle AI is VERY good. Better than I am. And you can double the speed so the battles go quicker. At first I was relieved because it meant I didn’t have to pay attention while grinding, but why am I doing this at all if I’m not even playing it?
The worst thing about Stadia was the squandered opportunities. Had Google actually put some effort into marketing it, it could have really succeeded. The tech behind it worked amazingly well. I played Destiny 2 on it from launch to the service's shutdown, and it was a fantastic experience. The latency was nowhere near as bad as people (who often never even tried the platform) would claim, and it was also the best place to play Cyberpunk 2077 at launch, as it was somehow the most stable version of the game. Streaming to YouTube worked very well, and some of the integrated features with YouTube (where viewers could interact with certain games) were also kinda groundbreaking.
But somehow, Google couldn't be bothered to advertise the product at all. They ran 1 Super Bowl commercial which didn't make a whole lot of sense to the average viewer, and then basically zero marketing after that. They refused to inform the public about what the product is or how it worked or what stood it apart from its competition, which led to bad-faith reviews and rumors being spread about the platform, ultimately leading to most people who knew about Stadia being wildly misinformed on it.
It's such a shame. I absolutely loved Stadia. It fit my needs perfectly. None of the other streaming platforms I've tried have even come close, even today.
Yeah a product like that needs a Big Personality to be a sort of spokesperson for it. To go around and do the press circuit, and be the face of the product. Get memed, etc.
My guess is it was just a bunch of well meaning nerds behind this one, and no one wanted to actually go out there and bat for it.
But you don’t need PS+ for Spider-Man and Horizon? And you could buy and sell the console + games after playing the two games you wanted to play on the platform.
It’s not as convenient as just streaming the games, but it is possible.
I wouldnt call a PS4 e-waste, if the PS2 is anything to go by it will end up cycling about for a long time in some shape or form. Seriously PS2 parts are a solid mix of old new stock, newly manufactured parts, or spares taken from scrapped dead consoles.
Regular use is irrelevant so long as it doesnt end up in a land fill, what matters is that they get some continued use and survive in solid enough numbers.
Eh, I will still be able to play the base game of say far cry 4 or assassins creed black flag. I have the disks, and even then you could always buy the versions that have all the dlc. Nobody talks about the fable 1 dlc but they existed.
Unless its a multiplayer focused game there will always be games to play on it, even if ya dont get the DLC.
Would’ve loved a streaming platform that doesn’t cost a whole console in a year in subscription fees + makes you pay for the games
Stadia's subscription service wouldn't have cost more than a console for several years. It was only $10/month, and also not required to play the games or use multiplayer.
It would've taken over 4 years for Stadia Pro's subscription costs to reach the price of a PS5, not even including a PS+ subscription. And during that time, you'd have been able to claim ~150 free games. Realistically, Stadia had the potential to be more economic than buying a console.
I got one, was super disappointed with the functionality and didn’t like it at all. Returned it in less than a week. I got it after it’d already been steeply discounted and was so glad I hated it and got a refund when they killed it…
After committing to several Google services only to have them shut down I wasn’t willing to risk it again.
Did they refund the subscription fee? If I knew they’d refund it all, I might not have cancelled my pro preorder.
I was willing to potentially be let down again but once I heard you had to buy almost all your own games (again, if you already own them) to play them on the service I cancelled. I was aware that they’d give you Destiny (a game I have zero interest in, especially with a controller) for free. I didn’t seem worth sinking money into the service.
The subscription fee was for a gamepass-like access to a catalog of free games, so they didn’t refund that. The subscription fee also wasn’t required for playing purchased games (although it was required for 4K quality).
especially with a controller
I mostly used keyboard and mouse with the service, since the games I like to play tend to work better with keyboard and mouse. I had a dinky underpowered laptop but was playing AAA PC-oriented games through the browser interface. It was great.
I’m on GeForce Now these days but I find that it doesn’t work quite as seamlessly as Stadia did.
It was not advertised as a game-pass like catalog when I was cancelling my preorder. I literally cancelled because it wasn’t that. It was Destiny and 4k 60Hz with TBD games coming in later months.
I only had a gaming computer and a Shield TV so Stadia would have been pointless for me unless it was in the living room with a controller and some interesting games.
I pulled them all from Google Takeout. Most of them are unusable unless I figure out how to convert them to a state that can be read by other platforms, but at least I still have them, for such a day.
But somehow, Google couldn’t be bothered to advertise the product at all. They ran 1 Super Bowl commercial which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to the average viewer, and then basically zero marketing after that.
Google is really bad at marketing despite being an advertising company. Most of the products they’ve launched then shut down I just never heard of, despite finding the ideas behind them really enticing after the fact.
In my experience it was pretty shit. While visiting family in Minnesota, I got a better experience using Steam remote play to my desktop in Seattle than I did using Stadia, both in terms of latency and visual quality. I’m sure it would have been better living in California or New York, where you’re closer to a datacenter. But Doom Eternal was just unplayable for me.
Despite Google being heavily invested in the advertising space, they have always been terrible at advertising their own products. It almost seems like the top brass don’t actually care about their non-search products at all.
Google couldn’t be bothered to advertise the product at all. Except, apparently, to me specifically. I must have seen the same handful of Stadia advertisements literally 100+ times while watching YouTube. I got very sick of it after a certain point.
Doesn’t fucking matter when they keep using cheap potentiometers in their joysticks making them only last 6-12 months before stick drift gets unbearable. It’s time they switch to hall effect sensors. I have a joystick from 2014 with hall effect and zero drifting. I have a king Kong 2 controller with hal effect sensors. Zero stick drift after nearly a year of rocket League abuse and zero drifting. I’ve gone through 2 Xbox elite controllers in 1.5 years. Get rid the trash components first.
It’s interesting that this comes out during the FTC vs Microsoft case.
As much as Google shot itself in the foot, as usual, this also shows the anti-competitive landscape in gaming. One of the biggest issues Google had was convincing AAA studios to develop games for their “console”. Meanwhile, Microsoft is solving that by buying studios like Zenimax, Mojang, and soon Actiblizz. If you own the studio, they’re guaranteed to develop for your console, and they may choose not to develop for any competitor’s consoles.
But it has always been that way, with first party titles and exclusives , even purchasing studios like Rare or Psygnosis, its not like a brand new situation that developed right after Google announced Stadia.
If Google had done even any research, I would have started by looking at the PS1 launch and how Sony broke into a market then dominated by Nintendo and Sega with their exclusives, they would have secured a multi year pipeline of AAA titles before launch.
This is a mess Google could have completely avoided with some basic research and discussion with the remaining independent studios. Instead they launched and assumed that they could fix this shit later, rather than making an informed decision on if they actually had a real chance.
its not like a brand new situation that developed right after Google announced Stadia
No, but it’s telling that one of the world’s richest companies ran into this problem. It’s pretty typical of Google to be arrogant and not understand the market they were trying to break into. Also typical of them to give up when it turned out to be a hard problem to solve. But, still, they chose to give up rather than make what (for them) would have been a reasonably small investment to buy a few AAA studios.
It seems to me that to have been successful in this attempt they would have either had to become a major console manufacturer with their own exclusives (maybe not a market they wanted to be in) or to be the junior partner working with another console manufacturer, where they controlled the server side and the other company controlled the client-facing and studio-facing side. But, Google rarely does partnerships like that. You’re right that it really seems like they didn’t go into it with their eyes open. They seemed to just arrogantly assume that their technological superiority would be enough to disrupt consoles without having to do what everybody else did.
But this is a situation of their own making, anybody even remotely cognizant of how Sony and Microsoft entered the market, even Steam has lessons to share, would have been aware that they needed that pipeline of AAAs, and exactly how expensive AAA titles are to make. Its usually public record how much one of the manufacturers paid to buy studios as well, the order of magnitude of cash needed to properly enter the market are hardly secret.
Either they thought they could bully their way into getting them or they thought they didn’t need them, which is even worse, way way worse. They could have spent the money the others are in this space but didn’t, this is the main reason this fell on its arse. They can moan all they like about the price of admission but they could have afforded to pay it if they wanted or lobbied to change it before hand rather than wasting a few billions on this.
It will be very interesting at the level Apple pitch their new gaming service if the rumors are true. Do they go after the mobile lite eco system that Netflix is cobbling together or do they go all in?
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