sugar_in_your_tea

@sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works

Mama told me not to come.

She said, that ain’t the way to have fun.

Profil ze zdalnego serwera może być niekompletny. Zobacz więcej na oryginalnej instancji.

sugar_in_your_tea,

The point of first party exclusives is to make money from your store long term. If they make their first party titles available on other platforms, fewer people would buy a PlayStation, which means less long term royalties from store sales.

So you limit the customer base for your first party titles, but ideally you make a ton more on your store fees. That’s the same reason Valve makes first party titles, to get people on Steam, not to make money from game sales.

What they should do is make a handheld that can play PS4 titles. That attracts a different demographic and keeps control of the store royalties. But they really need to make sure it works well, since it’ll be competing with the Switch and Steam Deck (and similar handheld PCs).

sugar_in_your_tea,

I doubt it. Fortnite alone probably covers all of those free games and then some, it’s an insane cash cow. Add to that Unreal Engine revenue and they’re not hurting at all for money.

Layoffs just means they probably finished the bulk of UE5 dev and are seeing softening revenues with the COVID spike being over, so they don’t have as much demand to get that and related projects done sooner. Amazon and other big tech firms have done similar layoffs, and it’s not because they’re losing money, but because they’re seeing an end to the crazy growth in the gaming industry due to COVID-19 demand changes.

So no, I really don’t think Epic is hurting for money, they’re just cutting costs to improve margins now that revenue is likely falling.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Sure, it’s possible, but I think unlikely. This sounds like the normal BS reasons companies give when their investors want better margins. I’m guessing Tencent isn’t happy with profit margins and wants a better short term return for their stake.

But you’re right, it’s all speculation at this point.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Nah, GME to the moon!

sugar_in_your_tea,

Nah, GME is there. Screw em.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Why? The Total War series is awesome.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Is that… comfortable? That sounds like a really awkward way to play. Any reason you didn’t do all in on the controller or keyboard+mouse?

sugar_in_your_tea,

And pretty much any USBC dock will work as well.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Just do like Baldur’s Gate and release a portion as early access, then release the full game on all platforms when it’s ready. Ideally skip early access and just release when it’s actually ready, but the early access option is acceptable.

sugar_in_your_tea,

IDK, just because Microsoft has products in a variety of categories doesn’t pose problems in itself, the problem is when those products command a significant chunk of the market share to the point where they can control a big chunk of the market. From your list:

  • GitHub - problematic because it’s the biggest code hosting platform around, but on its own isn’t a big issue
  • Teams - doesn’t really dominate, and many orgs use Slack or something else for communication
  • Xbox and XGS - not an issue unless either dominates their respective markets; buying large publishers like Activision is a serious issue
  • Azure - they’re like second or third, so there should be a close watch to make sure there isn’t monopolistic behavior with integrations with GitHub, Xbox, etc

And so on. I don’t personally think they should be broken up, but acquisitions in sectors where they already have significant market share should be blocked.

sugar_in_your_tea,

integrates npm… VSCode

Both of these are free and open source. There’s a paid hosting tier for NPM, but it’s easy to self-host that.

But your larger point stands. The more tools they can package together, the more they can push out competition. Why use Slack if it’s a pain to integrate with GitHub and Office, but Teams works smoothly? This is certainly not unique to Microsoft, look at Apple as a clear example. The App Store forbids competition with Safari’s rendering engine, and that limits the competition other browsers can provide. Apple has its own ecosystem around iMessage and iCloud that don’t work outside that ecosystem. So if we’re going to make rules that target Microsoft’s bundling of functionality, it should also target Apple as well.

I’m less concerned about price and more concerned about exposed capability. IMO, Teams shouldn’t have any different access to Office or GitHub as Slack has. Once you have a large market share, you need to be extra careful about how your apps communicate to ensure that other apps can directly compete.

And as you mentioned, I think defaults are part of the problem. Mobile Safari isn’t dominant on iOS because it’s better, it’s dominant because it’s the default. Same with Edge on Windows and Chrome on Android. If there’s competition for a given product, it shouldn’t be bundled with the OS, and if the product is important for most users, it should prompt the user for what to use. I can see exceptions here for basic functionality (e.g. a dialer on a phone, or file browser on a desktop OS), but that definition needs to be very restrictive.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Microsoft has already been evil, and I think there’s a good chance they’ll do it again if given the chance. The best company IMO is someone who is in second or third place (e.g. AMD v Intel, MS v Google, etc). As long as there are at least three competent players in a field, things tend to stay pretty competitive.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Temporarily. But then Valve might just set prices the same everywhere in the EU and also restrict keys sold by other retailers.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I don’t see what that has to do with Steam, digital goods are regulated differently than physical goods.

sugar_in_your_tea,

That sounds like a separate thing entirely. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Valve has any say in how keys not sold through the Steam storefront are resold, so supposedly the lawsuit should target whoever is distributing keys in that way. AFAIK, Steam only offers two ways to buy a game–buy the game for yourself and buy as a gift–and in neither case does Steam offer the keys directly to users.

And then there’s this from the article:

In a statement back in 2021, Valve said that the charges didn’t pertain to PC games sold on Steam, but that it was accused of locking keys to particular territories at the request of publishers. It added that it turned off region locks for most cases (other than local laws) in 2015 because of the EU’s concerns.

So AFAIK Valve isn’t distributing resellable keys that are region locked, it’s region-locking at the point of purchase and allowing developers to request region-locked keys. So it would be on publishers to abide by EU laws, no?

The again, I don’t live in the EU, nor have I ever bought a physical Steam key (not sure if Valve directly offers that in any way).

sugar_in_your_tea,

Exactly, and that’s why we don’t have one. Maybe I’ll get one when my kids are a little older, but for now, it’s a lot more fun to experience things together than to have someone completely closed off in a VR world.

Even if I didn’t have kids, I still probably wouldn’t want it because I’d like to spend that time with my spouse, and looking at an avatar just isn’t the same.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I don’t think VR is going to work for us. My SO and I get carsick really easily, and my SO gets sick playing or watching FPS games on a normal screen. It’s mitigated somewhat by adjusting FOV and higher refresh, but it still causes issues within an hour (usually like 30 min).

I wonder how much of this statistics are from people like us, for whom even “tame” things like being a passenger in a car can cause motion sickness.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Is that ever claimed anywhere? AFAIK, VR has just been marketed as a new way to experience a virtual world, not as the only way to be immersed in a virtual world.

I think VR would be really cool, but it just doesn’t seem to fit with my lifestyle at this point. And I’m not sure if I would be able to handle it since I and my spouse get motion sick quite easily.

DOOM creator keen on "ethical" uses for AI, but worried about AAA-style "homogenisation" (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski

The conversation/free-for-all around the role of automated "AI"-based game development rolls on with a few thoughts from Tom Hall, co-founder of id Software and one of the creators of the original DOOM, who says he's (Commander) keen on the prospect of "ethical" uses for such tools in gamedev, but worries that reliance on them...

sugar_in_your_tea,

We did this in a previous org. Basically, we had a bunch of user-generated data, users would then classify a sample of that data, and then we’d train our model on those classifications.

I don’t see how it would work in game dev though, unless they’re using AI to customize an NPC’s behavior based on the player’s actions (i.e. teaching an enemy to block player attacks). Generating models and whatnot would just have too small of a data set to work with.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

sugar_in_your_tea,

If they launched with this, I think the community would’ve been fine with it. But IMO the damage has been done, and a lot of indies are going to look elsewhere.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Inverted y for anything first person. I grew up with a joystick for flight sims, and that felt natural to me when I later played FPS games on controller.

Inverted x makes no sense to me (and yes, I read your explanation below), but I can ignore that setting just fine, so every game should have it.

sugar_in_your_tea,

So 30-40% profit? That sounds like a lot.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Huh, I’ve never used chat, I rarely use the friends list, and I think I’ve intentionally used the overlay maybe a handful of times. So I don’t think that’s a big loss.

However, they did work fine on xorg (I haven’t used any of them since switching a few months ago).

Regardless, the launcher works for the primary use cases: buying, organizing, installing, and playing games. So I think that qualifies as supporting Linux, even if there are some bugs here and there.

sugar_in_your_tea,

And marketing is a huge part of stupid MTX games, you gotta attract the suckers to your game after all.

CD Projekt recommends starting a new game when Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 drops: 'starting fresh will enhance your overall gameplay experience' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski

Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a mammoth-sized update, titled Update 2.0, tomorrow, September 21, and it promises to be a bit of a game changer. A police revamp, a progression overhaul, a new cybernetics system, vehicular combat, DLSS 3.5—it's vast, and thankfully separate from the Phantom Liberty expansion due next week, so you'll...

sugar_in_your_tea, (edited )

Same. Maybe I’ll get it once 2.0 launches. Maybe. I’ll wait for reviews.

sugar_in_your_tea, (edited )

Yup, the old mantra was:

  1. Hype product
  2. Get users
  3. …
  4. Profit?

They might experiment with ads and subscription tiers, but the real focus is always on getting users. Look at YouTube, AFAIK, it’s still not profitable (or if it is, it’s barely profitable), and not for lack of trying over the past few years. Yeah, sites like Reddit and Twitter are cheaper to run, but there’s still a ton of overhead and ads aren’t as profitable there.

Now investors want to see a return, and it’s just not happening.

sugar_in_your_tea,

They’ll just introduce new, less interesting bugs.

Former BioWare manager wishes Dragon Age had kept a 'PC-centric' and 'modding-driven' identity like Neverwinter Nights (www.pcgamer.com) angielski

"Dragon Age in the early days had its fair share of identity crises," Flynn says. "Was it going to be a tools-driven, modding-driven game like Neverwinter Nights? Was it going to be a big singleplayer RPG like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?"...

sugar_in_your_tea,

That’s not going to stop me from blaming EA.

sugar_in_your_tea,

That’s how I treat all games, and even then I try to ignore it until a few weeks after launch when most of the worst bugs are patched.

Microsoft May Exit Gaming Business If Game Pass Subscribers off Console Don't Increase Enough by 2027 (wccftech.com) angielski

Spencer said in no uncertain terms that Microsoft could exit the gaming business if this projection became reality. Microsoft needs the light green and blue segments (PC and cloud) to get much larger and much faster by fiscal year 2027, or it could opt out of the business altogether....

sugar_in_your_tea,

Why wouldn’t they just buy a large stake if they’re only there for the money? The reason to buy the company out is control, meaning they can further other interests (e.g. growing XBox market share) through the acquisition.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yup, there’s a reason I don’t consider getting GamePass or any other subscription service.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I wish they’d make the drive an optional add-on that you could buy later if you decide that digital only isn’t for you, instead of using it as product segmentation. But that would be pro-consumer, so not gonna happen.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I’m pretty sure they’re talking about the gyro, which Sony and Nintendo have had since the previous generation.

sugar_in_your_tea,

That’s problematic because you can resell disks. I suppose they could sign disks independently and then only allow one digital owner, but then you’d need a formal process every time you resell, or worse, disallow reselling, and the cost for producing disks would go away up (not to mention returns would be a headache).

sugar_in_your_tea,

Another benefit of having an external disk drive is that you can replace it if yours goes bad. I’m not sure what’s going to “end in tears,” it would work just like any other USB device, you plug it in and the console could load games from it.

But yeah, an all digital console makes no sense to me, unless it’s an interesting form factor like a handheld or an arcade cabinet. So the only console I have is a Switch, and everything else is on PC.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Will that drive still work on the PS6? Will it work in 20 years? Can you buy more games after a Sony has shutdown the digital store? Can you sell your digital purchases if you don’t want them anymore?

Those are the kinds of problems physical media solves.

I buy digital media on my PC and physical media on my consoles, because PC games aren’t hardware specific whereas console games are.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, it’s too bad they don’t have a physical release, but it is DRM-free on PC, so game preservation is totally not an issue.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yup. I changed mine a while back for my kids to play with, and now it’s all tied to MS. I considered buying another license, but screw em.

sugar_in_your_tea,

So it seems they’re going all in on mobile gaming, and similar tech, as in, lots of microtransactions. I figured as much, so screw 'em.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yup, I agree. The mods exist to push a narrative and make others angry, that’s it.

I could understand if Bethesda made the MC trans with no way to change that, but expanding role play options is never a bad thing IMO.

Payday 3 developer drops Denuvo from the game before it's even out (www.pcgamer.com) angielski

It's common practice for PC games today to launch with Denuvo, a form of DRM designed to stop the spread of pirated copies of games, and it's also common practice for developers to remove Denuvo several months after launch as interest (and the risk of piracy) dwindles. Less common is a developer publicly announcing it's removing...

sugar_in_your_tea, (edited )

That’s just not true, here are a few off the top of my head:

  • video games
  • docker containers
  • web browsers
  • productivity software

RAM is actually the one resource I run out of in my day to day work as a software developer, and I get close on my gaming PC. I have a really fast SSD in my work computer (MacBook Pro) and my Linux gaming PC (some fast NVME drive), and both grind to a halt when I start swapping (Linux seems to handle it better imo). So no, I don’t think SSDs are enough by any stretch of the imagination.

If anything, our need for high performance RAM is higher today than ever! My SIL just started a graphics program (graphic design or UI/UX or something), so I advised her to prioritize a high amount of RAM over a high number of CPU/GPU cores because that’s how important RAM is to the user experience when deadlines approach.

Large CPU caches are great, but I don’t think you can really compensate for low system memory by having large caches and a fast SSD. What is obvious, though, is that memory latency and bandwidth is an issue, so I could see more Apple-style soldered NAND next to the CPU in the coming board revisions, which isn’t great for DIY systems. NAND modules are just so much cheaper to manufacturer than CPU cache, and they’re also sensitive to heat, so I don’t think embedding them on the CPU die is a great long term solution. I would prefer to see GPU-style memory modules either around or behind the CPU, soldered into the board, before we see on-die caches with multiple GB capacity.

sugar_in_your_tea,

It’s already sort of a thing in embedded processors, such as ARM SOCs where RAM is glued to the top of the CPU package (I think the OG Raspberry Pi did that). But current iterations run the CPU way too hot for that to work, so the RAM is separate.

I could maybe see it be a thing in kiosks and other limited purpose devices (smart devices, smart watches, etc), but not for PCs, servers, or even smart phones, where we expect a lot higher memory load/multitasking.

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