TheObviousSolution

“It really hasn’t. Also, these are some reasons why it has.” It is literally their whole spiel and what keeps them on the radar, even if the popularity of the platform isn’t what it used to. Which makes sense, since they don’t actively advertise or force their platform but they’ve also been subject to negative press such as their handling of the Devotion devs and "many gamers"in their efforts to prioritize the success of Cyberpunk 2077 over any potential fallout in the region.

You run on an ideological platform, you lose people on ideological grounds, like incorporating titles and forms of DRM into the storefront. Indies can default to whatever storefront they want, that’s should be the norm. Mohjang did it to great success.

Being effectively forced to do it on Steam, that’s basically a statement about their effective monopoly. Your accumulated Steam library is basically an ever increasing sunk cost fallacy, although to the credit of Valve they haven’t acted like massive dickheads (yet). But that will change with time because the people who lead companies change over time whether they would have wanted it or not.

It hasn’t helped GOG? News to me.

Did they try removing DRM and selling you a product instead of an option on a subscription service?

You are pretty much the case in point: Grossly stereotyping the alternative into a perspective only based on extreme prejudice with an ample amount of pet peeves projected from personal experience. Like, I was actually expecting to see at least one valid counterpoint, like how much corporate interests shit on and ransack OSS, or the inherent dichotomy between software maintained out of goodwill in an environment that’s increasingly defined by greed and intellectual property bullshit inside failing economies, but nope.

Good thing that the US has a monopoly on chips and they don’t mostly come from Asia/China, right?

The only thing this is assuring is that other places like Europe don’t pass through US brands before getting their computer equipment. If China was already good at one thing, it was at creating generic brands to bypass things like US IP for other regions. Now, the US has given them an additional stimulus in doing so. Hell, it has even given other countries a reason to support China over Taiwan. If you are looking for something to invest in, might want to look into investing in AliExpress.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

He only cares about free speech when he can control what and whom it is flooded to. If you disagree with him, it will get automatically prioritized for the trash heap and chances are his critics will have worked it out of their system to bother complaining somewhere else, giving him a two for one. The russian troll factory strategy: https://theconversation.com/i-investigated-millions-of-tweets-from-the-kremlins-troll-factory-and-discovered-classic-propaganda-techniques-reimagined-for-the-social-media-age-237712

Not that they don’t deserve their opinion, just that it is somewhat hypocritical to use nostalgia to put the game on a pedestal and prevent it from being as accessible. Most devs don’t take it as a personal attack to their character to make their games more accessible to players and get more of a fan base going, and frankly, ease of access for a lot of kids of free retro games on their emulators is what has compelled them to later become loyal fans of the franchise. It is not a commentary about the value of games itself, and I will not shed a tear for indie devs that are already millionaires keeping prices high on their games as if it was necessary. Also not a fan of IP laws that are just an excuse of profitting way beyond the cost of development of something.

This would not be acceptable anywhere outside this particular sub-industry, and it does not even make sense once sales have dropped down low enough since the benefit you get from advertising is greater. This only makes sense if you see any sense in huffing and puffing and taking it as a personal aggression having to consider selling your product that has already profited its development costs several times over for less.

Personally, I will not buy it because it is not a genre I particularly like. But I would not mind buying it to see what all the fuss is about on discount. Take that as you will, but the outcome is that I will probably play something made inspired by the game before I play the game itself. Counterexample for me is Tunic, would not have bought it, in fact, I haven’t even finished it, but the devs didn’t put it in a pedestal so high that I didn’t mind giving it a try and adding it to my library. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a great game, specially for those into the genre. I’ll let you get right back to getting offended now.

Actually, a better counterexample: Bastion. Not a fan, but aspects like the quality, the way the game handles replay-ability, and other aspects of the game like the narrator, now has made me a fan of Supergiant Games and anything else they make, even if I’m generally not a fan of the genre. Also why I supported them with Hades on early access and why I played Pyre when I generally wouldn’t have.

Gonna get lynched for admitting to this here, but I’ve stayed away from Shovel Knight because of how premium they take themselves to be. I have gotten Hollow Knight and plenty of other Castlevanias on discount, though, even though I’m not a fan of the genre. I think this statement coming from them is a bit ironic consider how they treat their product, although they aren’t the only one.

Implying they already have it from Google’s side.

It’s been a couple of years since Teslas were the go-to option, at least this is making people catch up to the fact.

“Whistleblows”. What a moronic take, in this regard taking the word of Edward Snowden is like taking the word of a random stranger in the street. At least we know on what Edward Snowden is likely spending his days on in Russia: Gaming. Wouldn’t blame him, it’s not like he can freely travel.

Talk about a shitload slice of the irony pie, the industry that has not given two shits about intellectual property is getting undone by the masters of intellectual property theft and they don’t even have a recourse because of the bed they’ve made. Now, it’s time to lie in it.

It’s a practical monopoly due to how they’ve exploited their Android presence in the mobile market. The only viable alternative is Yelp. The biggest problem is getting people to jump on the same platform and to leave reviews, and Google does this with mobile location tracking, even prompting the user when they think they’ve been remotely near a location at times. Maybe it does need a fediversed alternative, it is quite the unaddressed monopoly.

I didn’t have a problem with using YouTube Premium, but Google is doing a lot of shitty practices. The latest is purging Google Maps reviews in collusion with local authorities for private interests. Maybe don’t be part of a shitty monopoly while trying to push this sort of bullshit onto us?