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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • Because it all routes through one digital storefront without the possibility of competition, so digital pricing on console storefronts is artificially high.

    Plus, they’ve already shut down stores on older consoles and people have lost games. That’s less likely as console companies learn how to make competent digital storefronts and account systems, many have felt the burn of losing all your digital purchases on console and won’t let it happen twice.








  • GOG is “Good Old Games”, a digital distribution service for PC games run by CD Projekt Red, developers of The Witcher and Cyberpunk. It mostly focuses on old games from the Win95/98 days that have been patched/fixed by their in-house dev team to run on modern Windows releases. However, it also sells all CD Projekt Red titles and seems to be expanding to just be a regular PC game distribution service.

    It’s being talked about a lot right now because unlike Steam, EGS, and other stores they sell you a DRM-free download. Because of recent legislation in California, companies are required to use clearer language when they aren’t selling you something that you own forever, they are instead selling you a license to access something.

    This has reignited discussion on digital ownership, Steam, and what happens if you die or Steam shuts down/is acquired and you lose your non-transferable access to the games in your library. GOG is the ideal solution right now, because it while it offers a client that is simple to use like Steam (called “GOG Galaxy”) but if they announce a shutdown or acquisition, you can simply download offline installers for all your games and you don’t lose access to anything.



  • Fortnite is a money printing machine. Skins that cost pennies to make go in, and billions of dollars come out. How in the hell was it ever not “financially sound” other than pissing away money on badly executed lawsuits, timed exclusives on a formerly open platform and other assorted dick measuring contests?

    This guy is the worst. You’re not an underdog or a friend, you’re the worst kind of capitalist. The one who just stumbled upon a huge pile of cash and has no idea what to do with it, but is certain that he deserves it.




  • Why any game in 2024 is targeting one specific frame rate is beyond me. Just do like any other competent release, and offer a “Quality/Performance” option where one targets 30fps with max visuals and one targets 60fps and cuts what it needs to get there.

    I think people are well aware that the current console generations are just midrange PCs frozen in time at this point. Nobody is expecting miracles, just give them both options and be done with it.


  • Higher revenue cut for publishers. That’s it. This is just a big anti-consumer pissing contest about who gets a bigger slice of the pie when a sale is made. Everything else is just distracting noise. If Valve charged 5% then none of this other stuff would matter. Valve charges 30% base with some sweetheart deals for devs who sell millions of copies. Same as Sony, Nintendo, Apple, and most other online software marketplaces.

    This is a high percentage to pay vs retail margins for a brick & mortar storefront, but a reasonable percentage when you think of it as a customer acquisition cost. So the question is, did I go to Steam to buy the game or did I go to Steam and buy the game? Everyone will have a different opinion on this, but in my opinion Valve revived PC gaming when it was on the brink, and a large percentage of sales that happen on the platform are because of the eyeballs it brings and the value it delivers.

    Borderlands 4 coming back to Steam is strong evidence of this, even with Epic essentially paying developers the difference in potential lost sales out of pocket. You can’t pay for the lost conversations, word-of-mouth, and other “free” advertising that those lost sales would have generated. So Borderlands 3 looks great on a balance sheet, but nobody really liked it or cared about it, and Epic won’t pay you to make games nobody plays forever.

    It might seem better for the storefront to take less of a cut from a consumer perspective, but in reality it barely matters. This doesn’t go towards reducing game costs for consumers or improving bonuses & wages for developers. The market has already been set. Any behind the scenes change in revenue sharing just goes to the next group in line, which is of course the already wealthy and massive publishers.

    So do whatever works for you. Just don’t let them pull the wool over your eyes and act like this fight is about anything other than which already very rich people get slightly richer.




  • It’s clear you haven’t used this generation of consoles. They took this feedback to heart and now after install which is entirely determined by your internet connection/disc speed, you can hop into game insanely quick.

    For a game I’m already playing I think from PS5 on to actually moving around in game we’re talking like… 10-15 seconds. It’s essentially just making save states. I’ve never seen a mandatory update stop me from launching a game, and it does most install in the background while it’s on standby. It takes longer to get in game on my Gaming PC than the PS5.

    This was brutal in the PS3 & 360 era, better in the PS4/XBONE era, and is essentially solved as it can ever be in the current era.


  • I can only assume they see it as a double edged sword. Rights-holders (read: publishers, labels & studios) would have the power to sue here, not creators (read: artists, musicians and filmmakers).

    These rights-holders also want to use AI so they don’t have to pay or deal with creators, so while they don’t love that other companies are making money off their content, they’re more just mad that someone else did it first before they could exploit their own content in the same way.

    Sue and set precedent, and they might accidentally make it impossible for them to turn around and do the exact same thing once they have the technical know-how.

    Entirely speculation, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me.

    EDIT - As another commenter mentioned, I broke my own rule and commented without reading and this was discovery as part of an ongoing lawsuit. I did say it was entirely speculation though, and I still think this is why you don’t see so many AI related lawsuits in all the areas there is just tons of content generation. I also still think this is a “mad they couldn’t get there first” situation.