I really enjoyed Apex when it came out, it felt like it had a lot of potential and a universe ripe with content to explore.
Then at some point they decided that all we needed was more skins to spend money on.
And appallingly it seems they were right.
The workshop is an interesting topic and one if like to see a larger discussion around - theoretically people are free to upload their workshop content outside of Steam altogether, but arguably it’s on developers to support importing non-workshop content.
Censorship is definitely something that needs sorting out. I hadn’t heard of much censorship going on but I can definitely see it happening, giv n Japan’s standards can differentiate massively from America’s. Clear rules need to be laid, and I hope clear reasons are given when it occurs.
It got added when they moved from Greenlight to the current system IIRC.
Double checked and it’s called the “Steam Direct fee”, is $100 (+ potential taxes) and you get it back when the game makes $1,000 “Adjusted Gross Revenue”.
I’m with you on all of this. I’m familiar with this (am a game dev) and you’re 100% right that the biggest cost is game distribution. One thing though: it costs ~$100 to list a game on Steam, which is returned to you after it’s made a thousand or two.
Honestly there’s nothing much valve can do to appease people, but I believe the most likely thing they can do is release data on how much distribution costs and give companies the ability to disable the “extra stuff” to save even a few percent of their revenue.
That’s on developers for not putting their games on other platforms, Valve do not prevent you from doing so. If they went crazy tomorrow, people can just jump ship.
I swear the only games that could never be on another store would be Valve’s own. It’s really not their fault that other platforms are so bad or niche.
Like realistically what should they do to not be seen as gatekeepers? Become worse to scare developers and customers onto other platforms?
Are they gatekeepers though? It’s not like they own Windows or Linux and stop you from using any other store. Just having the biggest audience doesn’t make them gatekeepers to the market.
I never see people talking about what valve should change other than lowering the 30% cut, but arbitrarily forcing that would set a bad precedent.
Instead of virtue signalling here’s reasonable things Valve could do:
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure proton is free to use and you can install stores and games not from steam on a Steam Deck, so again I really don’t know what they’re gatekeeping.
Of all the reasons to hate these messaging apps, it’s because messages last forever? I’d get it if you were concerned that private companies don’t really delete your messages, but you know the average person using these apps actually does want their messages to last?
Deceive Inc. is such a good game. Charming characters and an art style that really immerses you in a fun way. They learnt a lesson really quickly that’s taken so many other games years to get right - buff the weaker, less fun stuff rather than nerfing the fun, overused things.
It’s just a shame that the multiplayer only market is so saturated at the moment with games trying to monopolise your attention. To even get people to try it is difficult due to the entry cost - which is a fair £17.
Not a silly question! The answer is technically yes, but not really.
Considering there are still sites that store plaintext passwords, there has to be some that just hash it and call it a day. For those, once you crack the hash, you know everyone with the same hash has the same password. Any real site does some more complex stuff to “personalise” each hashed password.
The real issue is when you reuse the password and it gets cracked once, people will try that with your email for other leaks and live sites. If a lot of people use the same password (like “password123”), they’re likely to try it as one of the first guesses to crack any new leaks.
I’m oversimplifying my already oversimplified knowledge of basic cryptography, but it’s a really interesting topic!
HOLY SHIT you have no idea how long I have been trying to remember this game. A cousin showed it to me when I was young and I loved it. Next time I saw him he’d forgotten, and I never could find it when I finally got a PC!
I can’t believe it’s been under my nose this whole time (Paladins fan) and it makes complete sense. Thank you for unlocking a core memory 🙏
Game mechanics can be patented. It’s stupid, but things such as “loading screen mini games” and “overhead arrows pointing to your objective” have been patented. The second I believe even got enforced once.
I think these kind of things have been getting approved less and less, but I wouldn’t be surprised if “balls that contain monsters” was patented back in the early days too.
Don’t forget about moderation. It’s all fun and games until someone starts posting hate speech, copyrighted material, porn (legal or otherwise) or worse…
Ah yes, Europe never had to deal with such far right-wingers. We’d like borrow the term you guys came up with to describe them in case we ever face such violent fascists. What was it again?
Oh right, Nazis.
Don’t forget about moving their possessions. I don’t know if houses in America come fully furnished, but there’s no way you could sell all your furniture for enough to buy it all back in a new state.
Also people surely have things that they would not want to sell, for personal or practical reasons, right? To pretend the only thing people need to move is themselves feels a little heartless.
And we’ve not even talked about people with families yet…
I can get the transfers between friends part, but why between platforms? That makes zero sense from a business standpoint.
The only way that would work is to have game companies manufacture and distribute an external storage medium themselves, because platforms sure as hell won’t say “Oh you bought a license on another store? Sure, you can use our CDN for free!”. And now we’ve almost reinvented game CDs.
We may joke about valve not making games, but they do have a large amount of people working on various titles.
They also do a lot of R&D for hardware, like the Steam Deck and VR headsets.
Side note: Valve isn’t doing the thing Unity tried to do. Unity tried to charge you every time someone installs the game. And you’re not even hosting the game’s data on Unity’s servers.
Steam takes money when you purchase, then will let you download it for free, anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Completely different.
Back on topic: It would be really interesting to see the actual server and bandwidth costs for hosting and distributing all those games. There’s no way it’s super low, or any of the competition surely would have caught up by now.
I’m in an identical situation as you (also from the UK funnily enough), except I did keep in contact with her, albeit at arm’s length at first. She’s explained to me over the years that it was internalised hatred, made worse by her family’s very outspoken views about anyone not straight and white.
When she finally had a chance to get away and start thinking things through herself, she began to accept herself and others. She’s a lovely person to be around now, and pretty vocal in trying to help other people learn about and understand trans healthcare and mental support. But most importantly, she’s happy.
Honestly this. I’d love to maintain my own database of music, but streaming services did something right to make it so accessible.
Prices will need to hit a breaking point to scare people away, and even then they will keep using the next easiest thing (e.g. YT Music + ad block in my case).
Actually I’ve been using it all the time ever since it came out in beta. Being able to set it to record certain games automatically so I can share something funny or report cheaters after the fact is amazing.
No need to fiddle with OBS to find some instant replay like thing, remember to start it and then edit them in another piece of software. it’s all right there, built in to Steam, and so easy to use that I often trim and save clips during gameplay.