It’s like buying a tiara for your fetus, before you even buy a crib.

ALSO, MICROTRANSACTIONS = DLC.

    • Chill Dude 69OP
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      I can’t understand the hate for Steam/Valve taking 30 percent. Back in the day, when people were forced to rely on traditional brick-and-mortar sales models, developers could consider themselves lucky if they got the 30 percent. When publishers, disc/disk manufacturers, box printers, shippers, and retailers finally got done taking all their cuts, it could amount to more than 70 percent. Easily. The lowly creator of the software was an afterthought, in the payment pecking order.

      But noooooo, Valve is eeeevil incarnate, because they take 30 fucking percent. Fuck that. 30 percent is reasonable. And what do they do with that money? Does Gaben flaunt his private jet travel and buy sketchy islands, like a some billionaires? Nah. They pump the money back into weird, tech-focused projects. Modern VR would be ENTIRELY under the control of FACEBOOK AND APPLE, if it wasn’t for Valve spending their money stash on the SteamVR systems.

      I know I sound like a fanboy. It’s not even REALLY about any of the stuff I’ve said, so far. The biggest reason why it’s okay for Valve to take 30 percent is to insure that Steam will always exist, and always be thriving, barring a vast and all-encompassing planet-wide economic catastrophe. Nobody has to worry about their Steam library suddenly vanishing. People might be tempted to praise alternative distributors, like Itch.io, because they take only a 10 percent cut. But you only have to look at their website to realize they’re incredibly fragile, by comparison. I don’t know if Itch.io will still be around in ten years, twenty years, certainly not thirty years. Steam WILL be around in fifty years, when I’m an old, old man. I’d be SHOCKED if it wasn’t around a century from now.

      That kind of guaranteed future costs money. That is a stone cold fact, whether you like it or not.

      EDIT: I just looked it up, and it seems that Gaben does indeed own an island. Pfft. Whatever. I still don’t begrudge Valve existing, exactly the way it exists. If Valve hadn’t built Steam, we’d be living in a universe where Google/Alphabet handled the lion’s share of PC game distribution. Wouldn’t THAT be lovely for everyone?

      EDIT 2: the article that I found, implying that Gaben owns an island, appears to be satire. LOL.

  • You know that would only lead to more games being published as ‘a finished product’ eventhough they really are not. It would make the problem worse, not better.

    • @cybersandwich@lemmy.world
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      81 year ago

      “early access” is just an expectations management thing that lets companies release buggy shit and hide behind the “its in beta” argument.

      Beta testing/piloting/early access is a real, legitimately valuable, strategy that allows devs to get real-world user feedback so they can make their finished product better, but the way its being used by big companies and game studios is a perversion of the initial intent.

      You may be wrong though. It might not make it worse. Think of all of the push-back and review bombs that happen when companies release finished products that are buggy af. Cyberpunk is an example of this. They got so much shit, rightfully so, at launch.

      • Chill Dude 69OP
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        Exactly. Like I’ve said in various comments in this thread, I have complex feelings about how the situation could actually be fixed. Basically, it comes down to two options:

        A. Valve should start to actually regulate the Early Access program. Add rules about when and how DLC can be added (basically never, in Early Access), how long a product can stay in Early Access (someone mentioned the possibility of a ‘long-term early access’ category being established). Add a separate grade system for people to rank how well the game is doing, in terms of customer’s satisfaction, in terms of progress toward a finished product. I would also suggest that forced monetary transparency might be a good thing to add, as a requirement for Early Access participation. If the storefront page openly displayed the amount of revenue the game has generated, since coming to Early Access, it would help to instantly make some judgments about the whole product. If the game in question is a dinky 2D platformer, but it has raised $800,000 over 8 years, I’m gonna be questioning why it hasn’t just been completed, at this point.

        B. Valve could also remove the entire Early Access label, and just let anyone start selling anything, in any state of completion, and simply make their own case for why people should buy it. If the game is basically an Early Access game, but the game’s description doesn’t make that clear, people will refund the game and shit-talk them, all over the internet. If they make a good case, in their own description and trailers and other media, then people may decide “I will fund this thing, based on those merits.” The benefit would be the lack of the “its in beta” label, for people to hide behind. If devs just had to make their own pitch, in their own words, people would be more likely to judge that pitch, with an appropriately critical eye.

    • Chill Dude 69OP
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      Nah. Not acceptable. That’s not the case, here. People had already bought the game, in Early Access, before they started selling this extra shit.

      They’re betraying the original investors with this shit. It’s fucked up.

      EDIT: I just checked the dates, and only one of the three DLC packs has been added after the game began its Early Access phase. I guess that’s something. At least you’d know the DLC was going on, right when they started to sell the game. It still shouldn’t be allowed. Early Access should be a privilege, specifically for developers who intend to be respectful of their users.

      • capital
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        I can’t tell you how many threads I’ve seen online over the years of people complaining about paying for early access or preorders and the game isn’t what they thought.

        At what point is it your own fault?

        • Chill Dude 69OP
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          Fault isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Yes, if you buy basically anything at this point, you’re a sucker.

          But it’s also the fault of the people doing the shady shit. Multiple parties can all be at fault. Why absolve people of shitty behavior, ever?

          Blame is free. Spread it everywhere that it ought to be spread.

          • @mcc@sh.itjust.works
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            11 year ago

            I mean, it is just your opinion that EA shouldn’t have DLC. There is no fault in buying it and there is no fault in selling it. Does it make things worse for the rest of us? Yeh it does, but really, why do you care if you aren’t buying it?

            • Chill Dude 69OP
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              41 year ago

              ONCE AGAIN, I am having to explain the whole concept of CARING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE, BECAUSE OF EMPATHY.

              It’s fucking fascinating to me, how I’ve been called a psychopath in this thread, and yet soooooo many of y’all are really scratching your heads, trying to puzzle out why I would care about people other than myself.

              • @mcc@sh.itjust.works
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                11 year ago

                Then let me ask another way, what right do you have to decide what other people may or may not want? If people are paying their hard earned cash to pay for what you and I consider shitty things, then you and I are clearly wrong.

  • @neatchee@lemmy.world
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    I’ve never seen a game in early access have dlc, only micro transactions for stuff like cosmetics and boosts. Can you give me an example of dlc on an early access game?

    • Chill Dude 69OP
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      https://store.steampowered.com/app/1604030/V_Rising/

      I guess you could define the DLC for this game as “microtransactions,” because it’s basically alternate cosmetic stuff, for equipment and housing decorations. But it’s sold under the label of “DLC,” and I don’t care to make a distinction between “microtransactions” and “DLC,” myself. One is a subset of the other.

      If they have time to be making decorative extra shit, they should be spending that time working on the core game, which IS NOT FINISHED YET.

      • @rtxn@lemmy.world
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        You called for a more nuanced take from the other comment thread, but you would put cosmetics and expansions under the same label in this one because you “don’t care to make a distinction” - do you see the issue?

        • Chill Dude 69OP
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          31 year ago

          I don’t see any issue. I can have any opinion I want, with or without your permission.

          • @fishos@lemmy.world
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            11 year ago

            Yes, but if you opinions are hypocritical, they’re free to point that out. It does undermine both you and this discussion.

            In this case, there is nuance between cosmetics and expansion pack type dlc. One is obviously more atrocious, but if you’d engage honestly in the debate, you’d find that many people do distinguish between those things. And many people are asking you to provide examples of a game and you point to cosmetics. For many of us, that vastly changes the conversation.

            It may not for you, but for us, that nuance matters. And if you’re going to jump on the badwagon in one post extolling the virtues of deeper conversation because otherwise Lemmy will become a sesspit, I dunno, maybe do some of that yourself. Be part of the solution, not the problem.

            Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go see all the nuances other people are discussing.

              • Ziglin (it/they)
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                21 year ago

                That’s a terrible excuse not to talk to someone, I don’t think I’d be talking to most people for more than a few messages if I did that. Also not everyone has spell check in their Lemmy Interface so there might not have been a red squiggle or maybe the user assumed that because it’s a very uncommon word it might not be in the dictionary.

                • Chill Dude 69OP
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                  21 year ago

                  not everyone has spell check in their Lemmy Interface

                  I don’t see how that can be true, unless someone is using some sort of text-only, Unix-style browser. All modern browsers will load the rich-text-enabled text entry box, unless you go far out of your way to defeat that feature. I tested the word in the text entry box, and it came up as misspelled. You shouldn’t go to great lengths to disable a spellcheck feature, unless you have ABSOLUTELY PERFECT SPELLING.

                  If you do, and then you misspell some shit, that is the perfect definition of living in a glass house and chucking rocks. You deserve what’s coming to you, if you do it.

              • 📛Maven
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                51 year ago

                Fuck off, no you weren’t.

                People who want to engage in discussion don’t find a flimsy, meaningless excuse to hurl insults instead. Be less transparent before you try to troll, please.

                • Chill Dude 69OP
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                  You are right that I was unnecessarily rude. I apologize.

                  But I honestly do want to know why you just ignore the red misspelling squiggle, when you misspell a word. I guess I have mild OCD or something, because I simply CANNOT ignore that shit. It’s an absolutely foreign concept, for someone to just be like “nah, I’m right about that word. I know better than the actual dictionary.”

                  Again: I’m really, truly not trying to be rude anymore. I’m genuinely trying to understand your behavior.

            • Chill Dude 69OP
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              Fair enough. But I’m still correct, whether you like it or not.

                • Chill Dude 69OP
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                  21 year ago

                  You misspelled “correct.”

                  I’m right. You’re wrong. Pay attention to me and try to learn.

      • @neatchee@lemmy.world
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        Yeah that’s what I was talking about. I have no problem with this. I mean, I won’t buy any of it, but cosmetic artists and riggers aren’t the same people who do level design and shit.

        If you want to show me someone selling, like, an expansion for $20 on an early access game then I’ll be incredulous with you. But that link is just typical bad business. No reason for Valve to get involved banning it or whatever

        • Chill Dude 69OP
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          The problem is that THE. GAME. IS. NOT. FUCKING. FINISHED.

          That’s the problem. Every single nanosecond spent working on DLC/microtransaction shit is being STOLEN from the people who paid into the Early Access model.

            • Chill Dude 69OP
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              21 year ago

              Nobody, in this specific situation.

              See, this is a thing called EMPATHY. And a sense of justice, outside what I stand to gain, personally.

              I believe people should be called out for doing shitty things, just in general. This seems to be an entirely alien concept for a lot of folks. I find that disturbing.

              • @neatchee@lemmy.world
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                Your attitude betrays your passion. This level of anger is abnormal for the subject of cosmetics in early access games, even for empathetic people. I give both time and money to charity and I’m nowhere near your level of angry and emotional over cosmetics.

                Whether you’ll admit it or not, something happened to make you this emotionally sensitive to this particular issue. I’m curious what it was

                • Chill Dude 69OP
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                  21 year ago

                  Believe what you want. I’ll have the satisfaction of being correct, either way.

  • @CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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    I mean, do that, and they’ll just stop labeling the games as early access while still being in the same unfinished state, meaning people can’t even decide if they want to avoid a game or not based on that label.

    • Chill Dude 69OP
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      So they’ll have to avoid games based on what people say about them, and nobody will be able to hide behind the excuse of “but it’s still in Early Access, maaaan.”

      Steam’s refund system is really good. I say get rid of Early Access and let every game stand on an absolutely equal footing, with no excuses anywhere in sight, for anybody. No privileged “oooh, but you don’t get to judge this game yet” roped-off section for people to play shell-games with.

      Start selling your game any time you want, in any state you want. But beware the wrath of the consumer. That’s fair.

      EDIT: I realize this could seemingly contradict another comment I just made, where I defended the Early Access program, as a vital means of securing funds for independent developers. To be clear, I think that the function of Early Access should essentially remain, but not be labeled, in any default way.

      I think all the games should be on the store, all the time, any time. And it should be up to each developer to make their case, on their own, as to why the customer should be willing to spend money on their product.

      • Ziglin (it/they)
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        11 year ago

        Then companies could just say that it’s not finished, add micro transactions and have the same thing as before except without the little early access box.

        • Chill Dude 69OP
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          That’s why I do have some complex feelings about how Early Access should be. I think it’s highly necessary for it to exist, in order to fund truly independent developers, so games that fall outside the mainstream marketable sludge can be created. On the other hand, yeah, there are real pitfalls and attractive nuisance situations, associated with it.

          As I said in another comment, I think one option would be to just completely remove all labels and categories from the store. If a game is Early Access, let the game’s own developers say so, in the description. Make the case directly, that this is a game that is still in development. No special, “official” box that says “you should judge this game more favorably, because it’s not finished.” Make the developer tell everyone that situation themselves, in their own words.

          Then, if people play the game and realize it’s shitty, they can use the refund system. And if they play for longer than the refund system will allow, then they can tell everyone that the game sucks, and it should be avoided.

          That way, the access to early funding remains, but nobody is propped up by an artificial notion of Early Access-ness.

    • @Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      91 year ago

      Yeah. It’s a shame we still use this asshole for these meme templates out of habit, but he is definitely not ok.

  • @cordlesslamp@lemmy.today
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    61 year ago

    No one forced you to buy it. If you know it’s bad then just don’t buy it. If something is bad then I wouldn’t buy it and I don’t give a rat’s arse about it. Why can’t you do the same?

    You can’t tell people how they must spent their own money.

    • Chill Dude 69OP
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      21 year ago

      That would also be a good option, to reduce some of the problems involved in the category.

  • @yamanii@lemmy.world
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    I wanted to challenge this but I can’t think of a single early access that I have that tried it, I can only think of ARK and they got roasted for it, even more so when people discovered that ATLAS was a reskin of ARK.

    • @Asafum@feddit.nl
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      31 year ago

      I think they’re talking about emperyon galactic survival. They never finished the game, but took it out of EA, and now they just sold a story based DLC when the main game doesn’t even have its story completed yet…

    • @yuriy@lemmy.world
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      ARK has a whole ass sequel and the base game is STILL horribly unoptimized AFAIK. To be fair, I’m on linux, but that’s hardly an excuse when like 95% of other titles work just fine!

      • @yamanii@lemmy.world
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        31 year ago

        Don’t worry, ARK runs like ass anywhere, it’s so intrinsic to the game that the remaster also runs like ass.

        • Chill Dude 69OP
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          Wanting people to be punished for horrible things they did? That’s psychopathy, now?

          You realize that there are poor souls out there who have spent their life savings on that piece of shit, right? Now, here comes the best part: the part where YOU tell me that those people don’t deserve sympathy. They chose to get scammed, they’re suckers, they deserve what they got for speculating on fake starships, etc.

          Which one of us has empathy? Which one of us is pointing the finger at the actual criminals?

          • sebinspace
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            91 year ago

            the part where you tell me

            I don’t have to tell you shit. You’re a psychopath who’s clearly beyond reason. You can’t be helped.

            • Chill Dude 69OP
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              Care to give me a list of other criminals and villains who you think shouldn’t be punished?

              I’m fascinated by this through-the-looking-glass mentality you have, where wanting vicious and destructive criminals to be punished is evidence of psychopathy.

                • Chill Dude 69OP
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                  I just see this as you continuing to defend the actual psychopaths, in the situation. Let me try to make this clearer, for you:

                  The scammers who sell pretend starships have been happily doing so for YEARS, by now. They know about the stories of people compulsively spending thousands of dollars on their bullshit. They know there are people out there, who have had to break down and tell their spouses “I spent the kids’ college fund on a bunch of in-game starships…BUT HONEY, WE’LL BE ABLE TO FLIP THEM FOR TEN TIMES WHAT I INVESTED! WHY ARE YOU CRYING?”

                  That shit has happened. To real people. And the asshole scammers absolutely know about it. And they DO NOT CARE, AT ALL. That’s what psychopathy is. They calmly and happily continue to spend those people’s hard-earned dollars. Not on the game. Not investing it back into the game. Oh, no. If they had been using all that fucking money to develop the game, it would have come out years and years ago.

                  They’re funding their own investments, their own lavish lifestyles, their own egomaniacal satisfaction. They will never feel any guilt about what they’re doing, because they don’t feel guilt. Again: they are actual psychopaths.

                  The only way to make them feel anything negative about what they’ve done would be to imprison them, in that horrible place in the desert, where they can only see a tiny rectangle of sunlight, and barely have enough space to stretch to their full height. They won’t ever feel bad about the pain they caused other people. They can’t. They would only ever feel sorry for themselves. But I want them to feel that pain.

                  I don’t see how you can disagree, knowing that most of their victims will NEVER be financially okay again, and the perpetrators of the scam are just freely living the good life. What passes for a concept of justice, inside your head?

        • Chill Dude 69OP
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          41 year ago

          Did I mention the fact that you can pay thousands of real-world dollars for a not-real spaceship?

          Do you need any other fucking definition of a scam?

                • Aniki 🌱🌿
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                  11 year ago

                  noun - a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation

                  If you design a game with psychologists to maximize serotonin hits instead of gameplay and then charge money to keep getting a hit is, by definition, a deceptive act, and ergo – scam.

  • @Skkorm@lemmy.world
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    71 year ago

    While I understand the point this meme is making, I can’t wholeheartedly agree with condemning games labeled early access. Basically every modern AAA game comes out buggy, undercooked and unfinished, which means it’s in early access. Games not being labeled as such doesn’t change the fact that it’s not finished. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet were trash games, buggy as hell and completely unfinished. For all intents and purposes, they should have been labeled Early Access.

    The sad reality is that games being released in “Early Access” is not a detriment to 99.9% of consumers, so it’s going to keep happening.

    • @tomkatt@lemmy.world
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      But the post isn’t negging on Early Access in general, it’s pointing out that Early Access games shouldn’t have DLC, and I agree. It’s Early Access, which means it’s unfinished. Why the hell is there paid DLC content? That’s essentially expansion content without even finishing and releasing the game.

      Honestly it’s ridiculous, as even “full release” 1.0 games tend to be unfinished messes until six months after release these days.

  • @Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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    Transactions = more money for Steam

    Disrupt this incentive loop (somehow) and then we can all have nice things.

    • Chill Dude 69OP
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      What do you imagine would replace Steam/Valve? The Magical Post-Capitalist Game Fairy, who distributes games for free, for no reason?

      Do you remember who used to distribute games? Walmart. And Best Buy. And CompUSA. And Circuit City. And Target. And GameStop. And Electronic Boutique. Ya know, retailers.

      I deliberately peppered that list with names that most people hate AND names that many people associate with good feelings of nostalgia, or mixed feelings at least. But that’s the reality of retail. Capitalism sucks. It literally sucks. It sucks money out of everyone, for itself.

      Steam was and is the disruption that you’re talking about. Steam disrupted a broken and destructive brick-and-mortar sales mode. If the catalog of products available on Steam had to be sold in physical stores, only about the top 2-5 percent of the currently available catalog would be physically able to be sold. THAT WAS, AND REMAINS, THE MASSIVE DISRUPTION TO THE OLD SYSTEM.

      You’re talking about disrupting the disruption. Maybe you’re talking about some kind of nonsense universe, where everyone distributes open source games for free, maaaaan. Or maybe you think the developers should still get money, but the distribution system should be run as…a charity, I guess? Just, because someone feels like spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a bulletproof, entirely secure, worldwide system of game distribution and sales…for free?

      Like I said, that would be some kind of Magical Post-Capitalist Game Fairy. If anyone tells you they are willing to do that shit, I guarantee there is a catch. They’ll be getting something that they want, somehow. If they’re taking a 30 percent cut of the money, I know that’s the catch. If they’re supposedly doing everything for free, out of the goodness of their own charitable hearts, I don’t know what their angle is, but I know it can’t be good.

        • Chill Dude 69OP
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          At least you’re advocating that someone should get paid. Most open-source/free-software zealots don’t bother to do that.

          Motherfuckers just stand on the notion that people with the equivalent of (or actually possessing) postgraduate engineering degrees should just…work for free. Like, literally work at Walmart as a nine-to-five gig, then come home to their hovel with five roommates, and slave away, doing engineering work on free software projects that could be sold for tens of millions.

          When I support a company like Valve, I’m looking at their past behavior (supporting open industry standards, for things like controllers and VR, plowing money back into developing blue-sky R&D, in both hardware and software) and the fact that they’re an entirely private holding, as opposed to a public company that has to answer to shareholders. Shareholders, of course, would demand that they stop funding anything that won’t specifically generate a maximum return on investment, in a short or medium timeframe.

          Because Valve doesn’t have to worry about that crap, they can build a system that is not inherently brittle. I believe them, when they say they have contingency plans, to make sure that we won’t ever have to worry about losing access to software we purchased licenses to use on their systems. And if they ever did become insolvent, there is apparently a contingency-contingency plan, to allow people to download fully non-DRM versions of as much of those libraries as possible.

          But to the open-source/free-software zealot, none of that matters. The perfect is always the enemy of the good. Valve = proprietary, so they’re bad, according to you.

          Whatever. Narrowmindedness is what it is.

          • @Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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            Imagine a (post scarcity at that) world without profit incentive.

            As long as people have the basics (which just means they have options) we will work for joy of others, to benefit society or nature, to further science, art, etc. Each in our own way. Studies have proven that. But can’t be Mozart if stuck at a 9-5 with engineered pressure (to keep you in line), a mortgage & commute. The procrastination myth was fed to us (and masqueraded as tiredness from work, as it that is weird).

    • Chill Dude 69OP
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      141 year ago

      Ya know, Calvin really has more in common with Crowder than you might think.

      They obviously both childish. They’re fundamentally selfish beings. They have incredibly vivid imaginations, but they only ever use them to amuse themselves and reinforce their delusion that they’re the most important person. They believe themselves to be rebels against a banal and suffocating system, but in reality they’re just irritating little shits, constantly acting upon every rogue impulse of their raging ego and id, with no regard for how they’re making life hard for the people who have to live near them.

        • Chill Dude 69OP
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          Basically, if he ever stops seeing Hobbes as a talking tiger, that’ll be the day he just turns into someone like Crowder. Hobbes is kind of a dick, too, but he’s Calvin’s conscience. He’s Calvin’s connection to empathy and vulnerability. When he wakes up one day, and just sees a lifeless stuffed toy, he’ll be a true monster.

      • @Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        didn’t like crowder show is dick to all the bros at his work tho?

        Imo, Calvin at least is an imaginative, creative individual with an imaginary tiger that frequently gives him shit for his flaws. Kids also notably grow through self absorbed phases while Crowder acts a similar way as an adult.