spark947

@[email protected]

I am an enthusiast of Tech, gaming, food, culture, and all interesting things.

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spark947,

Isn’t the main issue not so much what they will show, but what gets monetized or not? There is always going to be a disconnect with this stuff because twitch wants the content that goes viral to be advertiser friendly.

spark947,

It doesn’t matter. The suit is alleging that valve threatened to ban games if they were cheaper on other stores. Thats monopolistic price manipulation, and it’s illegal. Valve even pro.ises not to do this in its terms of service - their price parity policy is only supposed to apply to steam keys. That would be fair, because otherwise they couldn’t give out keys in the first place. But you can’t force devs to list games at the same price and then decide on the cut you will take if you are a monopoly. They will have to prove Valve violated its ToS.

spark947,

In his blog, David claimed that steam reps were threatening to pull his game if he listed lower on other stores.

spark947,

You have to remember that allot of these sales are from key retailers that will do stuff like buy keys wholesale. I’m not completely sure how that market works honestly, but that generates a lot of sales.

The case is really going to depend on David proving that Valve engaged in the alleged behavior. Games go on sale all the time, so there is a difference between a game being temporarily cheaper on one site because of a sale or key resell market demand, and valve using their influence to fix prices.

spark947,

Right. Valve is claiming they didn’t, and that they only demand price parity for steam keys. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Honestly, I am not sure what game valve would play to do this. Devs could just make a red and green version of their game to sell on different platforms and price them differently. Meanwhile, to customers, a games price is a games price and developer publisher and distributor are always incentivized to find the highest price a customer is willing to pay through game theory. The market has definitely proven that customers don’t care about what percentage of the cut goes to devs. So there is no incentive for anyone to post a game at a lower price than what a customer is wiling to pay on steam as long as steam retains the highest volume. Telling devs to not price the way they want seems very counter productive to being a good retailer, so who knows.

spark947,

What devs would like to do is push gamers to buy their games on platforms where they get a higher revenue cut. The logic is that 15 dollar game could be 12 dollars on GoG and a dev makes the same amount of money. The issue with this approach is the game theory doesn’t work out for the customer - if a customer is willing to buy a game on steam for more money, than the dev has no reason to offer it on another store for less money when they actually have a higher cut of the revenue, and a higher incentive to price higher. There are non-price reasons a customer would like to buy on steam. Cloud syncing, integrity verification, easy steam deck client, and most importantly parity with the rest of their library. So it is very favorable to Valve as long as its the preferred place to buy games.

The issue is that while it is fair for steam to compete on service, it definitely is unfair for them to try to dictate to devs and publishers where they can sell their games and how they price them, especially if it isn’t a part of their ToS. You don’t get a steam key from GoG, and you aren’t using Steam’s servers. If Devs get more of the revenue, AND they were theoretically able to achieve more volume on GoG, why would you ever sell your game on steam and give up more revenue? Steam has to compete - which they claim they do, and David is alleging they don’t in their suit.

The suit isn’t about key reselling.

spark947,

I have no idea. We will see in court right?

spark947,

It will be interesting to watch the suit unfold. David is claiming that Valve de-facto forces the pricing through the threat of de-listing on steam. So he will need to prove it. We don’t see many games sell below steam price, but I do think that there is kind of an incentive for devs to have one consistent price across all retailers. At the end of the day, there is a price customers are willing to pay for a given game, and you don’t want to lower it on the platform that give you a higher cut of revenue. It’s why it would kind of be silly for Valve to engage in this price fixing behavior, but there are plenty of instances where for-profit companies and employees do silly (and illegal) things, so we will see as this case plays out.

The only way steam falls off is if another store beats them on volume, which also means provides a better customer experience than steam. It’s a really tall order - how do you get people to move to your game libary management sytem? The only real way is to have an exclusive game that players can’t get on steam. That is the core of EGS - the place where you play fortnite. EGS actually makes a lot of sense as long as epic making the hottest game on earth. Half Life 2 was essentially why Valve was able to launch Steam. The issue is that Fortnite is on the decline and EGS just loses money. I don’t know how you make enough money to outdo Valve in the near term.

OpenAI researchers warned board of AI breakthrough ahead of CEO ouster, sources say (www.reuters.com)

Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers wrote a letter to the board of directors warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters....

spark947,

Not really. The imementation of land is most the same, they just run continously on a per word (token) basis.

spark947,

FreeCAD is a lot more okay than people give it credit for. Perhaps I just remember back to the early days when it was basically unusable.

spark947,

Yeah, it definitely still has a long way to go. I remember back in 2012 it felt impossible to even do basic 3d modeling, but that was more than 10 years ago.

spark947,

No one realizes what this is a picture of huh?

spark947,

Pretty sure thats Pripyat.

spark947,

What are your issues with it? Just curious - I’ve always found it to be an agreeable RHEL variant.

spark947,

What are your issues with it? Just curious - I’ve always found it to be an agreeable RHEL variant.

spark947,

Did it post twice? I think there is a bug somewhere between lemmy clients. I see it happen from time to time.

spark947,

I tried to get one since it was 30 bucks, so I’m not too surprised this is how they operated. They are locking down jindles real hard too. Probably going to make a lot of ewaste.

spark947,

Apple probably just lets it happen.

spark947,

You are never supposed to be this close to a non collaborative robot during operation. Never ever. There are a ton of safety standards around deadmanning operations if someone breaches the Arms workspace. At least here in the US they are enforced through OSHA.

If this keeps happening in South Korea, I would guess it is an issue with however their safety operations are enforced. But you should never even get close to a robot like this while it is running without a light wall or something ready to trip. Even then, most places have the cells fenced off.

spark947,

Various parts of the US too, especially in distribution centers. It got a bit bad out there.

Luckily in the US serial manipulator safety standards are pretty well regulated - im talking more along the lins of belt sorters.

spark947,

16 gb optiplexes on sale for 85 dollars on eBay. Dont come with windows, but neither do macs :P

spark947,

Yeah yeah, I do think even like windows 11 these days. I’m a debian with KDE guy.

spark947,

Until you get to a prompt that doesn’t support unicode.

Joe Biden Wants US Government Algorithms Tested for Potential Harm Against Citizens (www.wired.com)

Highlights: The White House issued draft rules today that would require federal agencies to evaluate and constantly monitor algorithms used in health care, law enforcement, and housing for potential discrimination or other harmful effects on human rights....

spark947,

This isn’t a comic book. Its good policy.

spark947,

This is kind of racist though. Indian citizens don’t choose to be scammers in a way that Europeans don’t. Its a natural consequence of the countries establishment of business services combined with widespread systemic poverty. This traces back to international business deals, political and economic circumstances. It’s not a cultural thing.

It doesn’t mean that scam call centers are good. But Indians have definitely been exploited by international business. Only natural that they end up returning the favor.

spark947,

There is andiffefence between saying that scam call centers are bad and that Indians have a culture of scamming. Thats all.

spark947,

Okay, well as long as that is clear.

spark947,

Just going to put all of the deep south in New York huh.

spark947,

I grew up in New England. To me, the American South is anything south of Newark.

spark947,

Ridin with Biden.

spark947, (edited )

Just an open source e-ink device with the build quality of a Kindle. Nothing fancy.

spark947,

Remarkable looks cool, but I was talking about a dedicated e-reader. They probably won’t bother because their differentiator is the writing.

There needs to be one that is kindle adjacent, ru s linux, and comes with a ton of selections from project gutenberg, selling a little bit above cost. Thats the only way I could see this working.

spark947,

I only read books that I have a physical copy of, or books that are on project Gutenberg. But really, we should seek to make all books free. An unencrypted epub is like 1 MB for like 300 pages usually.

I do wish that there was an open source e-reader that ran Linux. You can already read these things on your phone or on your computer. But I like the dedicated devices for reading.

Someone made an open source one that runs on a microprocessor, and it is a super cool project. But you really need a kernel to run arbitrary code, and gain access to open source e-reader software that gets you compatibility with publishing formats, layouts and fonts.

Getting Linux kernels onto more open source devices is probably a good goal - its still rather hard for a hobbyist to design a devicw that supports Linux.

spark947,

I think it definitely was a huge breakdown in academic’s to adapt to new technology, and it is at the core of a lot of the societal problems we face today. Of course, a lot of the reasons for this were by design at the hands of a few corporate actors, and they share a lot of culpability.

There are philosophical underpinnings too - a lot of academics are still caught up on modernism (which would rightfully distrust new internet sources in favor of legacy sources of proven idealistic knowledge) vs. Postmodernism, which would provide a framework to recognize the truth in these systems.

One thing to keep in mind is that computers and the internet are still extremely new, and we are still figuring them out. It has only been a decade and a half where everyone has a general purpose, internet connected computer in their pocket.

spark947,

I won’t be as crude as the guy you are responding to and deny Scorcese’s achievements. But we can all admit that he was taking the piss a little bit with the Irishman. Its a movie in the MCU - the martin cinematic universe. He gathers his avengers (De Niro, Pesci, Keitel) for an ensemble film within the Gangster oeuvre. He defends this by insisting that he went through the motions of “establishing” an “emotional core” or whatever. But at the end of the day, it’s De Niro saying “c’mere, whassamatta” again. Brought to you by special effects.

I personally think that there is nothing wrong with this, and Scorcese is a very saavy movie promoter to juxtapose how he makes films against the marvel method. But I do think that Marty is taking the piss just a little, even if it is in a pretty fun way.

spark947, (edited )

Well, he has also been criticizing them in the sense that creating these movies are not done in pursuit of a creative purpose. That there is no emotional risk. I think it is an apt criticism - but where is the great creative risk in making another gangster movie staring Robby and Joey?

spark947,

I’m speaking specifically about the Irishman, a movie I love btw. But do I think it is more artistically “valid” than infinity war? No.

It is less creatively “risky” than not doing another gangster film, thats simply a fact. And that’s okay. On some level, it is a “lets get the gang back together for one more ride” movie. On some level, all the players involved have certainly earned the right to do that. But it is odd to criticize studios for essentially taking the exact same approach to film making, especially for movies with massive commercial success - even if you argue that the quality of the art produced isn’t the same.

Pacino’s role is a good example. He practically admitted that he was too old for the role off Jimmy Hoffa after filming, in multiple different interviews. So why was he chosen? You said it yourself - people want to see one of the most beloved Italian American gangster actors get directed by one one most beloved Italian American gangster directors. And you are a fanboy over it. And that is okay. I “forgive” you or whatever. I am too.

It goes to show that formula film making can produce great films, and that the MCU movies that are bad (for many are fine films) aren’t bad because they are based on comic books, or because there is multiple of them. Comic books that were extremely artistic and considered important works of 20th century science fiction in their own right (talking about Jack Kirby specifically). I would argue that eventually the MCU did become a very cynical excercise that is determined more by studio number crunching. That happens for all sorts of reasons in Hollywood.

spark947,

Philistines

This gives the game away, although I’m sure you were joking.

Marty’s common refrain has been “there is an emotional core to this movie - we had a meeting!”

Look, there is a business to high production films, and we have to accept that. Marty clearly has, has participated in it, and used his well earned artistic reputation to criticize it. Good stuff.

Space sim Squadron 42 is "feature-complete" and gunning for Starfield's lunch with massive new video (www.rockpapershotgun.com)

Squadron 42 is the single player campaign of Star Citizen, that is supposed to launch as a separate game. It's basically a small portion of Star Citizen, but with a story and ending. I'm still not confident; waited too long for that.

spark947,

Thats part of it because everyone interested already doesn’t like them and is getting this game for free. If it doesn’t have legs outside of everyone who has effectively ore-ordered, its going to be a real issue for CIG

spark947,

I mean yeah. Idk why people pre-ordered it, but they did, that’s their whole funding. Now they owe a copy to all their “backers”, and it’s hard to see how releasing this game will bring in revenue. They are in a very big hole.

spark947,

Nah, you need the chorus to chime in.

spark947,

Man, I love it when evangelical christian supporters tell me I am not Jewish enough. Friggin’ heretical idolators.

spark947,

Please stop confusing me.

spark947,

I would just caution anyone that blocking ads while logged into your Google account is probably a bad idea if you care about still watching videos there. Google will grow more desperate to show tracked ads to users.

The only ling term solution is to seek to watch YouTube e videos in a private way. Freestone is a good start. New piped and individuals look promising as well. I’m still researching a good long term solution.

spark947,

They definitely give curated preference to companies that have had successful games on steam. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have something worked out with EA.

Honestly, I wouldn’t try to gotcha Valve on anything. They are a games distributor, and they will do and say anything to promote games that are selling well, and the developers and publishers behind them. They don’t give a crap about games or devs that aren’t selling. Nor would/should they.

spark947,

WTF?

spark947,

I’m hearing this repeated over and over, but its simply not true. CNN is covering it somewhat adequately. Go to their website.

Yes, fox are freaks. Obviously. And that is the most mainstream media. And what is happening in Gaza is a war crime. But it is willful blindness to say it is being reported in nowhere for the mainstream.

spark947,

Its not the job of journalists to make that kind of judgement call. Only to report the facts on The ground. They have written plenty of articles about what Human Rights Watch, EU politicians, UN has to say on the matter.

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