re: this article.

The title is a joke. ā€œFree, but you have to make an EGS accountā€ is a bit too rich for me.

  • riwo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 days ago

    i honestly believe the biggest part to this is steam having been around for a long time, and being a kind of the default video game store. people dont like being forced to get another launcher for a game, so whenever a game isnt on steam, they get mad at the whichever launcher its on.

    i dont think there is very much critical thinking about drm, expoitative store platforms and capitalism going on.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      I think if a Dev decided to only release their game on GoG because they prefer GoGs business practices there wouldnā€™t be a lot of complaints about it.

      • MudMan@fedia.io
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        2 days ago

        That is extremely disingenuous. It wouldnā€™t be commercially viable to do that (as seen byā€¦ you know, CDPR not even doing that). The way to make that commercially viable would be to get paid for an exclusivity deal by GOGā€¦ at which point Iā€™m pretty sure people would, in fact, complain.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          would be to get paid for an exclusivity deal by GOGā€¦ at which point Iā€™m pretty sure people would, in fact, complain.

          Yes, Iā€™m sure they would. Note how in your scenario here people arenā€™t complaining about it but being on Steam, they are complaining about the exclusivity deal.

          • MudMan@fedia.io
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            2 days ago

            Man, itā€™s really hard to say this without sounding condescending, so let me say I absolutely am not trying to be, but I donā€™t really understand what youā€™re trying to say here. I think something got cut in that sentence somewhere.

            • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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              2 days ago

              I am agreeing with you that if someone signed and exclusivity deal with GoG people would complain.

              I am pointing out that in order to get people to complain (in this hypothetical scenario) about something only being available on GoG, we had to introduce an exclusivity deal.

              So people arenā€™t complaining about it not being on Steam, they are complaining about exclusivity deals.

              • MudMan@fedia.io
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                2 days ago

                Yes? Because if the game isnā€™t exclusive then itā€™s on Steam.

                Thatā€™s what a monopoly gets ya. Especially if you have policies in place preventing competing storefronts from competing on price.

                Exclusivity deals arenā€™t a particularly bad thing. Nerddom in general also keeps complaining when other first parties donā€™t have enough exclusives, often at the same time they make the opposite argument when it comes to Steam, which is part of the weirdness.

                Itā€™s a weirdly circular argument that youā€™re okay with Epic exclusives as long as the devs arenā€™t profiting from it, even if the end result is the same for you. And itā€™s definitely not what people here are arguing. Thatā€™s a very forced, disingenuous stance.

                • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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                  2 days ago

                  So a Monopoly (you can only purchase from one service) is bad, but exclusivity deals (you can only purchase from one service) arenā€™t bad. But Iā€™m the one with the circular logic.

                  general also keeps complaining when other first parties donā€™t have enough exclusives,

                  1. theyā€™re idiots.

                  2. A stance someone else may or may not have is irrelevant to this discussion or the arguments I am making.

                  3. consoles are diffrent from store fronts. No one is complaining that a PC game store doesnā€™t have enough exclusives.

                  Itā€™s a weirdly circular argument that youā€™re okay with Epic exclusives as long as the devs arenā€™t profiting from it, even if the end result is the same for you.

                  The end result is not the same. Thatā€™s like saying ā€œitā€™s weird that youā€™re not okay with slave labour to work on farms, when the end result is the same to you.ā€ How it gets there is relevant, as well as the long term effects of supporting it. Epic has made it clear by their actions that they do not care about the end user, and if they end up ā€œwinningā€ against Steam they would actively make things worse.

                  • MudMan@fedia.io
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                    2 days ago

                    Yeah, that only works if you wildly misrepresent a monopoly. Itā€™s not about ā€œyou can only purchase from one serviceā€, itā€™s one service having a dominant position in the market. Not the same thing.

                    Exclusives are a competitive proposition. Thatā€™s why Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have first party studios. Becauseā€¦ you know, they want exclusive games to their platforms. And Netflix, and every other TV station that has ever existed.

                    Itā€™s not as convernient, necessarily, but it does preserve competition in a way that having a single entity deciding the prices of all games does not.

                    Those are the long term effects of supporting them. Thereā€™s no ā€œwinningā€ here. Itā€™s not a zero sum game. The idea is that multiple (two is also bad) players are in the market, all competing to give you a better deal and attract you to their option. Steam gives you a better deal because the competitors exist. If they are the only game in town they donā€™t have a reason to give you a better deal.

                    And even if you assumed Gaben is a saint (he isnā€™t, heā€™d just rather squeeze the devs than the users, which makes him smart, not nice), heā€™s not going to be around forever and you donā€™t want a world where Steam is the next Microsoft. Does that register to you at all?