bogdugg @ bogdugg @sh.itjust.works

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2 yr. ago

Is there a source for the $10 fee for digital releases? I'd love to read more about it, had trouble finding it.

I'm guessing they don't want non-qualified individuals benefiting monetarily from mental health services. I can only assume it's a legal can of worms.

The consoles justify the amount they take more because they are selling hardware at a loss to bring in users, so as a developer, you are seeing direct, tangible, and ongoing benefits to giving the manufacturers a cut. Every console cycle, there is renewed investment in the ecosystem to keep users interested.

For digital platforms, the continued investment in the platform itself is both less tangible, and I would wager less overall (though we can't know this for Steam because we don't have access to numbers like that). The longer Steam continues as a platform, the more true this is, unless you believe that Steam will continue to improve at the same rate. I don't see my interaction with Steam being much different 5 years from now as it is today, so it is less obvious to me that such at steep rate is justified.

Like, imagine they "perfected" Steam. They made all the features users could ever want, and there becomes no reason to make any more changes. Should they keep charging the same rate? Or, maybe a better way to frame it, would be that rather than investing some of that 30% rate into improving the platform, they invest in developers themselves to make better products, because it's the only place left to make the platform better than it was before. This would be equivalent to just lowering the rate across the board, in my opinion.

“are the devs happy with it? Is that the standard for digital stores as well?”. And the answer to both is Yes

I fully disagree. On the first point, do developers accept it? Sure. That does not at all mean they are happy about it. Money is tight for games, and I guarantee you every developer would much prefer to take a bigger piece of the pie.

To your second point, it is the standard but it is not universal. Epic Games Store takes 12%. Itch.io defaults to 10%. Google Play Store takes 15% on the first $1 million in revenue.

But that alone doesn’t impact me, the consumer.

I don't believe this is entirely true. The more cash flow developers have, the more stable they are as companies, and the more able they are to put out good games. You are indirectly impacted because a larger tax on developers means fewer, or lower quality, games that get released.

Steams share has zero impact on my wallet.

Disagree, unless you exclusively play AAA.

Edit: Actually I've changed my mind on this. I mostly agree the percentage cut doesn't affect the optimal price point.

I don't dispute they provide value, but why 30%? Why not 35? Or 25? or 80? or 3? or 29? I don't know.

I'm curious, how much of that 30% do you think feeds back into making Steam better and keeping it running?

I think it's better to reframe the question as "Are there downsides to Valve's PC market dominance?" or "How is Steam's 30% cut different from Xbox or Playstation?"

For the latter: it's worth noting that Microsoft and Sony sell their hardware at a loss, and make up the difference through software, so there are obvious developer benefits to the 70-30 split. For Steam, the equivalent value-add for developers is only the platform itself, and I would wager for many of those developers the biggest reason for selling on Steam is not the feature set - though obviously useful - but because that's where the users are.

So, users get a feature-rich distribution platform, and developers (and by extension users) pay a tax to access those users. So the question is, how fair is that tax, and what effect does that tax have on the games that get made? Your view on that is going to depend on what you want from Steam, but more relevant I think is how much Steam costs to operate. How much of that 30% cut feeds back into Steam? My guess is not much; though I could be wrong.

But anyway, let's imagine you took away half the 30% cut. Where does that money go? Well, one of two places: either your pocket, or the developers (or publishers) pocket (depending on how the change affects pricing). The benefits to your pocket are obvious, but what if developers just charge the same price? Well, as far as I'm aware, a lot of games are just not profitable - I read somewhere that for every 10 games, 7 fail, 2 break even, and 1 is a huge success - so my personal view is that this is an industry where developers need all the help they can get. If that extra 15% helps them stay afloat long enough to put out the next thing without selling their soul to Microsoft or Sony or whoever is buying up companies these days, and Steam isn't severely negatively impacted, I'd call that a win.

But of course, that won't happen, because Steam has no reason to change. That's where the users are, and they are fine with the status quo.

I understand the reflexive hate for tech executives, but you can do a lot worse than Phil Spencer.

There are tons and tons of lists on Letterboxd, a social network built around movies. Sounds like exactly what you're looking for. You can find popular lists, lists created by users that appeal to your tastes, official lists put out by the site, or anything else really.

I don't disagree with your overall point, but as they say, anything that can happen, will happen. I don't know when it will happen; tomorrow, 50 years, 1000 years... eventually nuclear weapons will be used in warfare again, and it will be a dark time.

Didn't they already announce Marathon? Strange that this article doesn't mention it at all.

It's weird, because they absolutely need to switch things up... but also they have a winning formula and so long as the games sell they will never adapt.

For me, the biggest fault isn't the tech itself (at least not directly), but the game design. Every time they strap another system to that Frankenstein's monster of an engine, those systems need to be justified in gameplay, which is harder to do the more there are. As everything grows in scale and scope, each component, whether locations or mechanics, feels less individually compelling. Then they hide mechanics behind the tech tree, which solves one issue by focusing the player experience, but now the quests feel even more bland because they need to appeal to every possible build.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Use what you think is appropriate. If you're unsure, use they/them; if they correct you, adjust accordingly. If you want to be most accommodating, default to they/them for everyone you meet unless they correct you or you learn otherwise. If you'd like others to feel more comfortable providing pronouns, providing your own - even if you believe it is obvious - can be a way to help normalize it for others.

2000 shares is not millions... that's less than $100K at the current share price. For scale, the CEO was paid over $8 million in stock in 2022, of which he sold about 50000 shares over the course of the year, which would translate to roughly $2 million worth, which I assume means he's holding many more shares.

I just don't see it. Seems far more likely that he just regularly sells shares as income.

I do agree the other two are more scummy than the CEO.

people who sold millions of shares

Is there a source for people selling millions of shares?

Worth noting Biden recently put something like $60-$80 billion into improving the IRS.

The non-specific disdain people have for reporters, media, critics, news, etc. as if everything is created equal. I think there are many people working in news and entertainment media doing good work, yet a common refrain is "media today sucks". I think it speaks more to how you consume, what you consume, and what you expect, if you believe there is some grand degradation of journalism. Media has certainly become more fragmented, with niches of content and wider levels of quality; the floor is lower, but I also believe the ceiling is higher.

As a child, I remember it was trivial to use Google to see through surveillance webcams that people from around the world had purchased and left unsecured and public on the internet. I hadn't thought much of it then, including how obviously invasive of their privacy it was, but I think it has left me with an awareness of just how little these systems should be trusted to protect that privacy. I have no trust in the system to protect my data from anyone.

Well actually, the dwarves were created by the smith god Aulë deep in darkness under the mountains of Middle-Earth, made to be strong and unyielding. I don't think he cared much about their reaction to the sun, it stands to reason their skin would mirror the materials used by the god that created them - clay and stone. A darker skin tone makes more sense to me frankly.

I realize this. What I meant is, 'that's why it was added', rather than 'I wish that this existed.' Relying on the time slow is recognizing that the dungeon wasn't really designed around the time loop in the first place. It just doesn't feel like a very cohesive design.

It is basically two games in one. The Clocktown/'sidequest' time loop game, and the traditional Zelda dungeon game. I tend to agree that the latter is mostly just not good. The dungeons don't improve with the existence of the time mechanic - in fact they needed to add a mechanic to slow time down because of how poorly the two designs mesh, which is kind of antithetical to the whole initial conceit, in my opinion.

The Clocktown Game, on the other hand, I think is really cool. You get to see all the routines and problems that characters have over those three days, and nudge events towards desired outcomes. Exploring how all their lives intersect, and how they react in the literal face of impending doom, allows for some really cool stories and moments.

It's a Clocktown game trapped in the body of a Zelda game.