I didn’t realise it came out already. Whoops.

The Outer Wilds

That’s the wrong game

Steam is different from the Google or Apple stores, because they aren’t the gatekeeper of a platform.

But yeah maybe 30% is a bit high for games that don’t use any of the steam features, just the payment processing, review section and download servers.

All the other discussions I found on Lemmy dismiss it because they find the idea of a second phone ridiculous. Or because they don’t buy into the “dumb phone” concept.

Looks like OP made a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I forgot about that game. What was it again? Some sort of shooter moba?

That was a rhetorical question after I pointed out the inconsistency: The author claimed they keys were for verification and then also said they were used to decrypt.

That’s most likely bullshit, and if it isn’t they should explain the unusual setup in detail instead of glossing over it.

Yeah agreed especially further down when it’s just randomly rehashing old history. It’s also mixing up decryption and verification even in the beginning of the article. First they write:

BootROM (Level 0): The CPU runs code burned into it at the factory. This code is immutable (cannot be changed). It uses the ROM Keys to verify the signature of the next loader.

Then just two paragraphs below:

The ROM Keys change everything. With these keys, hackers can decrypt the Level 1 Bootloader.

So which is it? Usually bootloaders in a chain hash the next stage. That hash is compared with the signed hash the stage presents, and the signature on the signed hash is cryptographically verified against the locally stored trusted keys. No encryption or decryption takes place. Maybe this is different for the PS5 but then that would be noteworthy, not something you just assume readers to know.

Since the graphic is counting sales in units sold I guess free to download “live services” wouldn’t really appear.

Would be interesting to see the same counting revenues.

Yeah they are fun!

Also pretty easy I’d say.

Here’s a made up example. Suppose you have a choice between compressing a game:

• to 10 GiB, and it takes 2min to unpack it in a certain machine
• to 3 GiB, and it takes 8min to unpack it in a certain machine

The download size difference of 7 GiB only costs me another 60-80s to download as long as the Steam servers are serving well. So funny enough the first option would be better for me.

some analysts suggested to Ars that Valve could and should aggressively subsidize that hardware with “loss leader” pricing that leads to more revenue from improved Steam software sales

Name and shame:

• Superdata Research founder and SuperJoost newsletter author Joost Van Dreunen
• Pitchbook‘s Eric Bellomo

What a stupid idea. These forced comparisons to consoles lead people way astray.

Obviously the strategy of a closed ecosystem vendor who can expect to sell new software for each generation of hardware wont at all work for the vendor of a device in an open ecosystem who must expect people to play their pre-existing libraries, and who must expect that people could buy their hardware for literally any other computer use than the software they sell.

Since you mentioned GOG, another relevant thing about them is their game preservation initiatives. Games that get the Good Old Game stamp from them get some engineering effort to be packaged in a runnable way.

That reminds me of something similar my ISP said. “Don’t be afraid of the bandwidth”, if you give your customers more bandwidth they aren’t actually going to fill it, they’ll still run roughly the same downloads just more quickly.

Here it’s at 12:10 in this video archive of their talk at RIPE: https://ripe84.ripe.net/archives/video/797/

And here when they gave the same talk at SwiNOG they also mentioned how their network ring in Wintherthur is still pretty much equally loaded after 10G and 25G home connections became available: https://youtu.be/wXmJCzMeIBo?t=1195

The pictures of the people look generated too, so it seems likely the same person would generate text too.

Hmm, maybe it’s time to try out that game

cloud saves, achievements

GOG has those at least.

Subverse is really funny in its writing and the renders are high quality as expected of StudioFOW.

HuniePop’s main game loop with the “connect”-style game loop on dates is actually pretty fun to play.

I don’t even have one that expensive, even now that I earn enough. Anything above $2000 is just going into silly territory where the marginal improvement per dollar increase is weak.

You can run more than one OS with secure boot enabled. It’s just a pain in the ass.

Weird, for me it was just flicking the switch in UEFI and now Grub and through it Windows 10 and Fedora 43 boot in Secure Boot.

Secure Boot isn’t Tivoization because you can enroll your own keys.

I really like the Rome Total War Soundtrack by Jeff van Dyck

Metro Exodus. Opening up the map was a mistake. The linear levels were fine, that gives you tight pacing and you always know what’s next. The confined underground spaces were part of the soul of that series. I only played maybe 8 hours of Exodus and can’t be bothered to play more.

Agreed, Fable III was a brutal step back. You couldn’t even equip clothing pieces individually anymore, and the whole “you’re king now, better collect enough money in time” sucked too.

Up to the third comma, yes, but all the rest seems to go beyond that pretty arbitrarily.

When they say anything that “may damage the goodwill of the corporation”, and qualify that with “in the sole discretion of the Corporation” that just means “anything we don’t want to be associated with, and we will be the judge of that”.

That’s what makes it so vague, how is a Merchant or an Acquirer supposed to know what Mastercard might find damaging to the goodwill? They have to guess, or use trial and error*. Most will just err on the side of caution, which means customers get blocked from even more purchases, just to be safe.

* Or talk to Mastercard, which Valve apparently tried, but they wouldn’t respond.

Brilliant, just make your rules vague and force everyone else down the chain to self-censor. Surely this will result in the best outcome.

Fucking mastercard

Oh thanks, the second clip is actually here. I’ll fix it in parent in a minute.

His defense of Godot and his stance on the attacks, seem very reasonable and correct: Clip 1, Clip 2. Nothing like what you remember, OP.

Separating from Off Brand Games to protect them of the fallout of his opinions and public exposure also seems like a correct decision.

Edit: fixed second link

The argument is utterly stupid.

Ignoring that it is building on a fantasy reality for the moment. Even if you had free healthcare, and if only the financial costs of survival motivated people to get jobs, then the other costs of living, like for food and shelter, would still provide that motivation.

When I played 1 and 2 in a similar mindset as you, I eased the burden with some mods. But that might be cheating :-)

ORB: Off-World Resource Base https://www.gog.com/en/game/orb_offworld_resource_base

I assembled the links for OPs entries:

ORB: Off-World Resource Base https://store.steampowered.com/app/281390/ORB/
Ookibloks https://store.steampowered.com/app/399910/Ookibloks/
Paper Monsters Recut https://store.steampowered.com/app/314540/Paper_Monsters_Recut/
Curse of the Crescent Isle DX https://store.steampowered.com/app/365120/Curse_of_the_Crescent_Isle_DX/
Space Moth DX https://store.steampowered.com/app/425340/Space_Moth_DX/
Z.A.R. https://store.steampowered.com/app/351820/ZAR/
Demon’s Crystals https://store.steampowered.com/app/454610/Demons_Crystals/
Hyper Sentinel https://store.steampowered.com/app/640880/Hyper_Sentinel/
Katana Soul https://store.steampowered.com/app/1028300/Katana_Soul/
Timberman: The Big Adventure https://store.steampowered.com/app/2589910/Timberman_The_Big_Adventure/

it won’t change shit if its Debian 2

So at best kernel 2.2.xx good luck with the hardware support. Flatpack is not a solution for everything.

If Randy Pitchford was a real CEO he would find a way to make $60 games

Wow Nvidia, it’s really that bad? You didn’t have to shout it from the rooftops with your actions like that!

Disco Elysium for me. Too many open directions. Too much player agency. I had no idea where I should go.

Yes same here. I did watch a bit of someone else playing the one with the two Mexican brothers running away, but never really had the motivation to play it myself. I guess I just found time power to be much more interesting.

Agreed, I played it the first time when I was 26, and I’m a straight Swiss and German man. Freaking love playing as Max. I played it two more times after that, and also the Chloe focused prequel.

Oh I think I know a good one! Haven, and it’s currently 60% off. You play as a couple who escaped a controlling society to a foreign planet. (Three gender combinations can be chosen)

There is a combat element, and I don’t think you can avoid it, but what you do is essentially clean the corruption off the local wildlife, instead of killing. Don’t know if that works for you, but it’s worth giving it a look I think.

I hope these CEO’s get their reckoning some way some day.

They seem to think it’s all just business and cruelly wielding power is no issue, but I think they overestimate how isolated they are.

Correct reaction, good on them.