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Fair enough, came in a bit hot there, my bad.
I’d argue that it not being a legal threat doesn’t matter too much in this case because they aren’t looking for legal control, so much as “effective” control.
If they can stop you without needing for it to be signed in to law, then they’ll take that, if they can get a law as well, then I’m sure they’ll take that too.
Don’t get me wrong- its not that I don’t care about censorship, its that I don’t really view this as censorship because the consumption and purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible. Contrarily, if this were signed into law I would have a big fucking problem with it.
Censorship isn’t a binary, but we can agree to disagree on that one i suppose.
To this part though
purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible
Not really, there are numerous titles available exclusively on itch.io and steam, those are effectively censored by your rationale as you can no longer purchase them at all.
Honestly steam gift cards don’t work at all here because it’s not a ban on buying the games using a card, it’s a ban on steam listing the titles at all, on threat of losing the payment services.
Crypto cash and gift-cards are great if you have effective access to them.
- Crypto is out for most people for obvious reasons (technical knowledge, dearth of places that actually accept crypto)
- Cash works until it doesn’t and governments and big tech are trying their hardest to make it as difficult as possible, there is a big push to go cashless.
It’s not that people find cash less convenient because they are lazy (some are i suppose), it’s because it’s being purposely deprecated as much as possible, or just straight up doesn’t apply to the paradigm, such as online purchases.
The reason I brought this up is because I have seen it proposed that this issue will expand beyond the scope of digital marketplaces, which I find downright laughable.
As i said, this already happens, it’s weird in how it’s applied tbh, but that’s neither here nor there.
https://www.adyen.com/legal/list-restricted-prohibited
Mastercard just says : “brand-damaging Transactions” and doesn’t elaborate, at a quick glance.
A good example of this is casino’s and other gambling related physical locations, there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get a payment processor to work with gambling, assuming they even give you the time of day.
People WILL stop using visa cards if you can’t use it to buy condoms and there’s an ATM in the gas station.
Sure for that specific thing, hard to pay cash at amazon or other online only retailers.
I firmly believe that if this issue is pressed further, at the very least Valve will js stop accepting payment directly through payment processors.
That i’d be interested to see tbh, because as i said there isn’t an equally available alternative to card payment processors (and it’s not even close).
If they did go crypto only for instance, there’d be a big move to crypto for some, but that’d be a significant loss to take on principle alone.
I do not believe “what they define as NSFW will expand!”
And that’s the core of your problem, puritan activists don’t generally have the capacity to think “actually, the thing i wanted other people to not be able to see is gone, i think I’ll leave it there” because the censorship isn’t the goal, the goal is control.
It’s even worse with organised puritans , because even if a few hang it up you’ll always find a few willing to just go a little further or have differing opinions on what is “acceptable”.
I would lay good money on this not actually being as far as they originally wanted, it was just what they could get for now.
I don’t understand why people are bitching that the companies that they choose to use have so much power over their purchasing decisions. “First this, next sex toys! Then contraceptives!” Like Jesus fuck bro have you not heard of cash?
Firstly, it’s the payment processors, you know the monopoly of companies that you need to take payments from regular people.
Secondly, payment processors can and will stop providing payment services for shops that carry physical goods they deem unacceptable.
(yes crypto exists, no it’s not equivalent yet) (yes steam cards exist, no it’s not equivalent and unless i’ve missed something itch.io doesn’t have an card system)
As far as cash goes, is there a new slot where you can put the cash monies directly in to the pc/console and it credits your account ?
Or do you mean, go to the store and buy a physical copy of the hundreds of thousands of games that don’t have physical editions ?
They could stir up interest by actually finishing the first game.
There are supposed to be 5 story episodes, i think the last released episode (4) was three years ago.
Since then they’ve released a full DLC and are close to releasing the second game from what i can tell.
I’m not bitter or anything, i haven’t got past the second episode yet, so this makes zero difference to me personally.
In fairness is was full jank on release, the initial patches got it to “bethesda jank” where it was fun with the bugs (provided you could actually play it) but still bug ridden.
It got better over time, until just before the “big patch” came in that fully changed how it all worked skills and mechanics wise (gameplay was mostly the same).
Honestly i prefer, pre-“big patch” but the fully patched game is considerably smoother and more coherent.
So, aside from the years of post release development, completely missing features that are never actually coming (looking at you full transit system), it’s actually pretty good.
An absolutely dogshit way of releasing a game, but if you waited for a few years and bought it on discount , it’s actually a really fun game (provided you like that sort of thing).
TBC I’m not justifying anything about this process , it was a major fuckup and many other dev houses would have gone under from the weight of how badly they fucked it up, but they had that witcher money, so.
a sequel is in the works : https://www.remedygames.com/games/control-2
That’s exactly my point, you are taking the stance that people didn’t buy alan wake because it wasn’t on steam, to a degree that’s true, i’m saying that i think a larger proportion didn’t buy it specifically because it was on EGS.
If it were released as a game you could buy and play sans-platform, then i’d agree with you. It’d certainly see less sales than a steam release, because steam is where everyone is.
My stance is basically if you remove steam entirely, Standalone Sales > EGS. Add steam back in and you get Steam > Standalone > EGS
Think in terms of food, you’re basically saying the it’s the fault of the 3.5 star monopolistic countrywide chain fast food place that nobody want’s to eat at the recently health-inspection-failing 1 star food-poisoning cafe.
Is there a monopoly, sure, is the competition so bad people avoid it regardless of the monopoly, also yes.
If you were using something like GOG as an example, i’d fully agree with you, but EGS has seemingly infinite funds and they still managed to release something so bad nobody wants to use it, even for “free” games.
It’s not even just the platform, epic as a company have a reputation, so they have to also overcome that, which they have not.
That’s a terrifying amount of power that people aren’t bothered by
Historically there’s been no need to be worried, generally, i agree that’s not ideal, but again name a viable comparable alternative.
even though we’re talking about company that’s smug about selling gambling to children.
You mean as opposed to the company that actually lost a class action regarding loot boxes in their game targeted at children?
You aren’t even wrong about this but “People don’t buy games from this company who famously lost a lawsuit regarding gambling targeted at kids because this other company who also do sketchy kids gambling things are …better at PR?” isn’t a convincing argument.
Everyone should be better at this, but they aren’t.
I will preface this with : I have many games that are not in steam that I play regularly, I understand this isn’t the norm, I have zero paid games in EGS and outside of checking the platform I never use it.
Alan wake on EGS is a terrible example to support your claim.
It’s like being upset that a fancy new car hasn’t recouped costs when it’s only available in 4 custom made dealers that are only open half the time and the manufacturer refuses to allow it to be sold in all the places people normally buy cars.
Sure, that is certainly a choice but it’s a choice that would have been part of the risk assessment before the money was sunk.
Steam does have a monopoly, because it works and there isn’t anything better.
There is a bit of resistance to switching, most game libraries are in steam because it’s been the best option for a very long time.
If EGS worked well and epic (outside of unreal engine) wasn’t such a shitshow the platform would be fine.
It’s doesn’t and they aren’t so it’s not.
It can’t compete on features, support or stability so it tried exclusivity, that hasn’t worked out for them.
Steam has its own shit, sure, that percentage is some apple level monopolist bullshit.
Name a comparable, viable alternative?
Shaw explained that the act of asset reuse is essential in stopping crunch
Utter bullshit, you stop crunch with realistic timeframes and competent planning/project management.
Asset reuse could be part of that sure, but making out like it’s essential is a geometric fractal of red flags holding other, smaller, red flags.
I don’t know about the fairness of this particular company but by that rationale nothing can ever be fair, just by existing we increase the suffering. Its how the world is.
Think headphones jacks don’t cause suffering at some point in the chain?
Not that I’m disagreeing, just not sure how things would get named under this specific scheme.
Does it assume that it’s generally understood that everything is a little harmful in some way, so as long as you don’t claim otherwise, it’s cool or would everything need to be measured on some sort of average harmfulness scale and then include the rating in the title.
Like “Horrendously harmful Apple” or “Mildly harmful Colgate”
A bit hyperbolic perhaps.
Genuinely not trying to start a fight, actually interested in what you think would be a good way of doing this, as I’ve occasionally pondered it myself and never come up with a good answer.
Incidentally, this is one of the core plotlines to later seasons of “The good place”
OK, so let’s assume that’s a good faith literal interpretation.
Let’s try it this way.
Yes, it possibly would be considered more logical, but people who threaten kids over videogames aren’t generally considered to be working with an abundance of logical thought.
I could however be wrong in this generalisation given I only have my experience to go on, if your experience leads you to believe people who threaten kids over videogames are not running with a logic deficit then your statement makes sense I suppose.
At Launch the game was heroically broken on ps4, literally unplayable.
PS5 was buggy but doable.
PC was hit and miss, i had a reasonable time with it though.
Agree about the turnaround, like a faster no mans sky, which i would hope with the difference in budget.
I wasn’t addressing your original post, but i can give my opinion i suppose.
Your original criteria of “AAA done right” were:
So the comment:
Doesn’t so much point out how cyberpunk doesn’t fit your proposed criteria, but rather that “baseline release quality” should also be in the list.
Which i agree with, I’d go as far as to say “should be a playable, functional game at launch” is a baseline requirement for any type of studios that wishes to be considered “Doing things right”.