But Steam isn’t a walled garden, or a monopoly.

Valve has done nothing that monopolistic corporations have done (i.e. Disney or Nintendo). They have kept themselves relatively small, private, and focused on providing one service really well.

Every other competition has only ever tried approaching what Valve does with Steam with shortcuts and quick money grabs.

It’s all fine and dandy to cry and complain about monopolies, but nobody even really tried. Epic’s store was, and still is, a laughing stock. That is what Valve is up against.

You put value in a like-dislike ratio and you think you can educate me?

You haven’t proven me wrong, you’re just another brainlet preaching to a choir of people who seem to be adamant at painting Valve as having a monopoly.

I mean, everyone has their preferred little dillusions, I guess, but an argument of popularity fallacy doesn’t make you right.

Very smart. You learned how to repeat words written in books. You’re probably very proud of yourself.

You still don’t know what a monopoly is, however, considering this is a discussion about Valve and Steam.

But keep trying.

You do not understand what a monopoly is.

It’s a free market, right? Customers choosing what they prefer and all that? And then eventually the one that provides the best price-for-service ratio comes out on top? Something like that, right?

If you want to stop Steam from being so ubiquitous with PC gaming, then create some proper competition. The only one that comes close in my eyes is GOG.

There is no open world that is too big. They can only be too small.

However, the quality of an open world is not predicated on the size of the open world, but rather what is actually in it.

And this doesn’t mean that open worlds must be drowning in content, as the quality of the content itself also matters, and certain worlds that are large and empty can still be interesting due to its traversal being good, or the sandbox nature of a large empty world.

Some of the worst examples of open worlds are the kind that are just filled with isolated little fetch quests; busywork that’s all marked on the map with no element of organic exploration. Or the kinds of open worlds where nothing actually happens “organically” without the player starting it.

The best kinds of open worlds are the ones that emphasise exploration and/or have background systems governing the world in some way (i.e. factions that interact with each other without the explicit involvement of the player).

“Gross misconduct” is union busting corporate speak for “workers trying to make a stand for their rights”.

Yar matey! 'Tis be a good life indeed!

Denmark has FH, which stands for “fagbevægelse hovedorganisation”, which is essentially a kind of alliance of unions. The only one not part of this alliance is Krifa and their Faglig Hus (Krifa = kristelig fag).

Same in Denmark, but here we also have overenskomster for specific work places, or kinds of work.

For example, I work for Just Eat. This puts me with 3F Transport Group. They have the transportoverenskomst, which is the groundwork for overenskomster of specific types of jobs, like bus driver, truck driver, or in my case, food delivery. So, based on the transportoverenskomst, we have the madudbringningsoverenskomst.

Margrete Thatcher naked on a cold beach! Margrete Thatcher naked on a cold beach! Margrete Thatcher naked on a cold beach! Margrete Thatcher naked on a cold beach!

Any LEGO game can be good if it’s your first LEGO game. None of them are badly made, with the exception of a few, but they’re all made the same way.

If you’ve played one…

I wouldn’t put the LEGO games on that list. Traveller’s Tales just basically copy-pasted most games, to the point 3 were releasing within the same year.

It made them horribly bland.

*Most licensed games suck. There are some good ones.

I mean, Hideo Kojima tells stories that are a little convoluted and has layers of metaphor in them… Kinda like The Matrix, so he’d have been a perfect fit.

I mean, it doesn’t anymore.

You can install Proton by other means. It doesn’t have to be through Steam. And by now, since Valve made so much of the groundwork already, the development of Proton can be done by the community, like so many other FOSS projects.

So we’re not dependent on Valve.

I don’t want to sink time into a kind of game that is one step above a point and click adventure game but with the constant need of repeating tasks like they’re house chores.

Then you’ve not been paying attention.

Not very smart are you?

What makes you think that the kind of people that sign this European action don’t also sign other actions?

What makes you think that the shit corpos get away with in the videogame industry will stay in the videogame industry? Have you not been paying attention to other areas of industry?

Yes, as opposed to real life rendered images other frames other.

And you don’t need more than 30 fps if it’s not some fast paced game. And you don’t need more than 60 fps if its not a twitch shooter. And frame generation is just… Sub-par in every way imaginable. It’s only useful if to get some semblance of frame stability if your hardware isn’t up to snuff.

And that’s the only thing that matters; a well rendered stable framerate.

People like you are the reason why corporate entities are trying to push for all this ugly shit into newer games and GPUs.

My expectations are perfectly reasonable, and my cynical judgement of the industry keeps getting justified.

I’m not making assumptions about their financial situation. I’m critical of their hypocrisy. I don’t care about the excuses.

It’s a small game. They have Palworld to rake in the big bucks, so if their stance on AI use has changed, they can just remove that game.

Yes. Except they’re still selling that game.

But… The developers of Palworld made a game featuring AI generated images.

Don’t be a spoiled hyperbolic ass. But hey, you probably love Unreal Engine too.

Have fun with your discount fake frames.

See, now this sounds like a much better use for it.

I’ve tasted 120 fps. I’m not impressed.

I understand potentially needing high fps in fast paced shooters with incredibly short TTK. The kind where reaction speeds need to be counted in fractions.

But demanding 120 fps for most other things is just being spoiled. Even good old 30 fps is good enough if you’re playing something turn-based.

No, a tool like this should be used to elevate weaker hardware. It has no purpose generating fake frames if you can already have a playable framerate.

No port for anything Mario related at all, so that comes with the territory.

But we have the N’Sane Trilogy and Crash Bandicoot 4 on PC… Why not also the kart racing game they made around the same time?

Maybe. If I could actually play it. But still no PC port.

Why would I want to use it in games that already run well? What’s even the point of frames above 60 when it’s not the “real” kind that twitch shooters need?

Yes.

I never really got into Heroes of Might and Magic. Somehow the kind of strategy this is never really captured me.

Oh right. This guy. Anyway…

Dramatic reveal music.

I would not. Not a single success I wouid attribute to Chris Roberts, because each of his projects was Star Citizen. A studio exec had to step in tell him to actually finish up each time, and for Freelancer he was literally kicked off the project.

I’m well aware what Hades is. I guess that guy doesn’t understand the Rogue-like model…

Never played the first Hades. Never played Cult of the Lamb. They’re both on sale now, and they seem like pretty good Steam Deck games.

Wrong. First thing you do is turn off TAA, DLSS, Frame generation, upscaling, Lumin, and if possible; anything related to sub-pixel geometry.

Ir better yet; don’t play UE5 where most of these things are forced upon you.

It’s The Wolverine we’re talking about here. If there is any hero that deserves a brawler game it’d be him.

Besides, we’ve also had open world story driven adventure games with Insomniac’s Spiderman games.