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If you don’t like something, that’s fine. They made the product they want, they’re free to do that, and you’re free to not like it.
Just know that art has always driven social discussion, and it’s always been met with heavy social opposition, just usually in the form of outright censorship. So historically artists had to be subtle in order to be critical without being censored. In order to see more edgy stuff you had to go to small, barely funded art house shows.
But then the internet happened, and suddenly artists weren’t beholden to a small number of elite entertainment corporations. Art containing more openly progressive ideas can now be shared directly with the masses, the masses are now preferring progressive ideals more than ever before, and naturally corporations making entertainment products now have a financial incentive to cater to that demographic (often called “virtue signaling”). Today you see a mix of corporate pandering and actual art, even within the development teams of a mainstream product like Dragon Age or Disney. Some messaging feels honest, others feel ham fisted because it’s pride month.
But the censorship of the pre-internet days existed for a reason. A lot of people feel uncomfortable seeing things that challenge their status quo. People tend to seek comfort, and they just want their entertainment to leave them be. But now that corporate censors are less of a barrier, and now that progressive ideals are proliferating, the people themselves are backlashing. They say things like, “it’s way too much woke agenda, I’m tired of it. I want to watch a show without having the story be about woke issues.” I think that’s also normal.
I think the backlash is two fold: On the one hand, real art challenges the viewer, which can be exhausting when you just want to be entertained before you get a few hours of sleep and go back to work in the morning. But on the other hand, you do have what offen feels like a disengenuous layer of progressive pandering coming from corporations that you never saw before. And no one likes being pandered to, let alone not being pandered to.
I think this corporate pandering towards progressive ideals is new, the terms we use to describe everything are definitely new, but the tendency for art to expose people to progressive ideals and the tendency for the masses to be conservative and resist change are as old as humanity. And I view the two as a social evolutionary yin and yang, keeping each other in check.
All of the ethical reasons listed by the top post are true, but the real answer is that the epic game launcher is severely lacking in its featureset compared to steam, and people don’t want to be forced to buy games through a different storefront from where the rest of their library lives.
Also he tweeted this, which technically isn’t wrong as long as you accept that the US govt is also owned by private corporation and interests.
We haven’t really seen high quality art that uses AI as part of the creative process yet, but this could be similar to the animation studios of the 90s who refused to use computers. They’re all out of business now.
The reality is, generative AI is a really powerful tool, so they will be at a disadvantage going forward if they don’t use it.
Honestly, 80% of everything is crap, and 80% of businesses fail, and that’s nobody’s fault. It would be even worse if they tried to ship a turd they knew wouldn’t satisfy players.
I understand if you’re sad that the game didn’t turn out and you don’t get to play it, but I’m just proud of them for taking the risk to begin with, and I’m sorry it didn’t turn out how anyone would have liked. Sometimes thems the brakes.
Pretty sure basically all PC games in the last 20 years are candidates, it’s just a matter of time. I was surprised how many big titles from the mid 2000s are no longer playable, and you know DRM hasn’t gotten less dependent on remote servers since then.
It’s really the only argument for buying physical console games, but even then you’re rarely intended to play the version of the game that ships on the disk/cart.
Yeah, back when the game came out, I made a point to buy it on GOG so that they would get all the money for their game. I have only regretted that decision since.
As everyone knows, the game was an unfinished mess at launch, so after ~20h of play I put it down to wait for them to finish it. In the meantime, I have switched all my gaming to Linux, but GOG (the platform that prides itself on open access to gaming) still doesn’t support Linux, so I have to jump through hoops to get the game running (vs just clicking Play if I had a steam copy). Which was a main reason I didn’t double down on my GOG purchase and buy the expansion. Now that the game is in better shape, as soon as I can reliably play my GOG copy on Linux I want to go back and play my save. But now they’re threatening to delete it? Just…wild.
I don’t like how dependent PC gaming is on valve, but…for the time being I’m grateful that they seem to pretty consistently just make a good gaming experience for the players.
A lot of stationary: paper clips, staples, pencils, sticky notes
A lot of toys: yoyo, slinky, hula hoop, Play-Doh, crayons
Packaging: cardboard box, plastic bottles, plastic bottles with the lid on the bottom, aluminum cans
You use inventions all the time that you could probably just build from home now that you know what they are. But there’s nothing that says you/we are already aware of every simple invention. Just think about all the simple, yet revolutionary ideas no one has thought of yet…and if you can do that, you’ll be a billionaire.
I agree that it’s all original code and art, I would even say that he’s well within his right to post his clone since there doesn’t seem to be any copyright-able IP he could be infringing on.
But I wholly disagree with the notion that “if the game was copied that quickly there wasn’t much substance there to begin with”. There are limitless examples of world changing inventions that were trivial to build, but no one had thought to do it, and the same goes for art. The difficulty of making something isn’t what makes it genius, in fact it’s usually the simplicity of a genius idea that makes people go “damn, why didn’t I think of that, it’s so genius!”
It sounds like this guy accomplished little more than burning the few bridges he had, and dragging his own name through the mud. Just…not a smart move.
Aw damn, I’m glad you knew better, that’s downright predatory and should be illegal. You know there are people out there now paying their parents’ credit card bills, thinking that that’s just how things are. I hope that when those people find out, they are entitled to getting every penny back with interest.
Add it to the list of ethical circumstances for piracy.
In fact, for the titles I cared about, I would contact the studio/publisher themselves, explain the situation, send a death cert and a steam account, and see if they would allow a transfer or grant a new key. If not…they’re part of the problem.
I hope the reviewers all made really positive, upbeat videos praising the way they chose to stick to such a proven pay-to-win strategy. The cosmetics and in-game currency that you spend real money to acquire really gives players a way to dispose of their bothersome disposable income. And earning daily login bonuses has never been so streamlined!
I know nothing about this game, but I would bet money this is the formula.
I wouldn’t say that past generations wanted to be marketed to, it’s just that before the internet, marketing was the closest a customer could get to being spoken to by a brand.
And at some point in the history of marketing, I think companies used to see it that way too, marketing was a means of communicating with potential customers what your product offered. But as capitalism progressed, and media outlets expanded (print, radio, film, TV, etc.), honesty was optimized out in favor of “bamboozleism”.
It’s now easier than ever for a brand to have a direct, two-way conversation with their customers at any time, but marketers are still stuck in that 20th century mindset of “we just say whatever we want, and you just accept it”. The internet is in the process of popping that bubble.
They’re like Japanese Disney. They’re nothing without their IP and they know it.
They also know that the only reason they have DK as a character is because Universal dropped the ball in protecting their IP. If they let Garry’s Mod casually have a “Mario” character in it, it dilutes their ability to legally go after some other studio who straight up makes an unofficial Mario game.
I recently put a dozen hours into Witcher 3 while using my steam deck on a couple long flights. I’m pretty sure it synced correctly when I finally got home and connected to wifi. Maybe it didn’t work at one time, but I’d be surprised if it still doesn’t.