Isn’t that part of the discussion? That Valve can just arbitrarily reject a game. Before the payment processors stepped in for example, which was also the time Valve “banned” Horses, Steam had games that had the four-letter r word in their description and Valve didn’t care despite being contacted by Collective Shout. One could argue they’re lying, but as someone who’s worked with most major publishers, I can believe them, because Valve is almost impossible to reach. In my experience, and based on what I’ve been hearing, most of the time they simply don’t reply to press requests. Instead they do these publicity stunts where Gabe Newell will occasionally reply to random email messages from people online, knowing the reply will be posted to social media, or he’ll do an interview with a nobody on YouTube.

GOG’s market share is around 0.5 to 1%. Steam’s is above 75%. So by comparison, GOG is tiny.

Steam is the one with monopoly power, and the Horses developer has said that publishers didn’t event wasn’t to publish the game if it cannot be on Steam. This argument isn’t applicable to Epic, let alone Humble, which ended up reinstating the game within the day.

Not merely as sexual, but as “sexual conduct”. Valve already hosts a huge number of games depicting full nudity and sex, and before the payment processors complained, that included games with r*pe in their description.

I usually avoid PvP games and I didn’t like ARC Raiders at first, but it has grown on me.

Unless you use the starter kit, you’ll always have at least one safe pocket slot, allowing you to bring back at least one item (or a stack) even if you get knocked out. Moreover, so often my stash is full even after multiple expansions, so the game encourages using those resources to craft weapons, which again makes it less of a problem if you get knocked out.

Later quests are not easily completed, but you can focus on completing the daily tasks for battle pass progression. There will be simple tasks like having to open containers or doing damage to the ARC robots, so you can just go out with the stater kit and do those, not worrying about losing your loot. With that mentality, at least sometimes (though often in my case playing solo), you’ll extract and get a lot of loot on top of your XP and tasks progression.

I’d say a link stored in a network that is decentralized and independent of one central entity has more inherent value than a record of money in a bank. Link rot is a thing, but so is the Web Archive and its alternatives. It’s just that there have to be people who value that record in the same way they value money, but that’s not how it is. Nevertheless, it’s something compared to having absolutely nothing after Valve shuts down. You’d still get to show people the records and say “I had that”, as worthless as it may become by then.

Edit: And to elaborate even further, I remember a Steam event when being the first to obtain a profile badge, which was indicated by its timestamp, was considered valuable and allowed people to join a special invite-only group. Their badge wasn’t even visually unique in any way, but it allowed them to brag and feel a bit more special. They’d get to say “I was there at that time and I did that”, and the badge as their evidence would be independent of any screenshots that could be doctored. NFTs are like that, but more persistent.

In one instance, you’d have indisputable proof of ownership, but only your word in the other. The former is not that different from money, which is not even paper these days but a record in a database.

AWS going down wouldn’t erase the NFT out of existence. Valve closing down would certainly remove every Steam market item.

NFTs are at least independent and won’t disappear if one corporation goes down. Other than that, they’re one and the same, and it’s insane that the same gamers who worship Valve are often the first to bash NFTs.

Fair, but I believe it’s too early to think about that, as we still have a whole year of ESU. By then, who knows if Microsoft decides to offer another year for free if many people remain on it? Moreover, depending on one’s reasons to stick to 10, they may upgrade their hardware or change their mind about 11 by then.

True, but I assume most people here wouldn’t need to be on an Enterprise version of Windows, unless it’s for work.

Here.

That doesn’t say much though, as many of the other games on the list came to Steam after months and years of being available on Origin, so the highest concurrent player numbers were probably seen on that platform. A newly released game always attracts more players than an older one.

No need to turn to piracy when there are free official ways to do the same.

I didn’t suggest F-Droid for inclusion though. I merely used its applicable terminology. Still, with Google Play, you trust Google to ensure that the apk is from the actual source, and with F-Droid, that’s delegated to F-Droid. I don’t see that as being less secure.

I don’t think giving into Google seizing more power is the way. People doing that is what enables the corporation to continue and have more control over their lives, including their privacy.

Why is being on the Google Play store a feature worth highlighting? To use an F-Droid expression, that would be an anti-feature.

The only games I can think of where you fight back against racists as a Black person are Mafia 3 and Assassin’s Creed Freedom Cry. Maybe Dustborn too, if you count alternative history fascism. It’s wild that there isn’t more after so many years of video games. It makes the news of the cancelation incredibly sad.

PrivacyGuides being among those bros.

I believe the developer has practically no experience with action games, so the combat being subpar wouldn’t be unexpected. I definitely wouldn’t be playing a WoD game for its combat though. I’d want a good story, characters, and the right aesthetics.