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Other Games, Development, & Campaigns => Other Games => Topic started by: DeadVerySoon on January 18, 2022, 05:19:06 PM

Title: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: DeadVerySoon on January 18, 2022, 05:19:06 PM
this got banned from the Steam Forum "suggestions and ideas"

My suggestion is that Steam put game CONSUMERS first, ahead of game designers/vendors/publishers, ahead of greed.

My suggestion is that Steam comes very close to violation of the letter of the law, and very much does violate the spirit of the law, in regards to federal regulations regarding market monopoly, and readers should let their elected representatives / regulators know how they feel about that situation.  More retailers / vendors is always to the advantage of the consumer.

The paying customer puts food on your table, a roof over your head and clothes on your back.  A certain amount of humility on your part is called for, Steam/Valve.  I'm not seeing it.

 There are millions of gamers, and a  far larger untapped base of potential gamers who are driven away by a variety of things, such as arrogant vendors/retailers, the extreme toxicity of fourms, toxic online gaming communities, and the fact that so many games are released BROKEN, as voluminously noted for years---- this is becoming  standard practice.  Why finish the game, when profits on a broken game can be reaped in advance by preying on morons willing to "pre order" and later pay more for the rest of the game as "DLC"?   

In addition, Mods on gaming forums are almost never honest, they pander to their clique.  The scumminess of that cannot be overstated.

It strikes me as grotesque that the average game consumer appears to accept the idea that they have to get a degree in computer programming in order to simply play a game.

If you purchased a new car, and it broke down, and you took it to the dealer's garage, and the mechanic said to you, "Yeah, there is a big warehouse of parts out back, go look and figure it out for yourself" you'd be pretty enraged, and justifiably so. 

I don't believe that things improve by creating a circle jerk of little boys in a treehouse gloating over which one of them can endure having the greatest number of cigarettes put out onto his scrotum by daddy.
 
 Yet what I observe is a culture of masochism and sick arrogance.  "I bought it first".  "I got an imaginary cartoon trophy on Steam"  "i beat it on the hardest setting"  "they released it with forty five bugs, and I wrote a patch for one of those bugs three years after the game was released".

 Stupid.  If the purpose of selling a game is to make money, why NOT design it so that the broadest possible spectrum of persons can play it, without the hassle of patching, mods, DLC and similar crud?

NEWEST has become the synonymous with "BEST". The concept of "quality" has vanished.

I come to a game to get AWAY from the misery of daily life: frustration, cheating, disappointment, ripoffs, injustice.  Yet so many games are such an intense fraud, often through incompentence but now more so through deliberate callous neglect and outright greed / fraud.  It does not have to be that way.

Yet, when I speak up about any of this, I usually get harassed, insulted, trolled, discriminated against contrary to the very policies of the forums I post in. Honesty is  treated as if it were a crime on game forums.  Only sychophantic  licking is permitted on most online gaming forums.

Of course, there is the fraud of forum rules, as well as the Mod Fraud.   If I report the trolls harassing me, nothing is done.  If I speak up in self defense, I get threatened/abused by a shill mod.  Again, it doesn't have to be that way.

You might be  too young to remember paper books, but we used to give them to children full of stories to teach moral lessons.

One of those was the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes:

A couple of con men convinced the Emperor that they could make him a suit of fabric so exclusive and perfect that only the VERY BEST people would be able to see it.

They then pretended to sew a suit,  collected their gold, and quickly hightailed it out of town.
All the servants then pretended that the new clothes on the naked man were indeed magnificent, because otherwise, they would not be "in the clique".

The Emperor, utterly deluded by all this false reassurance, went on a parade through the middle of town to display his "new clothes".   Everyone lined the streets, and each person lied and pretended to see and loudly admire the magnificent robes, lest they be considered "inferior" and unqualified to percieve the clothes.

At a certain point, the Emperor passed a little peasant boy in the crowd.  The boy saw the naked man, wearing only a crown, and laughed out loud, crying out, "The Emperor Has No Clothes!" 

The entire crowd suddenly woke up from the spell of conformity, and broke out in raucous laughter.  The Emperor and his courtiers, with a vested interest in the illusion, were livid.

"Of course he can't see the clothes, is only a common peasant!"  Too little, too late. The Emperor was humiliated.

I am that peasant boy, and the entitled / invested predictably hate and attack me.  Shills and sychophants. 

During the social turmoil of the early 1970s, president Nixon stated that he was confident of re-election, because despite the vocal critics rioting in the street, a "Silent Majority" supported him.  He was correct, and was re-elected.

 I suspect that many share my views and goals, but just refuse to expose themselves to the vomit that would be spewed on them by the forum shills if they dared to speak up.

Of course, outside of forums, quite a few writers have echoed my points:

A couple examples, you can find many more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaEo_NuH1_M

https://wordsaboutgames.net/2015/01/20/please-stop-pre-ordering-games-its-ruining-the-games-industry/

https://www.cinemablend.com/games/Why-Disc-DLC-Bad-Crime-Gamers-Make-It-Out-48109.html

https://heyyouvideogame.com/toxic-gaming/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js6Lh8P6qJg

https://gamerant.com/aliens-colonial-marines-lawsuit-filed/

I've had all sorts of logical fallacies spewed in my direction.  A common one is "It's just a game, don't take the flaws so seriously".  Well, if it is that trivial, why are you so aggressive and invested in trying to shout me down?

It isn't "just a game".  It is time and money.   Time is the one thing you never can get more of, and when a game wastes it with frustration, that is a very real loss.  Perhaps you will understand better when you grow up.

There are, of course, the weak and the worthless, the coward who will say: "It has always been that way, and it can never change, just give up".....well, quite a few people were saying that when the American revoution was brewing, and Thomas Paine had to set them straight in his pamphlet "Common Sense":

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”

The best ideas almost always run contrary to vested interests, to shills and sycophants.

As Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

The worst people always label something they are incapable of understanding/solving as "impossible".  Their lack of imagination, drive and competence is not proof of anything being impossible.  Similarly, as noted above, popularity, or lack thereof, is not a measure of the validity or moral strength of a concept.
Title: Re: Steam Mods are dishonest trash
Post by: Ghostmaker on January 19, 2022, 05:57:12 PM
What on Earth are you banging on about?
Title: Re: Steam Mods are dishonest trash
Post by: DeadVerySoon on January 19, 2022, 07:19:57 PM
While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them,
Title: Re: Steam Mods are dishonest trash
Post by: hedgehobbit on January 20, 2022, 08:24:30 AM
My suggestion is that Steam put the customer first, ahead of game designers/vendors/publishers, ahead of greed.

Steam does put their customers first. But you aren't their customer. Steam offers a product, a marketplace, to their customers which are the game publishers. The gamers who buy the game are the product that Steam is selling. So when Steam's customers complained about review bombing, Steam went into action and changed their user review system so satisfy their customer's demands.  Once you understand the power dynamic, you can understand why things are the way they are.

As for games being released broken, that is 100% due to gamers pre-ordering games or buying them day one. If gamers waited for reviews before buying games, game publishers wouldn't be able to get away with stuff like Cyberpunk 2077.
Title: Re: Steam Mods are dishonest trash
Post by: Ghostmaker on January 20, 2022, 01:44:01 PM
While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them,
Drugs are bad for you, mmkay?
Title: Re: Steam Mods are dishonest trash
Post by: DeadVerySoon on January 22, 2022, 09:46:47 PM
While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them,
Drugs are bad for you, mmkay?

Go kill yourself, you worthless piece of shit.
Title: Re: Steam Mods are dishonest trash
Post by: Eirikrautha on January 22, 2022, 11:51:56 PM
Go kill yourself, you worthless piece of shit.

While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them,

How is your response not this?
Title: Re: Steam Mods are dishonest trash
Post by: DeadVerySoon on January 23, 2022, 11:07:04 AM
Go kill yourself, you worthless piece of shit.

While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them,

How is your response not this?

While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them,

How is your response not this?

Tu Quoque much, moron?
Title: Re: Steam Mods are dishonest trash
Post by: Ghostmaker on January 23, 2022, 11:19:14 AM
While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them,
Drugs are bad for you, mmkay?

Go kill yourself, you worthless piece of shit.
LOL, you first. Hope that colon cancer doesn't rob you of your ability to control your bowels.
Title: Re: Steam Mods are dishonest trash
Post by: hedgehobbit on January 23, 2022, 05:36:43 PM
Go kill yourself, you worthless piece of shit.

In just three posts you managed to make me sympathize with the Steam mods that banned you.
Title: Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: Mistwell on January 23, 2022, 11:29:18 PM
This is a wonderful thread.

You know why?

This single thread has me siding with, and sympathizing with, Ghostmaker. And Eirikrautha.

Nothing brings people together like a common complete moron. Which is what you are DeadVerySoon. Your wall of text rant has no substance. You're just a whiney little entitled shit who makes me want to buy more things on Steam.

If you'd like some free advice on how to maybe tackle this topic more effectively, perhaps choose ONE point you're trying to make, with just one example, and present it with a willingness to discuss it. Game monopolies, moderators, game quality, discussion forums, etc., whichever point it is you want to drill down on maybe just pick one and start.
Title: Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: SHARK on January 23, 2022, 11:55:41 PM
Greetings!

STEAM is fantastic! I own and play several games that I am very happy with.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: Ghostmaker on January 24, 2022, 06:53:09 AM
Steam has steadily improved over the years, though it's had its bad moments.

Greenlight, for example, flooded the market with all manner of garbage.

I also question the efficacy of Early Access, but at least you know what you're getting into with Early Access. And there are some rough cut gems out there.

The refund policy has also made pushing asset-flip crap a lot harder these days.
Title: Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: KindaMeh on June 23, 2022, 10:13:22 PM
So, I guess Steam does have a pretty large market share of games sold digitally or whatever. Apparently it was facing a lawsuit not too long ago for being potentially a monopoly or at least big/potentially buying out competitors. Though I don't know how legitimate this lawsuit is. https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/judge-approves-wolfires-antitrust-lawsuit-against-valve-over-steam-monopoly/  That said, I'm kind of interested in knowing what folks here think about primarily digital/digital sales based corporations and whether some have gotten a bit too large proportionally. I kind of like and trust Steam, personally, given that it allows pretty much any game that is legal to have itself sold. Much though that means things I don't agree with will be sold, I appreciate consumers having the choice and cultural dialogue not being suppressed. But that doesn't necessarily mean regulation is amiss in that whole digital sales area, I guess, and if it had banned any games or has banned users on the basis of politics or speech, I would probably change my tune a bit as regards innate trust. 
Title: Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 24, 2022, 09:58:52 AM
So, I guess Steam does have a pretty large market share of games sold digitally or whatever. Apparently it was facing a lawsuit not too long ago for being potentially a monopoly or at least big/potentially buying out competitors. Though I don't know how legitimate this lawsuit is. https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/judge-approves-wolfires-antitrust-lawsuit-against-valve-over-steam-monopoly/  That said, I'm kind of interested in knowing what folks here think about primarily digital/digital sales based corporations and whether some have gotten a bit too large proportionally. I kind of like and trust Steam, personally, given that it allows pretty much any game that is legal to have itself sold. Much though that means things I don't agree with will be sold, I appreciate consumers having the choice and cultural dialogue not being suppressed. But that doesn't necessarily mean regulation is amiss in that whole digital sales area, I guess, and if it had banned any games or has banned users on the basis of politics or speech, I would probably change my tune a bit as regards innate trust.
Thread necromancy, ahoy!

Honestly, I don't see how Steam falls under a monopoly, and I'm not sure antitrust regulations are applicable. Valve has done very little in the way of actual game releases beyond HL:Alyx.

If Wolfire doesn't like dealing with Steam, they can always move to Epic Games Store.
Title: Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: hedgehobbit on June 24, 2022, 10:50:36 AM
Honestly, I don't see how Steam falls under a monopoly, and I'm not sure antitrust regulations are applicable. Valve has done very little in the way of actual game releases beyond HL:Alyx.

The highest numbers I've seen is that Steam has 70% of the PC game market. But it also has 0% of the much larger console and phone markets. So Steam is a long, long way from being a gaming monopoly.
Title: Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: KindaMeh on June 24, 2022, 10:54:19 AM
So, I guess Steam does have a pretty large market share of games sold digitally or whatever. Apparently it was facing a lawsuit not too long ago for being potentially a monopoly or at least big/potentially buying out competitors. Though I don't know how legitimate this lawsuit is. https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/judge-approves-wolfires-antitrust-lawsuit-against-valve-over-steam-monopoly/  That said, I'm kind of interested in knowing what folks here think about primarily digital/digital sales based corporations and whether some have gotten a bit too large proportionally. I kind of like and trust Steam, personally, given that it allows pretty much any game that is legal to have itself sold. Much though that means things I don't agree with will be sold, I appreciate consumers having the choice and cultural dialogue not being suppressed. But that doesn't necessarily mean regulation is amiss in that whole digital sales area, I guess, and if it had banned any games or has banned users on the basis of politics or speech, I would probably change my tune a bit as regards innate trust.

Thread necromancy, ahoy!

Honestly, I don't see how Steam falls under a monopoly, and I'm not sure antitrust regulations are applicable. Valve has done very little in the way of actual game releases beyond HL:Alyx.

If Wolfire doesn't like dealing with Steam, they can always move to Epic Games Store.

Fair enough, I guess. I had kinda forgotten about Epic Games, and I guess that shows they have at least one competitor. There are probably more out there, though I haven't really heard of them. I think the argument was less about monopoly on game production, and more control of the market on digital computer game sales, of which they get a non-negligible cut, when they could theoretically deny computer game producers access to such a big cut of digital consumers. That and their supposedly having bought similar hosting services out to prevent producers from selling through other venues. That said, I like do like them and their policy as a company, so I'm kinda uninvested. Also, as hedgehobbit has reminded us, I guess not all digital games are computer games.

Regarding thread necromancy on this site, what is normally considered the grace period after which a thread should not be disturbed, so to speak? I guess 5 months, now that I look at it, was admittedly a bit much. It was still on the front page, so I didn't really bother to check the dates. I'll admit that was my bad.
Title: Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 24, 2022, 11:18:43 AM
So, I guess Steam does have a pretty large market share of games sold digitally or whatever. Apparently it was facing a lawsuit not too long ago for being potentially a monopoly or at least big/potentially buying out competitors. Though I don't know how legitimate this lawsuit is. https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/judge-approves-wolfires-antitrust-lawsuit-against-valve-over-steam-monopoly/  That said, I'm kind of interested in knowing what folks here think about primarily digital/digital sales based corporations and whether some have gotten a bit too large proportionally. I kind of like and trust Steam, personally, given that it allows pretty much any game that is legal to have itself sold. Much though that means things I don't agree with will be sold, I appreciate consumers having the choice and cultural dialogue not being suppressed. But that doesn't necessarily mean regulation is amiss in that whole digital sales area, I guess, and if it had banned any games or has banned users on the basis of politics or speech, I would probably change my tune a bit as regards innate trust.
Thread necromancy, ahoy!

Honestly, I don't see how Steam falls under a monopoly, and I'm not sure antitrust regulations are applicable. Valve has done very little in the way of actual game releases beyond HL:Alyx.

If Wolfire doesn't like dealing with Steam, they can always move to Epic Games Store.

Fair enough, I guess. I had kinda forgotten about Epic Games, and I guess that shows they have at least one competitor. There are probably more out there, though I haven't really heard of them. I think the argument was less about monopoly on game production, and more control of the market on digital computer game sales, of which they get a non-negligible cut, when they could theoretically deny computer game producers access to such a big cut of digital consumers. That and their supposedly having bought similar hosting services out to prevent producers from selling through other venues. That said, I like do like them and their policy as a company, so I'm kinda uninvested. Also, as hedgehobbit has reminded us, I guess not all digital games are computer games.

Regarding thread necromancy on this site, what is normally considered the grace period after which a thread should not be disturbed, so to speak? I guess 5 months, now that I look at it, was admittedly a bit much. It was still on the front page, so I didn't really bother to check the dates. I'll admit that was my bad.
I was teasing about the thread necromancy, man. Relax.

In any case, the problems that EGS has (or at least had) included an atrocious UI, it was thought to be heavily backed by Chinese money (via Tencent) and possibly insecure, and the guys running it kept going around throwing cash at people to make their games EGS-exclusive for at least limited times (which really pissed off people who had paid for preorders).

But DeadVerySoon was so butthurt you'd think Gabe Newell personally came to his house and shit on his lawn.
Title: Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
Post by: KindaMeh on June 24, 2022, 11:27:04 AM
So, I guess Steam does have a pretty large market share of games sold digitally or whatever. Apparently it was facing a lawsuit not too long ago for being potentially a monopoly or at least big/potentially buying out competitors. Though I don't know how legitimate this lawsuit is. https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/judge-approves-wolfires-antitrust-lawsuit-against-valve-over-steam-monopoly/  That said, I'm kind of interested in knowing what folks here think about primarily digital/digital sales based corporations and whether some have gotten a bit too large proportionally. I kind of like and trust Steam, personally, given that it allows pretty much any game that is legal to have itself sold. Much though that means things I don't agree with will be sold, I appreciate consumers having the choice and cultural dialogue not being suppressed. But that doesn't necessarily mean regulation is amiss in that whole digital sales area, I guess, and if it had banned any games or has banned users on the basis of politics or speech, I would probably change my tune a bit as regards innate trust.
Thread necromancy, ahoy!

Honestly, I don't see how Steam falls under a monopoly, and I'm not sure antitrust regulations are applicable. Valve has done very little in the way of actual game releases beyond HL:Alyx.

If Wolfire doesn't like dealing with Steam, they can always move to Epic Games Store.

Fair enough, I guess. I had kinda forgotten about Epic Games, and I guess that shows they have at least one competitor. There are probably more out there, though I haven't really heard of them. I think the argument was less about monopoly on game production, and more control of the market on digital computer game sales, of which they get a non-negligible cut, when they could theoretically deny computer game producers access to such a big cut of digital consumers. That and their supposedly having bought similar hosting services out to prevent producers from selling through other venues. That said, I like do like them and their policy as a company, so I'm kinda uninvested. Also, as hedgehobbit has reminded us, I guess not all digital games are computer games.

Regarding thread necromancy on this site, what is normally considered the grace period after which a thread should not be disturbed, so to speak? I guess 5 months, now that I look at it, was admittedly a bit much. It was still on the front page, so I didn't really bother to check the dates. I'll admit that was my bad.
I was teasing about the thread necromancy, man. Relax.

In any case, the problems that EGS has (or at least had) included an atrocious UI, it was thought to be heavily backed by Chinese money (via Tencent) and possibly insecure, and the guys running it kept going around throwing cash at people to make their games EGS-exclusive for at least limited times (which really pissed off people who had paid for preorders).

But DeadVerySoon was so butthurt you'd think Gabe Newell personally came to his house and shit on his lawn.

Ah. Sorry, have been on sites where that's actually an offense. Spooked me there.

Not that I would approve of lapdogs to the CCP, outright scams or attempts to weaken a consumer's cybersecurity, but failing something actually illegal or secretly super hazardous to a consumer's health in a manner they wouldn't reasonably predict, I kinda feel caveat emptor. Steam is probably doing the right thing letting companies publish things that sometimes rip people off, because to some extent a ripoff is subjective. I've had games that were never completed and more or less mocked me for buying them in-game, and I just considered it a risk that was worth taking and a legit positive experience. Which was weird, because they made it pretty clear in-game the game was a ripoff in later updates, but hey, different tastes and shit.