Mechanical complexity as in the amount of stuff to learn to “actually play” Minecraft, aside from the controls. For example, which resources are which, what crafts into what, and how to find and gather everything. Its easy enough to punch wood, but trying to figure out (and then remember) how to craft tools or farm food while also trying to remember how to position your fingers on the keyboard is a much bigger ask.
Its going to be a lot harder to play Deep Rock Galactic or Portal 2 together if she sticks with her current perfered movement method: click and drag with the mouse.
Physical copies are kinda besides the point in terms of ownership and preservation. Just because you own the disk, doesn’t mean you have access to the software on it. DRM, as well as the laws that make it viable, have been around since well before media was sold digitally. Physical copies of the Crew are no more playable now than digital. If you want to be able to keep your games, you need to buy DRM-free, whether that limits you to digital-only or not.
On the other hand, if you want to actually own your games, we need to massively rework copyright law. The fact that a company can sell you a software licence, but add dozens of arbitrary restrictions on when, how and why you can use it is absurd, nonetheless the fact that its always non-transferable and revokable by the company for any reason. None of that should be legal.
The main thing is post more. Lack of content is the main reason people don’t use Lemmy more, and the only way to fix this is to share/produce more.
Its a bit of an unpopular opinion, but I think even (transparent, community-relevant) bots are a good idea at this point, given that 99% of interests have little to no activity currently. For example, if we had bots that post game update changelogs to their relevant communities, it would at least provide a baseline amount of content and make it easier to discuss for fans of those games.
From what I’ve heard, its mostly people expecting the game to be more dynamic - more akin to Skyrim’s varied gameplay systems or Fallout: NV’s story and quests. They’re going in expecting something with heavy RPG focus and getting something more action focused.
That and its addition to gamepass. They’re just free, themed reskins. Nothing major, buts its extra free content for an already good game.
The disbling of lifesteal on Bristleback’s Bristleback feels like it destroys him as a hero. I have no idea how you’d make a viable core build for him now.
I was kinda suprised too. I know someone else was saying they’re popular in developing nations, because of better regional pricing, although I can’t confirm that. I also know that they were a popular choice for crypto grifts and similar shady and scammy games, since they had less moderation than Steam, so its possible some of the income also comes from stuff like that.
In comparison, spending on third-party titles declined by 18% to $255 million
Some key context from the article.
Basically, profit from Fortnite increased significantly, although the store itself isn’t doing great.
Given that its $255 million in customer spending, not revenue or profits, and Epic reportedly takes only 12% plus reduced fees on Unreal Engine effectively lowering it further, I can’t imagine its profitable. If we assume 10%, that leaves revenue of $25.5 mil, which doesn’t seem like it’d be anywhere near enough to cover exclusivity deals, and giveaways, nonetheless infrastructure and other factors.
Looks like the general consensus is that its not terrible, but is unfinished and not at all worth the price.
If you’re looking to get into Civ, I’d probably recommend either five for a more complete, and polished game, or six for a weirder and more experimental game.
I mean, the information was published. People could have shared it more if they cared. Most users don’t. Just look at the backlash he got for comparing ad block’s impact to that of piracy. I still see people citing that as a reason not to trust LMG. If people are that offended by being asked to consider the effects they have on creator income, you really think they’d react well to being told their discounts are hurting creators. They’re already seen as whiney, pro-corporate shills. They’re not going to go out of their way to shout from the rooftops criticism for a company that helps consumers (or was thought to at the time).
Edit: to be clear, I’m not a fan of LTT, but if you’re going to criticize them, do it for their bias, factual errors, personality, ect. Not because they didn’t go far enough to discourage using coupon codes.
The obvious answer is the other two casual classics: Space Cadet Pinball and Minesweeper. Possibly also some of the classic board games like Chess, or Go.
A “profit all the things” CEO would be running the casino themselves. IE: Many of the big mobile games. Hell, I don’t play many modern triple-A titles, but it sounds like they’ve largely gone that route too.
Basically, Valve’s game, Counter Strike sells cosmetics for the game. They can be bought from through in-game lootboxes (a form of gambling itself, but not what’s being refrenced here) or, notably, from other players in an open market. Valve provides the infrastructure for managing this, but doesn’t charge players for its use or otherwise moderate it. For a comparison, when NFTs were popular and people were saying it was already a solved problem with fewer issues, markets like what Valve set up for Counter-Strike cosmetics were the existing, non-blockchain version.
Ultimately, as this is an open market, with free trading, this has significant benifits and significant downsides. On one hand, I can buy hundreds of $0.02 skins to use in the game without every touching the $3 lootboxes, or can trade items with friends or other players. On the other hand, this is an largely unregulated market. Valve controls the “wallets” but doesn’t have direct say over trade negotiations, and governments are either ignorant or intentionally looking away. This means scams, money launderers and illeagal or sketchy casinos can use Counter Strike Cosmetics as a currency or intermediary without having to fear oversight or law enforcement.
These casinos are the gambling being refered to here. Because they have have effectively no oversight, they can use every scheme in the book to abuse their players from rigging results, to ignoring normal casino legal payout rates, to advertising to children, to using bureaucracy to make receaving payouts as slow and difficult as possible. The casions advertise aggressively and are able to make millions and millions off this.
The reason Counter Strike, and to a lesser extent DotA benifit from this is because the items being used in this, are cosmetics in their games. As the only practical way to use these cosmetics (besides selling them) is in-game this encourages players to play the game. For example, if a player wins a jackpot in the casino, they might play a round of Counter Strike to show off their valuable new cosmetic item before the sell it. This adds to the games population and acts to advertising the costmetics in-game.
But why not just have the people who can pay reparations, can punish those running illegal casinos, and can do it without catching others in the crossfire do it?
It absolutely still can, but its not quite as enticing. For example, you open a lootbox, get all the slot machine animations (usually with misleading visuals to play up your odds) and then a glowing red “legendary” item. You don’t know how much its worth without looking it up, but you do still get the risk and payoff regardless. Even if you can’t resell if, it can still be enough for people to get addicted to. If anything, its worse in a lot of new ways because its usually harder to avoid (Ie, mobile or sports games where lootboxes are needed to play the game) and can’t be cashed out. The sunk cost without any way to cash out is often an intentional decision to to help keep users (esspecially those gambling) from leaving. You can see this esspecially in games that go to great lengths to show you your “earnings” at every turn. They’re known as anchor purchases if I remeber right.
I know, I was more expanding on your comment mocking the prevelence and acceptance of gambling by the industry as whole. That said, quite a few other the others do have external markets for selling accounts, often with rare items (from lootbox gambling) being a major factor in the value. I know my War Thunder account is worth well over a grand at this point, for example, because of some of the rare drops I have on it.
And the dark non-secret is that them and basically all the other top-grossing multiplayer games on the list are there because gambling is also their primary source of income.
What competition has such a rich gambling scene though. No other game I am aware of (Maybe TF2 but, still valve)
Most mobile games? Apex? Overwatch? Keep in mind, a lot of the CS gambling happens off-platform and Valve doesn’t collect any direct revenue from it, which is why Valve can’t directly intervene in a lot of it.
Age verification on the marketplace transactions is the more likely scenario, and again, no other game I know of has as much of a gambling community so I don’t really get why other publishers would leave if it doesn’t effect them.
This argument is specifically in the context of lootboxes as gambling on Steam. Think how much people will spend in lootboxes on your average free to play game. If they aren’t allowed to do this on Steam, games like Apex, CoD, PUBG, War Thunder, ect. won’t stay on Steam.
Ultimately, I think you’re missing the point of coffeezillas video, which is that a lot of people who were in the skin gambling community are actively or, started in it, as a minor. You are here trying to find all of these excuses for valve not to be held accountable for facilitating gambling to a minor.
This is exactly my point about Coffee’s argument being muddled in this video, making it hard to discuss. There are three parallel problem here that the video combines into one: third-party casinos, CS lootboxes, and lootboxes in the industry in general.
In terms of Valve shutting down illegal/third party casinos, they don’t have the means to impact this without also shutting down the entire market for everyone, innocent or guilty. Why should I, as someone who has never even bought a lootbox, nonetheless run an illegal casino be punished for their actions. Even then, casino owners aren’t held responsible, they’re just stopped. On the other hand, with government intervention, no one is caught in the crossfire and casino owners could actually be held responsible for their actions with fines or worse. Why wouldn’t this be the better option?
In terms of Valve selling lootboxes themselves, yes its immoral, but as Coffee said about the casinos, they’re competiting with other products doing the same and you can’t reasonably expect one side to just role over and accept their loss. Instead, you need to change the system so neither side can use tactics like this. Instead of asking Valve to regulate themselves, and expecting their competition to do the same, you change the law (or just actually enforce it) to ensure that noone gets away with it.
Excluding email, nope. Seeing as no one else in my friend group uses Federated services, and they’re all still too small to cover most niches, there isn’t really anything for me.