Gog, Steam, Origin, Uplay, Battle.net, whatever the heck Bethesda calls theirs and now Epic's. If I got less DRM (especially Denuvo, which has been shown to kill frame times) or better prices maybe. But so far it's just more logins and more hassle. At least with Gog I can save the games to a DVD and be done with it.
Buddy this happened 20 years ago, when everyone bought Ultima online, Everquest, Wow and guild wars (server locked RPG's) you all sent amessage to the industry saying you're stupid and you'll take it up the ass.
As soon as steam became a thing in 2004 it was over, when developers server locked games and stopped releasing server exe's and level editors it was over. Companies always wanted to get rid of game ownership and take control of software out of users hands and gamers gave it to them. Everyone lines up to bend over for the latest release of GTA or feed mtx money to Dota 2 or subscription money to wow.
That had major consequences - the industry knows you're willing to take it up the ass, so that's why all these stores exist. Because you fell for the original scam game - the mmo. Back in the 90's CEO's of game companies wanted to get gamers to pay more money for the same PC RPG game, so they invented the mmo moniker to server lock all PC RPG's in development and then charge a monthly subscription for them.
Actually, that's about right when I look at my own history of computing in my family it was Civ 1 on a 286/386. My first PC was a 486. Most people buying computers back then were not savvy, people started to get savvy around 486/Pentium days (largely thanks to their tech dads or their kids) then it was a relentless march of CPU doubling their processsor power until 2006 when they hit the heat/leakage wall and then speedups came very slow and incrementally since most software is still single threaded.
What is bugging the hell out of the mainstream media.
The rich and upper class don't like the peasants like us to have access to information not approved by corproate pravda, see here, former national security advisor of the united states... we are the 'central global menace' he's talking about.
>when valve inserted the patch to take control of and steal half-life and CS and 2004
Are you really alleging that they stole not only their own game, but the whole year of 2004?
You don't seem to get that these games were sold as products, not services. AKA it was a breach of contract, and you're one of those idiots who beleive IP law is not totally corrupt. If you buy a piece of software you should own it. You come off as seriously uneducated about how your world actually works and how corrupt the world is.
Most apps are complete shit whose sole purpose is to track you, show you ads, and sell the information about you.
If I install an app (very rare these days), if it asks for my contacts and my location information, I uninstall it.
The problem is every big company does this, think about PC games in the 90's vs now, when valve inserted the patch to take control of and steal half-life and CS and 2004. The reality is the internet has put an end to "the market" aka the private power model of western civilization is at odds with privacy and civil rights because the informed members of the public cannot protect themselves from these attacks, these companies control the infrastructure of society. What are you going to do when billion dollar mega corporation releases the new GTA online and because the game is targetted at kids, and those kids are computer illiterate, are going to buy a bugged piece of software that they don't own which is run from servers in Rockstars office? It's much too late young padawan.
Or now that microsoft has released "windows 10" as a service? We would need portal technology or ideological changes, because the only way you could modify the behavior of these companies is if you were physically two blocks away from their offices so theres a genuine fear from the customers storming your offices. You have no power in this relationship, the balance of power is all in favor of those who own the producive capacities of society because technology has overwhelmed any ability to hold them accountable, they can just run roughshod over the indebted masses with impunity.
The milton friedmanite idea we are "free to choose" is naive, the human mind did not evolve to perceive reality (see religion) nor make rational decisions in a high tech free market capitalist society.
Man gamers today are dumb, the reason everyone is going with clients is they want that microtransaction money, as soon as everyone fell for the mmo scam 20 years ago setup by CEO's and game devs, I watched as regular PC rpg's in development were reballebed mmo's and given a server lock and a subscription. As soon as gamers were dumb enough to pay for games they didn't own and ran from someone elses computer, you all encouraged all this by falling all over yourselfs to give money to games you didn't own.
Of course they want launchers, their own online drm platform that allows what valve newell did - to steal the fucking game, run it from a server in his office and collect MTX. Up until the late 90's mid 2000's we owned and controlled all the files of our games outright for most games because internet penetration had not yet fully reached the idiot masses of the globe.
As soon as UO, Everquest and World of warcraft were things, all the rest became inevitable, people kept allowing companies to scam them and steal game software, kept buying locked drm'd game with 'in game stores', mtx and 'in game economies', all encouraging them to further double down on undermining game ownership.
So yeah, the reason why big companies like epic want off steam nad their own launcher/drm, is because idiots and kids kept feeding money to microtransactions inside games they didn't own. Watching the the small 3% of huge spenders from rich, stupid and impulsive gambling types of gamers enable corporations to steal fucking PC games was pretty alarming.
So yeah everyone fell for the scam because they are not very bright and tech illiterate, to watch people on slashdot who claim to be nerds support steam or mmo's was prettty disturbing, proving even nerds are not immune to being fucking stupid and not seeing the forest from the tree's. The whole goal since the 90's for silicon vallley, of which the game industry is a part, was to remove software ownership and take control of users PC's and turn them into dumb terminals for profit. Smartphones, kids mmo's were part of the big push to lock down software inside corporate offices. Once companies had control of the software now they are home free.
They can now do anything they want to the software because people fell upon their own swords giving up ownership rights because they are not very bright. To over the last 20 years, big companies steal videogame software from a gullible lay public and the public just lapping it up was prettty surreal for a nerd who grew up in the 80's and 90's. We used to get Server exe's and level editors and programming sdk's with AAA Games. The fact we have lootboxes and microtransactions and mmo's is proof the average gamer is a fucking moron.
Redundancy which, frustrating though this may be to some, makes things better, not worse.
See Soviet era stores vs. American stores of the same era.
Whoever voted this insightful was clueless, the reality is there is no competition in the games market because gamers are grade A fucking stupid about how computers work. As someone who grew up playing Warcraft 2 and descent over Kali/Kahn, you have no fucking idea what you are talking about.
The reality is the modern videogame industry is not a market, its a god damn shit show if idiot kids being raped and games having been literally stolen and destroyed because the average gamer is ill educated and dumb as fuck as slashdot is clearly demonstrating. Gaming has been a market for lemons since the 90's with ultima online when the powers that be learned that gamers are stupid enough to give up ownership of PC games via simply relabelling games mmo's putting a server lock on them and charging a subscription.
With that came the end of the games market, you can't have a market when companies own and control the software because now they got you over a barrel and can extort money from you because you gaveup your rights to own the software you were buying, thereby making it a non market organization.
Let us remember it was Valve who launched DRM into a game we had full control over (half life) with server exe's, level editors and sdk's... then they went and dialed all that back as steam became popular with a new generation of computer illiterate kids.
People who believe billion dollar mega corps who have a lock on human culture who now own the game software outright are 'competing' on price are delusional since the average consumer is downright subhuman in their purchasing decisions and their inability to see how they are being robbed - microtransactions, lootboxes, day one DLC, MMO's, steam, all that is a sign of a consumer culture that has no functioning brain.
In a real market customers are informed, the game market is anything but a functioning market.
I truly think we are starting to see the edge of an education bubble. For many years, high school pushed college so hard people got worthless degrees that did nothing to prepare them for the job market.
I'm sorry to tell ya but the education system is there to maintain the class system and give the illusion that you live in a meritocratic society, the fact that you'd mouth talking points without any kind of evidence at all speaks volumes about the average american. The "job market" is just a bunch of big corporations and small businesses and they are always looking for ways to fuck people who work for them.
... is unstructured. When you put an 'algorithm' in a game it has no awareness to make discoveries about goals and motivations, take the idea of them mentioning one of their algorithms not being able to get out of the first room...
Now think of what that means, your AI has no sense of when to move on because it doesn't realize there's nothing interesting going on in the space it finds itself. When goals don't exist or are unstructured you basically have to invent goals, aka come to the realization your wasting time and resources in a space that isn't interesting. Instead of making an algorithm to go through a game, they should basically automate the navigation and come up with algorithms that can come up with goals on it's own when there is no stated goal, aka it should be able to seperate areas of interest from areas of disinterest and then from there use those to come up with goals.
Many of the algorithms when I read about them don't sound very interesting because the problem with the real world is that tasks are unstructured and you usually have to do a lot of "legwork" first before you can even infer a goal or come up with a task.
AKA there really needs to be algoritms that come up with sense making of an environment when that environment has no particular 'end state'. Imagine an open world game where there are tasks and activities to do, but there's no 'finish' line. To take an example, say you got fishing minigame, you can drive around town, etc. The AI should come up with a way to discover or generate interest and goals for itself when the world is simply unstructured.
The closest thing the US has to this social credit score is a criminal record.
It goes way beyond that, the US government can simply get what it wants because it is already in bed with big business. Business is already screening you out of many things behind "employment screening services". Many of these companies also have other names you wouldn't recognize, if you don't think you're already being watched all the time by companies who's sole purpose is to profit and minimize risk, I got a bridge I want to sell ya.
It's about the final move to take control of the customers PC out of the users hand and move all apps into authenticated spaces controlled my corporations. Big companies like Apple and Google pioneered app walled gardens behind their smart phones over the last 10 years, and the the videogame gaming industry, being tech companies, have always wanted to take control of software out of the end users hands for profit.
The internet allowed all this to happen because the average citizen is a tech illiterate moron. The last 20 years for anyone who was involved in tech in the 90's has been surreal, everything we were worried about in the 90's like trusted computing is slowly coming fruition due to ignorant people getting smart phones and the internet removing any and all ability to hold software companies accountable.
What are you going to do when Microsoft, Valve, or Activivison develop some new locked down piece of software? You are hundreds of miles away from these companies, you have ZERO market power in this relationship. In ye old days, they were forced to give you the complete software, otherwise they would be comitting fraud. "software as a service" is really just another name for fraud where companies undermine your ability to own, control, and operate your PC and software free from company influence.
All companies want to turn every piece of tech into a dumb terminal and they are largely getting their way because 90% of the population is tech clueless, those of us who know how technology works, were pretty horrified when say RPG's like ultima were rebadged and labelled mmo's in the 90's and a gullible and lay public lapped it up. Things like Ultima online, EQ, world of warcraft were paving the way towards an era where companies can steal whatever isn't nailed down outright because the average person is a moron.
You have no freedom and rights under big business because many aspects of how we are socially organized would need to be rethought in an internet enabled society, there's no accountability, it's just a one way fuck you free for all and companies are making mad bank.
How is us being able to not repair or preserve our videogames in the public interest? Little shits like you have been piggybacking on corporate money for a long time. We essentially have eternal copyrights where nothing goes public domain.
GP was agreeing with you by saying that the whole purpose of extending those copyrights is to let people continue to squeeze out the last drops of value to the detriment of the public.
Sorry about that, I misread your post or was replying to someone else.
It's that last part I have a problem with - how is that in society's best interest?
How is us being able to not repair or preserve our videogames in the public interest? Little shits like you have been piggybacking on corporate money for a long time. We essentially have eternal copyrights where nothing goes public domain.
Copyright law has been extended 5 times in favor of "value creators" over the public interest every time, arguments like yours fall on deaf ears because corporations own our governments.
IP law was created to incentivize you to produce works that are accessable to the public to enjoy, not for you to build a feudal empire which is what modern IP law amounts to.
If rule of law existed and sane IP laws were in effect, games would be going open source 12-20 years after they were made and Nintendo's little lawsuit wouldn't even exist because Mario and other old games had fallen into the public domain.
The fact that we don't get source code for PC games that we've all bought is also a big pisser, which is why we have to resort to revese engineering and emulation, if we'd gotten the source code with the games we were paying for every game that has been created for PC would not need an emulator and could be enhanced and updated. The reality is the public is too stupid to understand technology or IP which is why IP law is so corrupt to begin with. The average citizen in capitalist society is a moron which is why human cultural works like videogames are broken and being destroyed by big companies in their eternal quest to prevent any and all culture from ever slipping into public hands.
People like you should go read Lessigs book "Free culture". The big plan is for corps and the 1% to have a monopoly on all human culture.
Eventually though, investors will realize this is just a load of shit. Just make good games and you'll get showered with money.
Not so young padawan, CEO's have discovered the ultimate "3%" via locked down games and gacha/gambling mobile games. They want to bring that to all games. Mobile is making profits that is on route to eclipse the entire PC and Console game market combined because of the locked down nature of smart phones and the fact they've put gambling interface on it for the super rich, super stupid, and super impulsive. That 3% is what game companies are now after.
There was just a story here about Rockstar having the largest weekend haul with their new game
Rockstar has drm out the wazoo and who's game is fully drm'd for shark cards, which is why they were threatening hackers. They want those mtx and gambling money badly. Same with epic and fortnite. Now they are fully incentivized never to give you the game you are paying for ever again.
As I sit here 4 or 5 days in my Windows 10 Professional version, bought, paid for, came on high end laptop from day one, is indicating that it is not a valid license and that I need to activate it.
Are they promising lower quality?
It's what you deserve for buying an OS with online drm. That's why many of us stuck to windows 7 and have any W10 copy we have we may need for other purposes quarantined on it's own machine.
It could also be argued that the internet changed the relationship because stealing/copying/sharing/whatever became trivial worldwide instead of exchanging physical media with your local buddies like the olden days.
Look at both sides of the internet changing the dynamic.
Except before high speed internet everywhere companies did not have the ability to shut off or break the game you are paying for, aka quake 3 can't be broken by a game company because it's a complete game. Where as most modern games require a server in order to function. That's where the theft/stealing comes in on behalf of game companies. Your game only exists by fiat of corporate CEO's.
If you don't like online games, don't play online games then. If you prefer the good old games you own - do like me, and play them! What is the obsession with having "new" games every year?
You don't seem to understand the agenda, the agenda for the corporate world is to get rid of game ownership entirely. Quake 3 is an "online game" but you own and control it, it has dedicated server that comes with the game and tools to edit levels, Quake champions is an "online game" except the company owns and controls the software, meaning you get jack shit. They simply prevent you from controlling the software by coding it in a hostile way and hopign people are stupid enough to pay for microtransactions.
... the reason Denuvo is even possible is because the internet fundamentally alterated the relationship between PC game buyer and PC game seller. Developers and publishers have all the power now since customers are 100's of miles away and can't simply storm their offices and force the drm and evil server locks out of their AAA games. High speed internet was the biggest cheat code ever granted to game companies by the laws of our universe. Once they make a game they can just keep it on their servers while giving you only half the game you paid for, while giving you the big shit sandwitch.
The tech industries (and hence game industry) eternal quest was to get rid of software ownership and to take control of the customers PC/software to exploit them for profits. They've been doing a remarkable job and this all began with Ultima RPG's on the PC back in the 90's, they rebadged RPG's as mmo's to get a gullible gaming public to pay monthly for the same fucking game because they know the public is stupid and illiterate as fuck.
Denuvo, mmo's and steam could only exist in a world where the average person is bumfuck retard level stupid in the head. All the cool things we used to get in the 90's like QeRadiant for quake and level editors have been dialed back completely because, the worlds technology illiterate got locked down smart phones and high speed internet.
That enabled companis to put gambling interfaces into software and reach the 3% of the population that is, the super rich, the super dumb and super impulsive. Let's remember League of legends model has a conversion rate of less than 3%, so that means most gamers aren't stupid enough to hand Riot money. The same thing you see on Mobile games where these mobile games have a gambing/gacha interface. THe internet allowed game companies to simply keep the software and disposess the public from owning and controlling the software so they can just exploit the 3% willy nilly and make super profits.
Watching this all go down for 20 years was pretty alarming, I never thought the camel getting it's nose into the tend would mean the entire game industry would clean up 20 years later because of locked down smart phones gave the access to the global population with too much money and people with impulse control problems, allowing game companies to be incentivized to never give people the full software they are paying for ever again.
We don't actually have a conservative party anymore. We have two crony capitalist parties with opposing views on a few social issues, to keep the masses from realizing they're really just fangirling over which set of rich people get richer.
Except there is no such thing as a non crony capitalist society, you guys are fed so much pro corproate propaganda you never check to see whether your society works as advertise. There has never been a time your government has worked for you, there was a brief moment after the great depression but after that, the rich got mad and went to claw back all working peoples gains and you all fell for it.
Here are billions of dollars in energy subsidies, aka when politicians are saying social services need to be cut, they are speaking out both sides of their mouths because they know most people don't look at what companies are getting free handouts from subsidies.
It's really the war between PC users, pirates and developers that has lead things to where they are now.
No it's because the internet allowed companies to steal PC game software, before the internet existed they couldn't literally steal the game or keep part of the software hostage on their computers, they had to give you the entire thing you paid for. The internet radically undermined customer power and gave it all to companies so they could just keep the fucking software. So no it's total theft.
I suggest you read what lawrence lessig has written about the corporate agenda of the copyright mafia.
"Stop liking things i don't like!" is how your comment reads basically.
Your comment reads "I'm a moron that bent over for corporations, and now games have literally been stolen and taken hostage, I'll get to pay more money for less game. I'm so savvy, l get to have lootboxes that only give me A CHANCE to reveal SKINS, that are ALREADY ON MY COMPUTER, and that I ALREADY PAID FOR, in a FULL PRICED GAME. Also because I'm such a fucking moron I'll grind out the skins even though they are ALREADY IN THE GAME I PAID FULL PRICE FOR.
Continue to think I'm "just an old man" crying "get off my lawn". When all your favorite games disappear in 20 years and you want to play them and they are now thrown in the garbage you'll only have yourself to blame for your own idiocy.
The reality is the entire industry now that it has you as it's customer is moving all future software onto computers inside their offices where you have exactly zero control over the game. Shitty gameplay mechanics are being inserted into games now that they've taken control of the software, you get to pay "tribute" or extra, on top full price.
The whole thing is a fucking scam enabled by mass stupidity. Gaming when it hit the mainstream attracted the stupid and technologically illiterate, that is why these exploitive dick practices exist. The market is not a self correcting phenomenon. If that were the case mmo's (the original scam game) would have never got off the ground since it was the original trial balloon to see how stupid the gaming masses were, to get you to pay multiple times for the same game over and over instead of just once.
The attack on game ownership began with ultima series back in the 90's as all PC rpg's in development were relabelled mmo's and moved over to server locked pieces of software
While I agree with 90% of what you wrote you are omitting a key critical bit of information:
Your "critical bit of information" IS the propaganda, they took the "single player" PC RPG, and rebranded it mmo, also note that Baldurs gate had multiplayer and single player inside the same RPG, don't tell me "it's different", the whole point of corporate PR is to manipulate you for profits. That was the whole point of the MMO scam that stupid people like you fell for. That's why PC RPG's in development suddenly were rebadged "mmo's", it was the biggest scam in all of gaming and gamers lapped it up because they are not very bright. Notice we live in a fucking dystopia today where every game under the sun is being rebadged a service because of the rise of microtransactions. League of legends and DOTA 2 would have been totally owned games like Warcraft 3 if not for the rise of idiots giving money to skins in games they don't own, no level editors, no ownership. Look at what happened to Team fortress in the 90's vs Team fortress 2. All that is because gamers being idiots started giving money to games totally owned and controlled on someone elses machine. Now they got everything and are going to sheer the sheep.
The company controls the game, that's exactly what happened to every fucking property all our favorite properties from the 90's are now in the hands of giant mega corporations on servers in their offices and they tell you whether you can access or evne play your game, you need fucking permission from a machine 100 miles away to play a game you paid for. All because gamers are stupid.
Don't think so? Diablo 2 vs diablo 3, diablo 2 we totally controlled, diablo 3 we don't. Quake 3 vs quake champions.
The whole mmo scam was to normalize non game ownership you were fooled by PR specialists and PHD's in neuroscientists to change public opinion regarding game ownership . The wet dream for the tech industry (of which the game industry was a part) was to undermine legally and otherwise the ability of people to control their machines and software. Which they've gotten in spades.
AKA "Games as services" are just the same thing that happened with PC rpg's --> Normal PC rpg;s become "MMO's", just as Assasins creed became a "live service".
The fact that you all fall for this languge shell game is proof positive our species is easy to manipulate.
Slashdot Mirror
Gog, Steam, Origin, Uplay, Battle.net, whatever the heck Bethesda calls theirs and now Epic's. If I got less DRM (especially Denuvo, which has been shown to kill frame times) or better prices maybe. But so far it's just more logins and more hassle. At least with Gog I can save the games to a DVD and be done with it.
Buddy this happened 20 years ago, when everyone bought Ultima online, Everquest, Wow and guild wars (server locked RPG's) you all sent amessage to the industry saying you're stupid and you'll take it up the ass.
As soon as steam became a thing in 2004 it was over, when developers server locked games and stopped releasing server exe's and level editors it was over. Companies always wanted to get rid of game ownership and take control of software out of users hands and gamers gave it to them. Everyone lines up to bend over for the latest release of GTA or feed mtx money to Dota 2 or subscription money to wow.
That had major consequences - the industry knows you're willing to take it up the ass, so that's why all these stores exist. Because you fell for the original scam game - the mmo. Back in the 90's CEO's of game companies wanted to get gamers to pay more money for the same PC RPG game, so they invented the mmo moniker to server lock all PC RPG's in development and then charge a monthly subscription for them.
I don't think this is true.
Actually, that's about right when I look at my own history of computing in my family it was Civ 1 on a 286/386. My first PC was a 486. Most people buying computers back then were not savvy, people started to get savvy around 486/Pentium days (largely thanks to their tech dads or their kids) then it was a relentless march of CPU doubling their processsor power until 2006 when they hit the heat/leakage wall and then speedups came very slow and incrementally since most software is still single threaded.
... what corporations have been doing to us via lobbying and inserting defects into software like games and OS's and calling them a "service".
The reality is out world is a hive of criminal and villainy and most people are too stupid to notice or do something about it.
What is bugging the hell out of the mainstream media.
The rich and upper class don't like the peasants like us to have access to information not approved by corproate pravda, see here, former national security advisor of the united states... we are the 'central global menace' he's talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Zbig:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
>when valve inserted the patch to take control of and steal half-life and CS and 2004
Are you really alleging that they stole not only their own game, but the whole year of 2004?
You don't seem to get that these games were sold as products, not services. AKA it was a breach of contract, and you're one of those idiots who beleive IP law is not totally corrupt. If you buy a piece of software you should own it. You come off as seriously uneducated about how your world actually works and how corrupt the world is.
Most apps are complete shit whose sole purpose is to track you, show you ads, and sell the information about you.
If I install an app (very rare these days), if it asks for my contacts and my location information, I uninstall it.
The problem is every big company does this, think about PC games in the 90's vs now, when valve inserted the patch to take control of and steal half-life and CS and 2004. The reality is the internet has put an end to "the market" aka the private power model of western civilization is at odds with privacy and civil rights because the informed members of the public cannot protect themselves from these attacks, these companies control the infrastructure of society. What are you going to do when billion dollar mega corporation releases the new GTA online and because the game is targetted at kids, and those kids are computer illiterate, are going to buy a bugged piece of software that they don't own which is run from servers in Rockstars office? It's much too late young padawan.
Or now that microsoft has released "windows 10" as a service? We would need portal technology or ideological changes, because the only way you could modify the behavior of these companies is if you were physically two blocks away from their offices so theres a genuine fear from the customers storming your offices. You have no power in this relationship, the balance of power is all in favor of those who own the producive capacities of society because technology has overwhelmed any ability to hold them accountable, they can just run roughshod over the indebted masses with impunity.
The milton friedmanite idea we are "free to choose" is naive, the human mind did not evolve to perceive reality (see religion) nor make rational decisions in a high tech free market capitalist society.
Steam is tolerable because of the details view.
Man gamers today are dumb, the reason everyone is going with clients is they want that microtransaction money, as soon as everyone fell for the mmo scam 20 years ago setup by CEO's and game devs, I watched as regular PC rpg's in development were reballebed mmo's and given a server lock and a subscription. As soon as gamers were dumb enough to pay for games they didn't own and ran from someone elses computer, you all encouraged all this by falling all over yourselfs to give money to games you didn't own.
Of course they want launchers, their own online drm platform that allows what valve newell did - to steal the fucking game, run it from a server in his office and collect MTX. Up until the late 90's mid 2000's we owned and controlled all the files of our games outright for most games because internet penetration had not yet fully reached the idiot masses of the globe.
As soon as UO, Everquest and World of warcraft were things, all the rest became inevitable, people kept allowing companies to scam them and steal game software, kept buying locked drm'd game with 'in game stores', mtx and 'in game economies', all encouraging them to further double down on undermining game ownership.
So yeah, the reason why big companies like epic want off steam nad their own launcher/drm, is because idiots and kids kept feeding money to microtransactions inside games they didn't own. Watching the the small 3% of huge spenders from rich, stupid and impulsive gambling types of gamers enable corporations to steal fucking PC games was pretty alarming.
So yeah everyone fell for the scam because they are not very bright and tech illiterate, to watch people on slashdot who claim to be nerds support steam or mmo's was prettty disturbing, proving even nerds are not immune to being fucking stupid and not seeing the forest from the tree's. The whole goal since the 90's for silicon vallley, of which the game industry is a part, was to remove software ownership and take control of users PC's and turn them into dumb terminals for profit. Smartphones, kids mmo's were part of the big push to lock down software inside corporate offices. Once companies had control of the software now they are home free.
They can now do anything they want to the software because people fell upon their own swords giving up ownership rights because they are not very bright. To over the last 20 years, big companies steal videogame software from a gullible lay public and the public just lapping it up was prettty surreal for a nerd who grew up in the 80's and 90's. We used to get Server exe's and level editors and programming sdk's with AAA Games. The fact we have lootboxes and microtransactions and mmo's is proof the average gamer is a fucking moron.
Redundancy which, frustrating though this may be to some, makes things better, not worse.
See Soviet era stores vs. American stores of the same era.
Whoever voted this insightful was clueless, the reality is there is no competition in the games market because gamers are grade A fucking stupid about how computers work. As someone who grew up playing Warcraft 2 and descent over Kali/Kahn, you have no fucking idea what you are talking about.
The reality is the modern videogame industry is not a market, its a god damn shit show if idiot kids being raped and games having been literally stolen and destroyed because the average gamer is ill educated and dumb as fuck as slashdot is clearly demonstrating. Gaming has been a market for lemons since the 90's with ultima online when the powers that be learned that gamers are stupid enough to give up ownership of PC games via simply relabelling games mmo's putting a server lock on them and charging a subscription.
With that came the end of the games market, you can't have a market when companies own and control the software because now they got you over a barrel and can extort money from you because you gaveup your rights to own the software you were buying, thereby making it a non market organization.
Let us remember it was Valve who launched DRM into a game we had full control over (half life) with server exe's, level editors and sdk's... then they went and dialed all that back as steam became popular with a new generation of computer illiterate kids.
People who believe billion dollar mega corps who have a lock on human culture who now own the game software outright are 'competing' on price are delusional since the average consumer is downright subhuman in their purchasing decisions and their inability to see how they are being robbed - microtransactions, lootboxes, day one DLC, MMO's, steam, all that is a sign of a consumer culture that has no functioning brain.
In a real market customers are informed, the game market is anything but a functioning market.
I truly think we are starting to see the edge of an education bubble. For many years, high school pushed college so hard people got worthless degrees that did nothing to prepare them for the job market.
I'm sorry to tell ya but the education system is there to maintain the class system and give the illusion that you live in a meritocratic society, the fact that you'd mouth talking points without any kind of evidence at all speaks volumes about the average american. The "job market" is just a bunch of big corporations and small businesses and they are always looking for ways to fuck people who work for them.
The reality is modern society is a big scam.
George Carlin said it best:
https://youtu.be/ILQepXUhJ98?t...
... is unstructured. When you put an 'algorithm' in a game it has no awareness to make discoveries about goals and motivations, take the idea of them mentioning one of their algorithms not being able to get out of the first room...
Now think of what that means, your AI has no sense of when to move on because it doesn't realize there's nothing interesting going on in the space it finds itself. When goals don't exist or are unstructured you basically have to invent goals, aka come to the realization your wasting time and resources in a space that isn't interesting. Instead of making an algorithm to go through a game, they should basically automate the navigation and come up with algorithms that can come up with goals on it's own when there is no stated goal, aka it should be able to seperate areas of interest from areas of disinterest and then from there use those to come up with goals.
Many of the algorithms when I read about them don't sound very interesting because the problem with the real world is that tasks are unstructured and you usually have to do a lot of "legwork" first before you can even infer a goal or come up with a task.
AKA there really needs to be algoritms that come up with sense making of an environment when that environment has no particular 'end state'. Imagine an open world game where there are tasks and activities to do, but there's no 'finish' line. To take an example, say you got fishing minigame, you can drive around town, etc. The AI should come up with a way to discover or generate interest and goals for itself when the world is simply unstructured.
The closest thing the US has to this social credit score is a criminal record.
It goes way beyond that, the US government can simply get what it wants because it is already in bed with big business. Business is already screening you out of many things behind "employment screening services". Many of these companies also have other names you wouldn't recognize, if you don't think you're already being watched all the time by companies who's sole purpose is to profit and minimize risk, I got a bridge I want to sell ya.
http://www.es2.com/
Check out "instant checkmate", to lookup info on people, be surprised and alarmed.
https://www.instantcheckmate.c...
... is really about.
It's about the final move to take control of the customers PC out of the users hand and move all apps into authenticated spaces controlled my corporations. Big companies like Apple and Google pioneered app walled gardens behind their smart phones over the last 10 years, and the the videogame gaming industry, being tech companies, have always wanted to take control of software out of the end users hands for profit.
The internet allowed all this to happen because the average citizen is a tech illiterate moron. The last 20 years for anyone who was involved in tech in the 90's has been surreal, everything we were worried about in the 90's like trusted computing is slowly coming fruition due to ignorant people getting smart phones and the internet removing any and all ability to hold software companies accountable.
What are you going to do when Microsoft, Valve, or Activivison develop some new locked down piece of software? You are hundreds of miles away from these companies, you have ZERO market power in this relationship. In ye old days, they were forced to give you the complete software, otherwise they would be comitting fraud. "software as a service" is really just another name for fraud where companies undermine your ability to own, control, and operate your PC and software free from company influence.
All companies want to turn every piece of tech into a dumb terminal and they are largely getting their way because 90% of the population is tech clueless, those of us who know how technology works, were pretty horrified when say RPG's like ultima were rebadged and labelled mmo's in the 90's and a gullible and lay public lapped it up. Things like Ultima online, EQ, world of warcraft were paving the way towards an era where companies can steal whatever isn't nailed down outright because the average person is a moron.
You have no freedom and rights under big business because many aspects of how we are socially organized would need to be rethought in an internet enabled society, there's no accountability, it's just a one way fuck you free for all and companies are making mad bank.
GP was agreeing with you by saying that the whole purpose of extending those copyrights is to let people continue to squeeze out the last drops of value to the detriment of the public.
Sorry about that, I misread your post or was replying to someone else.
It's that last part I have a problem with - how is that in society's best interest?
How is us being able to not repair or preserve our videogames in the public interest? Little shits like you have been piggybacking on corporate money for a long time. We essentially have eternal copyrights where nothing goes public domain.
Copyright law has been extended 5 times in favor of "value creators" over the public interest every time, arguments like yours fall on deaf ears because corporations own our governments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
IP law was created to incentivize you to produce works that are accessable to the public to enjoy, not for you to build a feudal empire which is what modern IP law amounts to.
If rule of law existed and sane IP laws were in effect, games would be going open source 12-20 years after they were made and Nintendo's little lawsuit wouldn't even exist because Mario and other old games had fallen into the public domain.
The fact that we don't get source code for PC games that we've all bought is also a big pisser, which is why we have to resort to revese engineering and emulation, if we'd gotten the source code with the games we were paying for every game that has been created for PC would not need an emulator and could be enhanced and updated. The reality is the public is too stupid to understand technology or IP which is why IP law is so corrupt to begin with. The average citizen in capitalist society is a moron which is why human cultural works like videogames are broken and being destroyed by big companies in their eternal quest to prevent any and all culture from ever slipping into public hands.
People like you should go read Lessigs book "Free culture". The big plan is for corps and the 1% to have a monopoly on all human culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Eventually though, investors will realize this is just a load of shit. Just make good games and you'll get showered with money.
Not so young padawan, CEO's have discovered the ultimate "3%" via locked down games and gacha/gambling mobile games. They want to bring that to all games. Mobile is making profits that is on route to eclipse the entire PC and Console game market combined because of the locked down nature of smart phones and the fact they've put gambling interface on it for the super rich, super stupid, and super impulsive. That 3% is what game companies are now after.
https://newzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Newzoo_2017_Global_Games_Market_Per_Segment_April_2017.png
There was just a story here about Rockstar having the largest weekend haul with their new game
Rockstar has drm out the wazoo and who's game is fully drm'd for shark cards, which is why they were threatening hackers. They want those mtx and gambling money badly. Same with epic and fortnite. Now they are fully incentivized never to give you the game you are paying for ever again.
https://torrentfreak.com/epic-games-sues-youtuber-golden-modz-over-magical-fortnite-powers-181012/
As I sit here 4 or 5 days in my Windows 10 Professional version, bought, paid for, came on high end laptop from day one, is indicating that it is not a valid license and that I need to activate it.
Are they promising lower quality?
It's what you deserve for buying an OS with online drm. That's why many of us stuck to windows 7 and have any W10 copy we have we may need for other purposes quarantined on it's own machine.
It could also be argued that the internet changed the relationship because stealing/copying/sharing/whatever became trivial worldwide instead of exchanging physical media with your local buddies like the olden days.
Look at both sides of the internet changing the dynamic.
Except before high speed internet everywhere companies did not have the ability to shut off or break the game you are paying for, aka quake 3 can't be broken by a game company because it's a complete game. Where as most modern games require a server in order to function. That's where the theft/stealing comes in on behalf of game companies. Your game only exists by fiat of corporate CEO's.
If you don't like online games, don't play online games then. If you prefer the good old games you own - do like me, and play them! What is the obsession with having "new" games every year?
You don't seem to understand the agenda, the agenda for the corporate world is to get rid of game ownership entirely. Quake 3 is an "online game" but you own and control it, it has dedicated server that comes with the game and tools to edit levels, Quake champions is an "online game" except the company owns and controls the software, meaning you get jack shit. They simply prevent you from controlling the software by coding it in a hostile way and hopign people are stupid enough to pay for microtransactions.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/...
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/...
... the reason Denuvo is even possible is because the internet fundamentally alterated the relationship between PC game buyer and PC game seller. Developers and publishers have all the power now since customers are 100's of miles away and can't simply storm their offices and force the drm and evil server locks out of their AAA games. High speed internet was the biggest cheat code ever granted to game companies by the laws of our universe. Once they make a game they can just keep it on their servers while giving you only half the game you paid for, while giving you the big shit sandwitch.
The tech industries (and hence game industry) eternal quest was to get rid of software ownership and to take control of the customers PC/software to exploit them for profits. They've been doing a remarkable job and this all began with Ultima RPG's on the PC back in the 90's, they rebadged RPG's as mmo's to get a gullible gaming public to pay monthly for the same fucking game because they know the public is stupid and illiterate as fuck.
Denuvo, mmo's and steam could only exist in a world where the average person is bumfuck retard level stupid in the head. All the cool things we used to get in the 90's like QeRadiant for quake and level editors have been dialed back completely because, the worlds technology illiterate got locked down smart phones and high speed internet.
That enabled companis to put gambling interfaces into software and reach the 3% of the population that is, the super rich, the super dumb and super impulsive. Let's remember League of legends model has a conversion rate of less than 3%, so that means most gamers aren't stupid enough to hand Riot money. The same thing you see on Mobile games where these mobile games have a gambing/gacha interface. THe internet allowed game companies to simply keep the software and disposess the public from owning and controlling the software so they can just exploit the 3% willy nilly and make super profits.
Watching this all go down for 20 years was pretty alarming, I never thought the camel getting it's nose into the tend would mean the entire game industry would clean up 20 years later because of locked down smart phones gave the access to the global population with too much money and people with impulse control problems, allowing game companies to be incentivized to never give people the full software they are paying for ever again.
... is proof our species is a race of idiots.
youth is war coming?
Yup, all states are preparing for the political awakening of the masses of the globe, they are expecting conflict.
Zbigniew Brezinski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
We don't actually have a conservative party anymore. We have two crony capitalist parties with opposing views on a few social issues, to keep the masses from realizing they're really just fangirling over which set of rich people get richer.
Except there is no such thing as a non crony capitalist society, you guys are fed so much pro corproate propaganda you never check to see whether your society works as advertise. There has never been a time your government has worked for you, there was a brief moment after the great depression but after that, the rich got mad and went to claw back all working peoples gains and you all fell for it.
US distribution of wealth
https://imgur.com/a/FShfb
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
Princeton study
https://scholar.princeton.edu/...
Here are billions of dollars in energy subsidies, aka when politicians are saying social services need to be cut, they are speaking out both sides of their mouths because they know most people don't look at what companies are getting free handouts from subsidies.
https://www.imf.org/external/p...
Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Our brains are much worse at reality and thinking than thought. Science on reasoning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Manufacturing consent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://vimeo.com/39566117
It's really the war between PC users, pirates and developers that has lead things to where they are now.
No it's because the internet allowed companies to steal PC game software, before the internet existed they couldn't literally steal the game or keep part of the software hostage on their computers, they had to give you the entire thing you paid for. The internet radically undermined customer power and gave it all to companies so they could just keep the fucking software. So no it's total theft.
I suggest you read what lawrence lessig has written about the corporate agenda of the copyright mafia.
http://www.lessig.org/new-blog...
"Stop liking things i don't like!" is how your comment reads basically.
Your comment reads "I'm a moron that bent over for corporations, and now games have literally been stolen and taken hostage, I'll get to pay more money for less game. I'm so savvy, l get to have lootboxes that only give me A CHANCE to reveal SKINS, that are ALREADY ON MY COMPUTER, and that I ALREADY PAID FOR, in a FULL PRICED GAME. Also because I'm such a fucking moron I'll grind out the skins even though they are ALREADY IN THE GAME I PAID FULL PRICE FOR.
Continue to think I'm "just an old man" crying "get off my lawn". When all your favorite games disappear in 20 years and you want to play them and they are now thrown in the garbage you'll only have yourself to blame for your own idiocy.
The reality is the entire industry now that it has you as it's customer is moving all future software onto computers inside their offices where you have exactly zero control over the game. Shitty gameplay mechanics are being inserted into games now that they've taken control of the software, you get to pay "tribute" or extra, on top full price.
The whole thing is a fucking scam enabled by mass stupidity. Gaming when it hit the mainstream attracted the stupid and technologically illiterate, that is why these exploitive dick practices exist. The market is not a self correcting phenomenon. If that were the case mmo's (the original scam game) would have never got off the ground since it was the original trial balloon to see how stupid the gaming masses were, to get you to pay multiple times for the same game over and over instead of just once.
The attack on game ownership began with ultima series back in the 90's as all PC rpg's in development were relabelled mmo's and moved over to server locked pieces of software
While I agree with 90% of what you wrote you are omitting a key critical bit of information:
Your "critical bit of information" IS the propaganda, they took the "single player" PC RPG, and rebranded it mmo, also note that Baldurs gate had multiplayer and single player inside the same RPG, don't tell me "it's different", the whole point of corporate PR is to manipulate you for profits. That was the whole point of the MMO scam that stupid people like you fell for. That's why PC RPG's in development suddenly were rebadged "mmo's", it was the biggest scam in all of gaming and gamers lapped it up because they are not very bright. Notice we live in a fucking dystopia today where every game under the sun is being rebadged a service because of the rise of microtransactions. League of legends and DOTA 2 would have been totally owned games like Warcraft 3 if not for the rise of idiots giving money to skins in games they don't own, no level editors, no ownership. Look at what happened to Team fortress in the 90's vs Team fortress 2. All that is because gamers being idiots started giving money to games totally owned and controlled on someone elses machine. Now they got everything and are going to sheer the sheep.
The company controls the game, that's exactly what happened to every fucking property all our favorite properties from the 90's are now in the hands of giant mega corporations on servers in their offices and they tell you whether you can access or evne play your game, you need fucking permission from a machine 100 miles away to play a game you paid for. All because gamers are stupid.
Don't think so? Diablo 2 vs diablo 3, diablo 2 we totally controlled, diablo 3 we don't. Quake 3 vs quake champions.
The whole mmo scam was to normalize non game ownership you were fooled by PR specialists and PHD's in neuroscientists to change public opinion regarding game ownership . The wet dream for the tech industry (of which the game industry was a part) was to undermine legally and otherwise the ability of people to control their machines and software. Which they've gotten in spades.
AKA "Games as services" are just the same thing that happened with PC rpg's --> Normal PC rpg;s become "MMO's", just as Assasins creed became a "live service".
The fact that you all fall for this languge shell game is proof positive our species is easy to manipulate.