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journalist by trade

Moderating

Gamedev lemmy.world

1w ago

A Texas Drainage District Walked Its Ditch on a Routine Inspection. They Found a Pipe They Didn't Recognize Discharging Black Liquid From Tesla's $1 Billion Lithium Refinery
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Jeffool @lemmy.world 1w ago
I like this take. More shit needs to be not funny.

3w ago

What's a song where you like a remix or cover better than the original?

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3w ago

El-P's remix of the Nine Inch Nails song Only.

https://youtu.be/2yW31N-F4Yg

3w ago

Gabe the GOAT Newell

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3w ago

And you may well be completely on point. I don't recall hearing those specifics in articles I've read, but at the same time, some large outlets may not be familiar enough with the industry to recognize the importance of Steam keys to the argument.

Because I posted it elsewhere, in going to repost an example of the coverage of those lawsuits:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2g1md0l23o

The lawsuit - filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London - alleges Valve "forces" game publishers to sign up to conditions which prevents them from selling their titles earlier or for less on rival platforms.

Also

It claims that as Valve requires users to buy all additional content through Steam, if they've bought the initial game through the platform it is essentially "locking in" users to continue making purchases there.

It was filed in 2024, and given approval to go to trial at the beginning of this year. It hasn't happened yet.

3w ago

Gabe the GOAT Newell

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3w ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2g1md0l23o

The lawsuit - filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London - alleges Valve "forces" game publishers to sign up to conditions which prevents them from selling their titles earlier or for less on rival platforms.

Also

It claims that as Valve requires users to buy all additional content through Steam, if they've bought the initial game through the platform it is essentially "locking in" users to continue making purchases there.

It was filed in 2024, and given approval to go to trial at the beginning of this year. It hasn't happened yet.

/Edit: The other person responding to this suggests that the "you can't charge lower elsewhere" clause exists when you use certain Steam features. (Selling Steam keys, using Steam's multiplayer backend.) And if that's the case that seems pretty reasonable to me. (I hear they're VERY kind about keys actually.) But I hope you'll understand that when articles I see why the case don't mention them, I don't know that's the case.

At the same time, I would almost understand outlets that don't cover digital goods like this may not understand this, or may not see the importance of them. So maybe they've dropped the ball here.

3w ago

Gabe the GOAT Newell

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3w ago

I don't have a strong hate for Valve, but I'm fairly certain that they often DO have contracts that demand their store gets the lowest price available from at least some game developers. So if you offer a game for lower on Epic, you also have to drop your price to match it on Steam. There may be "sales" caveats in there, but I do think that's generally the rule in at least many cases.

In fact, I think they've been sued over that before. (Maybe they changed the policy after the lawsuit? I'm honestly not certain; sorry.) The argument went that if a developer could offer the game for $40 to everyone, then the storefronts could argue over their own markup, and maybe other storefronts would be willing to take less than Valve does. But as it is, Valve artificially keeps prices high on other storefronts with this approach to contracts.

If your experience is different I respect that, but I don't think that's universal.

3w ago

How often do you get like this?

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3w ago

... My therapist doesn't know this yet? But our meeting tomorrow just changed. Thanks for sharing.

4w ago

MIT AI expert warns automating Gen Z entry-level jobs could backfire—and cost companies their future workforce

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 4w ago

And they'll just hire more H-1B visa employees for more and more smaller roles, and they have them in an even tighter place than they could American workers. It's not like they're blind to the issue. It's the plan.

3mo ago

What's an online service you happily pay for?

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3mo ago

YouTube Premium.

I pay for this, and two other family members pay for two other services. Theirs have each blocked the other 2 of us... So what was once 3 of us buying 3 family plans has become just me doing it. And the second YouTube blocks them, I'm canceling it.

Dreamhost.

More than a decade ago they had a big fuck up where they accidentally charged tons of users multiple times when their contracts weren't when finished. So one day I woke up and they'd taken a few hundred dollars from my account. That put me in the negatives.

When I called them, they verified my identity, and let me complain a little. (I'm not much of a complainer. But their customer service person was great.) They paid me back the charged amount, and asked how much I'd had in overdraft fees, and paid me that too. And they let my hosting plan date reset at that date for the year-long renewal. So they basically have me like 9 months on top of it.

Mind you, I wasn't using much at the time. Just a few blogs and a podcast. So it's not like they're not making free money off of me. But they handled it so damn well. Didn't even ask to see a bank statement about my overdraft fees. Just "and how much was that? Got it." I'm sure it was just a case of cost and smart business... But fuck yeah, reward smart business.

3mo ago

What would it take for you to switch to Linux?

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3mo ago

If Infinity Ward's next game includes a DMZ mode and it's good, it will probably determine what I do. I'll probably need a new PC to play it. I've got a 1080 and I'm on Windows 10. I play ARC Raiders with no problem now. But if I have the money, and DMZ2 is fun, and it requires Windows, I'll probably get a new PC with the next Windows. If it doesn't, I'll probably just switch my current PC over to some flavor of Linux, and maybe put that money to a down payment of a house. It'll probably be about the same amount by that point.

3mo ago

LibreOffice criticizes EU Commission over proprietary XLSX formats

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3mo ago

I think saying that they "bribed the standards body" suggests the body was in on it. The actual allegation (I don't know any facts, just these comments) seems to be that the body was subverted by other countries that were bribed by Microsoft. Being someone who doesn't know the details there's a worthwhile distinction there. Though that still opens questions about the board's reaction, and I might read up on it all later.

3mo ago

What's a TV series that you really, really liked and would enthusiastically recommend?

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3mo ago

Barry is a phenomenal show for film/TV nerds, which you wouldn't expect without someone telling you that.

3mo ago

What's a TV series that you really, really liked and would enthusiastically recommend?

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3mo ago

3mo ago

YouTube adds new hurdles for ad blockers, and there's currently no way around it

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 3mo ago

Like was already said, I'm considering cancelling YouTube Premium too but our numbers won't really matter. The reports of worsening Firefox compatibility almost some me in and I didn't even notice.

I have a family plan with my brother and cousin on it. I know they're cracking down on sharing with people who don't live together, but if they cut them I'm done. I'll figure it out. And I'm probably petty enough to comment about it on everyone's videos that I follow. (Which also won't really matter, but I'll feel better voicing the discontent.)

4mo ago

The TV industry finally concedes that the future may not be in 8K

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 4mo ago

This makes sense to me. A hybrid would be nice. Have a calendar or some art while it's "off". But then, that's probably pretty expensive. (Not that I've looked, I'm just assuming.)

4mo ago

Microsoft is working to rebuild trust in Windows

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 4mo ago

Honestly I think people would unironically that as an option.

4mo ago

Windows 10's extended support ends in eight months, but users are still rejecting Windows 11, at least in Germany

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 4mo ago

Gaming is my big issue. But now that my quality gaming time with family has gone from Warzone to ARC Raiders, it's a far less daunting concern. I'll probably wait and see if DMZ 2 supports Linux, which sadly I doubt, and if that game will cost

4mo ago

One-Third of U.S. Video Game Industry Workers Were Laid Off Over the Last Two Years, GDC Study Reveals

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 4mo ago

I completely agree that huge teams aren't needed. That said I think at least some of that is exactly because smaller studios full of expert talent were getting funded for several years, because those big studios weren't making the games developers wanted to make. And those devs understood that "fun" wasn't the same as "top of the line presentation".

ARC Raiders' Embark Studios has a lot of people from DICE. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Sandfall Interactive has a lot of people from Ubisoft. Even Dispatch's Ad Hoc is a lot of Telltale people (at least some of them by way of Ubisoft.) They knew a lot about their process, but their big companies weren't making the games they were interested in. So they got funding elsewhere (and famously Ad Hpc's funding dried up mid-development.)

I'm curious about Wikipedia's sourcing here. Granted there's the Balatros and Stardew Valleys of the world, and Helldivers did well. But do smaller games really make up half? Year after year the big ones are usually COD, two big sports game, a Nintendo game, another big fps, a big action game, and a few others.

Again I agree with you when it comes to good games. But man, those big ones are huge sellers. I just wish we had clear insight into sales. But that's been a thing for a long time now.

4mo ago

One-Third of U.S. Video Game Industry Workers Were Laid Off Over the Last Two Years, GDC Study Reveals

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 4mo ago

Investment money is not as plentiful as it was several years ago. I've heard it in several interviews with developers or devs themselves. (Game Maker's Notebook, Mike and Rami are Still Here, and a few devs on YouTube come to mind.)

4mo ago

It's not about Highguard itself.

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 4mo ago

I may be wrong as I don't really play the genre, but I think Marvel Rivals is kinda the king of the hero shooter genre right now.

But that said I generally do agree that "another live service game that doesn't clear a very high bar" is the issue. The recent success of ARC Raiders despite social media telling me people "don't want extraction shooters and to give it up" really drives home the point of "if it's good enough... It'll probably do well."

(And I realize those two are third person games, so not "first person shooters", but I'd still consider them competition for them.)

And with the economy the way it is, yeah, money matters a lot more. People are more likely to dedicate their time to one big game, and sometimes a couple of smaller ones. It makes things an "all or nothing" proposition. And most games don't look like "all".

4mo ago

With all this talk about Ai not being profitable why aren't we using it in video games? I dont mean replacing developers I mean in NPCs in the game. I make them more realistic.

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Jeffool @lemmy.world 4mo ago

AI in games (using code for entities to make non-player decisions) is about being good enough, cheap enough. It's just like how games determine their physics. The existence of large scale "black box" AI like OpenAI does not reflect what's good or cheap. It can't play chess. You think it's going to understand The Sims and make reasonable choices in that system?

They've already created well tuned system to give your Sims in obtaining their needs. It leads to you having to manage the chaos, and that's what the fun is. To better hone that is to have the AI play the game for you. And even that, if efficiency of play is the goal, is better done by TASbot and machine learning.

That generic black box style of AI like popular LLMS is like creating a hammer. Now everyone is treating every problem like nails. AI decisions making in games is like washing windows; don't use a hammer.

The problem is that "AI" is a poorly defined, very vague, and widely used term. Most people here have assumed you meant LLMs because everyone pitches those as ways to solve everything. "Oh, irer up an agent, give it instructions, and let it make requests that are context dependent". Then, like everyone says here, that usually turns into people testing boundaries and breaking your game. So that makes it both "not good enough" and "not cheap enough".

Now, look at AI with the term "machine learning" in mind and it's different. Games like ARC Raiders use machine learning to teach NPCs movement behavior, and to train AI voices like Siri so they can't add things without further paying people. They think that up-front investment is worthwhile. But those are both far cries from "uploading it to Claude or ChatGPT and see what happens". Especially when you would have to teach that black box AI your system anyway, for it to use it. And you're already doing that with current "good enough, cheap enough" bespoke methods, for much cheaper, and they're good enough.