Why buy a console when for roughly the same price you could buy a PC that does everything the console does and more? Yeah $700 is an insane price for what is effectively a toy.

100%. We need more personal liability for the evils of big business, not less

Name one war which was ever fought on a single battlefield.

Yes, we should be pushing for both regulatory changes and changes on platforms like Steam, but we should also being doing our part.

If there is anything I’ve learned over time it is that nobody is coming to save you. Ever. If you are holding out for someone to swoop in and make things better, you will be waiting forever. Either we do it ourselves, or it doesn’t get done.

Yes. To the best of my knowledge there is no restriction, and the only breakages I’ve noticed in the app in that internal links don’t work (links to a post on a sub just opens the sub) and I can’t view the “other discussions” page on a post.

and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.

This, which is in my original fucking message, applies here. If you think the effort is futile, fine, whatever, don’t try. But my statement was made with full understanding of the timeline, and I stand by it. Feel free to read the rest of the comments in the thread for further discussion of the timeline, or feel free to fuck off, I guess; I’m not in the mood to indulge a pedant clearly just looking for an argument.

Where did I even remotely imply otherwise?

There are plenty of anti-cheat measure that doesn’t require invasive access to your system or performance hits. The objection is not to fighting cheating, it is with the specific overreaching methodology chosen to do so.

Also I personally rarely play multiplayer so it’s even more frustrating to have bullshit installed on my system for a feature that doesn’t even apply to me.

Sadly, a lot of their customers will be pissed about this but will be first in line buying other Rockstar games.

Then they aren’t pissed enough. But yes, talking the talk is completely meaningless if you don’t also walk the walk, I agree.

Companies like Rockstar certainly would meet any requests for refunds outside of very recently purchased with “Go kick rocks.”

If you let them, sure. The reason we use phrases like “fight for a refund” is because these things are hard and they take effort. Like yes it sucks to have to do that and yes I understand our time is valuable, but as I see it there is value in both having your voice heard and punitively costing an offending company manhours in having to deal with you - even if you ultimately do not win the fight.

Again, the point isn’t about winning or getting your money back, it’s about not being passive and just accepting the things that happen to you as if you do not have autonomy.

If you mod a sub, you can still use third party apps for some reason. I have a tiny, practically private sub, and I can still use the Boost app for reddit with no problem.

Yep. The difference is one side is rubbing their hands excitedly while saying it.

No thanks. Games that choose to sign with the anti-consumer storefront don’t deserve my attention as the consumer.

and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.

The way I see it, adding it, even this late, is changing the terms of the agreement and thus justification for a refund. Steam will often see it that way too if you word it as such. And if not, hell, you can still badger the publisher for a refund incessantly so at least it still costs them the equivalent in man hours even if you don’t get the refund. The point is not to be passive, even if we don’t get to win every single battle.

Don’t buy games with invasive user-side anti-cheats that hamper performance, and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.

I don’t understand why this is so hard for people. If everyone gave a shit, we could end this. But instead, people would rather just complain while still forking over the money to these companies.

There are so many good indie games without this kind of bullshit. We have better choices.

Hey that’s not fair!

…we’ve also got Star Trek memes.

Modders make mods for free. Video creators publish free videos on sites like Youtube or Vimeo today without any revenue stream. Prior to that creators published their content for free on sites like ebaums, or albinoblacksheep, or on personal pages.

Humans want to share. If Youtube had never existed, people wouldn’t have suddenly stopped making videos to share, they should have just found another method of sharing or created their own alternative. The desire to create and share is innate to humanity; the concept of monetary compensation is not.

As for wanting everything to be free (I’m not who you were talking to but I’m responding anyway)… I mean, yeah kind of? Here’s my question: why should everything be paid? I think that’s a backwards mentality. People were sharing stories and art and other creations for no reason other than the love of sharing long before Youtube, and they will keep doing so after. Imo not every effort in life needs to be directly compensated. To me this is the same reason I will never pay for game mod: I want to support and encourage a modding community who mods because they love do it and they love sharing with community, not because they see a possible revenue stream.

Imo turning your hobbies into jobs or “side hustles” is one of the worst consequences of capitalism, and one we should push back against.

Every person is already paying for Youtube with their data. The ads are asking above and beyond.

It would be an entirely different story if Google wasn’t primarily first a data-mining company, but since they are, and since selling that data (or the results of using that data) in of the MAIN revenue streams for their business, it is disingenuous to act like Youtube is some free service that is being offered to us. It’s not; it’s a massive data-mining operation of incredible value as it offers not just demographic information but vastly more details on individual interests and what kind of things they are likely to actually click and interact with than the vast majority of other platforms and sites.

We have got to stop ignoring the data aspect of businesses like Youtube.

I’ve said it before, but until Epic adds some way to provide feedback to others, I won’t spend any money on it. Being able to read if a game is buggy, runs on my hardware, etc, is too essential to the experience to not have.

Epic wants to be the pro-developer storefront, but since that seems to involve being anti-consumer, I as the consumer have no interest.

I love this so fucking much. Eccentric people are the best.

Also somebody please invite this old dude to play D&D

…with cookies and hearty “Well done, lads”?

I don’t think we should encourage it, but frankly I also don’t think it’s the apocalyptic moral event others seem to either. Humanity fucked outside, in relative public for centuries and I’m pretty sure not every single child of that era was forever traumatized by it.