For me it was debating what music service I wanted to pay for and I decided ad-free YouTube without having to get around anything was a fine bonus. And it was a decent trade to my brother and cousin when I was in their HBO and Netflix families. But I’m not going to say it’s “great” or anything. In fact if they ever cut my brother or cousin from my family plan (we’ve moved around the U.S. since I first got it,) I’m dropping it.

I will say technologically my trials of both Google Stadia and Xbox Live Play Anywhere were both impressive and ran well for single player and co-op games. But the idea of actually paying an ongoing fee to play my games? Fuck that.

I kick myself every day for putting off replacing this 2017 build of mine… My 1080 weeps.

You might be right. But charging them $15 a month to stream their whizbang-5000 games is still an option. Especially for Microsoft and Sony. (And Amazon wants in on that too.)

Don’t even get me started on Facebook’s “everyone’s pivoting to Facebook video! Don’t be left behind!”… “Oh, we lied about your views repeatedly. Sorry.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.)

Honestly I think people would unironically that as an option.

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

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”.

I get it and was very skeptical at the time… But soon after I began to believe they’d stick around, and my annoyance at installing through multiple discs (and also putting discs in the tray to play a game) won out.

I bought and moved like 1 in late 2013 when it spiked just to play with it and see how it worked, out of curiosity about the tech. (And soon after, mined Dogecoin on Reddit when it started, and we all began tipping like crazy because it was fun and funny.) I made a few bucks off the BTC and kinda regretted not holding it longer. Then cut to a decade later… Sheesh. I may be more sour on the tech now, but damn I’m not so crazy as to not regret selling it.

haha, I’m 45, so you don’t have to explain the pre-Internet-ubiquity world to me, but I appreciate it. My first car was from 1982, which I got in 1995. I had a big boom box in the back seat that took D cell batteries. (Because it had no radio and I didn’t have money to buy one, but I had the boom box already.) I get the appeal, I just mean to say that there are people who do make their own cars. And while they make incredibly impressive and even outlandish things, I’m pretty certain they could also make you a very basic car, for a price. And probably a lot less than most new cars. They’ll just want the money to front is all. And there’s probably not much in the way of guarantees.

What you want to look into is body kits. It’s taking a car, removing parts, and putting on replacements that have fittings that attach the same, but look completely different on the outside. There are many types of cars that have become the most popular to customize and have the most options, but tons of cars can be changed significantly. There are even some body kits that change everyday cards into looking like completely different cards (“kit cars”, I think they’re called), and lawsuits around some similarities of body kits. There’s also tons of YouTubers that do videos on this, and a whole culture about it. Usually they go for more flashy, and more tech, but you can probably go the other way pretty easily too depending on your taste.

It’s completely possible to do as a hobby if you have time and money, and more possible to GET done if you have lots of money. Honestly I have no idea about it. But my cousin is a car guy and I stayed with him for a few months earlier this year. Damned interesting stuff out there.

It reminds me of when Google added everyone’s phone numbers to search. Everyone freaked out. “What do you mean anyone can find my number?!” And this is back when phone books were ubiquitous.

It’s pointless now as anyone actually making a call (scammers) buys numbers from providers or other thieves. But it’s really interesting how publicly available data being more publicity available can be scary.