Responsible Adult say no to Store Exclusive.

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A PC game is either on Steam or GOG or it doesn't exist to me.
I subscribe to the humble monthly bundle thing and if a game doesn't activate on one of those two I'm probably never going to play it despite owning it.
I'd maybe have added epic to the list if it wasn't for the store exclusivity stuff. I know that they've dialled it back significantly, but anti-consumer stinks like that don't readily wash out.
Conversely, GOG is on the list because they're expressly pro-consumer, particularly with their preservationist initiatives. My monkey brain would prefer everything in one place on Steam, but I recognise behaviour I want to support in these companies, so GOG gets my money too
- A PC game is either on Steam or GOG or it doesn't exist to me
  Mostly agree, except I'm okay with it if it's something I can simply apt install
- You forgot patreon. Steam censors the library in places (hello German government & fuck you hard with a rusty rebar). But even outside censorship, patreon game developers usually do not lock in their games into rootkit-protected anticheat/copy protection/whatever bullshit.
  
  Not censored but mandated by a government body so they literally have no other option other than doing that.
  If the dev is too lazy to fill out a questionnaire for self-categorizing the age rating why is Valve responsible for that?

I can live with that as long as we consider that Steam games need to be on Epic and GOG as well.
- no, fuck Epic, seriously
  
  Yeah. Those assholes. Taking 12% of the gross of a game sales instead of Valve's 30% at a time when studios are struggling.
  That better overlay and browser is totally worth 18% of the total value of a game and shouldn't go to the employees making the product or into more features. I need my virtual stickers!

And make sure to avoid stores that actively promote the store exclusives concept, even for stuff that isn't an exclusive (anymore). They don't deserve our money. Looking at you Epic.
- I remember when Metro Exodus was about to release, Epic bought them out and they made the game unpurchasable on Steam after people already preordered. So only those who preordered were able to play on Steam for the first year after release. Valve left this statement on the store page.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Exodus#Release
  
  Ubisoft pulled something like that with Anno 1800. If you pre-ordered it on Steam it was possible to install and play it, as it was only delisted but not removed entirely. Buying the DLC was a bit of a pain as you couldn't search Steam for it, you had to dig up the direct Steam Store link from one of the official posts on the Ubi forum. It wasn't ideal, but at least they had the sense to make everything available immediately on Steam for those that already bought the game there.
- Store exclusivity is paid, this means that the devs get a guaranteed income instead of relying on the Steam gamble.
  Would you work for your employer if you might be paid more than average but no guarantee on that and only in two years if it happens at all as it depends on the number of clients you got and how influencers feel about your work once it's complete?
  I don't know about you but I look around and I don't know anyone who would accept those conditions. That's where exclusivity becomes an option, you might not have as high an income, but that employer tells you ahead of hiring you how much you'll make in the next year with a commission on every sale you make once your work is complete.
  
  I'm fully aware, and I don't even blame developers, especially indies, as I can completely understand their reasoning and commercial consideration. But from a user perspective I just see a store trying to buy market share and either forcing customers to wait a year or cave and use that store. Epic doesn't fork over money to help developers, it does so to grab a piece of the pie and create value for shareholders.
  Personally I prefer not buying or using platforms from companies whose policies I don't agree with. I avoid Amazon for that reason, and Epic's store is therefore also on my personal blacklist.
  It's a choice I'm allowed and willing to make. Of course you are free to disagree and by all means, do whatever you feel is right.
  
  I don’t know about you but I look around and I don’t know anyone who would accept those conditions.
  except publishers frequently do accept those conditions.

"steal"
- Stealing implies a transfer of ownership. Downloading a "COPY" of a digital game only infringes on a copyright or licence or whatever the multi-million dollar company wants to claim it has.
  If you don't own the game by purchasing it, then it's not stealing if you pirate it.
  
  Maybe he's gonna break into the publishers office and steal the master copy 🤣
  
  I am, again, mostly fine with that.
  As long as that means you don't pirate anything that has a physical version or is on GOG.
  I mean, that's not entirely true, my views on piracy are more nuanced than that, but in terms of how much I can stand behind that line as an argument.

I will try your game out on my terms anyways. Soooooo

TFW PS5 only.
- Console exclusives have a logic to them, it takes extra time and money to translate a game to be playable on different hardware.
  Store exclusives do not make sense. No game is only purchasable at GameStop, and the only reason for it is to avoid competition.
  
  Both major consoles run on x86 hardware now. I mean, if a bunch of Brazilians can hack the PS5 version of Spider-Man 2 to run natively on PC, it can't be that difficult for a AAA studio to port their console exclusives to PC.
- does playstation even have exclusives anymore?
  
  Mostly seems to be timed these days.
  Bloodborne still MIA though.

Put your game on gog so pirating it is piss easy.
- Whether or not it is on gog doesn't really impact how easy it is to pirate. For me it's almost like streaming where the convenience is so high that I'd rather just pay on gog and get the perks that come with that then look elsewhere.
  
  Denuvo has entered the chat.
  
  I just like how they package things, and I'm a Linux user.
  Nah, I own most of the games I have stored executables for, I just don't have the most faith in the future of American internet, so making my own repository of easily installable pirated crap is more like a failsafe.
- (pirating is already piss easy)
  
  Shit you're right. I don't want to get too lazy.
- Wrong button oops
  
  DRM lover
  Gog is DRM free, my guy.
  Yet another benefit of pirating GOG games.

Put your game on GOG, or I’m gonna steal it.
- Put your game on GOG, so I can steal it.

It saddens me what a DRM shill you are
- GOG is DRM?
  
  Obviously not, don't be weird

is this website full of children?
- Why yes your honor, I did pirate 47TB of games. But as Infomatics90 clearly indicated, my reasons prove I am a child, and therefore I argue I can't be tried as an adult. I rest my case!
  
  Judge: I see your point. We’ll try you as a juvenile then you can spend time in a juvenile detention center where a priest will watch your every move.
- Capitalists do whatever they can get away with to goose profit.
  Which is basically everything since they hired the people who wrote the laws and bribed the politicians to pass them. (see ALEC)
  What is immature to doing what can be gotten away with to them in kind? Isn't that just, as the capitalists say, exercising our highly virtuous rational self-interest?
- lemmy.ca
  ....you want a serious answer, eh?
- Piracy will continue until prices improve edit: princes lol
  
  I thought princes was in a other ~~cast~~... storefront
- Stop posting
- No. Just really sheltered adults.
  
  TIL having standards means you are sheltered.

104 comments