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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: wit_as_a_riddle

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: wit_as_a_riddleCopyright law is very outdated for current technology.

So is capitalism. But if we're going to insist on capitalism, then within that framework I'm not sure what's going to stop anyone who creates anything from starving without copyright. We can fix copyright if we fix the overall system it's in.

For me, the strongest case for sticking with markets is the historic drop in extreme poverty: from high 60s–80% globally in the 1970s down to under 9% today.

Oh, sure, the drop in extreme poverty. So first of all, I've heard plenty about the supposed drop in extreme poverty, but I've never heard anyone mention a figure that extreme, that's just in the ridiculous propaganda realm. Don't know where you got it, but I'm pretty sure it's nonsense even in terms of the official stats that are generally bandied about.

Second, "extreme poverty" is defined in these sorts of statistics as "making less than $2 per day". That's in purchasing power parity with the US dollar. So then, if you're an American, and you make more than $60/month, you're not in "extreme poverty". Homeless people can starve to death in the US on way more than that. It's ridiculous. And since it's purchasing power parity, it is equally ridiculous everywhere else. Masses of people are, in real life, extremely poor, but the statistics claim they are not. They are quite simply statistics built to generate reassuring lies.

Third, much of this drop in "extreme poverty" represents the destruction of the peasantry. People are driven off their subsistence farms by various modern "enclosure movement" equivalents, they move to the cities and live in shanty towns where they are half starved, scraping by on whatever informal ways to scratch out a living they can find. But! Before, when they had adequate food that they grew themselves, decent shelter and generally were poor, but more or less OK, they weren't really in the monetary economy, so they made less than $2/day. Now that their lives are precarious and they can barely eat and their homes are made of cardboard or some damn thing, they make more than $2/day so they're not in "extreme poverty". Lucky them!

Fourth, another massive proportion of the drop in poverty is China. There was a period where China represented more than 100% of the drop in extreme poverty . . . which is to say, in the rest of the world extreme poverty was increasing, but it was decreasing so much in China it more than made up for it. This is not exactly a triumph of free market capitalism.

In any case, "markets" and capitalism are not the same thing. You can have markets without capitalism, it's easy, just replace all the firms owned by individual rich people and stock market investors with firms owned by governments and worker co-operatives, but leave the markets in place. Badabing, markets but no capitalism. And, you can have capitalism with no markets--we see this in US military contractors, who are often the sole source of a good which they sell only to their sole customer using cost-plus contracts which define the price paid as a function of how much it costs the firm to make the product, plus a percentage for profit. That isn't a market. And yet they are capitalist firms--private individuals own them, capital is invested in them for the purpose of generating a profit which can be reinvested.

Maybe you should talk about things you know something about. Nobody who, confronted with the term "capitalism", responds with the term "markets", knows much about either.

The ~80% in the 1970s/early 1980s down to under 10% today is based on World Bank data (via their Poverty and Inequality Platform). For example, in 1981, extreme poverty (at the then-$1.90 line, now updated to $2.15 in 2017 PPP) was around 44-50% globally in the 1980s/1990s, but longer run historical estimates (back to post-WWII or even 1800s) from sources like Our World in Data and economic historians put it much higher historically (often 80-90% pre-20th century in many reconstructions). Recent World Bank updates (as of 2025) put it around 8-10% (roughly 700-800 million people at $2.15-$3/day lines, depending on the exact revision). It's not propaganda; these are from household surveys compiled by the World Bank, UN, and others. But, you're right that no single number captures everything perfectly.

On the $2/day (now $2.15) threshold being too low: Totally fair point — it's intentionally a rock-bottom line to track the very worst deprivation (bare survival needs like food/calories). No one claims $2.15/day means a good life; it's extreme poverty by design. In the US, someone at that level (adjusted) would indeed struggle massively, and homelessness shows how even higher incomes can coincide with hardship due to costs, etc. The line uses PPP (purchasing power parity) to account for cheaper basics in poorer countries, but critics (including some economists) note it can understate urban/rich-country equivalents or non-monetary deprivations. Higher lines like $6.85/day (for upper-middle income relevance) show much slower progress — billions still below that. So I agree the "extreme" label can be misleading if it makes things sound rosier than they are.

Regarding the "destruction of the peasantry" and subsistence farms: This is a critique I've seen from folks like Jason Hickel and others— enclosure-like processes, urbanization, and market integration can push people into precarious informal work/shantytowns while monetizing previously non-monetary subsistence. In some cases it arguably worsened welfare temporarily by raising the relative cost of basics. But the data overall shows that, even in rural areas, on net the shift has coincided with huge gains in life expectancy, child survival, literacy, electricity access, etc. Many former subsistence farmers report preferring urban opportunities despite hardships (per surveys), and global hunger/calorie availability has improved dramatically. It's not that the transition is painless — far from it — but the absolute improvements (health, longevity, reduced starvation deaths) seem real and massive for billions.

China: Yes, a huge share of the drop is China (often >75-100% in certain periods, meaning other regions were flat or rising). But China's growth since the late 1970s/80s has been market-oriented reforms (Deng's opening, private enterprise, FDI, etc.), even if state-guided and not pure "free market." It's not socialism vs. capitalism in black-and-white; it's a mixed system that unleashed massive productive forces and lifted ~800 million out. Without crediting markets/incentives at all, it's hard to explain the scale/speed.

On markets vs. capitalism: Yes — markets (exchange, prices) can exist without full private-capital dominance (e.g., worker co-ops, public firms competing) and crony/contractor examples show "capitalism" without pure markets. I used "markets" because the historic poverty drop ties to global integration, trade, specialization, and incentives that reward production/efficiency—things that can happen under varied ownership, but in large majority, it's been capitalist markets that have reduced poverty.

I agree that cronyism, regulatory capture, and violations of fair competition (like illegal collusion or government-granted privileges) create real problems and distort markets. But in a truly free and competitive system, these issues stem from law-breaking or improper state intervention, not from capitalism itself. Inequality, meanwhile, is a natural outcome — people differ in talents, effort, risk-taking, and choices, and rewarding those differences drives innovation and growth. I don't see it as a flaw to be "fixed"; it's the way the world works, and what matters far more are the absolute gains in living standards that capitalist markets have delivered for the poorest. Abandoning the growth/productivity engine that has correlated with these gains risks stalling or reversing them, especially for the most vulnerable. We can (and should) enforce laws against monopolistic abuses, price-fixing, and fraud without throwing out the incentives that lift everyone.

Your points on poverty measurement flaws, enclosure dynamics, and the China factor are worth wrestling with, and I've genuinely thought about them. I don't think we're as far apart as it might seem on recognizing that stats can hide real suffering or that change is needed.

That said, your tone shift raised my eyebrows. Lines like "Maybe you should talk about things you know something about. Nobody who, confronted with the term 'capitalism', responds with the term 'markets', knows much about either" came across as pretty dismissive and petty — assuming bad faith or ignorance rather than just disagreeing. Sure, these topics get heated, (especially when they touch on big ideological stuff), but I'd rather keep this as a discussion between two people trying to figure things out than let it slide into snark or into gatekeeping who knows enough to participate. I have faith in you wanting what's best for people - I'd ask you place similar faith in me.

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Google has had quite the trajectory. At first, they were just purely a search engine, and a good one, and that was OK. And then there was a time when if I heard that Google was announcing some new thing they were doing, I'd be sort of pleased and interested, my assumption being that chances were it would be something interesting or useful. After a while there was a phase where if Google announced something I'd be kind of dubious, both over whether it was a good thing and over whether it mattered because probably they would abandon it soon anyway.

Now we've reached a point where if I hear Google is doing some new initiative my instinctive reaction is more like "Oh, God, what is it this time?" and hoping it won't do too much harm.

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Quoting: wit_as_a_riddle

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: wit_as_a_riddleI find the moral indignation over what others do with their own hard earned money to be performative.

That sounds like it makes sense, but it's ludicrous. So, Geoffrey Epstein spent his own hard earned money on sex with underage girls. I am morally indignant about that. Not you, though, that would be "performative".

That sounds like it makes sense, but it's ludicrous! The morally repugnant issue is sex with underage girls, spending money on it or not is irrelevant.

Uh, yeah. Go look at what you said.

Your point was that if people were spending "their own hard earned money" on something, that meant we shouldn't be morally indignant about it. This appeared to be an admonition completely independent of the content of what those people were doing with their "hard earned money". I pointed out the absurdity of this. You have just confirmed it--yes, whether someone spends "their own hard earned money" on something is in fact irrelevant to whether we should feel moral indignation about it. So, your initial statement was ludicrous.

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I kept thinking it was weird this game wasn't in my Steam library, as I was sure I bought it. Turns out that was back when I was young and naive and still had faith in GOG. I think it's time to repurchase it on Steam and get actual customer support.
(for reference, the Steam Linux depot was updated along with the Windows and Mac depots; the GOG Linux version has indeed been ignored for about 7 years)

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Quoting: doragasuNow Nintendo needs an AI tool to automate Cease & Desists.

Rest assured they're way ahead of you. 🤬

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Since my language version of Pooh was not named Winnie, the only association I have with this name is Danica McKellar in The Wonder Years. 😇

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Quoting: HamishI actually came across this game just the other day while looking into something else. The GOG.com version does not have the patch yet but they usually take longer to get it so.

It's worse that just a delay... The macOS and Linux releases on GOG didn't get any updates since 2019!
That's what I was talking about, we always hear the excuse of "it's because GOG Galaxy isn't on Linux", but what's the excuse for the macOS download then?
I don't think we'll ever see them.

On the topic still, what a changelog thought!

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Quoting: LoftyThanks for the info. Not to be lazy but i do sometimes wish Linux had more native apps with an actually decent GUI for doing cool stuff like this.

You know I had almost the same discussion 6 days ago on Reddit so here is a verbatim copy:

There is not really a way to do this even on e.g. Windows. This will always require tinkering with the game. Each is different, each uses different head tracking systems (if any at all and it doesn't require mapping to virtual gamepads or even mouse input) and almost no game ships with native SBS support.

When ReShade is involved you have a list of supported games but when it's missing you have to start tweaking and configuration your own config. That's worthy of an extended article in itself.

This is really exactly what VR solved (and even here it's YMMV) handling various devices and making data available via a well known and unified API. This is where Monado is a nice alternative but afair they don't support Vitures [yet].

Oh and don't get me started why there is no unified API for head tracking at all. Can probably thank Naturalsoft threatening everyone with a law suit for years while trying to protect sending 6 digits to a game for decades 🤢

tl;dr: some things users have to understand the basic concept. Too many moving parts.

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Quoting: doragasuNow Nintendo needs an AI tool to automate Cease & Desists.

Lawsuit slop.

I'm fairly sure that's what law companies will do to each other in the future.
I guess there are positive outlooks as well 😂

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Quoting: LeprottoThis won't block Google AI to intrude into your searches.

I don't use Google for searches, I stopped doing that many years ago, or anything actually, except watching some videos from Youtube with third-party clients.

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Quoting: SzkodnixSo far the only good thing in Epic is that they got regional pricing right for me (or at least in Poland).

I still don't trust that clown Sweeney.

maybe i will play devil's advocate here, but when epic games shut down their Paragon MOBA game, they refunded all donations made by players. Killing games sucks, but at least epic games did a really honourable gesture with these refunds.

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I actually came across this game just the other day while looking into something else. The GOG.com version does not have the patch yet but they usually take longer to get it so.

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Now Nintendo needs an AI tool to automate Cease & Desists.

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...the what?

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Quoting: tohur

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: tohur

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: tohur

Quoting: williamjcm

Quoting: Egonaut

Quoting: williamjcmThe reason the third-party sale numbers increased by that much is because they now include VAT, while previous years didn't include it to my knowledge.

That makes no sense, where in the world do we have 57% VAT?

I mean, it would still have increased compared to the previous year, just *much less* than what Epic's claiming. For example, if we assume that everyone on the EGS paid a 20% VAT, then the "before VAT" spending would have been around 333M$, which would seem much less impressive.

Not everyone pays a VAT and the largest gaming market outside of China is the USA.. the USA alone is the largest market by a long shot compared to any country that pays a VAT. Point is that math don't math.

The math doesn't math. But the US is a small part of the world's game market.

The USA is the SECOND largest market at around $50 billion.. the next closest market is Japan at $17 billion.. like I said the math he put up does NOT math for obvious reasons

I agreed with you that the math doesn't math?!?

It doesn't matter if they're the second largest or the largest or the third largest. What matters is their size compared to the sum of the others. Well, in the end to the others that take VAT, but I won't try to figure that out.
My point was that the US is a minority in the whole PC gaming market. Depending on whom you ask it may be below 20 or around 30 percent, but either way a minority.
(I had deleted my post because I decided not to go into this deeper, but you were too fast. ;) )

The only Europe countries that even show up in the top ten is Germany, UK, and France.. and those 3 combined are less then Japan.. the rest are MUCH less then one of those 3. like I said the vast majority of gamers that spend money do NOT pay a VAT

It seems I misunderstood you on what maths and what not.

(*sigh * I did not want to be pulled into this...)

According to what I read, most US states do have sales taxes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States

... and so does China:

https://globaltaxnews.ey.com/news/2025-0133-china-officially-enacts-vat-law-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-tax-governance

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: tohur

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: tohur

Quoting: williamjcm

Quoting: Egonaut

Quoting: williamjcmThe reason the third-party sale numbers increased by that much is because they now include VAT, while previous years didn't include it to my knowledge.

That makes no sense, where in the world do we have 57% VAT?

I mean, it would still have increased compared to the previous year, just *much less* than what Epic's claiming. For example, if we assume that everyone on the EGS paid a 20% VAT, then the "before VAT" spending would have been around 333M$, which would seem much less impressive.

Not everyone pays a VAT and the largest gaming market outside of China is the USA.. the USA alone is the largest market by a long shot compared to any country that pays a VAT. Point is that math don't math.

The math doesn't math. But the US is a small part of the world's game market.

The USA is the SECOND largest market at around $50 billion.. the next closest market is Japan at $17 billion.. like I said the math he put up does NOT math for obvious reasons

I agreed with you that the math doesn't math?!?

It doesn't matter if they're the second largest or the largest or the third largest. What matters is their size compared to the sum of the others. Well, in the end to the others that take VAT, but I won't try to figure that out.
My point was that the US is a minority in the whole PC gaming market. Depending on whom you ask it may be below 20 or around 30 percent, but either way a minority.
(I had deleted my post because I decided not to go into this deeper, but you were too fast. ;) )

The only Europe countries that even show up in the top ten is Germany, UK, and France.. and those 3 combined are less then Japan.. the rest are MUCH less then one of those 3. like I said the vast majority of gamers that spend money do NOT pay a VAT

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Quoting: tuubi

Well, I have to admit, I'm a little confused. The video game business since its inception was built on the back of machine learning and artificial intelligence. We create our games in computers with technology.

Give yourself some credit, won't you Mr. Zelnick? You're not just "a little" confused. You're either very confused or very stupid.

How do these idiots end up leading corporations?

Considering the last phrase you cited, I wonder if he wants to run for president.

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I love that the first instinct when something wholesome expires from trademark or copyright is just to make it cursed and shit on everyone's fond memories. /s

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Quoting: tuubiHow do these idiots end up leading corporations?

I just have to assume all the other idiots with money see their fellow idiots and give them money, perpetuating the cycle of C-suite decay.

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Quoting: tohur

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: tohur

Quoting: williamjcm

Quoting: Egonaut

Quoting: williamjcmThe reason the third-party sale numbers increased by that much is because they now include VAT, while previous years didn't include it to my knowledge.

That makes no sense, where in the world do we have 57% VAT?

I mean, it would still have increased compared to the previous year, just *much less* than what Epic's claiming. For example, if we assume that everyone on the EGS paid a 20% VAT, then the "before VAT" spending would have been around 333M$, which would seem much less impressive.

Not everyone pays a VAT and the largest gaming market outside of China is the USA.. the USA alone is the largest market by a long shot compared to any country that pays a VAT. Point is that math don't math.

The math doesn't math. But the US is a small part of the world's game market.

The USA is the SECOND largest market at around $50 billion.. the next closest market is Japan at $17 billion.. like I said the math he put up does NOT math for obvious reasons

I agreed with you that the math doesn't math?!?

It doesn't matter if they're the second largest or the largest or the third largest. What matters is their size compared to the sum of the others. Well, in the end to the others that take VAT, but I won't try to figure that out.
My point was that the US is a minority in the whole PC gaming market. Depending on whom you ask it may be below 20 or around 30 percent, but either way a minority.
(I had deleted my post because I decided not to go into this deeper, but you were too fast. ;) )

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Quoting: eggroleI don't get the hate for Epic. I've never bought from them because I didn't want to have more launchers, but now that I use Steam and Heroic I have no real reason not to if the price is right. I get all their free games and have played plenty of them with no issues.

I am glad Epic is doing better. More competition means that Steam (and GOG) won't be able to sit around.

Now, I'm not saying everyone should start buying on Epic - you do you - but clearly enough people are buying that Epic isn't failing, and that IMHO is a good thing.

Well said! Steam is a monopoly, however benign, and competition is essential. I am also happy that Epic is doing better.

I've gotten pretty much every free game Epic has given away and have played quite a few - there's very little effort involved in getting them to run on Linux, either through Wine or through Steam/Proton or with launchers like Heroic, especially since most of them are DRM-free. I've even purchased a couple of games on Epic because they were great deals at the time compared to Steam: Subnautica: Below Zero and Outer Wilds.

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I'm disappointed by the lack of double entendres in the headline. Consider this post a sternly worded letter to the editor.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: tohur

Quoting: williamjcm

Quoting: Egonaut

Quoting: williamjcmThe reason the third-party sale numbers increased by that much is because they now include VAT, while previous years didn't include it to my knowledge.

That makes no sense, where in the world do we have 57% VAT?

I mean, it would still have increased compared to the previous year, just *much less* than what Epic's claiming. For example, if we assume that everyone on the EGS paid a 20% VAT, then the "before VAT" spending would have been around 333M$, which would seem much less impressive.

Not everyone pays a VAT and the largest gaming market outside of China is the USA.. the USA alone is the largest market by a long shot compared to any country that pays a VAT. Point is that math don't math.

The math doesn't math. But the US is a small part of the world's game market.

The USA is the SECOND largest market at around $50 billion.. the next closest market is Japan at $17 billion.. like I said the math he put up does NOT math for obvious reasons

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Quoting: williamjcm

Quoting: Egonaut

Quoting: williamjcmThe reason the third-party sale numbers increased by that much is because they now include VAT, while previous years didn't include it to my knowledge.

That makes no sense, where in the world do we have 57% VAT?

I mean, it would still have increased compared to the previous year, just *much less* than what Epic's claiming. For example, if we assume that everyone on the EGS paid a 20% VAT, then the "before VAT" spending would have been around 333M$, which would seem much less impressive.

Not everyone pays a VAT and the largest gaming market outside of China is the USA.. the USA alone is the largest market by a long shot compared to any country that pays a VAT. Point is that math don't math.

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Well, I have to admit, I'm a little confused. The video game business since its inception was built on the back of machine learning and artificial intelligence. We create our games in computers with technology.

Give yourself some credit, won't you Mr. Zelnick? You're not just "a little" confused. You're either very confused or very stupid.

How do these idiots end up leading corporations?

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Quoting: SzkodnixI'm still worried about the price. Even the most pessimistic scenario of $1,000 is becoming less and less realistic option.

They claimed "mid range pc" pricing ... which is totally fine by me for what it is. So as long as they stick to that, I'm all good.

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I remember having fun with the game when I played it back in 2018. Definitely worth the measly 3.75€ it's going for on Steam currently, if you enjoy the genre.

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most cursed game name of all time?

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Quoting: Egonaut

Quoting: williamjcmThe reason the third-party sale numbers increased by that much is because they now include VAT, while previous years didn't include it to my knowledge.

That makes no sense, where in the world do we have 57% VAT?

I mean, it would still have increased compared to the previous year, just *much less* than what Epic's claiming. For example, if we assume that everyone on the EGS paid a 20% VAT, then the "before VAT" spending would have been around 333M$, which would seem much less impressive.

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I don't get the hate for Epic. I've never bought from them because I didn't want to have more launchers, but now that I use Steam and Heroic I have no real reason not to if the price is right. I get all their free games and have played plenty of them with no issues.

I am glad Epic is doing better. More competition means that Steam (and GOG) won't be able to sit around.

Now, I'm not saying everyone should start buying on Epic - you do you - but clearly enough people are buying that Epic isn't failing, and that IMHO is a good thing.

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