Quoting: orochi_kyo

Quoting: TheSHEEEPYou can't showcase a game in six seconds - or if you can, you have a super simplistic game on your hand.

That is pretty much your opinion, I can tell with this six second trailers when a game is not for me. It is up to devs to make the right video.

That is not my opinion, but a fact.
Six seconds is not enough to explain fundamental mechanics of even simpler strategy games like Civilization, for example. What can you show there? A unit moving a tile, the purchase of a building, a glimpse of the tech tree, a camera movement over the map. That's about it, it has to be slow enough that people can still grasp what they are looking at.
That will tell you a tiny bit about the game, in some cases enough to tell you "this isn't for me", in others enough to pique interest.
But it also opens the door to not showcasing a part that someone might have liked, cause you just can't fit everything in there. And that person would then - based on those six seconds - decide to not give a further look.

This technique will lead to a large number of "false negatives". The question isn't if that will happen or not. It will, because it must. You couldn't fully explain a movie in a vine, either, and games are often way more complex than movies.
The question is if that number will be bigger or smaller than false negatives based on just the title screen. And that... no idea. Couldn't tell if this is better or worse for developers. I think it might be better for more action-oriented games, while it might be useless or bad for more cerebral ones.
But that wasn't my point, anyway. I was merely stating that it is impossible to fully showcase a game in six seconds. If that was possible, trailers wouldn't be minutes long.

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Quoting: Luke_Nukem

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: TheSHEEEPUbuntu GPU drivers are usually VERY outdated, though, I'm not sure if that will resolve this issue.

Isn't that what this news is all about?

Yes.

Don't listen to him. He's lying!

I don't really see it from the article text, to be honest. "Up-to-date" by Canonical standards can really mean quite a range of time ;) Currently, in the "usual" PPA, 4.18.XX is the up-to-date one...

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That really is a good thing. Basic things like GPU drivers shouldn't require any user input (though still allow it of course).

Ubuntu GPU drivers are usually VERY outdated, though, I'm not sure if that will resolve this issue.
I was very happy to see that - when I tested Manjaro - it just automatically installed the very latest NVIDIA driver for me, which is months ahead of the one I had under Ubuntu...

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: apocalyptechGive me a call when they try the "use humans to curate the store so it's not brimming with garbage constantly" experiment, that's the one that I'm still really pining for.

Which is completely unrealistic. It won't happen, because it won't help.

Well, there has to be some kind of middle ground between Valve's "every crap is welcome" and GOG's "we arbitrarily reject most good games that our users would actually like".

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You can't showcase a game in six seconds - or if you can, you have a super simplistic game on your hand.
On the other hand, micro-trailers are an improvement over just the title-screen or a screenshot.

I really don't like the automatic show, though. Not gonna watch a 20-minute video showing 4 videos at the same time with extreme cuts every six seconds. I tried for a minute and my brain hurts already. I'll take the discovery queue where I can go at my own speed, thank you very much.

Which leads me to the interactive recommender - which is nice. I find the discovery queue good enough already, tbh, but I'll always go with improvements.

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Ion Maiden, Ion Fury. Whatever!
I just want to have some really nice proof that oldschool graphics aren't dead at all and a very legitimate style choice.
Same for that kind of gameplay, of course.

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[quote=Pit]

Quoting: Chronarius

Quoting: GuestIf it’s on Steam then it’s not DRM-free, because it requires Steam.

Sorry, for being so blunt: B U L L S H I T ! ! !

The game dosn't require Steam! It runs perfectly without it!

But that doesn't help much. I'm against DRM, therefore by no way I'll get a Steam account. If I cancel my GOG account, I can keep and play all my games. And do so legally. What you 'buy' in Steam is legally tied to your account. So even if you would keep your DRM-free game (by copying it out of the steam folders) when closing the account, it legally is a pirated copy.

Your argument is based on an eventuality that will simply never happen. You think police will kick down your door and arrest you for using a copy of a game you bought some time ago, but no longer "own"? Come on!
Might as well argue that you can't play your GOG games any more if you get abducted by aliens and they only have an old Commodore lying around.

Preparing for such an eventuality makes about as much sense as never using ROMs to play old games, as you are actually only allowed to play ROMs of games you own (and afaik only if you made the ROM yourself).
That's the very essence of tinfoil-hattery. Why waste valuable lifetime to prepare for something that will never happen? Just so, that in the 0.005% of it happening you can point and say "Told you so!"?

While, even if that happened, everyone would just rage for a moment and then move on and buy the games they actually still want to play somewhere else, for the price of a meal...
Seriously, all my games on Steam could be gone in this very moment and I'd be all "Well, that's too bad.". This is not some kind of physical collection I'm carrying around with me. So I really just can't get into the mindset of this "apocalypse day" preparation.

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Quoting: WouldAvoidValveOnLinux

Quoting: TheSHEEEPYou can do exactly that with Steam, too. It's called Family Share. Been doing that many years with my GF for some games. She can play something from my lib while I play something else. Only requirement is that both have Steam, but since that is free, it's a non-issue.

No. She would be kicked out of one of your games if you play a completely different game from your library. She has five minutes to wrap up any unfinished business.

Then you obviously did it wrong.
Download game from the library, go offline, now you can play.
This obviously won't work for most online-games, but you shouldn't be able to play someone else's online games without buying them anyway.

Quoting: WouldAvoidValveOnLinuxNow if she was playing a GOG game of your own and you play another GOG game, there is virtually nothing tracking either of you to make sure your GF can't play when you're playing a game...you don't even need to login to her PC and add it to your account, just give her the game installer and be on your merry way.

Oh, yeah, Steam's Family Sharing is user unfriendly and pretty much sucks (as many things in Steam do...), I won't disagree with that. But it IS possible to use it.

Quoting: WouldAvoidValveOnLinux

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: TheBardDRM-Free on Steam does exist! When a game is DRM-Free on Steam, you don't need to login to play. You can even use steamcmd to install games without the client. Indeed it's a bit more complex that downloading a file from a website but actually it's more convenient because stemcmd deal with lots of stuff. When the download is complete, you can backup the game directly the way you want, move it where you want and play without Steam. I've tested it myself several times! Steam is not a DRM but Steam offer a DRM solution for the devs who want it. It's up to the devs to make their game DRM-Free or not on Steam.

I don't think saying users can learn steamcmd is a reasonable argument personally, for those who prefer fully DRM-free.

Something is not easy to use, so it isn't DRM-free? That's your argument?
I'm all for Steam adding a simple "Download as installer/archive" button or something along those lines to DRM-free games in their store, but not having that button doesn't make them games with DRM.

On GOG, the games are readily available as installers with no further work on your part. I download them, double click, then click install and sit back and enjoy. You're expecting users to be savvy enough to use steamcmd, let alone know it exists, for the pursuit of DRM-free.

I'm not expecting users to do anything, I'm just saying that ease-of-use has nothing to do with DRM or no DRM.
The matter of fact is that there are DRM-free games on Steam.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPWhat makes GOG better than valve with DRM-free is that they guarantee their games are DRM-free. Valve does not, and will not mind if devs suddenly start using DRM in a later version of the game.

That is true. If being DRM-free is someone's primary concern, they are better off with GOG.
Though only on Windows, as GOG on Linux, well... You really have to value DRM-free extremely to want to use GOG's crappy slow installers and lack of auto-updates and everything else Steam/Galaxy offers...

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Quoting: appetrosyanJust because YOU haven't put DRM in your game, by publishing on Steam you're restricting my ability to share it. For example, I can lend a GOG game to a friend. He can play the game at the same time as I am playing something else. I can't do that on Steam.

You can do exactly that with Steam, too. It's called Family Share. Been doing that many years with my GF for some games. She can play something from my lib while I play something else. Only requirement is that both have Steam, but since that is free, it's a non-issue.

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: TheBardDRM-Free on Steam does exist! When a game is DRM-Free on Steam, you don't need to login to play. You can even use steamcmd to install games without the client. Indeed it's a bit more complex that downloading a file from a website but actually it's more convenient because stemcmd deal with lots of stuff. When the download is complete, you can backup the game directly the way you want, move it where you want and play without Steam. I've tested it myself several times! Steam is not a DRM but Steam offer a DRM solution for the devs who want it. It's up to the devs to make their game DRM-Free or not on Steam.

I don't think saying users can learn steamcmd is a reasonable argument personally, for those who prefer fully DRM-free.

Something is not easy to use, so it isn't DRM-free? That's your argument?
I'm all for Steam adding a simple "Download as installer/archive" button or something along those lines to DRM-free games in their store, but not having that button doesn't make them games with DRM.

It really does depend on the dev if their Steam-version has DRM or not. Some games won't even start without Steam running (and being logged in, afaik). But others do (they might tell you achievements are not working, though), and I don't see how those can not be considered DRM-free.

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: eldakingThis is just a PR disaster.

This is exactly it. Some devs should just stay off handling what they perceive as complaints.

Meh, I'd rather have an honest dev that I don't agree with, than some community manager just trying to butter me up.

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One of the (many) problems with sites like G2A is that, yes, they do allow developers to contact them and ask keys to be removed.
However:
A) That forces the developers to become active, when it really should be done by the store runners (who won't do it, as it would lose them money).
But if you are an indie dev team with a handful of people, just how much time do you want to devote to unending email communication with some fraudster store? All of that takes time away from making or marketing your game. That's really stuff developers shouldn't have to deal with.

B) If something is illegal or not can be arbitrarily determined by the store. No matter how shady the devs point out a single person owning hundreds or dozens of keys of a game that was never on sale for such a low price to be... until you have 100% proof, you've effectively got nothing and are just wasting your time.

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