screenshot of a Tweet from Running With Scissors reading
“We’ve been told our games are too expensive in some countries but we’ve been using Steam’s recommended pricing for a while. We trust Valve enough to not change this. If our games are still too expensive for you, you can pirate them until you have enough to support us.”
I might buy one of their games just to offset someone who can’t. I absolutely appreciate a business with this kind of attitude. Like someone else said, the people who pirate it probably weren’t going to buy it anyway. Might as well get some goodwill out of it.
the people who pirate it probably weren’t going to buy it anyway
Exactly. For example, you can’t expect some middle class kid in some third world country to buy the game they like. Playing games by pirating might make them play their favourite game until they eventually grow to a point where they earn themselves and then they buy the games they like.
P.s) Pirated games all this time but the first game I will actually buy will be Spiderman 2. Really excited to try it out since Spiderman 1 was so fucking good.
I have learned a lot while I was setting up my NAS and all the *arr applications. It taught me a bit about networking and a bit about docker which I know is going to be helpful for me in the future. That kid you were talking about might be able to learn the something similar which might get them interested in the tech world and you have just created a future programmer, or network admin, or any number of other tech job. Those can be very marketable skills in a pool of people who seem to be less tech literate as tech becomes so easy to use.
That kid you were talking about might be able to learn the something similar which might get them interested in the tech world and you have just created a future programmer, or network admin, or any number of other tech job.
One of those kids is me. Pirating has taught me to troubleshoot things and adapt to new things at my tech job and I have met pretty cool people across different pirating communities who taught me various things.
I didn’t know games could come with professionally printed labels, when I was a kid with no income. I thought everyone just got them on disks labeled in marker from a good friend of the family.
It’s important to me to support developers, but I can’t say I regret getting to play those games before I could have ever afforded them.
I’ve since gone on to buy those same games from their developers several times over on various platforms.
Based is just a common word zoomers like me use. While your likely implication of it being some sort of dogwhistle or right wing term might have been correct like, half a decade ago, it doesn’t apply anymore. Everyone uses it between the age of 16-20.
I’m getting old … what does this mean and why is it objectionable? Google suggests it means they have strong character, which seems like a fair assessment.
Words have meaning, and that meaning is defined by common understanding. If a significant percentage of the population does not know what a word means, (and I mean a significant percentage not just some people) then it’s fair to say the word is essentially nonsense.
The problem is sometimes people pick a word and then decide on its meaning but then neglect to inform the rest of the human population - see Woke. That’s not how language works, it’s about mutual acceptance the particular sound or set of sounds means a particular idea or concept or thing. If that mutual acceptance is not there, then it is not a word.
There are many people who would disagree that that is its meaning, and that’s the problem. There is no completely defined meaning for these words, they mean different things to different people so when you say the word I don’t know what meaning is supposed to be interpreted.
What you’re missing is that language is often used differently in subculture groups and other niches. Language frequently changes meaning depending on context, and that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Language never has been and never will be static. Shared slang is a very important part of signaling that you are part of an “in group”, and it will always change rapidly, compared to language in more common usage.
Related: trans-phobic signaling that “they/them” should be used exclusively singularly as a plural, despite its common use as a gender neutral pronoun for centuries.
Long before I had any knowledge of transgender or even transexuality, I knew to use they/them when gender was unknown. I agree that the “singular they” is long accepted, correct, common English.
That’s how literally all language change happens? People just start using words differently or use new words, it slowly spreads, until a majority is using it. You can either embrace it and be happy you get new tools to express yourself with, or reenact the “old man yells at clouds” meme and be grumpy. I know which one I’ll choose.
What I understand this originates from is “not based on anything”, so essentially bucking the trend or the norm. Doing things not because something or someone told them.
It’s 4chan type of language, itself an alt-right cesspool.
Gotcha… From reading all the responses, it sounds like the word and meaning itself isn’t really objectionable, it’s more the people that use it. Which isn’t something a search engine tells you… 😅
I’ve long regarded it as a red flag, since the first people I encountered using it were alt-right dipshits. Subsequently it seems to have been adopted wholesale, and I get the impression that most people don’t see it as politically charged.
My man, that’s so not funky of you! If you skedaddle into this far out place called internet, you have to expect to come across new terms that are slammin and radical to some people. Instead of giving them hairy eyeballs and going “No can do”, how about you say “Word, brother”? Every generation invents its own gnarly slang and that’s pretty fly, actually. Like, what makes your slang groovy and theirs bogus?
To a zoomer, based is the opposite of cringe (I’m told). This is the first time I’ve seen it mentioned in regards to alt-right, that sounds like they happened to be alt-right zoomers.
No, it’s not the “opposite of cringe” and it’s not an alt-right dog whistle. It just means the person or group is willing to do the right thing, above politics or greed. It’s more comparable to Giga Chad, but it’s more accurate to say that Giga Chad when used in memes is the representation of a based individual.
Also, “alt-right” is a dog whistle for “white supremacist”, invented by a white supremacist to soften the language. Stop using it. Just call them white supremacists or fascists.
My understanding of “based” from years and years ago was that it was used as an exclamation when people essentially weren’t afraid to speak their minds even if they’re likely to get shit for said opinion.
That’s why it’s gotten associated with the alt-right because it was usually bigoted douchebags saying bigoted shit that other bigots would then respond “based” to. I feel like the terminology was associated with 4chan in its early usage and spread to reddit.
I believe your definition that is popular with Gen Z is a newer development.
It’s just slang that more-or-less means “confident”, originally coined by the rapper Lil B.
While it’s an interesting line of inquiry as to why internet culture may appropriate and adopt words like this, this comment is just giving off major “old man yells at cloud” energy.
I have to imagine a comment like this does absolutely nothing to their sales figures. People who were going to download a cracked version of their games anyway remain unaffected now that they have a blessing, and I doubt people who weren’t going to pirate would now feel more inclined to do so.
This seems like good PR and frankly it should probably be the default position for games studios.
Before this tweet, they also mentioned piracy over grey market keyshops, which seems to be a lot more of a valid reason to endorse it. This seemly links to that tweet.
Yeah, the whole piracy crackdown situation is so stupid.
I pirate a lot of media, if you added it all up it would be a lot of money (if I was to buy everything). The difference is, before I pirated I barely bought any of the media.
I pirate some games that i’d never buy. I buy all games I want to support.
I pay TV licence, netflix and amazon. I pirate tons of TV series because they aren’t on those services. I literally can’t buy some of them and if I could i’d need about 10 different streaming services.
Films, I pirate a lot of films. Before I pirated I never bought any films, i’d either wait for netflix/normal TV or just not watch them. I still go to the cinema for big releases.
I subscribe on patreon, github and donate to LOADS of projects, many of which i’ve pirated first or obtained a copy of (books are a big one here).
If you were to objectively look at the value of the pirated media, it would seem that i’ve “stolen” or studios have missed out on lots of revenue, but the truth is I pirate a lot of media, just because I can.
Few years ago there was Netflix and Film1 in our country and an ISP with TV that also had a movie service.
That was about it.
Now there’s Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, SkyShowtime, Apple TV+ and ViaPlay added to it.
It’s impossible to have have just 1 and view what you want. Ofcourse you can keep on switching but some of them but it’s all just making it more complicated.
Solution? Pirate it. One source and everything available even stuff that isn’t on any on those services.
Also some movies can’t be bought digital.
IMO all movies and series should be available on any platform and let the streaming service decide if they want to have it in their portfolio. Only the “originals” should be locked to a platform to keep stuff unique.
And make every damn movie and series available for purchase.
IMO all movies and series should be available on any platform and let the streaming service decide if they want to have it in their portfolio. Only the “originals” should be locked to a platform to keep stuff unique.
That’s just cable though. Not sure that’ll be any better. The second a company sees a revenue stream or thinks they’re missing out. They monetise it to the detriment of the customers.
It won’t have a large effect, but in previous examples of companies doing this, comments would lead me to believe more people who pirated end up buying the game to support the devs after trying it. It makes sense too, but same pirates are unlikely to buy anything that had denuvo and stuff shoved into it.
Some games you dont even need a crack or anything, just access to the files.
For example with KSP, you can just clone the game directory anywhere and run it from there. Doesnt even need steam. Heck i copied it over to an M1 macbook once just to test the Macbooks performance…
Thats also how the mod managers like CKAN work with the game.
I was going to say, all artists should share this position, but I’ll do one better: if you don’t have this position, you’re not an artist. Feels bold to make any absolute claim about what makes an artist, but I feel safe on this one. If making sure you’re fairly compensated is higher priority than sharing your art, then you’re not an artist.
Artists, like all laborers, should be fairly compensated for their work. The idea that love of art should necessarily come into conflict with fair compensation is a primary vehicle for continuing the exploitation of creative labor.
That is somewhat orthogonal to the issue of piracy, though. Some of the most strongly anti-piracy platforms out there are also absolutely terrible in terms of labor rights (hence the current strikes in Hollywood, for instance). It’s notable that in this case, the studio seems to be saying fairly explicitly that piracy is indeed not the main obstacle to fair compensation, such that no conflict between their stance and labor rights needs to exist.
If you think I’m arguing that artists should not be compensated for their work, then I’ve completely misrepresented myself. Is that what you thought I meant?
Honestly it’s all sorts of wrong especially these days, but I’ve played through the whole thing 3 or 4 times. Surprisingly fun gameplay and enough easter eggs to be interesting on replay.
Theyre all kind of bad and rely mainly on shock humor to grab your attention. Think the GTA series but with more piss and shit jokes. You pee on people… Not exactly high brow. I thought the second one was fun though.
This approach makes so much sense from a business perspective.
How many here have this experience: out of my entire friend group that I grew up playing video games with, I can’t think of a single person who kept pirating games after acquiring disposable income, even though we all exclusively played pirated games as teenagers. Without piracy, none of us would have had access to any games, and very likely none of us would still be into gaming today, spending probably thousands of euros every year on games, consoles, PC components, etc.
I know of a certain former boss of mine who, after becoming a millionaire by side-lining the whole (game!) company and selling it to random yanks who didn’t know WTF to do with it, still continued to pirate games. While moving into the most expensive quarter of the city – by renting a house there.
But sane people without a cocaine habit, sure, yes.
Yeah it’s a shame demos died out. Now studios (or publishers, more likely) just expect everyone to pay for a game they don’t even know they’ll like, and tough shit if you don’t like it.
But so many games still have demos? I feel like it’s probably more that they’re cheap and don’t see a reason to pay whatever it costs to throw a demo together for free
The last Steam Next Fest in June had so many demos, I only had time for like 4-5. There were quite a few posts and comments (including mine) on the demos we tried.
I often grab a pirated copy to see if I like it first, and if I do, I’ll buy it. If I play it once or twice and don’t really get much out of it, I’m not out anything but some download time.
is two hours enough for you to get into a game tho? it took me 4 hours to get into stardew and no mans sky alike, and once I was into it, I was hooked. however, after two hours, both games were kinda shit to me
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The Darkwood devs did this even though they only have one game out, they even uploaded the torrent
Why it’s so expensive in Poland, they are not even close to salary in Norway or Swiss.
higher than USD and GBP rofl regional price my ass
I might buy one of their games just to offset someone who can’t. I absolutely appreciate a business with this kind of attitude. Like someone else said, the people who pirate it probably weren’t going to buy it anyway. Might as well get some goodwill out of it.
Exactly. For example, you can’t expect some middle class kid in some third world country to buy the game they like. Playing games by pirating might make them play their favourite game until they eventually grow to a point where they earn themselves and then they buy the games they like.
P.s) Pirated games all this time but the first game I will actually buy will be Spiderman 2. Really excited to try it out since Spiderman 1 was so fucking good.
I have learned a lot while I was setting up my NAS and all the *arr applications. It taught me a bit about networking and a bit about docker which I know is going to be helpful for me in the future. That kid you were talking about might be able to learn the something similar which might get them interested in the tech world and you have just created a future programmer, or network admin, or any number of other tech job. Those can be very marketable skills in a pool of people who seem to be less tech literate as tech becomes so easy to use.
One of those kids is me. Pirating has taught me to troubleshoot things and adapt to new things at my tech job and I have met pretty cool people across different pirating communities who taught me various things.
Totally.
I didn’t know games could come with professionally printed labels, when I was a kid with no income. I thought everyone just got them on disks labeled in marker from a good friend of the family.
It’s important to me to support developers, but I can’t say I regret getting to play those games before I could have ever afforded them.
I’ve since gone on to buy those same games from their developers several times over on various platforms.
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Based is just a common word zoomers like me use. While your likely implication of it being some sort of dogwhistle or right wing term might have been correct like, half a decade ago, it doesn’t apply anymore. Everyone uses it between the age of 16-20.
Simply: Based = Good Cringe = Bad
I wish people stopped using it, because it’s often confusing as f.
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Idiots use lots of words. Like the word “idiots”.
Says the fuckin idiot
I’m getting old … what does this mean and why is it objectionable? Google suggests it means they have strong character, which seems like a fair assessment.
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wait till you hear about all the other nonsense words.
(hint: all words are nonsense)
Words have meaning, and that meaning is defined by common understanding. If a significant percentage of the population does not know what a word means, (and I mean a significant percentage not just some people) then it’s fair to say the word is essentially nonsense.
The problem is sometimes people pick a word and then decide on its meaning but then neglect to inform the rest of the human population - see Woke. That’s not how language works, it’s about mutual acceptance the particular sound or set of sounds means a particular idea or concept or thing. If that mutual acceptance is not there, then it is not a word.
it’s been coined by the Black community, essentially meaning being aware of, and alert to, the systematic injustice against them. there you go.
There are many people who would disagree that that is its meaning, and that’s the problem. There is no completely defined meaning for these words, they mean different things to different people so when you say the word I don’t know what meaning is supposed to be interpreted.
What you’re missing is that language is often used differently in subculture groups and other niches. Language frequently changes meaning depending on context, and that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Language never has been and never will be static. Shared slang is a very important part of signaling that you are part of an “in group”, and it will always change rapidly, compared to language in more common usage.
Related: trans-phobic signaling that “they/them” should be used exclusively
singularlyas a plural, despite its common use as a gender neutral pronoun for centuries.I think you mean… plurally?
Long before I had any knowledge of transgender or even transexuality, I knew to use they/them when gender was unknown. I agree that the “singular they” is long accepted, correct, common English.
That’s how literally all language change happens? People just start using words differently or use new words, it slowly spreads, until a majority is using it. You can either embrace it and be happy you get new tools to express yourself with, or reenact the “old man yells at clouds” meme and be grumpy. I know which one I’ll choose.
Humanity is not a hive mind. We can’t just inform everyone instantly.
People have been using it for years no one knows what it means.
Lol… it definitely reminds you of how old you’re getting. But I’m sure the generations preceding ours felt the same.
I figure people need to pick up on new slang or risk becoming the old man or woman that yells at kids to get off their lawn one day.
Y’all called people daddio.
What I understand this originates from is “not based on anything”, so essentially bucking the trend or the norm. Doing things not because something or someone told them.
It’s 4chan type of language, itself an alt-right cesspool.
Gotcha… From reading all the responses, it sounds like the word and meaning itself isn’t really objectionable, it’s more the people that use it. Which isn’t something a search engine tells you… 😅
It’s gone mainstream. I hear it in high schools all the time from many different students. I think it’s pretty unobjectionable.
I’ve long regarded it as a red flag, since the first people I encountered using it were alt-right dipshits. Subsequently it seems to have been adopted wholesale, and I get the impression that most people don’t see it as politically charged.
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Go to bed already grandpa. Stop hating on new words so much.
My man, that’s so not funky of you! If you skedaddle into this far out place called internet, you have to expect to come across new terms that are slammin and radical to some people. Instead of giving them hairy eyeballs and going “No can do”, how about you say “Word, brother”? Every generation invents its own gnarly slang and that’s pretty fly, actually. Like, what makes your slang groovy and theirs bogus?
Groovy is definitely a word we should all use more.
To a zoomer, based is the opposite of cringe (I’m told). This is the first time I’ve seen it mentioned in regards to alt-right, that sounds like they happened to be alt-right zoomers.
No, it’s not the “opposite of cringe” and it’s not an alt-right dog whistle. It just means the person or group is willing to do the right thing, above politics or greed. It’s more comparable to Giga Chad, but it’s more accurate to say that Giga Chad when used in memes is the representation of a based individual.
Also, “alt-right” is a dog whistle for “white supremacist”, invented by a white supremacist to soften the language. Stop using it. Just call them white supremacists or fascists.
My understanding of “based” from years and years ago was that it was used as an exclamation when people essentially weren’t afraid to speak their minds even if they’re likely to get shit for said opinion.
That’s why it’s gotten associated with the alt-right because it was usually bigoted douchebags saying bigoted shit that other bigots would then respond “based” to. I feel like the terminology was associated with 4chan in its early usage and spread to reddit.
I believe your definition that is popular with Gen Z is a newer development.
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https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/based
From 2014? So yes years and years. Maybe use Google before you decide to be a douche.
And then do it anyway right?
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It’s just slang that more-or-less means “confident”, originally coined by the rapper Lil B.
While it’s an interesting line of inquiry as to why internet culture may appropriate and adopt words like this, this comment is just giving off major “old man yells at cloud” energy.
Yeah, it’s pretty cringe
Now the flowers will grow.
I have to imagine a comment like this does absolutely nothing to their sales figures. People who were going to download a cracked version of their games anyway remain unaffected now that they have a blessing, and I doubt people who weren’t going to pirate would now feel more inclined to do so.
This seems like good PR and frankly it should probably be the default position for games studios.
If anything, it probably encourages more real sales from would be pirates who like their message.
Before this tweet, they also mentioned piracy over grey market keyshops, which seems to be a lot more of a valid reason to endorse it. This seemly links to that tweet.
Yeah, the whole piracy crackdown situation is so stupid.
I pirate a lot of media, if you added it all up it would be a lot of money (if I was to buy everything). The difference is, before I pirated I barely bought any of the media.
If you were to objectively look at the value of the pirated media, it would seem that i’ve “stolen” or studios have missed out on lots of revenue, but the truth is I pirate a lot of media, just because I can.
Just adding on to this, every game I’ve ever pirated I ended up buying later on. Or I bought in the past (this applies to the games I emulate)
I would say 80% of the games I pirate, I put less than 30 mins into it.
It’s the streaming part for me.
Few years ago there was Netflix and Film1 in our country and an ISP with TV that also had a movie service.
That was about it.
Now there’s Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, SkyShowtime, Apple TV+ and ViaPlay added to it.
It’s impossible to have have just 1 and view what you want. Ofcourse you can keep on switching but some of them but it’s all just making it more complicated.
Solution? Pirate it. One source and everything available even stuff that isn’t on any on those services.
Also some movies can’t be bought digital.
IMO all movies and series should be available on any platform and let the streaming service decide if they want to have it in their portfolio. Only the “originals” should be locked to a platform to keep stuff unique.
And make every damn movie and series available for purchase.
That’s just cable though. Not sure that’ll be any better. The second a company sees a revenue stream or thinks they’re missing out. They monetise it to the detriment of the customers.
It won’t have a large effect, but in previous examples of companies doing this, comments would lead me to believe more people who pirated end up buying the game to support the devs after trying it. It makes sense too, but same pirates are unlikely to buy anything that had denuvo and stuff shoved into it.
Some games you dont even need a crack or anything, just access to the files.
For example with KSP, you can just clone the game directory anywhere and run it from there. Doesnt even need steam. Heck i copied it over to an M1 macbook once just to test the Macbooks performance…
Thats also how the mod managers like CKAN work with the game.
I was going to say, all artists should share this position, but I’ll do one better: if you don’t have this position, you’re not an artist. Feels bold to make any absolute claim about what makes an artist, but I feel safe on this one. If making sure you’re fairly compensated is higher priority than sharing your art, then you’re not an artist.
Artists, like all laborers, should be fairly compensated for their work. The idea that love of art should necessarily come into conflict with fair compensation is a primary vehicle for continuing the exploitation of creative labor.
That is somewhat orthogonal to the issue of piracy, though. Some of the most strongly anti-piracy platforms out there are also absolutely terrible in terms of labor rights (hence the current strikes in Hollywood, for instance). It’s notable that in this case, the studio seems to be saying fairly explicitly that piracy is indeed not the main obstacle to fair compensation, such that no conflict between their stance and labor rights needs to exist.
If you think I’m arguing that artists should not be compensated for their work, then I’ve completely misrepresented myself. Is that what you thought I meant?
I don’t think this post is allowed on lemmy.world.
This post isn’t on Lemmy.world.
The wonders of federation
It is funny though since they blocked the piracy community
Oh that’s what everyone was talking about… Well, i’m glad that I’ve got my BeeHaw at least
That’s awesome of them! What’s their best game? I’ll buy a copy on Steam.
OG Postal and Postal Brain damaged
exposure is more important than sales for them.
And I’m sure they understand that exposure also leads to more sales.
You all complaining about the word “based” know that Urban Dictionary exists, right?
based on what
Based on yourself. Read the dictionary
I’d seen postal, but it looked like a meme game, so I never considered playing it, now I might try it out, see what it’s all about.
Honestly it’s all sorts of wrong especially these days, but I’ve played through the whole thing 3 or 4 times. Surprisingly fun gameplay and enough easter eggs to be interesting on replay.
Theyre all kind of bad and rely mainly on shock humor to grab your attention. Think the GTA series but with more piss and shit jokes. You pee on people… Not exactly high brow. I thought the second one was fun though.
uuuh…everything that takes enough effort and skill to make is somehow a kind of artistic piece + art works in mysterious ways, I guess? 😄
This approach makes so much sense from a business perspective.
How many here have this experience: out of my entire friend group that I grew up playing video games with, I can’t think of a single person who kept pirating games after acquiring disposable income, even though we all exclusively played pirated games as teenagers. Without piracy, none of us would have had access to any games, and very likely none of us would still be into gaming today, spending probably thousands of euros every year on games, consoles, PC components, etc.
I know of a certain former boss of mine who, after becoming a millionaire by side-lining the whole (game!) company and selling it to random yanks who didn’t know WTF to do with it, still continued to pirate games. While moving into the most expensive quarter of the city – by renting a house there.
But sane people without a cocaine habit, sure, yes.
I miss the era of freeware and demos. Give me a taste with no strings attached and you are far more likely to get my money at some point.
Yeah it’s a shame demos died out. Now studios (or publishers, more likely) just expect everyone to pay for a game they don’t even know they’ll like, and tough shit if you don’t like it.
They want people to buy before they know what is like so they don’t have a chance to reconsider or regret it. This is why they hype preorders.
But so many games still have demos? I feel like it’s probably more that they’re cheap and don’t see a reason to pay whatever it costs to throw a demo together for free
Like people have been pointing out, it’s usually indies which don’t have an establish audience yet that do this. It’s much rarer for triple A games.
A lot of indie games on steam still do demos actually but yeah shitty that AAA games don’t do them anymore.
Huh, I haven’t run into an indie with a demo recently, but it’s definitely great to hear that demos are still a thing in the wider indie scene.
During the many steam festivals, there will be indie games with demos.
The last Steam Next Fest in June had so many demos, I only had time for like 4-5. There were quite a few posts and comments (including mine) on the demos we tried.
Demos have returned, on PC at least.
“Steam Next Fest” are events when devs launch demost for their upcoming projects. it’s like 3 or 4 times per year
I love Next Fest, I usually end up wishlisting like 3-10 games. Lots of good stuff that I’d never know or care about otherwise.
I often grab a pirated copy to see if I like it first, and if I do, I’ll buy it. If I play it once or twice and don’t really get much out of it, I’m not out anything but some download time.
Yup. The only time I pirate a game nowadays is when I can’t get it on steam for the 2 hour refund as a demo.
is two hours enough for you to get into a game tho? it took me 4 hours to get into stardew and no mans sky alike, and once I was into it, I was hooked. however, after two hours, both games were kinda shit to me
If you can’t otherwise afford them. Pretty important “if”. And then only until you can afford them.
download some unknown exe or sideload some dll with admin rights sound like good idea.
they’ve always tacitly been cool with it. they’ve dropped little hints like this into their games since the 90s.