Goodeye8

Okay, open my eyes to this ad insanity. Go on Youtube and search “the black grimoire cursebreaker”. Excluding the roblox videos (which youtube suggests because it doesn’t know what else to suggest) and the youtube shorts (which are also full of youtube not knowing what to recommend because there’s not enough of shorts about the game) please name the 3 videos and content creators that are actual video results and then we can discuss the rest that are supposed to be ads and sponsored content.

Do you understand what “barely” means? I didn’t say no financial incentive, I said barely. And Youtube taking almost half of your ad revenue (which itself is pocket change unless you’re a channel focused on investing, law, software development or real estate or you’re a channel regularly making over 100k videos) is barely a financial incentive. People complain about Valve taking 30% from game sales and Youtube takes 45%.

But you are correct in the sense that you can still make decent money with Youtube ads. But to make worthwhile money you need to make videos in the niches advertisers like, target an audience advertisers like (almost exclusively English speaking audience) and make videos that make at least over 1k views (which instantly puts you in the top 10% of content creators). Or be in the top 1% of content creators and average over 100k views per video. If you’re making something like gaming videos for 10k viewers Youtube pays you around $5 per video. At that point for the same video and viewers you’re probably going to make more money from the Peertube donation button than Youtube ad revenue.

So no, I’m not lying.

Nobody is forcing you to have a computer, buy gasoline or even own an house.

Of course not. Having a computer is a convenience thing, owning a house should be a fundamental human right but under the capitalist system it’s also turned into a convenience. Gasoline is also a convenience and as a matter of fact I don’t regularly buy gasoline because I avoid driving a car whenever possible. You might not even understand that you’re actually arguing against your own point here. The developers all have other options than Steam and just like me picking what conveniences I’m okay with they simply pick Steam because it’s the most convenient option for them. And just like my moral code makes me pick the less convenient option when it comes to gas so can devs pick a less convenient option when they’re not okay with Steam, I even brought examples of developers choosing to not be on Steam and still be successful. The idea that they have to use Steam to make a living is ridiculous.

Have you ask yourself why you never heard about it? Read my previous comment.

You mean this?

If the market is so much centralized around certain publishers and distribuition platforms you can thank greedy corporations that for decades shaped the system to be what it is.

So publishers and distribution platforms are the reason why the game has barely any presence on Youtube and really no other communities beyond a wiki and a Steam community. That’s a borderline conspiracy theory.

And a counter-question to you. If the publishers and distribution platforms have shaped the system in a way to make sure you see what they want you to see, why did a distribution platform recommend this game to me in the first place? And why 2 years after it released? I thought they were supposed to feed me only the games they want me to buy not the games I want to buy.

I believe you are ignoring all the evil greedy shit they do, such as promoting gambling to kids.

I’m not ignoring those things. I’m all for criticizing Valve for promoting gambling and trying to skirt the gambling laws (which would also make it illegal for them to let kids gamble). I’ve criticized them on this very point before and I don’t mind criticizing them on this point for as long as they’re doing it. That said.

This is simply not relevant to the current discussion because the money Valve makes from gambling goes straight to Valve and has nothing to do with indie developers. Unless you want to somehow drag indie developers into this gambling shit. Honestly you’d look less like a rambling hater if you could focus your criticism instead of lashing out at everything.

Nobody is forcing games to be released on Steam. In fact some of the biggest games played today are not on Steam. Roblox is not on Steam. Fortnite is not on Steam. Minecraft is not on Steam. Any game made by Riot games is not on Steam. Even smaller indie titles can easily get by without being on Steam. Vintage Story is not on Steam, Hytale is not on Steam. There are more titles whose name I can’t remember off the top of my head that are doing just fine without being on Steam.

Most devs put their game on Steam because not everyone wants to handle the stuff that comes with setting up your own game delivery platform and, whether you like it or not, Steam actually helps with visibility. I can give you an example right now. I had never heard of “The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker” until Steam recommended it to me a few days ago. It’s been out for 2 years and I’ve probably not heard of it because there’s barely anything about it on the web. Now it’s in my to play list. An indie dev just made some money because Steam advertised that game to me. In fact there are a lot of indie titles I’ve picked up due to Steam regularly promoting games through things like the Steam Next Fest or themed sales. I’ve also found games through the Steam Discovery feature but I don’t use it that much because it tends to mix in popular games I’m not interested with games I am interested in and most of the time I find what I want to buy without even needing to use it.

So your “evil greedy corporation” spiel only works when you ignore all the things Steam does that end up beneficial for indie games.

YouTube barely gives a financial incentive for most creators, that’s why most of them take sponsorship deals and/or use Patreon.

There is no politics in Ba Sing Se.

In a way they have stolen it, they’ve stolen the value by not replacing it. It’s highly likely the stick is faulty and would have to be replaced under warranty. The faulty stick they returned is useless and they’re trying to stiff him by not giving him a working stick that he’s entitled to.

I will add that it’s Minecraft-like only graphically. Anyone going into Vintage Story expecting their Minecraft knowledge to carry over is going to have a very bad time because the actual overlap is minimal.

Even then nothing would happen because modern day capitalists are like kings and kings don’t get held accountable.

I don’t mind getting remasters. If it’s an older game that’s a pain in the ass to get running on modern hardware I’d buy a remaster if it means getting modern QoL (like ultrawide support). But what I’d really like are proper remakes, especially of games like New Vegas that were held back by hardware limitations and/or time crunch. There’s so much unrealized content in New Vegas that you could remake it and have it feel like a new game.

I’m less concerned about getting new games because those are coming in faster than I can play them.

I love how this is also a culture shock for Americans that the rest of the world doesn’t have mandatory tipping and expects workers to be treated with some dignity (such as paying livable wage). And as American as it can get, they just blame the foreigners for doing it wrong instead of questioning if maybe there’s another way to do things.