fox_the_apprentice

You just said ‘Linux users’ three different ways /s

get’s [sic] a lot of downvotes by people who simply don’t like that particular post.

That’s literally the point of the downvote system. To downvote posts you don’t like, or you feel are out of place.

Additionally we are seeing posts with more downvotes than a community has subscribers, meaning people are downvoting content they don’t even want to see in the first place.

This seems to be the real issue you’re trying to fight. It seems like only permitting downvotes on communities that the user has been a part of for greater than 1/2/7/30/pick-a-number days would be the proper solution. If people in a community are downvoting a post, then it means they don’t think that post is worth sharing. No admin, moderator, community owner, etc. should be able to change that.

I am strongly against removing downvotes.

Underscores do not separate words when moving with ctrl+arrow key. Hypens are preferable, or periods, or spaces.

Epic Games*, Mihoyo**, IO Interactive, Bethesda/ZeniMax***, Deep Silver.

* Epic games is 40% owned by a publicly-traded company, Tencent.

** Mihoyo filed for an IPO in 2017, but withdrew its application for unknown reasons.

*** ZeniMax Media was recently acquired by Microsoft, and is now a Microsoft subsidiary. I’m not sure if this makes it count as a ‘non-public gaming company’ by your definition.

I was up for a Steam competitor.

GOG Galaxy has been good even before Epic Store existed.

If you want to fight the monopoly, go with a good alternative like GOG Galaxy. This article is about Epic, hence the preference for Steam.

That’s why they often make good developers.

Good developers don’t just write easy-to-write code. They write code that is easy to maintain and efficient to run - and oftentimes that requires forethought, a willingness to rewrite when a misstep is made, and above all else the willingness to tinker/learn effectively.

Source: I am a terrible developer and a very lazy person, and I have had to maintain lots of poorly-written code (some of it my own).

dwalinIsEven(-2)

Microsoft makes some very good quality adaptive controller accessories. IMO that still doesn’t make this move OK, but at least disabled people still have a supported option.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/xbox-adaptive-controller

For those like me who have no idea what EUIPO is:

EUIPO stands for the EU Intellectual Property Office.

Since 2012, the EUIPO has hosted the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights, which brings public and private stakeholders together in the fight against piracy and counterfeiting.

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

A lot of the comments in here seem a little bit too sympathetic

It is a mental illness. If fake images result in less real-world abuse then that’s a good thing.

the lack of new first party exclusives

This is good; exclusivity hurts consumers.

Suddenly corporations have to pay them a wage and medical care. Brilliant.

Don’t most Kindle books permit you to download a free sample?

Some slight additions:

Google gives their word that Chrome itself will keep it disabled for a random 5% of users at launch.

I’ve emphasized what I view to be the problems.

1. This requires you to trust that Google will actually do this at launch; and to be fair I expect they probably will. That said, it’s not a legally binding statement. Promises are cheap.

2. This requires you to trust that the ‘random 5% of users’ figure will remain a thing forever, and not be silently rolled back in a Chrome update two years from release once most of the complaints die down.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2165/

The first is that I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam or Epic Games or any other basic storefront (except GOG of course).

There were three points in the post you’re replying to. Not all Steam games have DRM; I’m going to assume we’re talking only about games using the their DRM:

1. DRM server shutting off -> Steam has been around for a long time, longer than Denuvo. Steam makes a lot more money than Denuvo. Steam is not as publicly hated as Denuvo. Because of these things, I don’t think Steam will be shutting down any time soon; Denuvo shutting down is a much larger concern, especially due to public perception. Here’s a decent answer to the question anyways: https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/255424/what-will-happen-to-my-owned-games-if-steam-were-to-close .

TL;DR 1: It’s not as much of a concern for Steam as it is for Denuvo.

2. Game company shuts off and is unable to pay DRM subscription -> This depends on the license agreement between the DRM provider and the company. The comment you’re replying to implies that Denuvo has a subscription fee for its use in a product, and I’m going to proceed under this assumption. I doubt Steam requires any form of subscription fee to keep the DRM working - I would expect that, as they are a storefront, they pay for that via a percentage of game sales. Denuvo isn’t a storefront, so I would expect if they have a subscription fee then this would be a Denuvo concern that doesn’t apply to Steam.

TL;DR 2: Steam is a storefront, and it’s expected that their sales percentage would cover DRM costs for the game. This is a concern for Denuvo, but not really one for Steam.

3. Internet going off -> Steam has a well-known offline feature that works reasonably well. Companies that use the Stream DRM system are using libraries intended to work with this feature - that’s not to say they can’t purposefully make it unplayable offline, but it’s generally well-done. The problem is that it requires you to enable offline mode before your Internet goes out. This is something that’s regularly complained about, so I don’t think your “[…] I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam […]” statement applies.

TL;DR 3: Steam DRM is regularly complained about in this regard.

I dislike Epic , so I’m not the person to give them a reasonable defense/discussion - you’ll have to find someone else for that.

E-Lemminators

We can be quite the sour bunch ;)