based


image:

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.”

  • apprehensively_human@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • giant_smeeg@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      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.

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • xgranade@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 months ago

        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.

  • Gekkonen@sopuli.xyz
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    11 months ago

    Now if only there was a way to safely pirate stuff without the possibility of the binaries having keyloggers or cryptominers embedded in them. I seem to recall some studio hosting an official torrent on their website precisely for this reason.

    • frei@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      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

    • Satan@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      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.

    • Naatan@lemmy.one
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • Rentlar@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • Naatan@lemmy.one
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          11 months ago

          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… 😅

          • blindsight@beehaw.org
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            11 months ago

            It’s gone mainstream. I hear it in high schools all the time from many different students. I think it’s pretty unobjectionable.

      • mothersprotege@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • scottywh@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          I just see it as fuckin stupid personally and it’s begun to inspire more and more rage in me as a result.

          Like enshitification, I see it as Idiocracizing society mostly.

          • Crotaro@beehaw.org
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            11 months ago

            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?

      • scottywh@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        I’m fuckin old too and that’s why it pisses me off… It’s fuckin nonsense words.

        • bundes_sheep@lemmy.one
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          11 months ago

          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.

        • Naatan@lemmy.one
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          11 months ago

          Lol… it definitely reminds you of how old you’re getting. But I’m sure the generations preceding ours felt the same.

      • Dave@lemmy.nz
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 months ago

          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.

          • cobra89@beehaw.org
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            11 months ago

            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.

  • fox@beehaw.org
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    11 months ago

    That’s awesome of them! What’s their best game? I’ll buy a copy on Steam.

  • Moonrise2473@feddit.it
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    11 months ago

    Their reason is: people is using g2a for “discounted” keys.

    Where the “discount” comes? Easy, some asshole buys from their website many keys with a stolen credit card, then they will need to refund it + pay an expensive fee for the chargeback.

    I’m not a dev but at that point I would just give up selling keys by myself and I would just rely on steam for fraud detection. The only case where the 30% fee is justified

    • Sprokes@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      In Europe at least if strong authentication was done during the purchase (and it is mandatory since a few years), the merchant is protected and the bank issued the card will take the loss. They don’t need to refund or pay fees for charge back.

      • Moonrise2473@feddit.it
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        11 months ago

        Are you sure? My stripe merchant account still mentions the 15 euro chargeback fee and now in my country is easier to ask for a chargeback, can do at the phone while before you needed to send a registered snail mail at a secret address with the right timing using a secret form, while sending a copy of the police report via fax

    • ChronosWing@lemmy.zip
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      11 months ago

      I’ll take the downvotes but this is hardly true. Most of them come from bundles and purchasing them in other countries where it’s a lot cheaper. You can prove this easily by checking games on g2a that almost never go on sale or are included in bundles and you will notice the price is the same or a few dollars cheaper than steam.

      • averyminya@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        Most == prevent.

        The issue with G2A is that any keys at all come from scammed credit cards. In a silly way it’s like of like tor. It doesn’t matter if I am trying to sell my excess Humble Bundle keys in good faith on G2A if other sellers on the market are selling scammed keys. Good users making listings obfuscate all the bad users.

        Also, purchasing regional keys cheaper and reselling them is also what causes this shit in the first place. People blame Valve for making the decision, but not the people switching to a region to buy a game for cents on the dollar and then resell it? That is actively hurting the people in those countries who are now being charged closer to USD prices. For Brazillians this is exorbitant.

        I don’t disagree with you in that there are G2A keys that come from bundles. But I do disagree with the notion that “it doesn’t matter.” It absolutely matters because it’s affecting people’s ability to buy games and it affects people circumventing legal purchase methods (of which I support their circumventing) who then have to deal with buying scammed credit card keys instead of me selling them and excess Humble Bundle key. The card gets charged back, the developer loses money, the G2A purchaser loses their key, and the scammers get off scott-free.

        Basically, G2A should be a good idea but has been co-opted by scammers. These sites have their grey-market reputation for a reason, because it’s run entirely off of the losses of others. Losses of the developers, losses of regional players, and losses of players purchasing games on these grey-market sites.

        There’s no winners for G2A except for the owners of the site and scammers. You may win once in a while getting a brand new game for $5-25 less. You may end up losing when it’s pulled from your account, if it does. At that point, you’re effectively gambling. Taking a risk for a discount on something with a high likelihood of it being unethically sourced which may be removed from your account?

        In most cases I’d personally rather pay the extra $15 to just have the peace of mind. The chance of the game not being bought on a stolen CC and not supporting regional theft that hurts those players is just a bonus.

        • ChronosWing@lemmy.zip
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          11 months ago

          I never said it didn’t matter. I said it’s not at prevalent as people are making it out to be. I’ve purchased 100s of steam keys from these sites over the years and never came across an instance where the key was removed or revoked. All of these sites guarantee the key is good or your money back anyways so I find it hard to believe that is what is going on at all. As long as you purchase the key from a reputable seller as they all have ratings just like eBay then there is no issue. I think maybe in the early days of key sellers it’s what was happening, but these sites would have fizzled out a long time ago if they were bastions of credit card fraud.

          • Tigwyk@lemmy.vrchat-dev.tech
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            11 months ago

            Anecdotally, I’ve bought 3 keys over the years from g2a and 2 of them immediately didn’t work. Iirc there’s a big button you click during checkout if your key doesn’t work and the seller immediately has to provide you with a working one. That’s not g2a though, that’s just the seller providing you with another cheap key from their collection. G2A is scammy in other ways too (I’ve yet to be able to cancel their $2 “insurance” fee or whatever they call it the first time, it’s been years and I’ll probably have to chargeback since their site just throws me errors when I try to cancel. PayPal won’t even let me cancel it from their end.)

            Why defend them?

            • ChronosWing@lemmy.zip
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              11 months ago

              Because I’ve never had a reason not to? I’ve only used G2A a few times but you can just remove the insurance at checkout. Never had an issue.

              • averyminya@beehaw.org
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                11 months ago

                Except for, again, how it’s screwing over developers, players in other regions, and supporting credit card scammers.

  • trclst@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    download some unknown exe or sideload some dll with admin rights sound like good idea.

  • Computerchairgeneral@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    I mean I don’t think the pirates needed their permission, but it’s a nice gesture at least. Accepting the reality that people will pirate your games makes for much better PR than trying to crack down on it through DRM.

      • Zapp@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        Why not both?

        Because DRM misfires for a small percentage of paying customers.

        Those paying customers, ironically, usually get help from the pirate community to get their game working.

        Then they go back to paying for everything, because they still trust game studios more than pirates. Wait no, this last bit usually doesn’t happen.

        Overall DRM prevents zero percentage of all privacy, while hassling a small percentage of paying customers.

  • sunaurus@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • rynzcycle@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • interolivary@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • yaminoEXE@ttrpg.network
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          11 months ago

          A lot of indie games on steam still do demos actually but yeah shitty that AAA games don’t do them anymore.

          • interolivary@beehaw.org
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            11 months ago

            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.

            • HidingCat@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              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.

      • Jamie@jamie.moe
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        11 months ago

        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.

      • Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        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

        • mabd@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          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.

    • uberrice@feddit.de
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      11 months ago

      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.

    • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      There’s a world of difference between “we don’t mind if you bootleg our games if you can’t afford them” and “here, have the keys to the castle”

        • Sleepkever@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Releasing the source code would allow anyone to copy AND modify or extend the game as they see fit. Including all the inner logic that is normally compiled away.

          Piracy or a compiled release without DRM (like GOG) only allows you to play the game and maybe modify some parts of it through modding after a significant amount of effort.

          • zer0@thelemmy.club
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            11 months ago

            Releasing the source code would allow anyone to copy AND modify or extend the game as they see fit

            So just like when you buy a bicycle irl and you are allowed to customize it and set it up as you want. Are you saying we shouldn’t be allowed to modify goods?

            • Pigeon@beehaw.org
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              11 months ago

              The source code is arguably more comparable to the bicycle factory. When I buy a game, I’m thinking of buying the experience, not the underlying mechanisms.

              You still can find ways to mod and tinker with the finished product you own (bicycle), but you don’t have the info and machinery you’d need to make your own identical bicycle.

              Or, if you buy a book, you own the finished book, but you don’t automatically also own all the author’s notes and rough drafts and file organization that went into making that book.

              • zer0@thelemmy.club
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                11 months ago

                When I buy a game, I’m thinking of buying the experience, not the underlying mechanisms.

                When i buy a bicycle i’m thinking of buying the experience, not the underlying mechanisms

                you don’t have the info and machinery you’d need to make your own identical bicycle.

                When you pirate the game you are making an identical copy of the game

            • Sleepkever@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              That is not the correct analogy. Offcourse you can customize it. Just like you can customize or mod the game.

              But you won’t get the actual designs to the bicycle. You will not get the blueprints to send to a factory to create exact duplicates or with your modifications.

    • inanna@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Lol, “you’re already letting me in the house why can I have a deed to the property???”

      • zer0@thelemmy.club
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        11 months ago

        A house isn’t software, it’s more like getting handled the blueprints of the building. They already have access to the property what’s the difference if they have the blueprints or not

          • zer0@thelemmy.club
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            11 months ago

            Without the source code there’s no way to know what you are running, ever heard of a spyware named red shell?

            I would also like to compile my own binaries for my own system

  • Whiskey_iicarus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • spiderman@ani.social
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • Zapp@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        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.

      • Whiskey_iicarus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • spiderman@ani.social
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          11 months ago

          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.

  • loops@beehaw.org
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    11 months ago

    I wish more companies did this; however, I believe most CEO’s have the biased view that everyone has at least some money to spare which, as you probably know (likely on personal level), isn’t true.

    I understand that participating in cultural aspects of society must cost money due to the very nature of economics (if you want the artist to continue to make art, make sure they don’t starve to death) but ‘pirating’ things is there not only as a stop gap to terrible service and personal risk (privacy violations, etc.), but also as an equalizer between those that have, and those that don’t.

    • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      If I made enough that I didn’t have to worry about money while working full time, I’d be much more inclined to spend money on arts and entertainment. As it stands, my entertainment budget is almost entirely going to get food I don’t have to make myself.

      But until society shifts focus to living wages (and not just enough to live, but enough to thrive)…… welp. Maybe those ceos should think on that, and start paying better.

      • loops@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        Definitely. I recall a time in my life where I was working while still living with my parents. Needless to say I had A LOT of money I didn’t know what to do with. I ended up with about 2 storage bins of books and CD’s. I eventually got rid of them when computers became much more capable, but I think I would still buy them if I had extra income. I doubt I will though for at least another 2 decades, considering all the student debt I have. Who would’ve thought that loading people with crippling financial debt would be bad for the economy?

    • Tigwyk@lemmy.vrchat-dev.tech
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      11 months ago

      I’ll be pedantic and say that CEOs are paid to think everyone has money to spend. ;)

      But I totally agree with you.

  • Gsus4@feddit.nl
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • bermuda@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • Gsus4@feddit.nl
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        11 months ago

        uuuh…everything that takes enough effort and skill to make is somehow a kind of artistic piece + art works in mysterious ways, I guess? 😄