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[–] 85 points 1 month ago

Please drink verification can

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  • [–] 59 points 1 month ago (13 children)

    Didn't Steam explicitly ban in-game ads? At least a large portion of PC gamers won't have to deal with this BS.

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  • [–] 34 points 1 month ago (11 children)

    Did they? Just searched the web and, voila you are right: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-clarifies-ban-on-in-game-advertising-on-steam Now they do not link to the page they cite (bad habit, I hate that), so let me quickly find the source... aaand there it is: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/advertising

    Not Supported

    • Developers should not utilize paid advertising as a business model in their game, such as requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with advertising in order to play, or gating gameplay behind advertising. If your game's business model relies on advertising on other platforms, you will need to remove those elements before shipping on Steam. Some options you could consider include switching to a single purchase "paid app," or making your game free to play with optional upgrades sold via Microtransactions or Downloadable Content (DLC).
    • Developers should not use advertising as a way to provide value to players, such as giving players a reward for watching or engaging with advertising in their game.
    • Developers should not charge other developers for access to Steam features. These include sale pages, bundles, store pages, franchise pages, etc.
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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    That doesn't discuss pause screen ads, unfortunately.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Developers should not utilize paid advertising as a business model in their game.

    If they accept money to show those pause screen ads, that's part of their business model and it wouldn't be allowed.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    I'm no lawyer, so I'm sure some corporate goon (on either side) will find loopholes to do whatever they want, but the idea is to ban mobile-style F2P games where you show ads alongside gameplay or "watch ads to refill your play meter" as your only revenue stream. Some other kinds of in-game advertising are still allowed. Unfortunately.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Yes. Pause screens seem not to fall under these categories. Valve will probably update this page to clarify on this, either to allow or to ban. So its worth keeping an eye on this page for changes.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Unfortunately "should" and "must" have different legal meanings

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Valve can kick out games that do not play along their rules. They should follow the rules, or they risk to get kicked out. So whats your point?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    A little harder to enforce ('no, judge, it says SHOULD, grant our civil suit please') and a little easier to grant exceptions for than saying "must" (ah sorry customers, bigco had a bunch of money, and the rules don't say MUST). It's a well known wording choice in software, see every RFC ever.

    It signals to me that Valve wanted an out for their rules when they wrote them because it's an odd choice for such a well known word choice otherwise.

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  • [–] 51 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Understood.

    Blacklist Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Only purchase indie games that run on Linux.

    Or divert all video game budget to a completely different pastime.

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  • [–] 49 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Some youngsters sometimes get confused so:
    This is what enshittification steps look like.

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  • [–] 34 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Gross. Maybe Steam will start listing "In Game Advertising" along with the AI warning on the store pages.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago* (3 children)

    I'm sure the pirate versions will still be ad-free☠️

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago

    Ban advertising entirely.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago

    Watch this ad before saving the game.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    You know what?

    I think I actually WILL buy that Atari 2600+ after all…

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    been really getting into emulation, and pirating games.

    honestly. i could live the rest of my life without touching a modern console or AAA game, and id be all the happier for it. but if i can rip a decent fitgirl repack. sure. why not.

    im not paying for something they say we dont own after the purchase.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    They realized they got it all wrong. They were giving you a game and hardware to play it. But all they wanted was your money.!!!

    So now just give them money. That's the solution. Give them money. What's that? What about your shit? Did you give them money yet?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago

    Look at the bright side: other companies that want to do this will be discouraged by having to pay Microsoft a royalty until the patent expires in 20 years

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Between this bullshit and Sony, and Nintendo speedrunning user alienation, guess I'm not buying another console. Bummer really... I hope ram comes down in price after the AI bubble bursts.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    “Nintendo speedrunning user alienation”

    Maybe I’m out of the loop but how so? They’ve seemed fine to me, easily the best of the big three of late.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    You're not wrong, they are in a way the best of the three, but they also sue a lot of their users. What I have in mind is all of those YouTube streamers that they sued just for people playing video games on YouTube. It's free advertisement, and it's so stupid. Why would you ever do that? And yet, I think they're still doing it.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    That's only because they had the smallest price increases and still maintain that owning a switch 2 cartridge still counts as owning the game. That cartridge is still just a download key tho. No actual game on that thing.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Regarding price increases, I don’t blame the game companies as much as the world’s current infatuation with AI data centres. When it comes to carts, most Switch/2 games are still on carts, and while I don’t like GKCs, at least they can be traded, lent, and sold, which can’t be said for PlayStation’s all digital future.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    What the fuck is happening? Why are corpos speedrunning to make everything noticeably worse?

    Before it felt like tiptoes forward, but now they're taking massive, fucking goosesteps to colonize new frontiers of terrible practices.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    Time To Pirate

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    Well, another parameter to take into account when buying games, along with Denuvo and other shits... Its hard to keep up 🤣

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Is the U.S. patent office literally a rubber stamp now? This is so ridiculously obvious.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    Linux gaming works swimmingly now...

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Buy xbox, it's best console, they are good guys because they invested in Kojima after they lay off thousands of people.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Microsoft should be split up, at the very least. I'd also like to see the leadership stripped of their wealth and the company handed over to the workers.

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  • [+] -8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    This was what proton+Wine games were always going to end up with: pay thrice to play model.

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  • [+] -16 points 1 month ago (3 children)
  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    "You need to pause the game for 90 seconds to continue playing".

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  • [+] -4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    So, you're not arguing if it's ok to put ads on an $80 game pause screen, but that they shouldn't be the only ones allowed to do it? Ok, we can argue the patentability aside from the utter greed.

    You can argue this is an... 'innovation' 🤢. It's not something that has been done in gaming, yet. Trying to say that this is normal across media, isn't true. Movie theaters, concerts, performing arts and other in-person events outside of televised events don't pause the 'show' for ad breaks. For TV these are contracted, pre-planned breaks. This is industry standard for TV (it's the only way TV makes its money). But TV and game break/pauses are not the same thing.

    So, should they be able to patent? Yeah, I think so. Should they ever employ it? Sure, if xbox wants to the the most hated gaming company on the planet.

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