Maybe Valve needs to stop pushing updates for things they certified working until they certify the update won’t break them.

Never understood why Steam forces updates, but this would be a very good reason for them to do a 180 on it and let customers choose the version they want instead of forcing an update to the latest.

Some old Ubisoft game pissed me off like that I think, required their account and launcher and pissed me off. I think I left a bad review in that one because of it, unless I was too lazy to.

If I bought the game without realizing this, I would definitely give it a bad review because of it.

No, but they should be public to everyone, and not hidden unless you jump through hoops.

That first edition version looks like a dog’s head with horns and pointy ears to me at least, and that’s kinda what I was referring to.

Admittedly the 2nd edition version looks a bit less doglike, but I still see similarities with some breeds.

It’s not a mistranslation that caused it, kobolds were both described and illustrated as doglike until 3rd Edition where with no explanation they simply changed it and decided they were lizard like/draconic.

I do think the new version of kobolds is an interesting creature, but truthfully they should’ve just come up with a new name for this new creature instead of just completely changing the kobold.

That means prices are coming way down, right? I mean, we’ve been told that’s how it works in capitalism, right? High supply means prices go down, so we’ll be having bargain sale prices for homes pretty soon!

Surely capitalism wouldn’t lie to us…right?

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Not ‘to grant them greater control’ or even ownership. To secure exclusive right for a limited time. And this only because it was meant to promote science and art.

Using copyright to prevent a work from spreading is a direct perversion of the intent, it is using it in a manner diametrically opposed to what it is supposed to do.

These changes could be applied retroactively; this isn’t like creating an ex post facto law and then jailing people for breaking a law that didn’t exist at the time of the event.

How about reword it slightly: it must be available for purchase if you want to use IP law to prevent others from distributing it.

Too fucking bad? The purpose of IP was to give the public access to novel ideas and art, not to increase the control creators had over it.

Perhaps foolishly, I got rid of most of my older systems 20 years ago, so the oldest one I have left is my Sega Genesis.

I mean, that’s a fair criticism in a way. If Bill lets you taste the chicken at that point, it’s reasonable to comment on what he let you taste. If he didn’t think it was ready enough to get your opinion on, he shouldn’t have let you taste it at all.

Sort of. Except all the shelves have weird lips on them to keep you from grabbing the product easily, you kinda have to wrangle each item. Also it’s layout and design is archaic and super hard to navigate. And on every aisle there’s these little 3 inch steps that you have to go up and down and constantly trip on, or your cart gets stuck on them and you have to lift it up or drop it down. And then if you do manage to buy things, their support is terrible; at the other store if you need help cooking they have a 24 hour recipe hotline to help you out, but this one promises the same, but you actually wind up on hold for hours half the times you call.

So they got tons of free samples, but all their products are kinda a nightmare.

The day Gabe Newell no longer owns Valve/Steam things will begin to change, I’m sure.

Why? How is it better for society and people overall if they have the power to do this?

Allowing the creators to profit is understandable and necessary in our current system, but what benefit is gained for the public by them being permitted to stop distribution altogether?

If there is a benefit to the public and society that I am not seeing, then ok, but ‘they created it so they should control it’ is harmful to the people at large, and that should be prioritized over a creator’s ego or desire for control.

I’d say generally yes but maybe not in every instance. Consider it an overall principle rather than a hard no exceptions rule.

That said, copyright/creator control is not the correct tool to use to do so.

Like, people should be allowed to remove stuff from the Internet that they’ve created if they want,

No, no they shouldn’t. This is antithetical to the generally good intention behind copyright.

The point was not to allow people to take away things they have created, but to permit them to profit in order that they might choose to make more, and be able to support their life in a capitalist system. These intentions are largely good.

Allowing people to take away what they have created is the opposite of this intent, and harmful to the public good, which benefits from as many works as possible being accessible to the public.

‘Nobody would create anything’ is an absolute lie that we’ve been fed, simply another part of the capitalist brainwashing propaganda.

The truth is people love to create stuff for the sake of it, and many people will create things even when it costs them time and money, because they enjoy it. The only thing that would be necessary for them to create things prolifically would be to ensure their ability to live and work without having to worry about ‘making a living’ or having to ‘earn’ enough money to live, and people would be producing tons of content.

If you doubt this, you’re not paying enough attention. People create amazing stuff without even hope of being paid. I have read hundreds of fanfics - some poorly written, some very well written - that never made money and never could make money. They were written because the writer wanted to tell a story with characters they loved. I have seen vast amounts of fanart, again, made with no hope of obtaining money. Especially before things like Patreon - these days you can make some money making fanart, which artists resort to because they have to, but every artist I’ve ever talked to hates the part of their life they have to devote to the ‘business’ side of things. Most early webcomics had no way of making money. Even today, most webcomics do not make money - most are simply made by creators that want to share their story and art.

In the gaming world, mods - free, unpaid mods - have been around for ages, and many of them are as amazing or even moreso than professionally made games. A very tiny minority of mod creators manage to turn a successful mod creation into a job in the industry, but the vast majority do this simply because they want to and enjoy making a thing people will appreciate.

Movies are about the only field I haven’t seen a plethora of freely made stuff in, and that’s probably a personal experience thing. I know there’s some.

Overall, I guarantee we would not see less things created as long as we allow creative people to use whatever they want and do not force them to toil for their survival, to have to monetize everything or else lose their standard of living. We would see rather an explosion of new creations, just like we saw when the internet rose to prominence and people started doing this kind of thing and posting it publicly. Only we would see it at an even greater scale.

People shouldn’t show support for companies that are willing to use this shit.

Also fuck updates. I hate that effect of the Internet on games, where they just keep updating, which also leads to increased laziness on release. I miss the days when you got a game and that was it, what you had was what you had, never to change again unless they release an expansion pack.