Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Frost]

You know why we're in Korea still?

To keep the South from going North. South Korea has one of the largest, best-trained, and best-equipped armies in the world (and is a steadfastly loyal ally of the US, who supplies most of the equipment and training). About two-thirds of the North Korean Army doesn't have weapons at all. They're hilariously untrained and they're so under-supplied that they're issued extra boots as field rations.

If North Korea's finally done pussyfooting and wants to start some shit, we won't even have time to get the phone call, let alone mobilize, before the North gets crushed

[Vinylshadow]

Korea's still a thing?

[O. Hinds]

So, moving.  Fun.  We managed to get everything packed up and/or disassembled and into the van and got the van back to the house... and for most of the rest of the week, it looks like, we have so very much cleaning, juggling, and unpacking to do.  Argh.  And some manner of rodent appears to have been living in my room while I was away.  I dislike transitions at the best of times...

Eh, despite, I envy you. I'll next be moving when I've graduated (much like you have, IIRC) and have a new job lined up, so fun times.

I rather like transitions, in any case. There's something cathartic about burning bridges, ensuring you'll either never or rarely will be seeing a place or the people associated with it ever again. I feel like I can never get enough fresh starts.

Huh. We appear to be very different in this area, then.

[Guest]

They're hilariously untrained and they're so under-supplied that they're issued extra boots as field rations.

I have no trouble believing that's true, I've heard horror stories of grandfather's diggin up their grandchildren's graves for food and father's murdering their kids so they can eat. Though these are stories that I heard I never went out of my way to look up if this was true or not so grains of salt, good chance I'm talking shit. But hearing they're giving their troops boots to eat I think it gives those stories some credibility.

Anyway if they're resorting to giving their troops boots to eat the country can't last that much longer, can it?

[Vinylshadow]

Depends on who they're more afraid of: The US or whoever's in charge

So far, they seem to be far more scared of whoever's in charge, so they keep fighting a war that ended...what...a few decades ago?

[Scienza]

One of the things about North Korea is that while they're going to flaunt their nuclear arsenal, they're never going to go beyond that since as crazy as their leaders are, they know that the day they set off a nuke is the day that they go beyond just being a nuisance, in which case they're going to get curbstomped (most likely by China). Rather, they're going to use it to extort foreign aid as they've done in the past.

Another factor is that by this point, the two Koreas have so radically diverged culturally and economically that lot of people in the South don't want to reunify. It's like the Berlin Wall except even more extreme. On one side, you've got an incredibly successful cosmopolitan economy, and on the other side, you've got some of the most miserable conditions in the world right now.

[Vinylshadow]

Eh, they'll figure it out someday

Probably not in our generation, but "Soon.™"

[Vinylshadow]

Keep poking the sleeping bear...

[Stringtheory]

Keep poking the sleeping bear...

Or in this case a starving squirrel. Hey Frost, how real is the North Korean artillery threat against Soul? I seem to remember hearing that was one of the main deterrents NK had over SK.

[Vinylshadow]

Ah, what a world...

Looks like another school got blown up in Pakistan

What a week

[Guest]

Robo, why you lurking?

[Vinylshadow]

Better to not get embroiled in politics, I'm guessing

[Guest]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFb06S6F0gA

Well looks like Hatred's marketing strategy didn't work out. Though to be fair who could have fore seen valve's lack of spine.

[Stringtheory]

Eh, Valve has to do what is right for their company. I don't see why they should have to stick their necks out for people whose intention is strictly to make an offensive game that will draw as much negative publicity as possible in order to make a statement... or whatever it is they are doing. If they could potentially catch hell and lose some producers or consumers as a result for supporting one independent game studio,  I don't see the draw. They didn't enter this business to have some kind of integrity. At least, not the sort that supports people just trying to piss others off.
If the people who make Hatred's next game is just about reenacting racial violence, or is a human trafficking simulator, or etc... I still don't see how Valve should be obligated to support it.
When did they ever say they would?

However, they do allow a lot of total crap to stay up in the store, stuff like Air Control, The slaughtering grounds etc.

[Valikdu]

The new Crusader Kings II expansion just cuts to the chase and lists "Seduce your relatives" as a feature. No, really.

[Guest]

Again, it's not about integrity, it's just about what could make them look bad and cost them business in a free market.

You mean by removing the game from a service that allows their customers to vote on whether or not they want a game on the store? That's the opposite of a free market.

[Scienza]

Again, it's not about integrity, it's just about what could make them look bad and cost them business in a free market.

You mean by removing the game from a service that allows their customers to vote on whether or not they want a game on the store? That's the opposite of a free market.

But that's the thing, ain't it. Valve is a private corporation, which means that they are in no way obligated to run a free market with their own resources. Their goal is to make a profit, and while they may choose to run a market where everyone can distribute their avant garde rage sims, if it ever comes to hurt them, they can do whatever the hell they want to maintain profit.

It's sort of like the deal with free speech. You can have whatever personal beliefs you choose, but doesn't mean people have an obligation to help you disseminate those beliefs.

[Guest]

Again, it's not about integrity, it's just about what could make them look bad and cost them business in a free market.

You mean by removing the game from a service that allows their customers to vote on whether or not they want a game on the store? That's the opposite of a freemarket.

...uh, no it isn't. The free market lets companies decide what they want to sell. Consumers don't decide for them. It's not a democracy.

So you're saying if a product doesn't sell it stays on the shelves? It absolutely is a democracy you just vote with your money. Consumers decide a lot more than you think Swicked. A shitty book that is not selling and taking up shelf space is quickly replaced. The consumers have cast their vote, they don't want that book.

@Scienza They should let their consumers decide, how could giving the consumer the choice hurt their bottom line?

[Guest]

I'd typed up a thing about how Valve is too big to worry about backlash and how they're a monopoly and therefore it's right for people to worry when they cave to pressure on stuff like this... but Hatred really looks lame, and there are better things to have this stand on. It's not avant garde; it's like... at the level of Saw 3, looks like.

[Scienza]

They have and do offer their customers a choice, and that is choosing to buy games through the Steam platform. Valve isn't a monopoly, and it's not like they're depriving consumers of the opportunity to play the game. If the fact that Valve made this decision cheeses you off, you're free to buy your game elsewhere. Because the thing is, Valve's product isn't Hatred, it's Steam. And as a consumer, it's your job and choice to weigh the pros and cons when you choose use that product.

@OAC
You're right that Valve isn't that likely to be hurt by the decision, but it's just that offering the game doesn't look to have that much benefit. It probably wasn't going to be all that profitable (votes != purchases), it wasn't really all that distinct beyond the standard sort of "I'm edgy, pay attention to me!" cheap grimdark, and it wouldn't bring them that much but bad PR when Greenlight already has a pretty bad reputation.

[Guest]

Scienza, just out of curiosity out of the last ten games you bought on PC how many of them have been from steam? And do you honestly think people are going to stop using steam over it being on the service?

[Scienza]

Four. I buy a lot of my games from GOG, the Humble Store, or directly from the devs. Just like those people who have a burning desire to play Hatred still completely have that option.

While you can argue that there are plenty of games that are exclusive to Steam, once again, that's part of the choice you make when you choose to purchase that product.

[Guest]

If you're counting a bundle that had multiple games on it as individual games let me rephrase the question. Out of the last ten game purchases (A bundle with multiple games counts as a single purchase) you've made for PC how many of them have been on steam? Excluding things like DLC I honestly don't expect you to buy the DLC for a game you bought on steam elsewhere.

[Scienza]

Same as above.

I'm kind of the wrong person to ask this question, since my prior laptop died (necessitating a hasty foray into the mires of Black Friday for a cheap replacement), and it was already kinda shit to begin with, so I haven't really been going for big AAA titles in the last few months. Thus most of my purchases have been either 5+ year old nostalgia titles or charity indie games. I like using the Humble Store since it offers a lot of games DRM free as well.

I think the last game I directly bought from Steam was Orion: Dino Horde, and that was only because I had a dollar in my Steam wallet from card transactions.

[Frost]

Huh. It a appears I missed a bit by getting off night shift and proceeding to sleep the rest of the day. 

@Artillery at Seoul: not shit. The weapons points at Seoul could be taken out by cruise missiles and air power before their first shots got off. 

@Hatred: who gives a damn? It is entirely their right not to sell a game they don't want to sell. They've worked hard to build a community-focused, someone-in-the-games-industry-isn't-a-dick image, so deciding to remove service for w product that has garnered a fair amount of backlash from their userbase is entirely a reasonable decision. They're not a platform for making grand statements about the freedom of expres​sion(which they are still not repressing), they're a platform for selling and managing games and making money by doing so.

[Guest]

@Frost
Actually, they've been getting backlash over Greenlight 'cos it's not so great and fairly unsupported. Them going back on the premise of it to remove Hatred sorta embodies some of the things people have been annoyed with Valve for - Greenlight being in a grey zone of user-curated-but-not while also putting out crap 24/7 and Valve never talking about what they're doing or why they're doing it. They're still well-beloved compared to, like, Ubisoft, but if GOG's client has a good start, Steam might actually have competition (at least in comparison to what they've had before - they'll still have an effective monopoly for a while just based on the libraries people have accumulated and the trust folks have that the Steam servers won't just go down at random).

@Sci
Agreed, it's not a good game, but their removing it has only drawn attention back to the fact that Greenlight exists and works poorly; if they'd just ignored it, odds are nobody'd pay attention to the platform it was released on. For instance, you can buy AssCreedUni on Steam, but nobody's complaining to Valve about it. And to do it right on the heels of everyone getting huffy over Australia's Target thing... it's hard to see this as a good move, for me.

[Frost]

hm. I go more based on what folks I know who PC game in real-life say about it concerning their image, as I don't exactly peruse forums and boards wanting to know what Valve's rep is.

[Frost]

Are you tired?:

EDIT: I take back everything I said about equipment and support from foreign powers. The North is just straight-up fucked

[RoboRed]

Robo, why you lurking?

Also, I'm "officially" back Thursday.

Re. string of puns earlier: I'm imagining Iron somewhere, curled up under a desk/in a dark corner and hissing up a storm right now.

[Frost]

Also, I don't know if this was ever posted here, but:

[Sponsored content]