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Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

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Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#371

Post by suction »

detritus wrote: post #344

As an aside - what benefit is there to having a game such as Terraria on Stadia in the first place? It has fairly low system requirements, and given how much energy is eaten up by server-side rendering and streaming, it seems wasteful in this context.

I agree. Also, I don't want Stadia to become flooded with cheap indie games, at least not for now. Because the storefront is so bad (no search), it would make it very hard to find the things you want. Google should concentrate Stadia's efforts to make AAA-games available to people who don't want a console or gaming PC, because that's a real niche. I personally know 5 people who would never buy dedicated gaming hardware, but will get Stadia to play the latest FIFA in great quality on their work laptop or TV (with Chromecast).

Indie gamers won't come to Stadia anyway.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#372

Post by falcor84 »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #333
_qulr wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If every abuser requests those explanations (which they will) It's not a request, it's a requirement. If your account is suspended, you deserve an explanation. You should get one without having to request it. I'm not saying that companies shouldn't be able to suspend accounts temporarily. I'm simply saying that there needs to be a way to get your account unsuspended if you're innocent. The way it "works" now is tha…

For the record, they don't give away these explanations because such explanation would hint the spammer to what they should _not_ do next time, to avoid getting caught. Same as with anticheat software.

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/810/

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#373

Post by jan_Inkepa »

Shorel wrote: post #327
Hamuko wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the @GoogleStadia Twitter account will forward this to someone who knows about it. The Stadia Twitter account is uncharacteristically active on customer support for a Google product.

Twitter seems to be the worst platform ever created to get customer support. If any entity requires a huge amount of Twitter followers to get support, count me out.

I think twitter is last time I checked (looking at guidelines maybe 3/4 years ago) pretty amazing for customer support, even if you drop the fact that well-followed people might get better support. The expected reply time for twitter support queries is on the order of minutes. Compare that to phone or email customer support on many platforms.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#374

Post by ballenf »

anthony_r wrote: post #301
_qulr wrote: post #285

It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don…

You're not seeing the other side of the coin - the huge amount of spam and abuse that such systems correctly identify and remove. If every abuser requests those explanations (which they will) there will be far more spam going around the Internet. Just think about the army of "Facebook content moderators" who were a popular topic on HN recently due to the concerns over their mental health. (I am offering no solutions…

This is an age old problem in the criminal justice system. A solved problem.

After a lot of trials with various approaches, we settled on letting some criminals go free over convicting someone on weak evidence. Second we decided that trials should be open and evidence viewable by default.

Finally you generally have the option to give some security to stay out of jail during trial.

Closing a google account is a punishment worse than many criminal convictions. And will only get more important as we progress to an all digital existence.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#375

Post by engineeringwoke »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #47
thow-01187 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is a problem inherent to the business model Google/Facebook run. Stating a truism - to make a billion dollars, you either have to get $10 from 100M sales, $10k from 100k sales or $10M from 100 sales. Although each option leads to the same revenue, there are major implications as for the amount of support and attention you can spend on each customer. Google/Facebook/Twitter obviously run the "$10 from 100M sa…

> Google/Facebook/Twitter obviously run the "$10 from 100M sales" model - meaning the only way they can provide profitable support or moderation is via inanimate algorithms, and deal with the PR fallout when they go wrong. That isn't necessary though - other companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP also have tens of millions - to billions - of customers all with their own support requirements: the solution is simple…

> the solution is simple: make the customer put up their own money as collateral for getting to speak to a human.

Maybe a company at a certain scale should have a legal requirement to get a person on the phone for any support issue, full stop.

All these companies will continue the race to the bottom unless you twist their arm. For PR, sounds like a nice job creator to me!

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#376

Post by oauea »

criley2 wrote: post #367
khawkins wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a convenient narrative for an abusive pattern of behavior by Google. The company is infamous for having non-existent customer service. It's not a matter of their AI having too many false positives, it's that when there is a false positive you have literally no recourse even if you're a well known business partner. Are we really going to believe that Google, one of the highest grossing companies in the…

Technically they do offer customer service if you pay them with their Google One product. I have phone numbers and human access very quickly, because I pay for it. Although obviously if they banned me, I wouldn't have access to my direct support line anymore.

> Although obviously if they banned me, I wouldn't have access to my direct support line anymore.

Which they will do literally on a whim. Who are you going to call then?

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#377

Post by sam_goody »

wcoenen wrote: post #346
paulsutter wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the process should cost $100 or $500, so that actual spammers can’t use it Maybe they really just need to offer a paid account option with real support, since that has much better incentives

There is a paid option: for $6/month you can use gmail with your own domain name. It's targeted at businesses but you can use it as an individual. https://workspace.google.com/pricing.html It includes support, but I'm not sure if that helps in cases where google thinks you have abused the service. I just use it because I like having my own domain, and so that I don't lose access to my email if google locks me out. Th…

Support does not include if your account gets suspended or if you lose access.

We had a paid Google App account. One of our workers would only login from their computer. It died, and she tried to login from the new computer. It gave a unrecognized machine error, and we had to hire someone to resuscitate the old computer for her.

I know of a company that had the entire companies' accounts suspended without warning because one user did something that violated their terms, but they could not figure out what. The company lost three months of revenue from it and I am not sure if it caused bankruptcy. No help at all from G.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#378

Post by comeonseriously »

_qulr wrote: post #285

It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don…

>It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights"...

Maybe? But I worry that politicians will use that as a tool. Look what DeSantis is trying down here in Florida. He wants to fine "Big Tech" for banning politicians during an election. Personally, I'm tired of the lies and provocations and hate speech of some politicians and I don't think any company should be compelled to share those messages.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#379

Post by bildung »

gambiting wrote: post #342
fredgrott wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no if the AI can be used to automate the banning it can be used to provide the electronic news email of the rule violated.

Well their main argument against it is that if you don't tell scammers which rule exactly they are breaking they can't improve until the app is approved. But of course that hits normal customers too. It's the equivalent of arresting random people on the street and not telling them why - surely, innocent people will just get their lawyer to free them.

aka due process
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