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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

#511
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" to protect us from these giant tech companies I get where you're going, but I think far more costly to them and advantageous for us is to simply show them that they are unnecessary. If we can drop them so easily, they can't pull stuff like this anymore. It is possible to drop Google and Facebook. They do this stuff because people _need_ the…

Oh yeah, far more easy than the government taking regulatory action is coordinating a massive consumer choice boycott.

Sometimes, it is so abundantly clear to me that this site is full of former teenage libertarians who grew up and still haven't shed all of those ideals.

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

#512
post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's also probably easy to do this with stadia since it's effectively 0 users. What would he say if steam treated devs like google does?

If Valve treated game developers like Google does, Steam would have followed the path of Stadia which is failing despite being technically a good product. That's my personal take on the current situation: despite owning one of the largest digital store, Google sucks at being a publisher. The actual automated ban is mostly inconsequential. Every large publishers have technical issue from time to time. What's unique to…

> technically a good product.

Do you mean with technology or something like "technically it could have worked in the market"? Because if its the latter then I disagree. Its a service on which my entire library can disappear, I have to pay full price + subscription price and maybe buy new hardware (to play on TVs). I have no idea who this is for.

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

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know it’s funny that lots of the basic functions of business with consumers (eg, ability to return items) were set and codified in the US as the Uniform Commercial Code [0] that was established in 1952. Before then it was wild and variable. What’s really interesting is that it seems like of hacker-like in how it was implemented. It was published as a guide and then states passed laws to implement. Reminds me of a…

The problem with this sort of thing is that because it's interstate commerce, states usually do not have standing to regulate effectively. The Federal government struggles to implement new regulatory authority because of political challenges. Various groups of stakeholders will declare any such regulation an infringement on free speech (ie. "The constitution gives me the right to sell fake penis pills to fund my radi…

If it was sold to a resident in some state online currently that resident can sue in the local courts. The business is considered to operate in all states.

The alternative is all suits under ~$75k(?) don't get heard because they don't meet the requirements for federal court, which obviously can't be right.

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

#514
post #440
post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are so many game players so entitled and unfriendly? Probably because they are the biggest group out there. Games are now bigger than movies, after all. The bigger the group, the more likely it is to contain a well-populated minority of viciously hateful people, a bit like "the bigger the country, the more likely it is that it will contain a sizeable group of hardcore nazis".

There's that, but also the fact that to these people games are "just games". Maybe the HN crowd is accustomed to dealing with professionals and business clients that use their software, so it looks jarring to see responses like in that Twitter thread. As a developer providing professional software, you're reasonably entitled to some respect from your customers, since your relationship is likely work related. But if y…

It is somewhat ironic that "work time", for which one gets paid, typically ends up perceived by individuals as "less valuable" than free time. It's one of many ways in which our societies are effectively broken.

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

#515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping the next Google from doing the same? Providing poor justification for bans and removal from platforms is by no means limited to the big companies - it's endemic throughout tech - we just hear about Google and Facebook more because they're higher visibility and are considered more essential.

Dropping Google / Facebook is not just signing up with another service. You could self host your own email and just quit Facebook entirely.

OK, you can lead your "resistance" to big tech your way.

Meanwhile, I'll be pushing my representative for regulatory action.

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

#516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know it’s funny that lots of the basic functions of business with consumers (eg, ability to return items) were set and codified in the US as the Uniform Commercial Code [0] that was established in 1952. Before then it was wild and variable. What’s really interesting is that it seems like of hacker-like in how it was implemented. It was published as a guide and then states passed laws to implement. Reminds me of a…

The problem with this sort of thing is that because it's interstate commerce, states usually do not have standing to regulate effectively. The Federal government struggles to implement new regulatory authority because of political challenges. Various groups of stakeholders will declare any such regulation an infringement on free speech (ie. "The constitution gives me the right to sell fake penis pills to fund my radi…

I suspect that the major tech providers are so pervasive that the impacts of account-locking span all party lines.

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

#517
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This was for a short period a two or three years ago, no longer.

Now, unless you are high follower count, they will reply asking you to DM and give you a hold.

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

#519
post #4

As usual, some Googler browsing HN will reactivate his account, everyone will forget and Google won't change a thing to his unbanning process.

People at Google really do want to fix this... But it's a minefield of: * Legal stuff (eg. some algorithm detected child porn in his account, is an employee legally allowed to look at it to confirm the algorithm was correct? no.) * Internal Politics (eg. one team has found this account DoSing their service, while the account is perfectly normal in all other ways, but due to Googles systems being so complex a single-s…

> * GDPR/Privacy laws (The law requires the deletion of no-longer needed data. As soon as his account gets banned, the data is no longer needed for Googles business purposes (of providing service to him), so the deletion process can't be delayed.

I do not think GDPR works like that. You can absolutely store information pertaining to "why" questions because that is still a service they will be providing. Also, whenever they restore some's service they give data back. So they have obviously not deleted the data.

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

#520
post #3

We only hear the celebs that got their accounts suspended. Imagine how many others are stuck and have nowhere to talk to.

A totally fair point but in this case I wouldn't consider "famous person" being the shocking part of this. The shocking part, as others in the thread have pointed out, is that this is a business partner of Google's.
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