281–290 of 383 posts
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I'm going to get downvoted into a massive smoking hole in the ground for daring to state this opinion, but, as a lifelong enjoyer of the English language: native speakers butcher it the most.
In much the same way chess grand masters make moves that don't make sense to the novice.
Wouldn't have happened under Dan Houser. R* made too much money for its own good. On another note, heard on Bloomberg today that they've been working on GTA 6 for 10 years at this point. Considering the size of their development teams it's possible that more manhours may have gone into this single title than all video games that were made until the PS1 era combined.
What makes you think Dan would've handled it any differently? Rockstars got a long well known track record of being in crunch mode with obscene hours, that didn't suddenly start after Dan left.
Every union I've been a part of has been more of a pain than its worth, or has tried to keep individuals from become any more successful that others. I don't understand the obsession with them on HN.
It seems likely the vast majority of HN has never been a member of a union themselves given the audience, so the obsession feels like a savior complex IMO.
Yeah, unions accomplished a lot of good things many decades ago. But if you think they haven't morphed over those decades and are still automatically a net positive for all workers, I could probably sell you a bridge.
For my experience at Teamsters, there was zero incentive for employees to actually perform. Everything was done by senority across the board, and you're literally just aging and waiting your turn.
The insurance was good, the wages were average, and the incentive to do better was non-existent. And yes, firing people unless they did something egregious was much, much harder.
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You are happy now and will probably be for as long as Gabe Newell is in charge of Valve. (He's 63, by the way; not quite elderly but not young either.) After he retires, well, Valve, as the dominant gatekeeper for PC gaming, has a lot of opportunities for cranking up monetization that investors would just love to get their hands on.
So it's either choosing to buy from a company that might become public after the owner dies which then succumbs to the rot that you admit is inevitable with public companies. Or choosing the companies that are already public that is already exploitative and only interested in short term gains? That's actually a very easy choice to make.
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I shop on Epic Store and GOG and it is a breeze also. I never had issues with GOG or Epic (where I buy less to be honest), but that might be me. But Steam has the network effect. They launched first. Of were the first that successfully did it.
I’m going to assume that while shopping on Epic you alt-tab to Steam to read reviews and to find out what the game is actually like.
Ultimately, reviews of games tend to be pretty useless because people who play games have very little understanding of a) what makes games fun, and b) the complexity involved in making the games.
I have creators I follow whose tastes are closest to my own, and I watch their content for reviews, then go to the store that makes the best offer.
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I would rephrase this as they got there because they treat their customers with respect, they take feedback to improve their platform, they don't pack their launcher / store front with ads and trickery, and you can trust that your games will be there and not go away. Yes, they are loot box whores but so is everyone else. Steam is a community, social media, and a store. The community is what they built and that commun…
This is what I always say about Valve. They are not morally unimpeachable, but at the end of the day I've been a regular customer for over 20 years and they've never fucked me over. I don't think I can say the same about any other software company.
I keep giving Valve my money because they keep giving me good value for that money and a trustworthy environment to spend that money in. I have no loyalty. I also buy games from Humble Bundle and GOG.
I'm not excited about the prospect of losing my 4000 games but the literal only options available for consumers right now are "Pay money and get a game that we can take away at any time, fuck you over, do all sorts of bad things, and we demonstrably hate you", or "Pay money to get a game and a refund period and a bunch of features and maybe when Gabe dies we will do that other thing"
There is no alternative. GOG is run by the same people who released CyberPunk2077 as a bug ridden mess to please upper management, so they even have evidence of already straddling that line right now.
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> their written English is flawless, which is very uncommon. Unless they took considerable care to imitate a different writing style, it's probably trivial to identify who wrote it. Rockstar North is based in Edinburgh as you say, why wouldn't English be at a high level?
I'm going to get downvoted into a massive smoking hole in the ground for daring to state this opinion, but, as a lifelong enjoyer of the English language: native speakers butcher it the most.
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And this is why "vote with your wallet" does not work. As a consumer there's no way to decide who gets the money. In fact, even the people who made the game (did the actual work, not managers, advertisers, etc.) don't get to decide. Correct me if I am wrong but the programmers, designers, artists have already been paid and any money from sales goes to the company and its execs/shareholders. (And yes, employees can al…
Target's CEO saw a significant impact to their compensation, a change in role, and ~1800 layoffs occurred because of the Target boycott. Boycotts work. Voting with your wallet works. https://rollingout.com/2025/05/07/target-ceo-salary-drop-ami... https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/08/21/the-qui... > The Quiet Part Out Loud: Target Ditching DEI Cost The CEO His Job And Investors $12 Billion So, it would no…
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The only reason EpicGameStore was able to rise as a competitor to Steam was because of the Billions Fortnite was earning.
Pretty much. If it weren’t for free games and exclusives there would be no Epic Store to speak of.
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Valve makes a significant amount of their money from the gambling they've attached to their games, and profits immensely from the culture of farming loot boxes to gamble on for skins and such. They also take an absurd cut of developer income and saddle devs with costs that they don't always want. (Selling on Steam? Valve takes 30% and forces you to moderate the forums on your listing page that you cannot opt out of.)…
I appreciate what you've posted here. Valve fanboyism is widespread (I'm guilty of it too) and while they are shoulders above the alternatives, it's a good reminder that no one's perfect and I'll be sure to take a closer look at the company in the future.
We should be ok with pointing at the shady parts of things we like and going, "It would be better if it were not so shady."
Valve is good in many ways! Valve would be better if it didn't profit from getting kids to gamble on skins!