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Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

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Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#591
post #11

> and modern multiplayer games with anti-cheat simply do not work through a translation layer, something Valve hopes will change in the future. Although this is true for most games it is worth noting that it isn't universally true. Usermode anti-cheat does sometimes work verbatim in Wine, and some anti-cheat software has Proton support, though not all developers elect to enable it.

companies will go where the money is. If Valve enables, say EA, to have their yearly franchise and in-game-stores on mobile devices, they will find a way.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#592
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Any player responding to ingame events (enemy appeared) with sub 80ms reaction times consistently should be an automatic ban." Can you define what "reacting" means exactly in a shooter, that you can spot it in game data reliable to apply automatic bans?

Anisotropic mouse movement? Or perhaps the 0ms-80ms distribution of mouse movement matches the >80ms mouse movement distribution within some bounds. I'm thinking KL divergence between the two. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test for two-dimensional data? There's a lot of interesting possible approaches that can be tuned for arbitrary sensitivity and specificity.

Throwing in ML jargon and going straight to modelling before understanding the problem reduces your credibility as a data scientist in front of engineers and stakeholders.

As always, one of the most difficult parts is getting good features and data. In this case one difficulty is measuring and defining the reaction time to begin with.

In Counter Strike you rely on footsteps to guess if someone is around the corner and start shooting when they come close. For far away targets, lots of people camp at specifc spots and often shoot without directly sighting someone if they anticipate someone crossing - the hit rate may be low but it's a low cost thing to do. Then you have people not hiding too well and showing a toe. Or someone pinpointing the position of an enemy based on information from another player. So the question is, what is the starting point for you to measure the reaction?

Now let's say you successfully measured the reaction time and applied a threshold of 80ms. Bot runners will adapt and sandbag their reaction time, or introduce motions to make it harder to measure mouse movements, and the value of your model now is less than the electricity needed to run it.

So with your proposal to solve the reaction time problem with KL divergence. Congratulations, you just solved a trivial statistics problem to create very little business value.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always interpreted that as cosmetics are OK because it doesn't make the game unfair. You can't buy advancement in the game that way. Subsidizing the game's devel/ops cost isn't a bad thing. Especially if it's optional and doesn't change the game.

Very few people have a problem with just paying for cosmetics in a game. The main issue here is that it's gambling for cosmetics, rather than straightforwardly purchasing specific items.

indeed. and the fact that it can be resold at will makes it much worse as you just created an gambling ecosystem

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#594
The one thing that worries me is that PC gaming is going fast to requiring controller support.

Which is reducing the complexity of control schemes to either nothing or mortal kombat like combos.

Forward, down, forward, high punch to build a new city in a 4X in a few years?

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#595
post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The major reason is they are a private company with good business..." This is unquestionably, undoubtedly incorrect. It is a really low information meme that's racing around the Internet right now. If you want a contemporary counterexample take a look at NASCAR. They're also not publicly traded, they're family owned, yet they are abusive toward drivers, teams and fans, and they're gradually ruining the sport that ma…

> The real reason Valve are being the "good guys" at the moment Yep. Valve is seen as virtuous because Microsoft is greedy and the default Windows 11 install is generally viewed as a tire-fire of an OS Are they doing good things for Linux? Abso lutely . As a long-time Linux user I am over the moon that we are where we are. But the general populaton only gives a shit because Microsoft is abusive.

> But the general populaton only gives a shit because Microsoft is abusive.

I hear that for every major Windows release. And after 6 months everybody is fine with it.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The major reason is they are a private company with good business..." This is unquestionably, undoubtedly incorrect. It is a really low information meme that's racing around the Internet right now. If you want a contemporary counterexample take a look at NASCAR. They're also not publicly traded, they're family owned, yet they are abusive toward drivers, teams and fans, and they're gradually ruining the sport that ma…

Companies doing things for the common good because they feel threatened by competiton is the whole idea behind Capitalism.

Except when Capitalism has favoured monopolies for decades and is actually closer to Feodalism.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What doesn't work are the predictions of Uber's collapse, of which there were many, cheered on by a great deal who still gather here looking for the next things to see through.

I am personally betting on Uber’s collapse for the obvious reason: it won’t compete with robotaxis and AV companies would rather have customers on their own apps rather than Uber’s platform. Just unsure about the timing

> Just unsure about the timing

Right after we get nuclear fusion and a million people on Mars.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really a fan of this reasoning when in the same breath: Epic is also a private company but has its share of stuff. It's done some good stuff for the industry and even contributed to some bit FOSS projects. But business is still business.

Valve's employee handbook: https://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1074301/Valve_Handbook_Lo... They seem to have a high ownership, consensus driven organizational structure. The only time I'm aware the consensus model was violated was when Gabe overruled a veto to ship Steam with half life 2. It's very interesting to me because it seems to operate similarly to a lot of anarchist shit I've been involved in, but at a highl…

> And they make oodles of money.

I see it the other way round: they can do all that because they print money.

Not that it's necessarily a bad thing: maybe they stay relevant because they are doing that.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s definitely more than just private ownership. In fact I’d say that’s the least part of it. Look at all the horror stories about businesses that were bought by PE firms; those are all privately held too.

The difference is that PE firms own firms as investment vehicles, while Valve is owned by people who see making games as their calling. No, I don't think Gabe's averse to the nice checks, but he is in a business he deeply cares about on an emotional level. He doesn't just want to milk it to the last drop, he wants to leave his mark on gaming. Passion matters.

But does he have a plan for when he retires?

Is it good enough or should we be monitoring his health and hoard torrents of our steam collection just in case?

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#600

The one thing that worries me is that PC gaming is going fast to requiring controller support. Which is reducing the complexity of control schemes to either nothing or mortal kombat like combos. Forward, down, forward, high punch to build a new city in a 4X in a few years?

Controllers provide analogue controls (eg. thumbsticks and triggers) that most keyboards don't have.

If, as you suggest, the control schemes of video games are becoming less complex (Forward, down, forward, high punch) then surely the result would be more games that are playable with only a keyboard, not fewer?

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