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An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

openttd.org

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Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#211

Post by Aeolun »

philistine wrote: post #189
PurpleRamen wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can literally just go download it off their website for free That's cumbersome. The main benefit of platforms is comfort. Steam takes care of installation and updating, while often also offers some access with the community. Open internet has more choice and liberty, but for the price of more work and annoyance. That the main reason why all big platforms succeed and the small platforms fail. Comfort is just too…

OpenTTD has an automatic update mechanism already and its installation is as simple as could be. Steam succeeded because of its store, which still has the best prices on the market. That’s their original moat. Their current moat is sunk costs. People have thousands of dollars in their Steam Library. At this point Steam’s advantages as software are negligible, especially considering its poor performance.

Steam, and Valve are solely responsible for me never having to deal with Windows, because they’ve made linux gaming easy. I’d use steam just for that.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#212

Post by jrflowers »

Barrin92 wrote: post #146
itsdesmond wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is as good an argument as saying that Americans with unhealthy diets bear sole responsibility, ignoring the massive corporate efforts to convince them of the healthfulness of highly processed foods. While, obviously, individuals have ultimate responsibility for their actions, ignoring the concerted efforts to influence those actions through psychology, marketing/ads, paid “experts”, paid influencers and celebrit…

>ignoring the concerted efforts to influence those actions Ignorance isn't the point. The issue is that it's your responsibility to stop them. the buck always stops at "I". Are they just going to stop themselves? Is your neighbor going to stop them for you? If so, why should she if you don't? As Kant said, enlightenment is getting out of your self inflicted tutelage. When is it self inflicted? When you have the reaso…

>the buck always stops at "I"

Wait if it is your responsibility to stop corporations from doing bad things, why are they still doing them?

I didn’t realize there was an individual to talk to about this but, while I’ve got your attention, frankly for the sake of mankind you need to do better at this. They are running wild out here

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#213

Post by thaumasiotes »

jscd wrote: post #169
superxpro12 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about as much as you can hope for tbh. More than a fair compromise. Society has become quite 'entitled' to 'free' things. As popular as they are, torrents and free streams and emulation and clones of games in an open source lib are all stealing something. I know thats an unpopular thing to say but it a fact. Now, those rights violations viewed in a larger context may change one's opinion on the whole, and I'm…

First, I agree it's cool that Atari, with all its ability to completely screw small projects over, didn't do that in this case. But, at the same time, I find it interesting that "emulations and clones" are considered entitlement (in a derogatory sense), but copyright protection is not. Before 1976 in the US, the _maximum_ copyright term was 56 years, and that would require filing for an extension from the default of…

> Historically, after 28 years, most works became public domain and that meant you could do literally whatever you want with it

Historically, all works were public domain at all times.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#214

Post by thaumasiotes »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #163
legitster wrote: post #15

As a sidenote, this whole situation implies just how important platforms are. Nothing about OpenTTD has changed. You can literally just go download it off their website for free - same as it was 20 years ago. And you can add it to your Steam library just fine. It's only been on the Steam store for 5 of those years. But the open internet is dead now and just being "de-merchandised" from a platform feels like being rel…

> You can literally just go download it off their website for free That's cumbersome. The main benefit of platforms is comfort. Steam takes care of installation and updating, while often also offers some access with the community. Open internet has more choice and liberty, but for the price of more work and annoyance. That the main reason why all big platforms succeed and the small platforms fail. Comfort is just too…

> That's cumbersome.

Nothing cumbersome about it. No one who wants to do this is going to fail at it, or even be inconvenienced.

> That the main reason why all big platforms succeed and the small platforms fail. Comfort is just too valuable.

The value of the platform, in this case, is that people know where it is, but they don't know where openTTD is.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#215

Post by thaumasiotes »

BowBun wrote: post #107
StableAlkyne wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short of developing psychic abilities, how would you then address the discoverability problem without relying on a third party? Forums, search engines, social media, and link aggregators are all third parties with their own ranking. Nobody outside of a handful of small-web hobbyists have put a "cool links" section into a website since 1997.

This is classic engineering missing the forest for the trees. The answer to your question is: same as we always did before! Do you talk to friends? Colleagues? Family? You definitely chat with us here on HN. All of these people share things with you constantly. There's a funny obsession in tech circles to gather all the information they can as quick as possible. I much prefer to optimize for the quality of informatio…

> The answer to your question is: same as we always did before! Do you talk to friends? Colleagues? Family? You definitely chat with us here on HN. All of these people share things with you constantly.

So, in your opinion, we can cut out the reliance on third parties by relying on third parties?

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#216

Post by satertek »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #188
PurpleRamen wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can literally just go download it off their website for free That's cumbersome. The main benefit of platforms is comfort. Steam takes care of installation and updating, while often also offers some access with the community. Open internet has more choice and liberty, but for the price of more work and annoyance. That the main reason why all big platforms succeed and the small platforms fail. Comfort is just too…

Easiest of all is `pacman -S openttd`.

Or even `winget install openttd`

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#217

Post by Closi »

anthk wrote: post #67
Closi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also even if it is a ground up rewrite, the look and feel still matters. Try creating a 1:1 dupe of a Hermes bag or a Rolex and see how their legal team reacts (even if you call it an OpenBirk)

- OpenArena - Chip's Challange and custom levels pack - Freedoom+Blasmepher for Doom/Heretic - LibreQuake - Supertux2 - Oolite - Kgoldminner/XScavenger with level sets - Frozen Bubble - Any X11/console/9front sokoban clone. Everyone reuses the same level set over and over.

This list might just be survivor bias though - it only includes the projects where they didn’t get sued and taken down (either because the developer was ok with them, or because they strayed far enough into fair use).

There are clear counter examples - see Tengen vs Nintendo, Nintendo vs Palworld, Microsoft vs halo inspired games, Microsoft vs Minecraft clones. Most are settled out court. Examples that go to court tend to be from companies with budgets to fight, lots of projects will just get DMCA’d and won’t fight, or will back down after a legal letter.

Ultimately copyright and IP infringement is decided in the courts, and the rules aren’t entirely black and white.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#218

Post by somat »

II2II wrote: post #209
superxpro12 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about as much as you can hope for tbh. More than a fair compromise. Society has become quite 'entitled' to 'free' things. As popular as they are, torrents and free streams and emulation and clones of games in an open source lib are all stealing something. I know thats an unpopular thing to say but it a fact. Now, those rights violations viewed in a larger context may change one's opinion on the whole, and I'm…

> Society has become quite 'entitled' to 'free' things. As popular as they are, torrents and free streams and emulation and clones of games in an open source lib are all stealing something. I know thats an unpopular thing to say but it a fact. Emulators and game engine clones may encourage "stealing", but they are also unique creations. The people who develop said software are typically careful about keeping their so…

Ehh, it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. And in the case of openttd, it's not the engine that has the legal problem, it's the graphics and the sound. Openttd is an engine to play transport tycoon content. If openttd distributes transport tycoon's graphics and sound, (which they were) they are infringing on the owners right to distribute.

Update, I got openTTD confused with openRCT, It looks like openttd did redo the graphics and sound, so I think the parent post is correct and atari has little to no legal ground to stand on, the only thing they could reasonably claim is trademark, that is, it is them using the name transport tycoon that is the problem. And that is still not theft, it is trademark infringement.

At this point I would like to plug Simutrans a transport tycoon clone that actually took the effort to make their own graphics and sound. But really, as much as I enjoy simutrans any normal transport tycoon connoisseur will hate it, a bit too different and clunky for them.

https://www.simutrans.com but steam is probably the easiest way to play.

Re: An update on Steam / GOG changes for OpenTTD

#220

Post by kolinko »

dryarzeg wrote: post #48
lstodd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open internet is dead only to those that don't take the effort to discover. Otherwise it's still as open as it always was. Since there was an internet to speak of, there always were and still are vast amounts of people unaware of stuff that exists, limited by no "platforms" but only by their own lack of desire.

That is true to some extent. However, let me ask you one simple question: how would you try to search for something if you are not aware of it's existence? In other words, how people that are not aware of existence of open-source projects (such as OpenTTD) are supposed to discover them if they're not searching for them on purpose (which is impossible given that they have no clue about their existence)? Of course ther…

Steam solves delivery, not so much discovery
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