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Why no Steam, Notch?

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Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#71

Post by bugsy »

wmobit wrote: post #19
bugsy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's right that GPL is draconian and limits freedom. But I am not sure your point because you didn't state it. You have a drive by post where you post some cryptic excerpt that seems unrelated to the topic with no commentary. Are you a posting bot, or are you a person with a point? Speak clearly. Explain yourself. If the intent is to be critical of notch, I can't see any fault in his saying he hopes to release source…

Saying the GPL is draconian and limits freedom is like saying the 13th amendment limits freedom since it takes away your right to own slaves.

The 13th amendment establishes the right of the state to own slaves.

Technically, according to the text of the 13th amendment, it formally and legally establishes as a constitutional right of the state to declare people slaves as "punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted", which has of course resulted in prison chain gangs and various corporations hiring prisoners for cheap compliant slave labor over the years, and in the demand for such slave labor and thus the motivation of the state to imprison as many people as possible.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#72

Post by rufibarbatus »

dkersten wrote: post #23
bugsy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's right that GPL is draconian and limits freedom. But I am not sure your point because you didn't state it. You have a drive by post where you post some cryptic excerpt that seems unrelated to the topic with no commentary. Are you a posting bot, or are you a person with a point? Speak clearly. Explain yourself. If the intent is to be critical of notch, I can't see any fault in his saying he hopes to release source…

I agree with everything you said, except for the following: release as public domain, which means completely unencumbered and free In general, this is true, but some countries do not have a concept of public domain and so releasing it into the public domain would make it completely unusable to people in those countries. Personally, I would prefer either the BSD or MIT license or something like the WTFPL[1]. [1] http:…

Due to its language, I'm not sure the WTFPL would hold in court in just about any country. I don't mean just the profanity: it has no proper scope (i.e. it doesn't describe what's being licensed), it doesn't attach it to a proper author or maintainer (which, it turns out, may be a requirement in countries where intellectual property is described in terms of author's rights rather than copyright), and it doesn't specify what kinds of rights, warranties and whatnot the license waives the author/maintainer from.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#73

Post by eropple »

sukuriant wrote: post #46
georgemcbay wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but then I'm not sure why a less restricted Minecraft on Steam on the PC is a problem... I'd actually buy it then. I do very little PC gaming these days, 100% of it via titles bought on Steam -- people can argue about the DRM issues with it all day long, but the cloud features of it that allow me to access my game library from whichever of my computers I am currently logged into is huge as is the central…

What about Minecraft's distribution method makes you not want to use it? You buy the game and are given an account, then you can use that account anywhere and everywhere on any operating system. You just log in when you start the game.

...except when the authentication server (which is also the website, because separation of concerns is for suckers!) is down because the entire company has taken a trans-Atlantic flight to go bask in the adulation of their fans, without so much as a single backup plan. Like they did earlier this year.

Last week, though--last week, they learned! They left one guy behind to deal with any problems that occurred. Of course, that one guy, whose entire capability to fix problems was "bounce the server", spent seven hours in a pub getting plastered while their authentication server was down again. True to form, they treated it as "lulz" instead of taking some responsibility for the screw-up.

So I can't blame people for wanting to stick to Steam. They at least have those "IT people" for fixing problems.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#75

Post by ugh »

streptomycin wrote: post #55
culturestate wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you can point to that quote as the most inflammatory thing Notch has said just reinforces OP's point.

I have no idea if it's the most inflammatory thing he's said. I don't know much about him other than he wrote a video game I've never played. I just saw http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2938141 reference "openness" and was wondering if Minecraft was actually open source, as I didn't think it was. So I googled for license info, and the first thing I found was a quote that wouldn't be out of place in any typical Lin…

Wait what? How could a reasonable person possibly be offended by what you quoted? There is entirely too little context there and the sentence is worded very politely.

(L)GPL certainly is draconian (in the sense of strict) and all he is saying is that he personally is not very happy about that. How anyone could not see this as a reasonable statement boggles the mind. (I’m not saying that you have to agree with it.)

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#76

Post by rwolf »

eropple wrote: post #73
sukuriant wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Minecraft's distribution method makes you not want to use it? You buy the game and are given an account, then you can use that account anywhere and everywhere on any operating system. You just log in when you start the game.

...except when the authentication server (which is also the website, because separation of concerns is for suckers !) is down because the entire company has taken a trans-Atlantic flight to go bask in the adulation of their fans, without so much as a single backup plan. Like they did earlier this year. Last week, though--last week, they learned! They left one guy behind to deal with any problems that occurred. Of cou…

When the authentication server went down my second week of trying out Minecraft, my copy kept working (with a dialog on startup letting me know that auth had failed).

I agree that it is embarrassing for a company demoing at a conference to have a protracted outage on their website, but the impact on current users should have been nil.

Have they made the DRM stickier since I last played?

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#77

Post by [deleted] »

ugh wrote: post #75
streptomycin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea if it's the most inflammatory thing he's said. I don't know much about him other than he wrote a video game I've never played. I just saw http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2938141 reference "openness" and was wondering if Minecraft was actually open source, as I didn't think it was. So I googled for license info, and the first thing I found was a quote that wouldn't be out of place in any typical Lin…

Wait what? How could a reasonable person possibly be offended by what you quoted? There is entirely too little context there and the sentence is worded very politely. (L)GPL certainly is draconian (in the sense of strict) and all he is saying is that he personally is not very happy about that. How anyone could not see this as a reasonable statement boggles the mind. (I’m not saying that you have to agree with it.)

[deleted]

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#78

Post by streptomycin »

ugh wrote: post #75
streptomycin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea if it's the most inflammatory thing he's said. I don't know much about him other than he wrote a video game I've never played. I just saw http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2938141 reference "openness" and was wondering if Minecraft was actually open source, as I didn't think it was. So I googled for license info, and the first thing I found was a quote that wouldn't be out of place in any typical Lin…

Wait what? How could a reasonable person possibly be offended by what you quoted? There is entirely too little context there and the sentence is worded very politely. (L)GPL certainly is draconian (in the sense of strict) and all he is saying is that he personally is not very happy about that. How anyone could not see this as a reasonable statement boggles the mind. (I’m not saying that you have to agree with it.)

Oh please. Everyone knows the connotation of the word "draconian".

And "too little context"? Did you read the context? What do you think of the part that says open source licenses just "boost the egos of the original authors"? If that's not top grade nerd flamebait, then I don't know what is.

I'm just pointing out that it's fairly typical flamebait (as further evidenced by the response I got when I posted it here). I'm not offended by it, I'm amused by it.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#79

Post by eropple »

rwolf wrote: post #76
eropple wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...except when the authentication server (which is also the website, because separation of concerns is for suckers !) is down because the entire company has taken a trans-Atlantic flight to go bask in the adulation of their fans, without so much as a single backup plan. Like they did earlier this year. Last week, though--last week, they learned! They left one guy behind to deal with any problems that occurred. Of cou…

When the authentication server went down my second week of trying out Minecraft, my copy kept working (with a dialog on startup letting me know that auth had failed). I agree that it is embarrassing for a company demoing at a conference to have a protracted outage on their website, but the impact on current users should have been nil. Have they made the DRM stickier since I last played?

You can't play online if the auth server is down, IIRC, unless you're playing on a server that doesn't authenticate. Which is kind of a problem.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#80

Post by iamdave »

ido wrote: post #70
pseudonym wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how much is "openness" and how much is "good PR".* Every other week you have another post on HN about how Apple's booted something from the app store with no posted reason; I have yet to hear a story about a game being booted from Steam. *I'm fully aware that there are a lot of people who say that yes, they want it to be open, but I'd be curious in seeing how much zealous anti-app-store sentiment there w…

I have yet to hear a story about a game being booted from Steam. Maybe they don't kick you out, but it's a ton harder to get on steam in the first place than to get on the app store.

[Citation needed]

Garry's mod is probably he most popular success story of a game made by a user of Steam that saw enough success that steam came to him with a mutually beneficial plan, and he went for it. Now I don't have the full details of the GM9 acquisition, but from the way he told the story when it happened, he was exceptionally pleased and satisfied with the way it turned out.

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