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Why no Steam, Notch?

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Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#81

Post by streptomycin »

bugsy wrote: post #68
streptomycin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just amused that someone praised for being so civil and respectful and mature would make a needlessly incendiary comment about the GPL on their website. Particularly as religious debates about open source licenses are quite stereotypical of disrespectful, immature, uncivilized nerds.

I'm surprised that you are so open that you are disrespectful, immature, and uncivilized, but thanks.

Thanks for your posts, which very clearly validate my point that the original quoted statement was flamebait :)

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#82

Post by bena »

wtallis wrote: post #56
bena wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"His diplomacy here, as well as with Bethesda, has been stellar" I don't think his diplomacy regarding Bethesda has been all that great. Openly mocking their claims probably hasn't earned him any goodwill. The quiz was pretty bad, especially the insult at the end. The tweets and encouragement of people ironically getting the two products confused also hurts his case.

His handling of the Bethesda case is only bad if this really isn't a case of an overly-zealous legal department operating on autopilot. So far, there's no reason to suspect that: All the information that's public indicates that Bethesda's claims are weak or entirely baseless, and they are not interested in reaching a compromise or really any two-way communication prior to going to court. Any lawyer that starts a tenu…

Bethesda is acting rationally and logically. Trademark is easily lost and Bethesda needs to be on top of any potentially infringing marks.

Notch is handling this in the worst way possible. The first thing he should have done is go to his lawyers, have them set up a meeting with Bethesda and their lawyers, then hash out everything quietly. No, the first thing he did was fire up the internet hate machine in response to a Cease & Desist.

Then he challenges them to a Quake match to settle it. Another bad move.

Then he posts a quiz that mocks Bethesda and actually doesn't help him in the way he thought it would as some people actually got some of the questions wrong.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#83

Post by rwolf »

eropple wrote: post #79
rwolf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah, I was mostly a "putter in the corner by myself" kind of minecrafter, so I never tried multiplayer. I agree that that is a problem, yikes!

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#84

Post by wtallis »

bena wrote: post #82
wtallis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His handling of the Bethesda case is only bad if this really isn't a case of an overly-zealous legal department operating on autopilot. So far, there's no reason to suspect that: All the information that's public indicates that Bethesda's claims are weak or entirely baseless, and they are not interested in reaching a compromise or really any two-way communication prior to going to court. Any lawyer that starts a tenu…

Bethesda is acting rationally and logically. Trademark is easily lost and Bethesda needs to be on top of any potentially infringing marks. Notch is handling this in the worst way possible. The first thing he should have done is go to his lawyers, have them set up a meeting with Bethesda and their lawyers, then hash out everything quietly. No, the first thing he did was fire up the internet hate machine in response to…

From Notch's blog:

A while later, out of the blue, we got contacted by Bethesda’s lawyers. They wanted to know more about the “Scrolls” trademark we were applying for, and claimed it conflicted with their existing trademark “The Elder Scrolls”. [...] We looked things up and realized they didn’t have much of a case, but we still took it seriously. Nothing about Scrolls is meant to in any way derive from or allude to their games. We suggested a compromise where we’d agree to never put any words in front of “Scrolls”, and instead call sequels and other things something along the lines of “Scrolls - The Banana Expansion”. I’m not sure if they ever got back to us with a reply to this.

Today, I got a 15 page letter from some Swedish lawyer firm, saying they demand us to stop using the name Scrolls, that they will sue us (and have already paid the fee to the Swedish court), and that they demand a pile of money up front before the legal process has even started.

Firing up the internet hate machine wasn't the first thing Notch did. He tried to open up a dialogue, before things got to the cease-and-desist stage. It didn't work. Bethesda's lawyers weren't interested in being reasonable.

Maintaining a trademark doesn't require constantly trying to expand it.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#85

Post by TillE »

ido wrote: post #63
jroes wrote: post #39

Is there some crevice here that can be made into a startup? A digital distribution platform for indie game devs who want more freedom with what they are selling?

There are already many of these out there. Let's say they are all pretty sub-optimal both from a player's and a developer's perspective.

Precisely. Desura and the rest are a bit disappointing. There's a huge opportunity to make something not entirely unlike the Mac App Store, but for PC games. Keep it simple and open, with few rules and reasonably low fees. And no DRM.

As a developer and a player, that's what I want. A package manager with a payment system and a store front, basically. You can add achievements and friend lists and the rest later.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#86

Post by georgemcbay »

rmc wrote: post #67
georgemcbay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: people in countries without public domain... is that a real actual problem that actually impacts people? I mean, suppose a user in Nopublicdomainistan uses some software that is released in the public domain... clearly the author is never going to come after them for a copyright violation, even if their local government doesn't recognize public domain as a concept, so what is the actual real world problem they fa…

"Ah sure, us using this software is technically illegal, but sure, the original author isn't going to come after us" is usually not a good line to write on your corporate "do we have enough licences audit" The problem isn't that your might get sued, it's that you can't convince $POINTY_HAIRED_BOSS that you won't get sued.

YMMV, I guess, depending upon where you work/have worked but despite working in commercial software, I've had a bigger problem convincing past bosses that using pirated software to do our jobs is a problem than I have had with bosses who were overly concerned about copyright law to the point where it would be an issue in my hypothetical case.

I still think the original objection is more retold fairy tale than truth, but if anyone wants to prove me wrong they can point me to a country where public domain isn't recognized, but random user-written OSS licenses are and the country has any sort of culture of respecting copyright in the first place.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#87

Post by andypants »

xentronium wrote: post #74
masklinn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it works, how's it stupid?

TF2 public games turned into constant trade for goddamn hats and metal.

When people make comments like this, it makes me think you've never played TF2.

I have never had a problem where a number of people on a server are trading (except on dedicated trading servers).

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#88

Post by eropple »

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.

That's not a bad thing. The Steam quality control isn't perfect--a lot of more established developers seem to be able to get games through fairly easily, but, and given my tastes in games I consider this more important, there is a remarkable lack of indie shovelware all over the place.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#89

Post by niklas_a »

rmc wrote: post #69
zaphar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I also dislike the walled garden approach of the IOS App Store I feel I should point out that it's only a monopoly if you define a monopoly narrowly. E.G it's only a monopoly on the iOS family of devices which is hardly a monopoly on installing apps on mobile devices. It may be a large chunk of the market but there are still competitors with a sizeable chunk themselves. Walled Garden != Monopoly

It is a monopoly on installing software on iOS. Steam does not have a monopoly on installing software on Windows.

But iOS is only 18% of all mobile devices. Windows is 90% of all laptops/desktops. You are not comparing oranges with oranges.

Re: Why no Steam, Notch?

#90

Post by niklas_a »

shoota wrote: post #3

Then why are they bringing Minecraft to the XBOX 360 which is a much more locked down platform than steam?

Because Microsoft gave Mojang an incentive, eg money? Because all PC gamers can already get Minecraft but XBOX gamers cannot?
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