Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mr. Vega on October 20, 2014, 10:11:59 pm
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http://www.polygon.com/2014/10/20/7024585/gabe-newell-death-threat-paranautical-activity-steam-valve
We have a winner for the dumbest person of the year!
*beat*
Ok, top five.
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Depends on how much publicity he gets his game from this.
But yeah, pretty stupid.
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lol
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I just can't understand how are women going to be able to survive in this industry if they are being constantly harrassed and threatened in this manner? I mean, just look at poor Gabe! Yeah I know, perhaps Gabe isn't the perfect woman, a bit snarky, a bit big, but come on, she has tits!
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To be honest, this reminds me of the 'Robin Hood Airport' incident in the UK...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial
In summary, an airport in the UK was closed due to bad weather and someone made the, admittedly stupid, angry Twitter post that they had a week before he went on holiday or he'd 'blow the place sky high'. This led to a court case that gained fame because several British comedians supported the fact that obvious tongue in cheek statements shouldn't interpreted based on public paranoia.
Whilst I'm not condoning what was said, it was obviously said in anger and frustration, not as an actual threat with intent to follow through. Personally, I think a dialogue could have been productive, but at the end of the day, it's Steams' choice and if you say stupid things about your business partners, expect repercussions.
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It does show the dangers of a monopoly quite clearly though.
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It's kind of annoying to have a game on Steam that will probably not get active support from now on, when every other distribution platform will.
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I have no sympathy for Mike Maulbeck, there is a reason why posting angry is never a good idea and death threats are not something to take lightly. You reap what you sow. In short when you are upset its best to take a breath and say nothing until you can be calm be it in personal or business terms.
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Ah yes, this will raise a lot of eyebrows and make a lot of devs suddenly behaving really nice and respectfully towards Gabe or Valve at large. It's still an alarmingly giant position they placed themselves in, though. Rule by fear is something .... despotic.
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Thats what happens when you get in early. Steam was to my recollection the first platform of it's type and it shows in their position and the sad fact is that unless someone comes up with a serious alternative then thats the way life is
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That's true of most monopolies, I don't know why people say it as though it makes Valve's position any better.
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Rule by fear is something .... despotic.
"If you make death threats against me I will not help you" is *not* an attempt to rule by fear. Making death threats against someone is.
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Yeah, at the end of the day there is no-one to blame but himself. If you are going to operate in the forum of any business venture, there are certain things you simply do not do, and this is one of them.
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death threats are not something to take lightly.
This specifically needs to be emphasized, whether against your distributor or towards someone you disagree with. The world needs to grow up a little.
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Yeah this is a good decision by Valve in my opinion. Say you have a product on a grocery store shelf, and they have a sticker where your product is that gives the wrong price or something.
Yes, it may impact sales of your product, but if you curse and yell and threaten a company, they will cease doing business with you. Imagine walking into a room with suits and threatening them, then being surprised when they no longer want to carry your product. Heck, you may even be arrested and sued.
He could have easily followed proper procedures for having the error corrected.
Business is, and always has been, best done by professionals. So if you can't act as a professional, sooner or later, you will see the consequences.
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Rule by fear is something .... despotic.
"If you make death threats against me I will not help you" is *not* an attempt to rule by fear. Making death threats against someone is.
Oh for heaven's sake, can we leave the fashionable melodrama aside for a minute and acknowledge that it is a common idiom to say, for instance, "I'm going to kill you!" to express frustration or annoyance rather than convey an actual intent to murder someone?
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Rule by fear is something .... despotic.
"If you make death threats against me I will not help you" is *not* an attempt to rule by fear. Making death threats against someone is.
Oh for heaven's sake, can we leave the fashionable melodrama aside for a minute and acknowledge that it is a common idiom to say, for instance, "I'm going to kill you!" to express frustration or annoyance rather than convey an actual intent to murder someone?
The police can still arrest you
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Oh for heaven's sake, can we leave the fashionable melodrama aside for a minute and acknowledge that it is a common idiom to say, for instance, "I'm going to kill you!" to express frustration or annoyance rather than convey an actual intent to murder someone?
It can be amongst friends. On twitter, against a celebrity whom the dev has nothing outside of a proffesional relationship with, it isn't.
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It's still pretty ****ing obviously not an actual attempt to influence Gabe Newell's actions through threat of violence, though, despite your high-minded moral condemnation of it.
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It's still pretty ****ing obviously not an actual attempt to influence Gabe Newell's actions through threat of violence, though, despite your high-minded moral condemnation of it.
I don't care how I condemn death threats, it's not "ruling by fear" as Luis claimed.
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You said that the offending tweets were the real attempt to 'rule by fear'; that is what I replied to.
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It's still pretty ****ing obviously not an actual attempt to influence Gabe Newell's actions through threat of violence, though, despite your high-minded moral condemnation of it.
You are making an assumption, one that is most of the time correct but without knowing what is in the mind of the person making the comment you cant know for certain. Also it is not a threat made lightly by a civilized person who understands the gravity of wishing death upon someone even if they dont intend to carry out the actual act, morally it ranks with rape threats its disgusting and as such should be kept out of personal dealings. When its to someone you have no personal dealings with then the lack of knowledge of each other's mental state makes it all the worse, sorry PH but it is plain wrong to do and there is not a single argument that would convince me otherwise, even Hitler should have been brought to trial and imprisoned for the rest of his life if he had been taken alive. End of the day we are supposed to be civilized people and should act as such.
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And lest we forget, this is the same Steam that has repeatedly allowed totally unfit for purpose and deceptively marketed games to be sold freely on their platform, but feel they need to react quickly and decisively to devs that get angry at them on Twitter or who expose their shamefully negligent security (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/135476-Valve-Bans-Developer-From-Steam-for-Prank-Exposing-Vulnerability-Update). I don't really care that much about this particular dev, but Valve are as usual acting like a pack of self-absorbed amateurs.
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It's all about context, really.
I could post a comment like 'Sometimes it makes me want to shove a CD up his arse whilst shouting "DRM!"' because I was frustrated about something, and, as a consumer there would be a certain assumption that I did not seriously intend to do so. The use of obvious comic imagery helps, I find.
The problem is, the Tweet read 'I am going to kill Gabe Newell, he is going to die', if a third party said that of me, I'd feel pretty ****ing intimidated.
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And lest we forget, this is the same Steam that has repeatedly allowed totally unfit for purpose and deceptively marketed games to be sold freely on their platform, but feel they need to react quickly and decisively to devs that get angry at them on Twitter or who expose their shamefully negligent security (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/135476-Valve-Bans-Developer-From-Steam-for-Prank-Exposing-Vulnerability-Update). I don't really care that much about this particular dev, but Valve are as usual acting like a pack of self-absorbed amateurs.
I fail to see how valve's questionable decisions with steam warrants death threats.
Has Gabe/Valve/Steam done something to enact or permit murder? No
Has Gabe/Valve/Steam done something to enact or permit rape? No
Has Gabe/Valve/Steam done something to enact or permit bodily harm? No
Has Gabe/Valve/Steam done something to enact or permit mental suffering? No
What Gabe/Valve/Steam has done by your own admission is
- Permit unfit for purpose products on the platform
- Attempt to cover up flaws in their system
Sorry but no computer software which lets face it can be fixed with a few hours of reinstall is worthy of this behavior and if selling unfit products was justification for killing/threats to kill then shopkeepers better start carrying automatic weapons.
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You said that the offending tweets were the real attempt to 'rule by fear'; that is what I replied to.
I am pretty pretty sure that I said that *DEATH THREATS* are attempts to rule by fear. In an athmosphere where several people have had to leave their house due to detailed death threats, I really can't be arsed about 'common idioms'.
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I can, because I don't really want to have to live in a world where everyone's actions are subject to massive sanctions for the sake of political point-scoring. It's in the same boat as people getting convicted under anti-terror legislation for making jokes about bombing an airport on twitter.
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Thing is over the internet because of the lack of body language and often sense of context its harder to get the full meaning of what is being posted, and yet in both the cases death threats and bomb threats if made in front of police can get you arrested at a minimum of threatening behaviour and possibly for more speciffic charges because Society has deemed that behaviour unacceptable (in the UK this has been a case since the troubles with the Irish so it is not a recent knee-jerk think unlike the USA).
Now I understand that face to face there is context to consider, but I mentioned that at the top of the post for good reason, which is that context is absent online and as such because there is also no knowing the mental state of the poster, for everyone's sake it has to be taken seriously because lets face it how would you take it if a loved one of yours died in an airport bombing which was not stopped because someone with no previous history of extremism made the threat over twitter and the security services thought it was a joke or not serious?
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Now I understand that face to face there is context to consider, but I mentioned that at the top of the post for good reason, which is that context is absent online and as such because there is also no knowing the mental state of the poster, for everyone's sake it has to be taken seriously because lets face it how would you take it if a loved one of yours died in an airport bombing which was not stopped because someone with no previous history of extremism made the threat over twitter and the security services thought it was a joke or not serious?
This scenario has never actually happened, I have no reason to believe it ever will happen, and I'm not convinced the kind of policies being discussed would actually prevent it from happening, so no I'm not going to impinge of freedom of expression because of its hypothetical occurrence.
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This is a really stupid discussion.
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Now I understand that face to face there is context to consider, but I mentioned that at the top of the post for good reason, which is that context is absent online and as such because there is also no knowing the mental state of the poster, for everyone's sake it has to be taken seriously because lets face it how would you take it if a loved one of yours died in an airport bombing which was not stopped because someone with no previous history of extremism made the threat over twitter and the security services thought it was a joke or not serious?
This scenario has never actually happened, I have no reason to believe it ever will happen, and I'm not convinced the kind of policies being discussed would actually prevent it from happening, so no I'm not going to impinge of freedom of expression because of its hypothetical occurrence.
Really?
Point one: I am sorry but there is no conceivable good that can come from a threat of violence of any sort as such I do not see how there is any good hiding behind freedom of expression, ***personally*** speaking I rank it with expressions of social intolerance.
Point 2: July 2013 - June214 Office of National Statistics on reported crime (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_380538.pdf) Page 15 lists
VICTIM-BASED CRIME
- Violence against the person offences
- Violence without injury 5 - 330,676
.......
5. Includes threat or conspiracy to murder, harassment, other offences against children and assault without injury (formerly common assault where there is no injury).
Listed at the bottom of the table on page 17
So yes it does happen and for good reason, the threat itself is emotionally distressing
edit:
added quotation for the second point
edit2:
better explained what the link for point 2 is
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So I realise this conversation has wandered a lot but I was talking about your terrorist scenario there.
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ugh posting after midnight does me no favours :(
So yes a face to face encounter is unlikely, the point still stands that online you lack a lot of the information to make a judgment call on the individual case and given how western society, at least, works you need to take these things seriously until you can prove otherwise and unfortunately that means a talk to the police often with arrest to make sure they are getting the truth from the person along with seizure of related items so they can be examined properly.
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All I can say is: That what Gaben giveth, He can Taketh. Fear Gaben's Wrath and Booteth.
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ugh posting after midnight does me no favours :(
So yes a face to face encounter is unlikely, the point still stands that online you lack a lot of the information to make a judgment call on the individual case and given how western society, at least, works you need to take these things seriously until you can prove otherwise and unfortunately that means a talk to the police often with arrest to make sure they are getting the truth from the person along with seizure of related items so they can be examined properly.
Here's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial) the wikipedia article on the incident I'm referring to. Note that the guy didn't just get 'a talking to from the police'; he got a criminal conviction which took three appeals to overturn. That's completely, utterly unnecessary and it sort of reflects on the general attitude in this thread that saying such things gives licence for all sorts of absurdly excessive repercussions.
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Any death threat made in anger should be taken with all seriousness, online or not. Note, this guy could have meant a lot of things, but one thing's that's clear from his tweets was that he wasn't in a joking mood. He was writing this in anger. He might have cooled off after anger has passed - or not. You never know, even outside the internet. There are people who cling to such irrational grudges even after the initial burst of anger has passed. Gabe is a high-profile executive - tracking him down would be no problem, and a dedicated enough psycho might just find a way to get a shot in. You don't want to take that chance. Making a death threat, or bomb threats, or whatever marks the one making them as an individual who would consider this course of actions as a solution to his problems. Such a person needs to be at the very least contacted by police and put under observation. For someone who's just angry, this would serve as a proverbial "bucket of water", for someone who's serious, that could lead to a conviction and thus prevent a tragedy.
While the punishment demanded in the "Twitter joke trail" was overdone, the general idea was very much valid. The Tweet didn't have markings of a joke, but rather of anger. It wasn't obvious that he was not some psycho willing to blow up an airport just because of his flight being canceled. Here's the tip: if you're angry, keep your mouth shut and calm down. If you don't have anything to say by then, this means you never had anything to say at all. Most of the things said in anger should never have been said anyway, just like most things done in anger should have never been done.
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I was going to post a reply but Dragon phrased things in more detail already in a manner that coincides with my own thoughts so I will let that stand
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It wasn't obvious that he was not some psycho willing to blow up an airport just because of his flight being canceled.
Yes, yes it was. Read the article. The threat wasn't even noticed until after it had failed to materialise, and the airport itself concluded there was no credible threat. The idea that these things have to be taken with the utmost seriousness doesn't really have much basis in reality.
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Yes that case should at its furthest should have been thrown out but the rest of what dragon said stands
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If I go up to my friend after we've been playing Nidhogg, grin and say, "Hey you son of a goblin, I'm going to slit your throat", he will probably laugh and carry on.
If I go up to that same friend upon meeting him for the first time in days, grin and say, "Hey you son of a goblin, I'm going to slit your throat", he would probably nervously chuckle and wave it off.
If I go up to a coworker who I do not have a close relationship with, grin and say, "Hey you son of a goblin, I'm going to slit your throat", he has every right to be afraid, even though my demeanor would indicate that I'm only joking.
If I go up to a random stranger on the street, grin and say, "Hey you son of a goblin, I'm going to slit your throat", he should probably be very afraid, no matter what I look like.
My point is: a threat on somebody's life, no matter the context and nonverbal cues, should be treated as credible unless both parties have a very clear understanding that it is not credible.
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Has anyone on this thread bothered to actually find the guy's twitter account and actually look at the context of that tweet before commenting on how bad/innocuous it was?
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This is indeed a stupid argument. Freedom of expression is trumped when it comes to matters of public safety in every western nation (I don't know how others handle it). The degree of such varies, but that's not the point. You can't shout fire in a crowded movie theater is a prime example of this public safety vs freemdom of expression. You have the right to not be silenced, or have views forced upon you by the federal government in the US. That does not give you carte Blanche to say whatever you want. Death threats fall into this category.
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Has anyone on this thread bothered to actually find the guy's twitter account and actually look at the context of that tweet before commenting on how bad/innocuous it was?
According to the article, the tweet itself was deleted, but they had this nifty preservation screen capture:
(Apologies to those with auto-censor, this image is a bit blue. Extremely, actually...)
(http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2373980/Paranautical_Activity.0.png)
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Yeah, I going to have to file this one under "Stupid, but understandable" I don't think I'd ever read that as an actual death threat rather than simply being someone venting, even if it was aimed at me. Especially as the following post goes back to ranting about Steam rather than naming Valve again.
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Actually I think it looks worse in context. The guy was building up.
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I think it actually looks worse in context too. But that's besides the point. Valve took an appropriate response against an unprofessional business customer.
A monopoly has nothing to do with this particular context, and why that's even going on a tangent is typical HLP behavior.
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I can, because I don't really want to have to live in a world where everyone's actions are subject to massive sanctions for the sake of political point-scoring.
Where did you get the impression that this is for the sake of political point scoring?
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Because it is, or at least it's definitely political. Nobody seriously contends that by punishing people for actions like this you're actually preventing murders or terrorism in the real world, it's all about Setting An Example and Making It Clear We're Serious. (This does not, I hasten to add, mean that I think harassment should be tolerated; but harassment goes significantly beyond making some kind of context-free 'threat'.)
This is indeed a stupid argument. Freedom of expression is trumped when it comes to matters of public safety in every western nation (I don't know how others handle it). The degree of such varies, but that's not the point. You can't shout fire in a crowded movie theater is a prime example of this public safety vs freemdom of expression. You have the right to not be silenced, or have views forced upon you by the federal government in the US. That does not give you carte Blanche to say whatever you want. Death threats fall into this category.
I absolutely agree that there are situations where freedom of expression needs to be restricted for the collective good, but the consequences of imposing those restrictions are serious enough that they need some pretty major utilitarian justification behind them.
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I suppose the way I see it is, whilst I wouldn't expect him to be arrested for it, I can understand how that would have a severely negative impact on any business relationship.
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That the guy was grossly unprofessional and freely skewered his own business relationships is something I'd agree with, but this idea that he deserves it all for saying in the same breath the words "Gabe Newell" and "die" is pretty questionable.
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A death threat is an expressed desire for someone to die, while I accept that amongst friends who understand each other's emotional state this can be taken in context of that relationship, this was aimed at a person with whom there was no such understanding so yer on its own it would be grounds for me to terminate a business relationship. add in the context of the other tweets then you have no chance.
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If I mouthed off to any of my clients in a similar manner I would be fired, my companies' relationship with the client would be tarnished and/or irrevocably damaged. There is shooting the **** with your friends and there is the professional environment. If you are unable to distinguish the difference then take this as an object lesson as to the results of treating your job like a youtube comments section.
This isn't acceptable behavior if you are in retail dealing with a random customer across the table or in a company dependent contract with your distributor. In both cases you would be in a well deserved pile of deep ****.
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You are taking this too seriously. People should remember the manner how CEOs are constantly talking to each other. Throwing chairs in boardrooms and whatnots. It's called a "tantrum" and it happens. The problem here is not that Gabe basically told him to get his business elsewhere. That's entirely appropriate. What is scary is how this is more than just "that" and basically sending the guy to rot in poverty hell because Gabe just "happens" to hold a monopoly of pc gaming distribution.
I said scary, not "evil". It is true that Gabe was on the right here. But eventually he might be less so. And then people will start worry as I worry right now.
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While it is far from ideal in a consumer society in the absence of someone with a competitive platform then there is literally nothing to be done other than attempt to launch such a platform.
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I propose that that particular issue is the only reason why this is even news and being discussed.
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I propose that that particular issue is the only reason why this is even news and being discussed.
rather than the fact that this was aimed at a high profile person in the gaming industry?
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Yeah that too you're right.
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You are taking this too seriously. People should remember the manner how CEOs are constantly talking to each other. Throwing chairs in boardrooms and whatnots. It's called a "tantrum" and it happens. The problem here is not that Gabe basically told him to get his business elsewhere. That's entirely appropriate. What is scary is how this is more than just "that" and basically sending the guy to rot in poverty hell because Gabe just "happens" to hold a monopoly of pc gaming distribution.
I said scary, not "evil". It is true that Gabe was on the right here. But eventually he might be less so. And then people will start worry as I worry right now.
None of the business owners I've dealt with comport themselves like an idiot child in the public domain, chair throwers included. Having a screaming fit in your own office is one thing, losing your **** in public, especially when you are dependent on the target party is stupid. I don't see this shaking out any differently in most professional environments. The only reason it has traction here is because its the games industry.
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Social networks so public like facebook and twitter are pretty novel. Some people are slower than others to pick up the right etiquettes. This episode surely helps.
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One thing I did notice is that this guy didn't mention GoG as a distribution platform. Perhaps he should look into it (or actually get his partner to look into it since he's actually since sold his stake to him and left the business).
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One thing I did notice is that this guy didn't mention GoG as a distribution platform. Perhaps he should look into it (or actually get his partner to look into it since he's actually since sold his stake to him and left the business).
true, only mentions Desura and Humble
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Well it might have something to do with the name...
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If nothing else, this is another shining example of how so many game developers are ****awful businessmen. Like, they have to warn you against this **** on the very first day of Business 101. The guy was a dumbass, and I have absolutely no sympathy for him.
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If nothing else, this is another shining example of how so many game developers are ****awful businessmen. Like, they have to warn you against this **** on the very first day of Business 101. The guy was a dumbass, and I have absolutely no sympathy for him.
lol :yes: This is why my college requires us Business majors to take a Business Ethics course for those students who forgot their first day in Business 101.
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If he really wanted to express his anger, he should have said something like "I'm going to bake Gabe Newell a slightly overcooked cake." which makes him look like a bad cook (while he's really plotting to destroy Gaben from the inside out)
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Steam a monopoly? We have plenty of competitors. Such as the much feared Origin.
Actually Origin isn't a competitor because its such a piece of crap.
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Steam a monopoly? We have plenty of competitors. Such as the much feared Origin.
Actually Origin isn't a competitor because its such a piece of crap.
While Steam is technically not a monopoly, Microsoft wasnt technically a monopoly in the 90's. but when the power held is such that they might as well be a monopoly the distinction is rarely more than academic.
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Steam a monopoly? We have plenty of competitors. Such as the much feared Origin.
Actually Origin isn't a competitor because its such a piece of crap.
/me acctually had more positive experiences with origin then steam :unsure:
that said I don't buy much from origin... Don't forget the whole "No steam, no sale!" crowd which, unfortunately, happens to be 90% of the gaming world. Steam exposure is *the* way to get sales.
Totalbiscuit did a video on it a while back (Indiecent exposure)