Rare exceptions? Name me a game (that a reasonable number of people actually want to play) which is only sold on Steam, and I’ll name you one that is sold on multiple different storefronts. It’s not rare or even uncommon (for, again, reasonably popular) games to be available on platforms other than Steam. I just think…

Booker has also been knee-deep in the “education reform” (i.e. pro-charter school) grift. That was my first big beef with him.

Yeah, it’s really weird how some people seem to think we can just pull an “open borders” policy out our ass, be literally the only country to do it, and this somehow constitutes a sane immigration outlook. I’d much rather we (a) stopped doing stupid shit around the world to exacerbate pathological migration patterns…

Obviously I’d prefer to be able to play games on any platform but if a developer chooses to use a platform because it has the largest user base and best feature set, I can’t hold that against them, especially if that platform is the best one for customers.

Don’t even bother with these assholes. They’re arguing 100% in bad faith, and they fucking know it.

So are you going to explain why I’m wrong, or are you just going to quote me and act like that makes the point for you? There are plenty of major successes, from AAA down to small indie titles made by one person, that are sold on more than just Steam. This idea that Steam operates as some sort of natural monopoly,…

Great, but games that do extremely well on Steam almost never end up having Steam as their only point of sale. You can go from big AAA titles down to games like Stardew Valley. Please, show me how Steam has left you hamstrung re: where you purchase your games.

I’m not reading anything into it. Sweeney claims to have virtuous motives.

Then why was Minecraft—a game never sold on Steam, yet launched during Steam’s heyday—able to become the best selling game of all time? Sorry, but Valve has neither directly nor indirectly manipulated the marketplace. Just being popular and ubiquitous doesn’t establish what you seem to believe it establishes.

That’s not a very interesting observation. There are shades to this shit, and Epic is being particularly evil here.

Steam versus Epic is a Alien versus Predator scenario.

I’ll note, as a declaration of bias, that I don’t exactly believe him. The revenue split was a great PR win for his company, but I just don’t buy that his main focus is on giving developers a better revenue split.

This is such a thin argument. Valve has never once impelled anyone to do anything. They’re fine with devs releasing games where they see fit, and plenty of devs take advantage of this, releasing on multiple storefronts, or even directly via their own solutions. Even when a game is only released on Steam, that’s a…

That is, quite literally, not how altruism works. And Sweeney really is effectively trying to sidestep any and all implications that manipulating consumers (by actively limiting their options on where to buy games) is even slightly the goal here. He really is trying to make people believe that this is an altruistic…

God, can we all stop fucking pretending that this is even remotely about the “70/30 status quo”? It’s about on-boarding new customers by making it literally impossible to find games they want on any storefront other than Epic’s. That’s all there is to it. This stuff about Epic having high-minded motives about giving…

What bizarre alternate universe are we in, and how did we get here?

Yes, so we need to fund school lunches.

Universal programs are the only thing that will fulfill the actual end-goal of reparations. That they aren’t called reparations is just a symbolic matter. And if you care more about symbolism than you do about the end result, then you’re a lunatic.

I have argued for decades for that precise solution. It is stupid that we fund public schools largely through property taxes. When you tell me “this isn’t difficult,” you’re not cluing me in on anything I’m not already fully aware of.

People act like schools want to humiliate kids. If the taxpayers aren’t paying for the lunches, where do you think the money can possibly come from? The principal’s pockets? They have to try and collect it. This fucking sucks, but the answer is to fund school lunch programs, not to vilify strapped school districts for…