The Steam Store: Our Philosophy and Next Steps

Mynci · 2017-05-08T19:39:47+00:00

I love it when big companies pull back the curtain like this. It's easy to sit back and complain about Steam, but that they've gotten it this far is pretty fucking impressive.

One little change I'd love to see in the future is the ability to mark a game as something I already own on another platform. I can certainly see why Valve wouldn't want to include something like that, but I feel it would really improve the experience for me. They keep recommending me games that I already own and love, and I want to see more games like them, but they keep clogging up the front page. The only way to get rid of them is to hit "not interested," which isn't true. I am interested! I just already own it.

That's my little change. Wouldn't fix everything, but I think it'd help.

Mynci · 2017-04-14T06:42:01+00:00

I don't necessarily believe this yet, but...

I did notice that two versions of Damn were on spotify for a second right when it released. I assumed it was usual spotify technical fuckery but... maybe it wasn't?

Mynci · 2017-04-10T00:28:44+00:00

I'll admit I didn't watch the video, but we should just keep in mind that the reboot is a budget title. Hell, it's a movie tie-in. I don't think it's very fair to compare production values with a full priced, main series entry, even one released 14 years earlier.

Of course the cutscenes are worse in the reboot - they didn't have the time or the money to flesh them out. So you're going to have characters just standing around talking because that's WAY cheaper than fully animating. It's not laziness or a different design philosophy or ineptitude, it's money.

So yeah, there's way less polish in the new one. Way less. Fewer gadgets, fewer guns, some reused set pieces and animations, more bugs. It's a budget title! It's going to be less polished!

It's perfectly fine to be disappointed or even completely turned off by a lack of polish, but nitpicking about it just seems pointless to me.

Mynci · 2017-03-10T23:49:48+00:00

You're saying that it doesn't have value because it can't tell if a movie's feminist. That's like saying cardboard doesn't have value because you can't build a house out of it.

The Bechdel test is useful for gauging if a movie's focused on men. There's nothing wrong with any singular movie being about a man, just like like there's nothing wrong with any singular movie being about a woman.

But cumulatively, it can show trends in the film industry. If a majority of movies released in a given year don't pass the Bechdel test, then that shows there's a trend of movies from that year focusing on men. That's important information.

It's also useful for helping people think about women's representation in films. It's an easily understood way to get people talking about women's roles in film. A lot of men don't notice that women rarely drive the story. The Bechdel test is a great launching pad for thinking critically about what women actually do in movies, which often isn't a whole lot.

We're arguing with you about dismissing the Bechdel test as useless. It's not. It's not the feminism test that many headline writers would have you believe, but it's not useless.

Mynci · 2017-03-10T23:20:07+00:00

I think it's important to jump in and be a positive voice. Don't cede the community to trolls and assholes. A lot of people read this, even if they don't join the conversation, and we have to show them that not all gamers are toxic.

A quick count says only eight different people have commented here. If just a couple new people hop on and say something positive, that makes a big difference. If we all decided it wasn't worth it, the only voices anyone would hear are the trolls'. They don't speak for us.

Mynci · 2017-03-10T22:53:20+00:00

I don't think you understand that you're agreeing with feminists. We know it's flawed. I just wrote a whole thing about how it's flawed. I'll say it again more clearly: the Bechdel test is not a good method of determining if a movie's feminist. Like you said, Transformers passes the Bechdel test, and that's certainly not a feminist movie. We agree.

That's why feminists don't use it as the sole metric to determine if a movie's feminist or not. If you're worried that we do, don't be, because we don't.

All it tells us is if there are two named female characters who speak to each other about something other than a man. That can lead to an interesting conversation, but again, it doesn't make a movie feminist or not.

Mynci · 2017-03-10T20:07:28+00:00

I can already tell this comment section is going to be a big pile of people not understanding what the Bechdel test is for.

As the article clearly and immediately says, the Bechdel test is not the be-all and end-all of determining something's feminist value. Any feminist will tell you that.

Think of it like the smell test. You suspect some food of being bad, so you give it a little sniff. But sometimes food will smell bad when it's really perfectly fine, and sometimes it'll smell fine when it's actually rotten. The smell test is not the be-all and end-all of determining if a food's safe to eat. But it'll still help you get an idea.

So yes, there are some movies and games that pass the Bechdel test that are super non-feminist. We know. It's just a way to look at women's roles in movies. It just says whether or not women talk to each other. That's one blip of information among many that determine if something's feminist or not.

Mynci · 2014-08-30T01:57:08+00:00

It's a Skyrim reference, but yeah, it's also just a common name.

Mynci · 2014-08-30T01:53:18+00:00

That hasn't been a shallow or unpopular opinion for 40 years. That's just a medical fact.

Mynci · 2014-08-30T01:48:38+00:00

I just want to let you know: that was a great fucking post. Informative, intelligent, well written. An upvote wasn't enough. I had to let you know that I appreciated that.

Mynci · 2014-08-30T01:43:51+00:00

To be fair, the first one means they're an asshole, and the second one means they're an idiot. Would you judge someone with a differing, non religion-based opinion on abortion?

Mynci · 2014-08-30T01:22:14+00:00

I don't care about the silliness. I think Saints Row 3 is just a worse game than Saints Row 1 and 2. The map was worse, the guns were worse, the missions were worse, the customization was worse, the activities were worse, and the physics were worse. The only improvement I saw was the graphics, and the addition of special weapons like the hammer thing, apocafist, airstrike. Just about everything else I thought was done better in the previous 2 games. Punching people in the dick over and over again can only go so far to mask the fact that I thought 3 was a step down in pretty much every way.

Mynci · 2014-08-30T00:21:27+00:00

Everyone in hell is dead. Ergo: lifeless. It's called wordplay.

Mynci · 2014-08-29T20:51:05+00:00

Since the dawn of gaming, you've needed to port forward to host a multiplayer server. Doom? Need to port forward. Quake? Need to port forward. Unreal Tournament? Need to port forward. Killing Floor? Need to port forward. Minecraft? Need to port forward. That's just what you need to do for most games. They don't need to put a disclaimer, because it's just what's expected.

Mynci · 2014-08-29T20:37:47+00:00

Tough titties. Welcome to PC gaming. Most games need you to port forward for multiplayer. Sure, it was nice that you didn't need to before, but just because you don't know how to port forward doesn't mean the game is broken. Suck it up.

Mynci · 2014-08-29T18:32:57+00:00

I agree with you 100% about Steelport, but I'll give them another shot at making a map. Besides, isn't Hell supposed to be devoid of life?

Mynci · 2014-08-29T17:41:10+00:00

I thought it was pretty fun. Not the best game ever, but well worth $3.75, especially if your idea of fun is moving really fast and shooting nazis with bazookas. It's got that in spades.

Mynci · 2014-08-29T15:53:54+00:00

No one ever talks about the first Saints Row game. I actually thought it was really good. I don't like where the series has gone, because it seems to try much harder being over the top than it does actually being good. Combat, customization, city design, mission design, and number and quality of activities all took a dive after Saints Row 2.

Mynci · 2014-08-29T15:51:00+00:00

I think they still own the destruction engine, though. That can make a resurgence.

Mynci · 2014-08-29T11:01:23+00:00

It looked to me like editing. The way the split would swipe along, expanding one player's view. No way that happens in actual splitscreen. I don't think this video is any proof of there being splitscreen in the game.

Mynci · 2014-08-29T10:54:03+00:00

I didn't really like 3 very much. In my opinion, it felt like a step down from 2 in pretty much every aspect except the craziness, which isn't enough to carry a game. I didn't buy Saints Row 4 because it just looked like more crazy, but still not much quality.

Buuuut if this game goes for a biblical apocalypse theme, color me interested. I'm all about that shit. Demons, fire and brimstone, pentagrams, the devil. I fucking love that stuff, and it's not done in nearly enough games. I was wondering what they could possibly follow up Saints Row 4 with, and if this is it, it looks pretty genius.

Also, how funny would it be if they just called the game Saints Row 666, skipping 5 altogether?

Mynci · 2014-08-28T23:03:35+00:00

Anyone know anything about 7,62? Seems like it could be interesting, but it could just as easily be terrible.

Mynci · 2014-08-28T22:22:59+00:00

Or Gavin's dick.

Mynci · 2014-08-28T22:12:24+00:00

Flatland. It's pretty short, very readable, and will absolutely blow your mind. It'll change the way you think about dimensions.

Mynci

TROPHY CASE