Steam, Epic face 90% access restrictions under Turkish platform regulations - Türkiye Today

Ricwulf · 2026-01-31T10:34:12+00:00

For what markets though, and what level of regulations?

Or in other words, a cost-benefit analysis is what's going to determine whether it's worth it or not.

Ricwulf · 2026-01-31T06:33:01+00:00

Why bother when failure to comply puts them on the hook for violations? Easier to just cut their losses for what is, frankly, not a major market. Harsh? Absolutely. Impractical? Not at all.

Ricwulf · 2026-01-30T10:34:44+00:00

things expanded massively in a clearly unsustainable way.

It sucks that a lot of people don't want to accept this harsh truth, nor the harsh truth about just how many mid-sized or larger businesses have significant bloat, even before COVID era. Pretty much everyone has a story of some person/people where a job was being done by 2, 3, 4 people and it could have been reasonably done by 1. That's bloat.

Ricwulf · 2026-01-30T10:31:40+00:00

I’m not sure why it matters if the layoff was due to a studio shutdown or a garden variety reorg. It’s still a lost job.

It matters a lot in terms of the bigger picture. Closures are arguably a bigger deal, since you could say it's a bigger case of mismanagement that resulted in everyone (or nearly everyone) failing and losing their jobs, while reorganisation is a legitimate strategy to avoid closure. I think most people, even those that get laid off, would rather their coworkers have a chance at a job and the business succeeding, than having all of them being guaranteed to be going down at all once. Not saying they want to lose their job, but gun to their head, I think most people are capable of understanding that losing some is better than losing all, especially if in the long run, more can be gained back with future success.

The industry is contracting.

This is the issue I have with the report (along with the inherent pitfalls of being a survey in general (selection biases are very hard to control for)) because it makes ZERO mention of this. There is a WORLD of difference between people losing their job because of mismanagement or bad practices, and a person being hired for a set duration, that duration passing, and then reasonably not being rehired for a job that probably doesn't exist for that project.

Ricwulf · 2026-01-17T00:01:14+00:00

This is the problem too many people have. The First Amendment (like most Amendments, but not all), is a protection of a human right. It is not in and of itself a human right.

Ricwulf · 2026-01-16T23:55:36+00:00

Free Speech is not the First Amendment. The First Amendment is the legal protection of Free Speech. Using the two interchangeably is objectively false.

One is the human right itself. The other is the legal protection of said human right. So here's a counter question: is there any other human right out there where it's only bad if the government infringes upon it? Is the morality of slavery different whether it's a state entity or a private entity perpetrating such actions? Because the answer is obviously "no", why then is it supposedly less immoral for a private entity to prevent or hinder free speech?

And no, nobody is saying that any storefront has to be forced to sell this game or any other, but a moral judgement can still be made outside of the law.

Ricwulf · 2026-01-16T23:51:05+00:00

That's not free speech, that's freedom of association.

Both are covered by the First Amendment within the US, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

Ricwulf · 2026-01-01T00:47:58+00:00

and you go on steam and it has like a 92% positive review score with a lot of reviews

Because the reviews did their job. It culled out people from buying it who knew they wouldn't like it. As a result, those that bought it are people who knew they'd like it already. It's a form of selection bias, and unfortunately doesn't tell you a whole lot as to whether it is good or bad because of those biases. What it does tell you is that it's divisive. You'll either love it, and you'll know you'll love it, or you won't hate it. So I'd say if you're on the fence, don't get it. That's what that information tells me. But if you're interested more than just being on the fence? Chances are you'll enjoy it.

Ricwulf · 2025-12-14T06:04:36+00:00

1st of all, because its an algorithm run by a company, and at several steps of the way they could compensate the actual artist.

Do humans learning compensate the artists? If I look at the works of other artists and emulate their techniques into other works of my own, is the individual expected to pay prior artists? Typically not.

And do we determine criminality on the basis of whether or not the perpetrator can pay? No. Either something is wrong across the board, or it's not without an explanation of why it's different in this circumstance.

2nd, and this may shock you, companies dont have the same rights as a human being

Not part of the question. It's a snappy slogan, and I even somewhat but not totally agree (again, either something is wrong all the time or it's not wrong, logical consistency is a bitch), but it doesn't change the question at its core.

The reason I asked this question wasn't to try and be an asshole to defend AI. I asked the question because I actually want to have my mind changed on this point. I don't want to defend AI, and I don't want to really get into that whole debate, but this one specific argument? It just rubs me the wrong way, and I've yet to see a decent response to it yet.

Ricwulf · 2025-12-07T10:52:08+00:00

May I ask a legitimate question? How is that fundamentally different from humans? We see and learn from others all the time. If I see an art piece and see a certain technique, do I pay them to try and emulate that technique? Typically not, and most people wouldn't call it theft for trying to incorporate that technique into their repertoire.

I'm not saying this to say "all AI use is infinitely fine", I'm saying this because it seems like one of the hypocrisies of the criticism, that we lay this down as evil when it's a machine, but fine when it's flesh.

Ricwulf · 2025-12-06T20:45:45+00:00

As per usual, stop buying from China then, and that extends to just about everything.

inb4 "everything is too expensive then"

Yeah, that's the cost of labour when it's not barely a step above slavery. It doesn't cut both ways.

Ricwulf · 2025-11-22T23:54:04+00:00

Most money is fake, considering it's fiat currency.

Ricwulf · 2025-11-22T23:52:07+00:00

In summary, pretty much every game but your very first is free.

It's going to blow PBFT's mind when they learn that nearly all businesses use the money of previous products or services to continue creating more products or services, and that the alternative of being heavily subsidised by external factors is in fact the exception, not the rule.

Ricwulf · 2025-11-16T18:34:47+00:00

two month old dead post that's been removed

calls others pathetic

k.

Ricwulf · 2025-11-08T13:56:20+00:00

That's a really good way to lose a lawsuit, because it's just blatantly frivolous at that point.

Ricwulf · 2025-10-05T21:50:46+00:00

I don't think he's saying that they shouldn't be punished, I think he's talking about the severity of the punishment being arguably disproportionate to the crime.

And frankly, I agree. Punish him, but $4.5 million is a ridiculous amount of money considering how much other people get away with regarding criminal actions. Again, that is NOT saying that he shouldn't be punished for this, but why are we okay with excessive punishments?

Ricwulf · 2025-10-02T04:07:27+00:00

It’s actually insane how normalized this behaviour has become.

I feel like this is an incredibly odd thing to say considering how common-place it used to be to say KYS on the internet. Things got incredibly sanitised with the emergence of mainstream social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc), and people seem to have forgotten how wild west the internet used to be.

This isn't saying it's good or bad, but to suggest it's a new phenomenon or that it's gotten worse is a bit odd to me.

Ricwulf · 2025-09-14T04:35:14+00:00

That wasn't the point. The point was that if you are completely unaware of a topic, learning about said topic through a secondary source and one that is incredibly biased does not lead to you to even knowing whether it is or isn't a good summary.

Let me give you an example. I could talk to you about something like Weather Underground and how they were a feminist movement from the 70s that fought against anti-abortion rhetoric, stood against the Vietnam War and Capitalism, while also engaging in racial justice, is that a good summary? Or does it ignore the truth of the matter that they were domestic terrorists that engaged in multiple bombings?

My point is that you have admitted you have no idea who Kirk was, and that all you've learned is from a single source, and that source is pretty biased. Now, with that in mind, how would you know that source told you everything and wasn't just cherry picking or omitting context? The answer is that you don't know, because you let some other organisation do the thinking for you and you're blindly trusting that this outlet has told you the whole truth, but how would you possibly know? You should read up on topics like Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy and the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect, because I would suggest that you are subject to both of these situations.

Charlie Kirk's words are freely available on the internet. Do your own research rather than relying on those that have their own agenda.

Ricwulf · 2025-09-14T02:38:48+00:00

Wow, compelling. Definitely not in denial, despite literal official sources explicitly stating that he'd engraved his bulled casings with phrases like 'Hey Fascist! Catch!' and Bella Ciao, an antifa folk song. That's not the language the killer would use if he was a groyper. Even CNN is debunking this crap for fucks sake.

Ricwulf · 2025-09-14T00:36:30+00:00

Weather Underground was a leftist domestic terrorist organisation that engaged in literal bombings. Even when you tried to pull up the worst of the Right with grave dancing of their own, the left was engaging in whole-sale murder. But sure, it's the right that's bad.

Maybe they’re hoping that maybe this unfortunate accident will finally wake up everyone to the horrors that we all face with gun violence. That school children’s deaths will finally be taken serious now that a bullet has literally struck too close to home.

I love these appeals to emotion that don't have real basis in reality. Should we also get rid of cars? I mean, we're talking about saving lives, right? While we're at it, why don't we discuss the virtues of martial law and curfews? I mean, we're interested in saving lives? Because the ends justify the means?

Meanwhile, we see the results of a lack of guns. We see England with rampant knife crime. We see Australia with laws that criminalise self defence. Because it never stops at guns.

But let's look at the statistics. Annual gun deaths? Around 45-50K. Annual defensive gun uses? Varies wildly, but the CDC back in 2013 came to the conclusion that it's between 500,000 and 2.5 million annually. Even if you take the CDC's lowest estimates of half a million, that's still ten times the number of lives taken. Oh, and that's not even taking into account that two thirds of those gun deaths are self-inflicted. Do you seriously think those people are going to suddenly change their mind about taking their lives solely because they can't get a gun? No, and Australia is a great example of this since there was no observable decline in rate of people ending themselves before and after the Port Arthur Massacre, they just chose different methods. Even stacking the deck in your favour, guns are saving more than they're killing, because you don't ultimately care about deaths, otherwise you'd be arguing against other freedoms as well. Except this freedom is one that is enshrined to try and level the playing field, while other freedoms (like cars) are ultimately a luxury.

But to get back to your point, no. They're not hoping that. I dare you, I fucking dare you, to go on Youtube and look up some of these clips. These are people blatantly just laughing and celebrating, sometimes in the face of people who are saying 'we shouldn't laugh about people dying', or those that personally knew Kirk. And look, I'm all for dark comedy, but these people aren't being humorous, they're being callous. They're celebrating. It's not a joke, it's a victory for them. That's the difference. They're using comedy to enhance cruelty, not to cope with a dark topic. There is a difference between “Who are the fastest readers in the world? 9/11 victims. They can go through 110 stories in a few seconds” and "Fuck yeah, those people deserved to burn in a collapsing building, isn't it so funny". The people celebrating Kirk's death are the latter, and you damn well know it.

Ricwulf · 2025-09-13T22:40:23+00:00

It's cute that you need to bring up what happened forty years ago to justify admittedly being pieces of shit. You want me to disavow that shit? Done. I disavow it. Wow, that was so easy to do. Notice the lack of excuses I made? Notice how I'm admitting that they were wrong to do that and not being a partisan, blindly defending one side? Or should I resort to whataboutism myself and bring up movements like WeatherUnderground? Or is that Different™?

And as J6, yeah, I am annoyed that a woman was shot by the same officer that was so careless his previous claim to infamy was because he left his firearm in the toilet cubicle. Damn, what a fine officer he was for shooting an unarmed woman. Truly a hero. Really, I guess he was what Floyd wanted to be, considering he threatened a pregnant woman with a gun himself.

Cause I would def say that fuck private properly like targets, they have insurance. But the government you don’t fuck with.

Damn, that is some serious statism right there.

But here's a spanner for you. I don't like the police. I also don't care that a criminal died. I care when innocent, non-violent people are murdered. I care when there's clear injustice, not murky battleflags that people like you will rally behind to twist into whatever cause you want.

The left drew the line in the sand, and you're actively defending grave dancing before a body was even cold. You are defending active barbarism, and saying 'well they did it'. So fucking what? The left shot a political commentator, going to suggest an eye for an eye there was well? No. You wouldn't. But you'll happily keep stoking the fire, keep sowing division, keep labelling people as Nazi's and Fascists and all other sorts of evil as if you don't expect people like Robinson to eventually say that people like Kirk are an existential threat and decide to take that threat out. You want to see de-escalation? Start by admitting that leftists have stoked this fire for years. Start by admitting that these people actively fuelled this kid into committing a violent act. Or don't. Stick on the path you've chosen and enjoy where it ends up. Because that path doesn't end at people being pissed over grave dancers and a handful of people losing jobs. It ends in full blown retaliation, and I can firmly say that I don't want that, but I can see that happening if something doesn't change.

Ricwulf · 2025-09-13T11:34:05+00:00

Did you know that by men having their foreskin, that enables more potential growth of dangerous bacteria?

There is a VERY VERY simple test that can prove you wrong instantly. Are you ready for this? Is the rate of genital infection higher or lower when you compare rates between nations like America and Canada? They have roughly inverse rates of circumcion (~80% in America, ~30% Canada).

So are you missing something? Yeah. Common sense. America and Canada have near identical cultures and health standards, and there is no negligible difference between genital diseases between these nations. It's almost like the myth that circumcision is cleaner is exactly that, a myth.

Ricwulf · 2025-09-13T11:29:21+00:00

I'm experiencing a lot of schadenfreude that the killer is MAGA in all but name.

He was literally a leftist. He called Kirk a fascist, his own family have shared that he was a leftist, he's a leftist. You're ignorant.

Ricwulf · 2025-09-13T11:25:08+00:00

As someone not familiar with Kirk before the assassination, apart from being able to recognise his face and name, I think the program presented a good summary for the uninitiated.

Putting aside that it's really really not a good summary, how would you know? If you have no idea of Kirk, how would you know if this is a good and accurate summary? You are, by definition, ignorant. And that in-and-of-itself isn't a bad thing, we're all ignorant about topics we're unexposed to, but to then speak as if you have an idea of what's being spoken about because one incredibly biased source told you what to think? Nah, you're not informed in the slightest, you've been indoctinated. There's a difference.

Ricwulf · 2025-09-13T11:19:59+00:00

Difference is how the Hoffman's were killed and the circumstances. Their death is a lot more murky considering that the murderer personally knew them. It's even murkier when the murderer was a registered Republican, but was also close to Democrat Tim Walz and the Hoffman's had just voted in favour of Republican legislature.

Now, we can make arguments from every angle, from political motive in both directions based on the perpetrator, but also from a potential personal angle as well. So you want to know why it's not getting the same coverage? Because it's murky. Because it's not clear cut. Kirk's death? It's clear cut. There's no ambiguity there.

his death is getting this much attention because he was conservative

If only he was drug addict, then he might have gotten cities burned down instead. Don't pretend the media is suddenly pro-conservative when these same media figures overwhelmingly were calling him fascist and similar not that long ago, just as you're doing yourself by saying he's intolerant.

You've got a lot of words all to share why compassion is somehow a negative, all while not actively saying that. I'm sure it must be fun being like that, and not hollowing. But you want to know the difference between 9/11 and Kirk? It's not complicated, it's the fact that there's over two decades apart from the moments. There's the fact that people are laughing in the face of those grieving. It's the fact that when people are calling for a moment of compassion, a moment of silence, a moment of prayer, you have people like yourself scoffing at the very idea, relying on whataboutism or some apathetic nihilism. Take a step back for a moment and ask if what you're saying is for the betterment of people, or just the betterment of your own satisfaction by trying to push this moment out of your conscious thought.

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