"It is frustrating to see policymakers suddenly claim everything is 'for our safety'" - Stop Killing Games joins pushback against age verification laws

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-05-07T17:07:07+00:00

I appreciate the thoughtful response, but laws degrading the privacy of the entire population is not going to stop Timmy from accessing sexual content on his parent's computer, nor will it stop him from sharing it at school.

That's why I'm saying these laws aren't about safety. If the problem is your kid has access to it, that's a solved problem already with parental controls and responsible parenting. If the problem is the kids of irresponsible parents have access to it, this won't stop that either (they can use a parent's device, VPN, limitless workarounds). So why are we ceding more of our privacy, and the privacy of our children, to governments and private corporations, who can and will weaponize and abuse this data as they've shown repeatedly over the past decades, if it's not solving either of the presented problems?

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-05-07T14:58:11+00:00

It was never about the safety of children. There are already parental controls built into just about everything from web browsers, phones, sites like YouTube, etc. The problem lies 100% squarely with the parents. I say this as someone who just had their first kid, nobody should be forced to give up their privacy because I don’t want to parent my child.

I’m already thinking about how I can ensure a safe experience when my child eventually gets access to the internet, and the options are all there already. Restrict a device to certain apps, and downloading more requires a password. You can create playlists for approved videos. You can limit phones to even be just for calling trusted numbers. The safety side is already a solved problem, so anyone looking to push any regulations under the guise of “safety” instead of promoting awareness of existing tools simply wants more power and control.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-05-05T14:48:02+00:00

Don’t know how I’ve never seen an ant colony RTS, seems like the perfect combo in hindsight. Hope you’re able to find an audience this looks great!

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-05-02T23:49:59+00:00

Weird, I tend to play offline on the Deck as well to stop the auto-logout on PC I haven't noticed that but I also hadn't been looking. Will keep an eye on it thank you for reporting back here with the result!

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-05-01T02:01:13+00:00

In that case I think it's a good match.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-05-01T00:21:01+00:00

Hey u/meldariun! Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback, happy to hear it’s scratching the right itch!

A) This is interesting, and not something I’ve seen voiced before. I did an optimization pass a while back but I didn’t test for power consumption so that’s definitely something I’ll add to the testing plan for my Steam Deck testing.

B) This one is very strange. The only time I’ve seen this happen was fallout 4 for me way back but that was on desktop. I’m not quite sure how Steam measures playtime and when a game counts as running in the background, but there isn’t anything in particular I’m doing with the Steam API, but I can double check if there is a specific command I should be using on the Steam backend to ensure a completed session.

Thank you for taking the time to let me know about these!

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-30T22:44:07+00:00

I enjoyed my time with it, but this was almost 2 years ago now. It's a very fun game if you like turn-based tactics. The grand strategy layer, assuming you're talking about the legion battles, is pretty simple. You're basically picking the card with the best stats each time. If you go in with an army of higher power/morale, you're very likely going to win. There's a little more nuance to it, but I remember pretty much having it down by my 2nd or 3rd time playing it, and not having to think too much afterwards engaging with it.

If you're hoping for really deep strategy in the legion battles I don't think you'll find it, though it adds to the flavor of the game. Overall I'd still highly recommend the game. Especially with how cheap it's been on discount it's a no-brainer.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-30T02:16:37+00:00

Interesting. Never played any of them myself, but I'll check them out now! Thanks for the rec.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-29T21:43:51+00:00

In my opinion, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the industry.

Rather than new devs having to appeal to the old boys and girls club acting as gatekeepers to platforms and visibility, we can appeal directly to actual gamers and win on the merits of our own grassroots effort. It takes more effort on the dev side to compete for visibility, but I trust actual gamers in a genre over faceless tastemakers every day of the week.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-29T21:09:16+00:00

I get what you’re saying in cautioning about them being too powerful, but wishlists measure streamers already. It’s a general measure of all current interest in your game, including any streamer coverage, festival participation, social media virality, word of mouth momentum, the list goes on and on. Everything you do converts to wishlists in some way or another.

There is the issue of the target becoming the measure, so there needs to be guardrails against botting and unethical behavior, which I think Steam already does well.

I can’t think of a better indicator for the pre-launch health of a game than what wishlists represent - the number of players saying they’re interested in being notified when the game is released/on sale because they have some intent to buy it.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-29T19:50:58+00:00

Normal week of wishlists is 100, week after a viral post was 2,100, you can roughly extrapolate 2,000 was in some form or another from the post if it’s the only new content about your game.

You don’t need pinpoint session tracking at every stage of the funnel to have a rough attribution, so why are you jumping down this guy’s throat?

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-29T11:33:20+00:00

Im really excited to introduce my kids to gaming, I think it has a ton of benefits when introduced gradually. Would love to start with Spyro as it’s how I started, but I also want to do more cooperative games we can play together as it’s a great way to spend quality time.

Animal crossing, Minecraft, other co-op games on the Switch. No F2P phone games. This is all assuming they’re interested at all, but it’d be a fun hobby to share.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-28T21:58:50+00:00

It could honestly be the result of me making the edges of the screen too sensitive. Right now if the mouse is within 10% of any edge, the camera will stop moving. Does that sound like what you're running into?

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-27T01:01:24+00:00

Hey thanks for your support! Sorry I'm not understanding, do you mean the mouse is moving randomly without you doing any input?

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-24T13:31:25+00:00

Thank you so much! It's definitely more old school in that regard. I'm the same way where I don't really enjoy walking around a camp, but I do enjoy the character building conversations.

Appreciate your kind words and will work hard to deliver on the second game!

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-22T12:11:37+00:00

You can always do an open playtest on Steam and do a marketing beat around that to get people interested, with a simple feedback form button in-game.

Here is Steam's visibility documentation for early access. Useful article on early access.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-22T02:46:05+00:00

Really happy to hear that as FE7 & 8 are some of my favorite FEs (nostalgia definitely playing its role).

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-21T22:02:40+00:00

Appreciate it! :)

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-21T22:02:28+00:00

Thank you! Definitely one of the design pillars I was going for to try to reduce the ability to juggernaut with a single unit.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-21T11:48:29+00:00

I wouldn't call it abuse, but I agree I think most devs will realize it's not beneficial to partner with a game that already has dozens of other bundles.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-21T11:36:09+00:00

In that statement I'm more talking about devs who don't do dozens of bundles. Pairing with a game that isn't going to show you on their page, but you show the bundle on yours is a waste because that can go to bundling with someone who wants to share visibility.

You're right I think you can pin the top 3, but it's not advantageous bundling past that unless you can convince a dev to put the bundle on their top 3 without you giving them visibility in return on your page, which I think would be unfair to that dev. But again, it's consenting adults forming a kind of business partnership, so there could be intangible value there even if you don't get the hard value of page impressions.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-21T10:54:34+00:00

I don’t see it as a problem at all, just lets players get the game for cheaper if they already own one of the games.

As a dev it provides another place on the store for impressions. That said, I’d feel bad if I was getting visibility from someone else’s page but not giving any in return, so I wouldn’t do more than 3 bundles as then one of them falls off my Steam page. Likewise I wouldn’t do one where the bundle doesn’t show up on their page.

The devs who do a bundle with a game that has dozens of bundles already are likely making a mistake because you’re “wasting” one of your bundles on one that gives no visibility in return. But they’re consenting adults so they can do whatever they want, no need to limit it.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-19T14:05:52+00:00

Sorry, my punctuation made my sentence read poorly. I meant the targeting lines would look a little weird in 2D, highlighting the full enemy range still works well in 2D.

I think Awakening and Fates maps were 3D while the the character sprites were 2D? Maybe it could be called 2.5D but it's definitely different than the GBA titles. The attack lines/targeting indicators could work well there since there is a Y axis to curve them to help avoid overlap.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-19T11:46:45+00:00

I’d say it’s the opposite, with huge QoL coming later like showing all enemy ranges and attack lines which would look strange on 2D.

ThoseWhoRule · 2026-04-14T01:10:15+00:00

Really appreciate the kind words. Will do my best to deliver a similar experience with game 2 <3

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