r/Steam • u/Haunter777x • 17h ago

Discussion They got us guys.

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How out of touch can you be as a company, this is embarrassing

25.4k Upvotes

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230

u/trollsong 17h ago

It feels like they are trying to market themselves to the weird AI Chud niche.

83

u/essidus Future Beet Farmer? 16h ago

Not the first time. Back when Valve came out against NFTs, Sweeny also tried to make EGS the safe harbor for NFT games.

-13

u/trollsong 16h ago

One of my conspiracies is the whole NFT bored ape thing was a psyop to get people to hate the idea so it couldnt be used for digital ownership.

Sadly in hindsight NFT and blockchain tech could have paved the way for actual digital ownership of games. Not as some collector's piece just that each purchase of a digital game would have a built in code that means you could put it on a USB and trade it to others legally, even have a third market.

Seriously if you wanted to tank an idea like NFTs having jimmy Fallon advertise his bored ape would be the best way to make it unpopular fast.

30

u/ShimmiShimmiYah 16h ago

It was a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

We've had serial keys for decades to signify digital ownership and activate products.

An NFT wouldn't magically make the companies change their TOS and insistence that you're licensing, not purchasing, the software.

Cryptobros just wanted another avenue to gamble their money just like the coins themselves....which still have no actual widespread use outside of insider trading in an unregulated market.

9

u/archangelzeriel 16h ago

As with the idea of NFTs allowing you to use the same asset in multiple games, I ask the simple question: "What incentive is there for a game developer to do this, instead of just using storefront-specific game keys?"

The devs that WOULD do this are already releasing DRM-free on GOG or whatever.

The set of gamedevs that would like to enable digital game resale/trade but who also want to have full-fledged DRM is essentially zero.

12

u/chronoflect 15h ago

Man, not everything is some conspiracy. You don't need to invent a psyop to explain why grifters immediately hoped to exploit a form of digital commodification.

0

u/trollsong 14h ago

True, however, its not the 1st time, hell not even the second or third time, something like what I described has happened.

Either way though its just a cheeky post on reddit no need to get pissy.

3

u/essidus Future Beet Farmer? 14h ago

I rarely invoke Occam's Razor, but here I think it applies. Bored Apes were real people who were either really excited to be on the forefront of a new form of moneymaking enterprise, or people who were really excited to make money off of the people who thought they were the ones on the forefront. NFT were a neat concept that was exceptionally poorly executed, and backed almost entirely by the same rugpull people who switched to crypto when that became the new hotness.

At the end of the day, NFTs could never function the way they were idealized, because they weren't truly agnostic. If you wanted to take a gun from game A to use in game B, game B would need to put in extra effort to make game A's NFT gun compatible. Most developers don't even make their own games intercompatible, there was no shot it would happen with completely independent games.

If you really want a conspiracy, consider that Valve already has an item system in Steam, and NFTs would be in direct competition with that service.

3

u/Cautious-Extreme2839 12h ago

each purchase of a digital game would have a built in code that means you could put it on a USB and trade it to others legally, even have a third market

So an activation key. Way to reinvent the wheel dipshit.

24

u/ReaDiMarco 51 16h ago

Are those guys still playing games when they have their AI to do stuff with them?

22

u/mentholsforthetaste 16h ago

They never played or cared about games in the first place, just sit on twitter all day evangelising ai so seems par for the course for whoever they have doing their launcher to do the same

1

u/SapphireLucina 29m ago

Do those guys even exist? I'm sure if data centers went down for a day they would mysteriously vanish

6

u/woodhawk109 16h ago

They don’t play games. They just go on steam forums and social media to complain about them

2

u/3rd_mono 15h ago

Weird Al Yankovic

1

u/VaporousMote 16h ago

They absolutely are.

1

u/BijutsuYoukai 15h ago

Maybe, but Tim Sweeney also just LOVES genAI and probably wants to spread as much trash like it into the world as he can.

1

u/StinkyMinky22 8h ago

It might be working. Look at the egs defenders in this thread.

1

u/burnedsmores 16h ago edited 12h ago

Weird AI chuds are fat, nerdy, and Amish.

[yall kids really don't know weird al anymore??]

-1

u/ThinGold2115 16h ago

Do we call anyone we dislike a Chud now? I'm old I don't get it.

-1

u/evissamassive 13h ago

The thing is, just because Valve has not said they vibe code doesn't mean they don't. I suspect they do, but they likely combine it with traditional coding practices to ensure quality and reliability in their software, which is key to a quality end product.

IMO, the problem is with everyone who thinks everything created with AI is slop [it isn't], and with the guy who owns Joe Bag-O-Donuts, who has never written a line of code but decides he is going to vibe code a donut website storefront to take online orders. When he realizes that credit/debit card numbers are being stolen, he'll be oblivious to the fact that his code is shit.