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Aielman15

@ Aielman15 @lemmy.world

Posts

29
Comments

364
Joined

3 yr. ago

3h ago

Talking to new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty — "This team has brought it back before, and I'm here to help us do it again."
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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 3h ago

I agree with you, I just don't care about gamerscore and I don't think it has any relevance in any topic.
We all know she is not a gamer, we all know she's an ex-AI exec and that's why I think she doesn't have what it takes to save Xbox. I just think that using achievements as a metric and being proud of having more achievements than another person is weird.
I also think that her setting up an Xbox account to play a month before her promotion is a stupid "how do you do, fellow gamers?" marketing pitch that I'm not sure why was attempted in the first place.

6h ago

Talking to new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty — "This team has brought it back before, and I'm here to help us do it again."

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 6h ago

Huh, I wasn't familiar with the concept. Thanks for showing it to me.

18h ago

Talking to new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty — "This team has brought it back before, and I'm here to help us do it again."

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 18h ago

Gamerscore is a useless metric and doesn't prove how much of a "gamer" a person is. I had a low gamerscore back in the X360 days because I played few titles per year, but I would play them for countless hours for fun and not to chase fake internet points. Add to that the hours spent on emulators and other platforms with no achievement, and it's no wonder I never cracked 100,000 until, years later, Covid and GamePass let me play more games than I usually do (I've since jumped to PC, so my gamerscore hasn't increased since then). Heck, I have friends who only have a few thousand fake points because they have spent thousand of hours on the same few games, while I usually hop from game to game as I chase different experiences.

Even if the above wasn't true, I fully expect someone who has a real job to have less time to devolve to gaming, which means less gamerscore. I don't want Microsoft (or any company, really) run by sweaty neckbeards who spend more hours in their man-cave than the outside world. I want those companies to be run by competent people who understand and care about the gaming industry. Which is not to say that the ex-AI exec cares about any of that stuff, but her lack of gamerscore doesn't mean anything.

Sharma having no gamerscore is not the problem. The problem is her not having any gaming background and having been cherry-picked by Nadella because she was an AI exec. Xbox desperately needs new blood and a bold vision to resurrect their dying brand, but I doubt she's the one who'll save the day. I'll be more than happy if she proves me wrong a few years from now, though.

3d ago

FINAL FANTASY VII - now on GOG

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 3d ago

3x speed is nice, but I can already do that on emulators.

If this is the same port that was sold on consoles, you can speed the game up while maintaining the music at the correct pace, which you cannot do on an emulator. It makes the game 100% more bearable.

3d ago

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 3d ago

"The developer made fun of the death of Charlie Kirk" is not a hateful comment just a fact."This developer is a fascist" is more hateful then the stated review above.

Ok.

4d ago

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 4d ago

No, I'm offended by you talking like a 17yo who just discovered Kant.

But go on, please, talk about the ethics of moderating hateful, bigoted, racist rhetoric on the biggest gaming platform.

4d ago

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 4d ago

I already answered your questions, but you seem more intent at discussing abstract ethics like an armchair philosopher rather than the real problem at hand.

Whereas the armies of content moderators tend to be incredibly poorly paid. The entire way this kind of work is done is that it nearly always either entirely or largely is done by the lowest bidder, in the poorest places possible.[...]So... your ethical calculus seems to conclude that stopping the spread of bigotry and fascist rhetoric in richer countries is worth the cost of the sanity of workers in poorer countries.

Why is the assumption that those workers must be poorly paid? If Valve, the multi billion dollar company whose owner owns multiple yachts as well as the company producing them, doesn't pay its workers adequately, then Valve is at fault. The solution shouldn't be to throw up hands and go home. There is a solution but they aren't willing to take it because it would require them to spend money, which is what I said in my first comment.

Your ethical calculus seems to be that if 100s of users of a website/platform don't get banned rapidly for violating TOS, then the website/platform should be held legally liable for that [...]

You know damn well what I meant but you keep this enlightened bullshit going on.

Valve literally got reports about those reviews and ignored them. They are at fault. Full stop.

If confronting the actual ugliness of them challenges you, makes you defensive and accusatory, good. That means you likely never thought about the totality of the situation here that deeply.

Please stop this enlightened philosopher bullshit. It's painful to read and makes you look dumb.

4d ago

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 4d ago

It's the dictionary definition of whataboutism.

"Steam has a problem with moderation, these are hateful reviews that have been reported but ignored by Steam support team""But what about fascists?"

The original user didn't answer and ran with their tail between their legs, because they didn't want to admit that Steam has a problem with moderation.

4d ago

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 4d ago

Your entire comment reeks of "we shouldn't fight fire because that puts firefighters at risk".

There are no 100% ethical solutions to every problem, real life is a compromise. You can get better ethical results by allowing those workers to get adequate monetary compensation for their work and seek medical help if they need it. Otherwise what's the solution, allow everyone to read the same stuff? Why is that more ethical? Is it more ethical for the random user (who may also be a suggestible kid, or a person belonging to a persecuted minority) who reads it? Is it more ethical for the developers who get their game review bombed by fascists and bigots, and see their source of revenue diminish or fizzle out because of it?

As for the legal responsibility, it becomes so when the platform is complicit with the users writing hateful stuff. You are not responsible for the random shithead declaring his love for Mein Kampf. You are responsible for the hundreds of users who do, while you repeatedly ignore the reports of their misconduct, thus implicitly accepting and normalizing their behavior.

Additionally, when hateful behavior is accepted and normalize, human shit stains will come in drove and multiply the problem tenfold. By moderating their spaces, they would prevent a lot of those hateful messages from being written in the first place.

5d ago

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 5d ago

Do we have any proof those reviews were from people following that curator? I imagine that information has also been posted elsewhere online.

Why does that curator exist in the first place? Why are those reviews still up?

Do you think off topic reviews or curator recommendations should be allowed for things you approve of? Say if a review points out the developer is a secret fascist?

Great comeback! I really love whatabaoutism.

Oh please, moderating a forum unpaid for 5 mins every now and again is so easy it's how this whole platform and Reddit function.

Please, kindly refrain from talking about things you know jack shit about.

If you're truly an indie dev without the resources to moderate your own space, Steam allow you to simply close the forums and forbid discussions.

Steam forums are a resource for devs to interact with the community, get feedback, etc...Closing them means losing a resource. What you suggest is that devs big enough to employ a community manager should have access to that resource, while small/solo devs should just accept that they can't have it. Sounds like second class citizen treatment to me.

It would be a lot easier if Steam got their shit together and started moderating their online spaces, which is something they should've been doing this whole time.

6d ago

Day 1 of posting an indie game I found that I think it is cool - LOVE ETERNAL

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 6d ago

Alabaster Dawn! I'm eagerly waiting for it.

6d ago

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 6d ago

Curators are hidden by default, only people who follow the curator see curator recommendations. They also don't affect store visibility or the review score in any way.

Cool! Will you also read the rest of the quote?

This encouraged others to post further reviews and comments related to Kirk (and not the game).

But apparently nobody wants to read the article, so here's my screenshot:

spoiler

Steam leaves moderation of forums to the developer/publisher to moderate as they wish, as if they interfered you bet they'd get complaints about Valve stepping on their toes. If a developer/publisher decides they want to allow hatred in their Steam forums, you should probably blame them.

Yes, I also blame the poor indie dev who barely gets enough money to keep existing instead of the multi billion dollar company that apparently is content with misogyny, racism and bigotry running rampant on every facet of their platform.

6d ago

Day 1 of posting an indie game I found that I think it is cool - LOVE ETERNAL

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 6d ago

Ha ha, you're right, sorry :P

It was CrossCode! It single-handedly reignited my interest in gaming after a few slow years. Then left me disappointed when no other game managed to capture my heart as it did :(

6d ago

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 6d ago

This exact same article was already shared a week ago here, and it got this same reply.

Negative reviews can have consequences on how the game sells. The article (which apparently nobody reads, because Lemmy has a hard on for Steam and refuses to admit that Lord Gabe can do wrong) is NOT talking about random comments, it makes very specific examples (with links) to specific games that have received negative reviews for things unrelated to the game at hand, such as antisemitism and political content.

“I’m not new to online harassment,” says designer Nathalie Lawhead, who spent two years trying to get reviews removed from their games’ pages. Both reference allegations of sexual assault that Lawhead made in 2019. “I assumed reporting Steam abuse might have its own issues. But when people suggested that I open a ticket, I did have hope that this would be the way to get it resolved.”One of the reviews, published in 2023, read, “cringe game, made by a liar”. The other, a review of Lawhead’s game Blue Suburbia posted in 2024, said: “A women [sic] who seeks to destroy other’s [sic] career made this. It’s very poorly put together. She also probably has dual Israeli citizenship with how pointy her nose is.”Despite Steam’s code of online conduct and community guidelines prohibiting “abusive language or insults”, public accusations or “discrimination”, moderators initially cleared both reviews after Lawhead reported them.

Some games have been targeted by Steam curators. Ethan, the developer of Coven, a first-person action-horror set in the 1600s, says he has been targeted by “CharlieTweetsDetected”, a curator devoted to recommending games based solely on whether their developers are perceived to have correctly mourned the assassination of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.CharlieTweetsDetected’s review of Coven, a first-person action-horror game set in the 1600s, read simply “Celebrated Sept 10th on blue sky [sic]”. This encouraged others to post further reviews and comments related to Kirk (and not the game). “I even mentioned it to Steam support,” Ethan says, “how it stemmed from that curator list, but they weren’t interested.” Instead, Steam support claimed that “off-topic” constituted “a recipe for cookies, or something completely unrelated to video games that is clearly trolling.” Reviews referencing Kirk, including one reading simply “RIP Charlie Kirk” alongside a negative rating, did not fit that criteria according to Steam; all remain in place today.

The problem is not even that Steam forums are a cesspool (which they are, by the way), but that Steam adamantly refuses to moderate the shit that gets posted on their site, going so far as to ignore that shit even when it gets reported, because ultimately they gain money from those people, so they don't care.

6d ago

Day 1 of posting an indie game I found that I think it is cool - LOVE ETERNAL

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 6d ago

Thank you a lot for your work! I agree it's difficult to discover indie titles. Most channels only cover either AAA games, or the "famous" indie games (Hollow Knight, Hades, etc...). It's a lot more difficult to discover truly obscure stuff, which is a shame because a lot of great games get ignored and forgotten quickly. My favourite game from the last decade was an indie game that I discovered randomly, and it's a shame I could have missed it just as easily. Makes me wonder how many "favourite" games I missed over the years.

6d ago

Day 1 of posting an indie game I found that I think it is cool - LOVE ETERNAL

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 6d ago

I hope this becomes a series. I would enjoy reading of new indie games every day.

6d ago

Xbox chief Phil Spencer is leaving Microsoft

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Aielman15 @lemmy.world 6d ago

Phil actually made games

He did???

Like, seriously. The guy was in charge for 10 years. He did jack shit, and none of his first party studios managed to create something worth under his leadership.

A few years after shutting down Lionhead, he and Bond talked about "learning from past mistakes" so that it wouldn't happen again. Years later, he shuts down Tango (the day before Matt Booty praised their game as something Xbox needs more of), Toys for Bob (and then, when they buy back their independence, contracts them for an Xbox game, because what is consistency?), Turn 10 (now a support studio), Arcane Austin. Rare spent half a decade working on a game that never got past its pre-production phase. He hyped Coalition as the "world's first AAAA studio", then unceremoniously shut it down with nothing to show for it despite working for 7 years and with outside help on one game.

343 was mismanaged for years and he never did anything to fix that, either. Of course that bit him in the ass when he bet everything on Halo Infinite, the only first party game to launch alongside the Series X, which was eventually delayed a year later. An entire year without first party games for their console. (Yes, Covid was bad for everyone in the industry, but their competition was able to release games in that timeframe). He then hoped for Starfield to save the day, which obviously didn't happen, and by then everyone's patience was over. 80 billion dollars down the drain for what? If I was anyone in a position of power at Microsoft, I would be pissed too.

He spent a decade pushing for GamePass and Xcloud, but never marketed it outside of niche audiences. I live in Italy and I've never, ever seen an Xbox ad in the past ten years. I can assure you none of my "normie" friends and family know what the current Xbox is called, let alone what the fuck GamePass is. The shit is so bad, my brother thought Cyberpunk 2077, a game that premiered on an Xbox E3 and that Microsoft had exclusive marketing rights for, was a PS exclusive. Could you believe that? Heck, everyone I talk to is surprised to hear that the Xbox One and Series offer retrocompatibility for OG Xbox and X360 games because, guess what, they never ran ads for that, either.

So many things went wrong with Xbox under his leadership, you could probably convince me he was working undercover for the competition to tank the brand. I honestly fail to think of one thing he did that worked. Like, I could go on for days. Heck, I'll do one more: he spent the last few years attempting to merge the Xbox, PC and mobile audiences, yet using the Xbox store on PC is still a miserable experience that makes you wish you were using any other storefront. Ten years! He couldn't find the time to fix that? Did he forget? Did he even care in the first place?

Spencer did jack shit for Xbox. The guy made promises every year, every year delivered nothing but lies, corporate bullshit and "how do you do, fellow gamers?" moments.