I wish dynamic support for user preferences was more of a thing. I like really dense displays of information with small text. Basically, the more a UI resembles a spreadsheet the better. Mobile interfaces almost universally have far too much white space for my taste, so I’m one of those people that’s pretty much always going to want the PDF even on a phone screen. I recognize why that would suck for a lot of people though.
Short rant: Your first sentence touches on a microcosm of a much larger problem. Nuance and context are disappearing everywhere. As far as threats to society go, it’s in my number one spot, and we really need more people actively dismantling it like this, so thanks.
It’s also worth checking out their Augmented Steam extension to get a lot of that directly on Steam Store pages.
Yeah, it is comforting. I still often spend more time optimizing my plan for a project than on actual progression. I also need reminders for very basic stuff. Some of my task lines are for stuff like feeding the cat, brushing my teeth, or charging my phone. My daily routine list is 200+ lines and would be unwieldy in anything other than a spreadsheet. Granted, many of those aren’t actually daily tasks.
This sounds like me. I’ve got a spreadsheet I go through daily with sections like “morning routine,” “returning routine,” “essential chores,” “dinner routine,” etc. It’s set up to turn tasks green when I complete them so I get just enough of a dopamine hit to continue. There’s also a dedicated column that’s basically for “you’ve determined this is the optimal way to do this task after countless iterations; stop trying to rethink it and just do it.”
Yeah, the price parity thing seems to be a big misconception here especially. The price parity guideline comes from Valve’s page for Steam keys. Valve gets a 0% cut when keys are sold on third-party sites, yet they still use Valve’s infrastructure, so it makes sense for Valve to not want you to price them to have all your key sales go third-party.
As far as I can tell, Valve has zero interest in how you sell copies of a game that don’t use Steam keys.
Also something I noticed per their guidelines:
It’s OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.
As a frequent user of IsThereAnyDeal, I can tell you it’s more common than not for a game’s historical low price to not be on Steam, so Valve is definitely not strictly enforcing this. With this and the lack of legalese on the page and letting developers/publishers determine what “similar” and “comparable” are on their own terms, I’m not seeing anything Valve should be doing differently here.
I never called it reasonable. I just don’t think it’s especially egregious. Honestly, I would price the value of Valve’s contribution (which is definitely not zero) at maybe 15% to 20%, but that’s just a gut feeling.
I’m not saying the standard doesn’t suck, just taking issue with the implication that anyone using it is uniquely bad to do so.
But yeah, you’re right that getting me to admit Steam (overall) sucks would be nigh impossible. I genuinely don’t believe it does, so there’s nothing to admit. Maybe you could convince me to lie about it though? Lol.
I do admit there’s a few places it sucks, the gambling stuff being the biggest, but their positives eclipse those for me. I also acknowledge I’m in a privileged position being able to enjoy Valve’s efforts in VR, Linux compatibility, etc. directly and that I might have different opinions if I was on the outside looking in. I imagine that’s not quite the admission you want though.
30% is the industry standard though, and Valve’s contributions of distribution and discovery infrastructure, its audience, and expanding hardware initiatives are not nothing. If you’re not pricing a game to give yourself a healthy margin within the 70% or your development model doesn’t make that viable, that’s really on you.
Dang. I guess I’m more disconnected from the average consumer than I thought. My 48" has felt like plenty for even a good size living room for a while, and I’m used to 32" monitors and 7" phones, so it’s not like I prefer smaller screens. I had to go and fact check that 65" being the most popular. If you had asked me beforehand, I would have thought 55" was pushing it.
Not really my thing actually. I usually just want a song to be faster with no pitch change. If that’s your thing though, I’ve not listened to a ton, and I’m open to recommendations to convert me.
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Is that “1x is only used for music” or “all music is 1x?” I’m sure music purists hate the idea, but there’s a lot of music I definitely like more at 1.25x or 1.5x.
Interestingly enough, I don’t seem to have that exact problem. The content speeds I’m comfortable with are highly variable, and I think it has something to do with attention bandwidth.
My default speed for videos is 2.5x when I have it on a big screen and I can pump the audio directly into my head via headphones. Without the headphones, anything over 2x usually feels too fast, so I guess filtering ambient noise is using 0.5x worth of brain power. When I lose the visual component (as with audiobooks) to anchor attention onto, I’m most comfortable at 1.5x.
In real life conversations, so much of my attention is on other things (like what my hands and eyeballs should be doing) that 1x is back to feeling normal.
The only thing it maybe hurts is watching videos with other people, but I don’t do that a lot and can usually still get away with 1.25x or 1.5x. Also, I sometimes get the feeling that I’m talking too slowly, but I think I’ve always felt that.
As someone who always backs in (unless it’s a diagonal or pull-through spot) and a math person, I’m ashamed to say I never thought of the geometry of it, so thanks for the additional reason to add to my arsenal.
I can add it to “ready to leave quickly in an emergency,” “practicing delayed gratification,” “backup camera guidelines make centering easier,” “constant trunk access,” and the biggest real reason, “I have a bad habit of leaving for obligations at the last possible minute and need to plan ahead.”
In case you’re not being hyperbolic (or for anyone else legitimately thinking this because I’ve heard it multiple times), I think Valve really did the best thing they could. I know Valve feels huge, but MasterCard and Visa together are over a hundred times bigger, and any payment processing system Valve could make would definitely be a pushover.
Also, never underestimate the casual normie population. If Valve lost Visa and MasterCard support, I’m pretty sure that would mean losing two-thirds of their playerbase if not more. Those people would either prop up alternative stores like Epic or Microslop’s or just pull away from PC gaming altogether.
Anyway, it’s a bit like the people saying Valve should make their own DRAM to combat the shortage. It doesn’t acknowledge how entrenched the existing manufacturers are and how far away Valve actually is from that level of manufacturing.
They’re not stock, but both GIMP and Krita have had generative AI plugins for a couple years now. I don’t know how well they match up to the Adobe stuff, but they seemed quite powerful and well-integrated the last time I looked.