This story doesn't really explain a whole lot... what were the questions asked? What are 'mistreatment' or 'abusive treatment' defined as? I would say I've been treated abusively by an employer before but I've never been sexually harassed. While it's certainly troubling that the female staff report higher rates of it than males, that could also be influenced by social expectations as well. Men in many cultures are taught not to complain about their conditions. That it's a sign of weakness.

At the very least, it's something that should be looked into with more detail to sort out what's actually happening, but without more information, this article is pretty far from a smoking gun other than to say just shy of half the employees aren't happy.

Nullity wrote on Aug 12, 2021, 13:07:
I was always somewhat interested in the first game, but everything I saw/read was that it was fairly unforgiving, which turned me away. If they tone that down with the sequel, I'd probably give it a shot.

I mean, I suppose I can see that, but at the same time it's fitting with the theme. This is an unforgiving world where you're largely just staving off the inevitable as long as you can. So it makes sense that the gameplay is unforgiving. Mistakes cost lives. I viewed it more as an experience rather than something that I sat down to relax and enjoy myself with. It did limit my interest in replaying it as much as I might have, but I think the experience of it was worthwhile.

Cutter wrote on Jul 31, 2021, 18:25:

Darks wrote on Jul 31, 2021, 15:34:
Fuck that, unions will only make the industry worst and make the cost of games go way up.

Why would the cost of games go up? Cut executive pay to something reasonable. Knobby Nodick makes more in a year than all of Blizzard's staff combined.

You don't actually think this, do you?

Bobby Kotick has made $461 Million in total compensation since 2007. That works out to about $33 Million per year. Blizzard has 4700 people on staff. Even if they made 20k each (which is absurd and most make much more than that), that puts a yearly labour cost at $94 Million. So while he absolutely makes too much for what he does, he does not make more than the rest of the staff combined.

Darks wrote on Jul 31, 2021, 15:34:
Fuck that, unions will only make the industry worst and make the cost of games go way up.

I sincerely hope this was a joke. If not: Fuck entitled attitudes like these. Developers deserve better working conditions. They are more entitled to unionization and better conditions than you are to cheap games. Leave the hobby if you want people to suffer so that you can buy things cheaply.

MeanJim wrote on Jul 29, 2021, 22:13:
Valve makes nothing (that's 0% BTW) from Steam keys sold on 3rd party sites, like the ones sold at Humble Store

Cite a reliable source for that please. That sounds like utter nonsense. Why would valve ever agree to that? Where do they get the steam keys from if not from valve in the first place?

eRe4s3r wrote on Jul 19, 2021, 19:18:

Burrito of Peace wrote on Jul 19, 2021, 16:56:
I'll just say that if a game has so much DLC that it requires a shopping cart to buy all of them for a full experience, then I have zero interest in a "game" that is solely designed to milk people via nickle-and-diming.

I think the anti-EGS crusading isn't just stupid, it's petulantly childish. Steam isn't the greatest at everything. As others have mentioned, the "forums" are cesspools. The "reviews" are largely garbage thanks to review brigading (ala Titanfall and Titanfall 2 being the most recent examples). Steam's "sales" are now absolute jokes and shadows of what they used to be. The Workshop, what was once a pretty nice feature, has now turned in to a dumping ground. What Steam has is momentum. These days, I'd rather buy from GOG if at all possible because I can squirrel away the installers for use later if a publisher gets a wild hair up their ass and starts yanking games (Like, you know, EA, Ubisoft, Activision, and Take 2 have done).

I feel like this is so not what the reality is that I see daily on Steam that I have to wonder when the last time was you even used it. And for which games.

Warhammer 1+2 has what, 45 DLC's and every single one of them is worth it some of it is free, some of it is specials, some of it is paid, and helped keep a 5 year old game fresh. And turned a game called Warhammer 1 into a trilogy that ends as the largest ever made 4X/RTS hybrid game. With mods that fix things, add things and improve things.

The problem is not steam. The problem is your choice of games and your skills at sorting through mods properly, by using discussion/curated lists/reddit/discord mod lists. Annoying to find? Maybe, but thousand times more useful than randomly browsing on the Nexus or having 62 unmentioned unlinked and unsorted dependencies half of which require manually installation....... And steam discussions are 80% discussions about game issues or technical issues or bugs. Exactly what I want to see in a discussion for a game.

Point is, what you describe is so much not what I experience daily on Steam that it is baffling to me.

And your 'experience' excuses every single issue raised while trying to blame them on the user rather than the platform. It sounds like a fanboy refusing to see reality. I own well more than 1000 games on steam, myself and I agree with a great many things said. The discussion boards are borderline worthless, I'm better off googling in search of answers to issues, the reviews are generally garbage unless you're willing to devote time to troll through them looking for something that sounds honest and I'm 100% with Burrito on games with more than a dozen DLC's. F that noise. Not even worth my time glancing at them, I can already see what they're all about.

Jaysen wrote on Jul 16, 2021, 19:25:
I clicked on this thinking it related to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Ooops!

Almost the same thing.

Gotta love people who claim to have played through 80%+ of a 70-100 hour game, but it was also boring garbage that they hated the whole time. You spent 50+ hours playing something you hated every minute of? Really? I feel like there's not a single thing said person can say after making that claim that I can trust to be even a little bit honest.

FloorPie wrote on Jun 24, 2021, 18:58:

Quinn wrote on Jun 24, 2021, 18:28:
Shit sale as always. The last good sale was about a decade ago (yup folks, time goes by fast). I remember setting my alarm in the middle of the night so not to miss the flash sales -- man, those flash sales were SICK!

10 years ago, people. 10 fucking years ago.

The flash sales still exist. They're now called mid-week and weekend sales that happen... every week of the year.

That's... not remotely the same thing as the flash sales being talked about. The flash sales that used to be part of the seasonal sales changed like every hour and had huge discounts for very short periods of time.

Cool, added buzzwords. The next title will be Aliens, Fireteam Elite XTREME!

Titus wrote on Jun 12, 2021, 17:29:
R6 vs Aliens ? Tom Clancy's angular velocity must be nearing light speed by now..

Almost as fast as the man's rolling over in his grave right now.

Jivaro wrote on Jun 12, 2021, 17:51:
Okay...I am not usually the negative nancy but...I am seriously underwhelmed by what I am seeing and hearing. If people have been playing WoW or FF or SWTOR or whatever for 5-10 years they ain't leaving for this. At least not based on what I have seen, heard, and read so far.

Meh, plenty of people who stopped playing those games long ago that might be interested in something new. If any MMO's success hinged on pulling players AWAY from existing MMO's, they're already a failure.

Ugh... "Only you, the player can unite blah blah blah and save the world blah blah blah." I'm so sick of being the chosen one in games. Why is everyone else in their world so god-damned useless that they can't accomplish even the smallest thing without me?

I'm looking forward to trying the game out, but companies need to stop with this lazy ass hero-worshiping save-the-world-plot style of writing. It DOES NOT WORK when EVERY player in the game is "The chosen one" and "The ONLY immortal who can unite the world!".

Acleacius wrote on Jun 10, 2021, 22:17:
Amazing game, I was holding off another replay about 6 months ago. I just knew I was getting a new RTX 3060ti. 🤦‍♂️
It was such a good deal at release. Iirc, Remedy's $20 on Steam release. I had support Remedy and I'll eventually get it on GOG.
Never epic, who held it back with their despicable, anti competitive consumer practices.

The actress Courtney Hope is extremely talented. Not only her emotional range but physical range rarely seen.

You mean Epic who paid Remedy more than Steam or GOG did and take less of a cut per sale? I get not liking exclusives, but if your goal is to support Remedy, then you took a u-turn somewhere in that logic.

This is just such a depressing thing to see. Rainbow Six had a niche once. They did something different than most everyone else. Now it's a zombie shooter? I mean, at least Siege got rid of the 3rd person cover bs from the Vegas games and made an attempt to make planning important again while adding a new gameplay element via destructible walls. Even though they largely abandoned the lore from the game series, it felt like they were moving in the right direction gameplay-wise.

This... Jesus... just why? Who the hell wanted another zombie shooter? There are countless ones already available, and more on the horizon still. I guess the next will be Rainbow Six: Battle Royale? Or Rainbow Six: The WW2 years? Rainbow Six: Open World MMOFPS/RPG? Rainbow Six: Survival/Crafting Edition?

Have to admit I'm a little intrigued. A strategy game without the micro-management that hinges on whether your orders get to where you sent them on time or not, or at all.

Steele Johnson wrote on Jun 2, 2021, 12:03:
I always have to question games that are described as an "exploration game". Is it a technical feat/experiment or is there actual fun gameplay somewhere to be found? Anyhow, you've got to hand it to the devs for all the updates since release. I've heard that the co-op mode is a bit clunky, and in some aspects it doesn't make much sense, so if they ever straighten that out, I might give it a try

Some people actually enjoy exploring the worlds created in games even if there isn't any reward beyond the actual act of exploration.

jacobvandy wrote on May 30, 2021, 21:59:
They also currently have a 20% off coupon code which stacks with those discounts. And when they don't have a public one available (been fairly common during recent sales events), you can spend some of your achievement points for a personal one-time use code.

Thanks for the tip, had no idea about that. I think I own most everything I want from them already, but it's worth looking again I suppose.

wrlwnd wrote on May 30, 2021, 02:56:
I like the sales I see on Steam, which I don't see on Ubisoft, and I don't want yet another service to have my credit card info. I also like the achievements on Steam as well as the review system.

What? Ubisoft literally has two major sales going on right now, and they have achievements too.

85% off Farcry 3, 80% off Farcry 4, 85% off Farcry 5... 50% off Watchdogs Legion, hell even 25% off Assassins Creed Valhalla which JUST came out. What more do you want?

Yeah, some games have really caught me off-guard. Hades, Dead Cells, both awesome. Void Bastards was another one, the screens made me shrug it off, but got it from a humble monthly and damn near lost the next few days of my life to it.