Talk about a Rorschach test for politcal leaning. We've got comments here incorrectly stating that 230 doesn't provide safe-harbor for businesses who block content [it does; see below 230(c)(2A) and a toothless 230(d)], and that a business blocking a user can mean a violation of 230 [it can't; although, via 230(b)(3), Congress does want to encourage software development that expressly allows users (e.g., Trump) to block content, it doesn't suggest that 230 is grounds for suing a business that doesn't comply with that goal. Note that Judge Thomas suggested 230 should be changed so that it does, though, at least allow for it in some specific cases.]. And then others mocking the previous poster and, in so doing, weirdly explaining that (paraphrased) "there's nothing about businesses who don't block content except for, you know, the part where there definitely is" [see below 230(c)(1)]. And then conveniently failing to point out the subparts that expressly encourage the ability of the end user (not explicitly the business) to control what is blocked [see below, 230(b)(3)&(4)].

To summarize the relevant parts describing when the business has or doesn't have immunity from lawsuit:
(Limited protection for not blocking content)
230(c)(1) immunity from being equated as the speaker* of information
*the originator, as I understand it, which the (f)(3) definitions section defines as "information content provider", i.e. the person who posted the comment. Yes, they confusingly use the word (information content) "provider" to also describe the person who posts the comment, not just the internet "provider" or software "provider".

(Limited protection for blocking content)
230(c)(2A) immunity from good faith restriction of access to obscene, lewd,..., excessively harrassing, or otherwise ojbectionable* material
*in line with the adjectives that precede it, as I understand it

(No protection for not providing content blocking info to parents)
230(d) no immunity* for failing to notify customers of parental controls
*except that it says this requirement can be met "in a manner deemed appropriate by the provider", which refers to "A provider of interactive computer service"**, which means it requires the business to do something for which it has its own discretion as to what is "appropriate", which makes this subpart of the stature effectively moot. *smh*
**i.e., internet provider, twitter, etc., as defined in the (f)(2) definitions section and expanded upon in (f)(4)

It is also stated that Congress' policy is to:
(Encourage businesses to give users the control to block)
230(b)(3) ...maximize user control over what information is recieved by (those) who use the internet

(Encourage businesses to give users the control to block)
230(b)(4) allow incentives for blocking content that empowers parents to restrict kids access

Orogogus wrote on Apr 6, 2021, 17:42:

WaltC wrote on Apr 6, 2021, 17:08:
Section 230 only provides safe-harbor for sites if they refuse to edit/delete posts from the public without a valid reason, (ie, egregious profanity or threats of violence against named individuals, are valid reasons for deletion.) When FB and Twitter delete and tag posts with prejudicial descriptions--it's the most extreme kind of editing there is. Disagreeing with the opinion expressed is not a valid reason to delete a post on a 230 site. Both of these sites can be sued for violating 230--which is what any honest government would do--but so far no government entity has stepped up to enforce 230's safe-harbor restrictions on these two web sites--the Trump administration, included. They should be fined $100k a day for every post they delete & tag with supercilious warnings, imo--and eventually they'd get the message, I feel sure...;) Today, we have an unusually timid government in Washington when it comes to enforcing our laws. Never seen it this bad.

I get that posting rightwing falsehoods is your thing -- not exaggerations or distortions, but just straight up lies -- but this is public information that anyone can look up.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(2) Civil liability
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;

It specifically protects entities who do restrict content. There's nothing about entities who don't restrict content, except the blanket protection that shields providers such as ISPs, social media and message board hosts from liability for content they didn't create, regardless of whether or not they restrict content.

As an exclusive PC gamer for two decades now, I saw the evolution of Gamestop's folly firsthand, and learned something about business in the process. They chased the cash cow (consoles, at the time, and the used game sales racket) while marginalizing PC gaming, for which it was difficult to rope in PC gamers due to their quicker adoption of doing such things online instead. Following the money with unwavering tunnel vision makes sense, right? Wrong.

For me, even when they relegated PC games to one sad, little standalone shelf in the middle of the store, through habit or maybe my identity as a gamer, I was still drawn to visit the store somewhat regularly to see the new titles/boxes in person and maybe look for a deal or two. Once they eventually eliminated PC games entirely, I never had a good reason to even walk into the store. It took two or three years, but eventually I stopped setting foot in Gamestop altogether.

My ultimate point is how little it would have taken Gamestop to maintain their connection to a smaller, but important, portion of the gaming market (physical sales of PC games, of which they were the market leader among gaming stores), if for nothing more than insurance for an unpredictable future. Even with the advent of Steam making physical sales niche, physical sales would have remained not insignificant (up to the present 2021, anyway). Instead, physical PC game sales are mostly obsolete now. [And Gabe Newell should send that Gamestop CEO a fat thank-you check for that fatal misstep*.]
The double whammy was that they put all their bets on the wrong horse since PC gaming is now the big dog (eh...horse?), and in recent years Gamestop has been flirting with going out of business in booming market. ...having entirely severed their connection to PC gamers that aren't coming back.

*I'm being facetious here. CEOs usually have a golden parachute, allowing them to chase short term wins even if it cripples the company 20 years later...5 years after said CEO has retired and cashed out.

This comment was edited on Mar 24, 2021, 20:01.

jacobvandy wrote on Jan 29, 2021, 20:15:

"When a market, such as this one, is highly concentrated, a new entrant can benefit consumers by undercutting the incumbent’s prices. The ability to provide PC games to consumers at lower prices is one way a firm or new entrant could gain market share. If this market functioned properly--that is, if the Steam MFN did not exist and platforms were able to compete on price--platforms competing with Steam would be able to provide the same (or higher) margins to game developers while simultaneously providing lower prices to consumers."

If ThIs MaRkEt FuNcTiOnEd PrOpErLy...
Epic pays publishers to put their game ONLY on EGS, in addition to offering a better margin, so why aren't prices lower there? It's an even sweeter deal than what this complaint describes ought to benefit consumers. Why doesn't Ubisoft charge lower prices now that they don't release on Steam? Why didn't EA when they were off on their own for so many years?
The market is functioning the way it wants to. Suing Valve isn't going to turn it into some idealistic fantasy.

Walmart often requires suppliers to wholesale to Walmart at prices lower than they wholesale to Walmart's competitors. Imagine if Walmart instead made all their suppliers agree to wholesale to them at the same price that they sell to every other store—as opposed to Walmart using their market position to keep them in a position to undercut—in some cases putting the little guy out of business. The point is, they're going after Valve for requiring price equality, of all things.

That said, if a competitor can figure out how to do things more efficiently, apparently "favored" provisions would preclude the competitor from selling at lower prices to gain market share; their only option then would be to provide a higher quality service. I suppose a reasonable compromise would be to have the "favored" provision refer to a sale price that has been reduced to compensate for the distributor's cut. So, rather than giving devs an 88% cut, if Epic Games Store wanted to give devs the same 70% cut as Steam, but set the consumer sale price to 82% of the Steam price, then it could. Epic would still get a 12% cut, and the devs would still get 70%, but at a higher sales volume due to the reduced overall sale price. But then, when I read the quote "will be the same price the game developers sell their PC games on other platforms", I wonder if that isn't exactly what the current provision already allows. After all, other distributors do sometimes sell the same game at lower non-sale prices than Steam.
For the record, I'm of the group that considers Steam to be mostly a benevolent monopoly, and my guess is it will stay that way as long as Gabe stays the majority owner.

Jivaro wrote on Aug 28, 2020, 16:10:
I play sports games all the time and am an admitted Maddenaholic, I know nothing of Warhammer. Two of my friends played 1 and 2 and on their recommendation (and a great sale) I bought the GOTY editions of both. I haven't gotten particularly far in either but I tried each and I have to say I feel like I missed out on something. Looking forward to 3.

A turn-based, fictional sports game seemed pretty foreign to me too...when I first played Blood Bowl 1 about four years ago. It didn't take long before I was really into it though. The way I play, the matches can take an hour to two hours, so I can only imagine how long the table top version would be (5 hours per match??)

Slashman wrote on Apr 20, 2020, 18:32:

Cutter wrote on Apr 20, 2020, 18:03:
People forget - or didn't know to begin with - that WC games got made in spite of CR, not because of him. He was a shitty producer from day one. Anyone can come up with wild ideas, it's another thing to deliver them on scope, on time, and on budget. He's never been able to do that and he still can't.

This is actually true. I have heard several developers say this. Ideas aren't in short supply in the game industry...but they are not where the real work begins.

There's a difference between creative, boundary pushing, easy to market ideas and ideas that are those things while also being reasonably doable. If the latter aren't in short supply in the games industry, then it's the only entertainment industry that can say that, and devs should spend their days appreciating what an amazing time it is to be making games.

Many years ago, I would visit gonegold.com for my gaming news aggregator, but it eventually shut down, and somehow I came upon Bluesnews and never left. I like that it covers not just gaming but also gaming-adjacent news, and unlike sites run by corporations with newly hired management that feel the need to justify themselves by making change for the sake of change, the things about its format that work really well never change, and thus continue to work really well.

eRe4s3r wrote on Nov 16, 2019, 16:59:

selection7 wrote on Nov 16, 2019, 14:59:

eRe4s3r wrote on Nov 16, 2019, 04:22:

Acleacius wrote on Nov 15, 2019, 21:09:
Don't think I've ever played any of this series, but if it's free might check it out.

Anyone who has played this know what this review comment means?

It says its free, but its not , you have to pay to play it.

Thanks

It means nearly everything aside from the most mundane base game is behind a paywall.

The game has a lot of DLC. Of course that's not free. But can you play the entire single player campaign for free? There are Steam reviews making it sound like this is some kind of scam, and I can't tell from your reply if there's any truth to that. The "mundane base" game is the most important part.

The SP campaign is free and that's literally the only thing you can access without paying. Well, at least now you can, because when I wrote that you couldn't because of a "bug" that locked your savefiles of the campaign behind a paywall. And no, that is not a joke.

Okay, thanks for the info. The savefile bug, hopefully fixed now, explains the complaints. Otherwise, it sounds like it's exactly what you'd get if you bought just the base game.

eRe4s3r wrote on Nov 16, 2019, 04:22:

Acleacius wrote on Nov 15, 2019, 21:09:
Don't think I've ever played any of this series, but if it's free might check it out.

Anyone who has played this know what this review comment means?

It says its free, but its not , you have to pay to play it.

Thanks

It means nearly everything aside from the most mundane base game is behind a paywall.

The game has a lot of DLC. Of course that's not free. But can you play the entire single player campaign for free? There are Steam reviews making it sound like this is some kind of scam, and I can't tell from your reply if there's any truth to that. The "mundane base" game is the most important part.

I'd heard some good things about Joseph Gordon Levitt's interpretation of Snowden in that movie he did. Unless Snowden's personality and speaking patterns have changed significantly in 6 years, I'd say Joseph wasn't particularly convincing. However, I'd bet Matt Barton, of Matt Chat fame, could do a killer impersonation. The vocal timbre, accent, and speech patterns are the same naturally, so if Matt actually put some effort into it, it'd be scarily similar.

I find it hard to believe 30% is any higher than what the publishers take in the modern digital music industry...especially relative to the artists (as opposed to non-publishing record labels).
Not to mention, the current business model was invented and made enormous by Valve to the extent that PC gaming is now bigger than console gaming and almost as big as Hollywood (without any help from mobile or consoles). 15 years ago it was conventional wisdom that PC gaming was becoming more niche and stagnant. Enter...Valve.
Now, obviously, their stranglehold on the industry is worth concern, but through all this, Valve has avoided anti-competitive practices to maybe an unprecedented extent for a company in their position.

Been waiting a long time for publishers to figure out that the nfl license is not what determines if a football game is any good. Brownie point because Joe Montana football was great game.

A simple snuffing of a candle certainly doesn't sound like the way you market an overly consolized action game version of Thief. So there's some hope.

The Chinese were the outsource. Maybe that was the joke, IDK. Funcom is European, so the only way it wouldn't be outsourcing is if it were in their home country.

It's appropriate that it was the never-got-launched MMO that did them in. Only a few titles can make it in that arena, and jumping right into that market as a startup was akin to putting all your money on horse #6.

Verno wrote on Apr 3, 2012, 08:43:

selection7 wrote on Apr 3, 2012, 02:12:
Here's the thing...

This is a really silly and dismissive post. First off, you're a Bluesnews reader smart guy. Second, "You'll do it because you'll do it" isn't logical. You're assuming that the gaming industry itself will just uniformly adopt whatever the big companies do when history has shown that is NOT the case. In fact right now there is a massive independent resurgence on digital platforms, the likes of which we haven't seen before. People won't just adopt whatever the industry tells them to, particularly when its inconvenient and detrimental to a platform that is supposed to be all about making things easy and convenient.

Finally, people are ok with internet functionality as it provides them benefits. Using that functionality to restrict you with no upside is a whole different matter. People will not be fine with functionality that is solely for the benefit of Microsoft that has little to no upside for the user. I have no idea why you thought mp3s were a good example either, they were widely adopted because of convenience and that industries inability to accept change and give people what they want.

You're fighting a losing war, just like the record companies of the late 90's and early new millenium were. Now even music and movies are trying to move towards no-physical media so they can make resales, rentals, and piracy obsolete. Throwing around all the tough talk about how you're not going to accept it and you'll go indpendent only underscores your denial.

Don't do like the music industry did. It's going to happen; you want to be part of the process, not on the sideline getting left behind. And don't shoot the messenger. I'm only trying to ease the transition for some of you. One thing we can be sure of, the games industry will continue to charge what gamers are willing to pay.

Here's the thing. If Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all go the way of the constant online connection, regardless of how much posturing and whining bluesnews forum readers do, the games industry will continue to thrive. It's already bigger than the movie business and it's not even a mature industry (I'm using "mature" here in the business lingo sense). Saying otherwise is to be just as in denial as the record companies were 15 years ago about mp3s. It's going to happen eventually, and you're going to buy it. You're gamers. The new generation won't even know any better. At least you can tell your grandkids stories about the good ol' days.

No shocker here. People buy the games, the suits will be excited about the PC platform. People don't, they won't. That's not going to change, I guarantee it.

It's good that PC consumers stood up for their platform as viable on launch day, and also good that the publisher honestly revealed they made their money back first weekend, which means basically admitting they should have considered the PC more favorably from the beginning. That's going in the right direction for both parties.

Dades wrote on Dec 14, 2011, 07:09:
Microsoft made it one of their little exclusives as they have done with many other games, it was completely unnecessary. Saying I didn't buy Alan Wake PC because his facial animations are dumb is no less emotional and arbitrary than not buying it because it was out on the consoles first. Of course people should threaten not to buy it if something upset them, that's a big part of how the consumer and corporation feedback process works. Were they supposed to fill out surveys and send flowers instead with a little card saying oh poor Remedy, you took a sack full of microsoft money to not release the game but we understand! Maybe in your world everyone is a robot who doesn't let anything affect their incredibly objective world view but the rest of us live somewhere else.

It is not true that just because something about a game is upsetting, we should boycott...or anything close to that. Maybe there are times when that is actually true, but to say that means it is always true (and is true in this case) is fallacy. And sending thank you notes or whatever you said has nothing to do with it. What I said originally is still true. Even if a boycott was done to hypothetically excercise consumer rights (ridiculously, as I pointed out before since that would only make execs say "see, I knew PC gamers would never buy it"), it would still be stupid to make such a decision based on emotions, which is my point...much more so than anything about excercising consumer rights. Also, don't get hung up on the excusivity thing. Microsoft has never had a problem with releasing games on Windows and 360. They aren't really competing, plus Microsoft makes money when fanboys upgrade their PCs to play new games.

What worries me is that babies like you will dig us all into a hole. You cannot intimidate companies who aren't sure they want your money anyway into always releasing on PC too. Supporting the platform, however, will get their attention. It's not rocket science.

This comment was edited on Dec 14, 2011, 21:34.

In response to my post #21, I got replies that the no PC decision was arbitrary and that by originally planning and marketing the game as PC, the company wronged PC gamers in a way that warrants threats of not buying the game out of spite.

I can't believe the decision was arbitrary, and regardless of how it was marketed, when the PC title was pulled it wasn't done to piss you off. My point still stands to not take it personally. Of course, if you ran an AlanWake PC fansite, that's something else, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's not the case here.

These are just business decisions. I'm sure they didn't like the idea of not making a PC version either, and probably only a small handful of people were behind the decision (the rest would've been happy with extra employment).

If it's good, buy it, if not, don't. Don't be dramatic. In fact, people not buying PC games in certain situations is what led them to make the decision in the first place. The idea of refusing to buy it now on principle would only serve to prove that original decision right (in the minds of industry decision makers).

What I'm trying to say is, don't be a baby. When a company doensn't release a game on PC, they're not making that decision just to piss you off. I was looking forward to the game and I still am...if it's good.