Honestly, this article is pretty bad at explaining the problem here. It’s clear that other websites will try to track you, but the important part of this incognito drama is this:
The plaintiffs also accused Google of taking Chrome users’ private browsing activity and then associating it with their already-existing user profiles.
The exploit’s sophistication and the feature’s obscurity suggest the attackers had advanced technical capabilities
exploiting a vulnerability in an undocumented hardware feature that few if anyone outside of Apple and chip suppliers such as ARM Holdings knew of.
according to Russian officials also infected the iPhones of thousands of people working inside diplomatic missions and embassies in Russia
the devices were infected with full-featured spyware that, among other things, transmitted microphone recordings, photos, geolocation, and other sensitive data to attacker-controlled servers
Sounds like government espionage
puts tinfoil hat on
Oh the irony. Just train it on copyrighted material without a license, like OpenAI did.
He wrote a techno optimist manifesto that reads like a proto fascist manifesto. In fact, he cites Marinetti as an inspiration, who was founder of the futurist movement, and later author of the fascist manifesto and a close supporter of Mussolini, so no surprise I guess. He enforces ideas that this century is just a bad rerun of the previous.
https://www.disconnect.blog/p/the-religion-of-techno-optimism
It’s a full time job to answer completely, but from what I know he finances escape fantasies for the rich which they call seasteading. He calls it a libertarian ideal to create these new colonial city states, but what he means is liberty for his ilk from taxes, regulation and societal rules. Meanwhile his brainchild Palantir erodes the rights of the poor people who are left behind through surveillance, military technology and ICE funding. But this is all in line with his ideology, because apartheid “works” in South Africa according to Thiel
He’s a small time capitalist. These guys have society shaping power and wealth
Didn’t Epic lose the fight against Apple? How is Google more of a monopoly than Apple? It is incredibly easy to sideload apps on Android compared to iPhones, and there are multiple dedicated unofficial stores. These verdicts are not coherent at all between them. I understand they are two separate judges, but the law should be the same for all, not at the interpretation of whichever judge you get.
Edit: for future reference, Verge answers this very question here https://www.theverge.com/24003500/epic-v-google-loss-apple-win-fortnite-trial-monopoly
Sony also has an MFN, not sure about Xbox: https://tryhardguides.com/epic-games-ceo-says-sony-is-the-reason-they-cant-lower-prices/
The real reason Epic hasn’t sued Sony is because they’re an Epic shareholder
How do you compare it with other platforms if it’s exclusive to EGS? For timed exclusives, it would mean the price would have to go UP on EGS when the Steam version launches, which seems like pretty dumb marketing honestly.
I know I’m playing devil’s advocate defending Epic and publishers, but I don’t see how defending rent extracting monopolies is any better.
The price is the same because of a Most Favored Nations clause in Steam’s ToS. Publishers have to sell it at the same or higher price on other platforms to keep their product on Steam, which is the lion’s share of the market. This is part of the accusation in the lawsuit: https://programming.dev/comment/5159579
Now you could argue that even if it were removed, publishers would still sell at the same price and keep the extra profit, but that’s just hypothetical at this point.
I love the theme for it, but was expecting an actual city builder, as advertised in the description. Instead, it’s a pretty boring puzzle game with pretty graphics, very unrelated to something like Cities Skylines. I am hoping something like this with more in depth management comes up in the future.
I do like ‘cozy’ building games like Townscaper and Dorfromantik but they aren’t advertised as city builders, and the puzzle elements in Dorfromantik don’t get in the way of building pretty stuff as much as in Terra Nil.
“Wow, personalized ads? That’s brilliant! Let’s patent it” said an Activision exec who had been in cryogenic sleep since 1995
Yeah, I’m going to reserve my excitement for when I see gameplay footage or actually play it. Quake Champions looked really good in the beginning and then it ran like an internal pre-alpha. Tribes Ascend had so many OP hitscan weapons on release you thought you were playing Call of Duty. Waning general interest in “boomer shooters” and disastrous releases make these games more nostalgic memories than interesting future games in my mind.
Thanks. So TLDR:
I’m also curious what the allegations are. The only ones I ever heard were from Epic, which was basically making a big fuss to promote their own competitive platform (which was so shit it didn’t gain any traction apart from the free games).
I’ve tried all the online stores ever since the cloudification (remember Impulse?) but none have ever been able to compete with Steam in terms of features and value to the customer. Steam didn’t get to the top by being anti competitive, it got there by being competitive and offering a better product to all stakeholders, not just to shareholders.
And as you mentioned, there is plenty of competition for Steam. Don’t like the monoply? Get it on GOG or Itch instead.
Pros: Easier to learn (belt mechanics are a bit clearer). Belts have a Z axis which allows for even more spaghetti! Progression feels faster since you already start out with builder drones. Graphics are absolutely amazing. Multiple planets are pretty cool.
Cons: there are no trains. Logistics stations kinda ruin the late game since it makes factory planning much easier
I wouldn’t be surprised if the board is just doing what ChatGPT tells them to.
It looks nice, but you have to sign up for an account to use a terminal app? This is really getting ridiculous