• Whom@beehaw.orgM
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    1 year ago

    Deeply frustrating to see. Their only sin in my book is selling it instead of freely distributing it, something Bethesda is equally guilty of. I only hope they make it out of this okay.

    • Naatan@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Bethesda is guilty of not giving away their game for free? I really hope I’m misunderstanding what you are trying to say.

          • Whom@beehaw.orgM
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            1 year ago

            This is not bait, I truly believe that all non-private art and information should be freely available to all for any purpose and liberating it is always a good thing. I’ll leave your report unresolved for another mod to weigh in on, but I’m not looking for an argument and gave a minimal response precisely because I did not want to encourage shit-flinging.

            • Viktorian@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              I think your opinion is disrespectful towards artists. It implies that they don’t deserve to be compensated for their work and consequently that their profession is less worthy. Why art specifically? What sets their product apart from other goods?

              • The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                Why art specifically?

                I assume because the topic is video games. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure they are against the whole current system and would prefer a gift based economy. I don’t think they are defending a capitalist system where artists don’t get paid.

            • bermuda@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              I’m not sure whether to agree or disagree with you but thanks for being polite about it. Sorry for calling your comment baiting but when I saw something like that that just didn’t expand on anything I figured it would be. Most troll comments are like that. Say something controversial without expanding on it to encourage arguments.

              In fact id consider that kind of comment to encourage far more shit-flinging than something thought out like this.

              • noctisatrae@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                Ahaha yes I think it’s kinda suspect too. Imagine spending millions & millions on a quality title just to give it away for free?

                Why would they even do that? Could they even do it? (I believe) It does not work like that :)

                Seriously, I can’t imagine a world where you invest millions in a project just to give it for free. I don’t see how someone could think it’s frustrating.

                For once, if you like a game and want to support the industry, buy it. Vote with your wallet.

              • Chloyster [she/her]@beehaw.orgM
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                1 year ago

                I don’t see it as arguing. They’re just clarifying their position. And fwiw, we are all users here too. We don’t have the ability to not show the ‘M’ by our name

                • Whom@beehaw.orgM
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                  1 year ago

                  That would be a nice feature. I don’t always want to comment or post with my mod hat on. That said, I’m not seeing it on anyone here. Is it an instance-based thing?

                • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  It’s immature, and unprofessional. Anybody could goad a mod like that to misusing their authority, driving people away from the sub and completely destroying their credibility. Other people won’t put up with it.

                  • The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org
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                    1 year ago

                    It’s immature, and unprofessional.

                    This isn’t a job. They are a user like you who happen to also volunteer to mod because someone has to. They have just as much right to share their opinion as you do, and they did it politely. Besides, they didn’t even start an argument, they just shared an opinion, confirmed it, and then clarified again; all of it in a polite manner.

                    Anybody could goad a mod like that to misusing their authority

                    They seem to have handled the situation just fine and even left the report for other mods to handle. I really don’t see what the big issue is.

              • ram@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                Fr you’re a mod, you’re not allowed to be a human with feelings and ideas and opinions! Just blindly care about the community, don’t contribute to the discourse!!

                • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  Projecting much? Because I am not the one not listening to reason here, it’s you. It’s not just about this one particular douchebag. It’s the principle of the thing, that is applicable to all mods everywhere on every site.

                  You don’t get to just decide mods arguing with people in their own communities is okay because you find one particularly likeable. You as a user have a responsibility to hold mods to higher standards to maintain the integrity of the community too, and the only one who stands to suffer because of your refusal to accept it is you.

        • fades@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          The developers don’t deserve to be paid? Because that’s the crux of it, no sell no profit, no profit no workers. Bye bye studio and any future art because we all are trapped in this capitalist nightmare. Do their families not deserve to be supported for their work?

          I’m struggling to understand the motivation of your comment. You seem upset that a studio that worked for many years paying many developers project managers artists etc to create this game is selling the result of their hard work and investments? Where do you think they got the funds to build their latest game? Perhaps from the previous games, content, merch they have produced and sold?

          How exactly is a studio to function if they simply hand out their hard work for free? How exactly are they to hire quality people if they are unable to make a profit from their primary product, the games that the developers and artists pour their heart and souls into?

          I mean, shit, yeah all information, art, everything should be able to exist without tying it to finance but that’s not the world we live in and it’s not the world these developers work in.

          So… what’s your point??

          • The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Bye bye studio and any future art because we all are trapped in this capitalist nightmare. Do their families not deserve to be supported for their work?

            I think it’s safe to assume they are not fans of capitalism; I doubt they want to keep living in a capitalist system where artists and developers are not paid. They are talking about artists and developers because that’s what the topic is about, but I would assume this thought stretches to all of society.

            • Whom@beehaw.orgM
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              1 year ago

              You’re right, of course. I detest capitalism and while I obviously understand why people and the institutions they build operate under its rules, I see not doing so as a generally good thing. I’m under no delusions that this will bring the change we deserve, that requires actual political action. But liberating art and information is actually possible thanks to filesharing and so we ought to do so.

              People seem to be missing the point about Bethesda’s guilt. I know that Bethesda cannot give this game for free and I take for granted that you know they cannot, my point is that because they can’t, they should not exist. I’m not a fool, I know how the world around me works and that games would not be made at this scale (but they would still be made…art LONG predates the profit motive and exists even today where no profit is to be had, and no one could possibly snuff out the human drive to make art) and am willing to take those consequences. I believe withholding art from the public is stealing from the common heritage of mankind, and so we ought to strive for a system in which art can be made and shared freely because people’s needs are taken care of. And yes, I focus on art and information because it is the topic here and it is particularly close to my heart, not because my beliefs stop there.

              I just want to say one more time that I wasn’t trying to preach here or start a fight. I just wanted to express my sadness at this situation. That’s it. I only respond because I don’t like having my views misrepresented.

    • Renacles@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Games are made to make profit, Bethesda made it and have legal rights to distribution, without profit games would not be made at this scale.

      I’m not really sure what you are trying to say to be honest.

      • Whom@beehaw.orgM
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        1 year ago

        Like I said downthread, I wasn’t really looking at derailing this thread by starting a debate, but to clarify my position, the industry as it exists today collapsing is entirely okay with me. I’d be happy to live in a world where all games were freely distributed public domain solo endeavors, small collaborations, and the rare larger (but still not this large, likely) productions organized as public works or naturally-occurring oddities.

        • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          When were games ever like that. Even in the microcomputer era sole bedroom coders were still selling their titles to publishers to make some money out of it. What your suggesting sounds like a horrible experience where everything is stuck in early access forever but with less reason for people to finish their project as no one has put money down.

          • sludge@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            whether or not games were ever like that isn’t actually relevent to the point they made, also tons of unfinished games are basically already sold as complete.

            • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              I didn’t really see much of a point made, just some hippy-dippy, information wants to be free man, fantasy utopia that will never work.

              • The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                What they were describing was basically a society that relies on a gift economy, which has already existed in the past, and still exists in some places and forms today. We’ve been brainwashed by capitalist societies to think that would be a “hippy-dippy, fantasy land” because capitalism and bartering are what is natural to us, but it’s been shown that a gift-based economy is what a lot of uncontacted tribes use. It’s also how a lot of friend groups interoperate - hell, start a minecraft server (some other survival game will do) with your friends right now, and you will almost certainly naturally default to using a gift based economy.

                • SenorBolsa@beehaw.org
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                  1 year ago

                  Uncontacted tribes also don’t have advanced medicine (though not to say they haven’t discovered a great deal of important things on their own) or well… videogames. If you want to live like that more power to you, but for all the faults of modern society it has massive benefits as well.

                  I think there’s plenty of middle ground to be found where we can have our cake and eat it too even if it looks wildly different from what we have now. Gift economies just don’t work when you have billions of people involved. It’s ultimately more efficient to give people money and then they can spend it on what they need or want. Even the idea of a corporation or company isn’t inherently broken, people will always have a need to organize themselves to create efficiencies and build bigger things than they could on their own.

                  Capitalism is shit, the concept of money, and organized labor, is quite good.

                  • The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org
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                    1 year ago

                    Uncontacted tribes are not the only ones that have used such systems; plenty of other societies throughout time have used similar systems, some quite recently even. It is not antithetical to modernity. For a recent example of a society that used a gift economy, you can look up “Korean People’s Association in Manchuria”. I was using uncontacted tribes merely as one example to illustrate that the idea that bartering and capitalism are “natural” and “how it always worked” isn’t true, despite that being what many believe.

                    It’s ultimately more efficient to give people money and then they can spend it on what they need or want.

                    Why is it more efficient, exactly? In a gift economy, you don’t have to give anyone money for anything and won’t starve for not having enough money. In a gift economy, you help each other where possible and do things such as art or science for fulfilment and not because you have to put food on the table. Someone who can help, but rarely does, slowly begins to get shunned by the rest of society.

                    EDIT:

                    To read more on gift economies and anarchism in general, you can read:

                    • Petyr Kropotkin’s Conquest of Bread is a good one; that’s more theory

                    • George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia; a sort of memoir of Orwell’s time in Catalonia fighting alongside anarchists

                    • Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed; a sci-fi story about a futuristic anarchist society living on a planet that mutually orbits another planet that is inhabited by other societies.

              • Thrashy@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                If people want to live in a fully-automated luxury space communist utopia where everyone is free from want and able to make and release games for free as passion projects, that’s great, and a worthy goal to work towards, but promoting piracy on principle without concern for how developers will be supported during their work in the context of our current capitalist society is somewhere between naive at best and self-serving rationalization at worst.

              • sludge@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                like, the game industry is incredibly exploitative, even if piracy does causes direct harm to it, thats honestly a good thing, it is set up to benefit publishers and share-holders over anyone else, especially the people actually making the games. supporting the end of that isn’t “hippy-dippy”

            • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Even share ware was usually a portion of the game and you had to pay for the rest wasn’t it?