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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • I don’t think capitalism is necessarily at fault, nor must the working/middle classes be struggling for fascism to emerge. If anything, quite the opposite. It is the better off countries that end up turning fascist. All fascist countries are/were first world countries, in various states of advanced development.

    That’s not right, at least not for the fascist regimes in Europe that emerged prior to WW2. The countries where it happened (specifically Germany/Italy/Spain) had all seen civil unrest or even civil war in the recent past, they were hit hard by the global financial crisis in the twenties and had high unemployment and widespread poverty. This was the very thing the fascists used to ingratiate themselves to the public at large, by creating jobs through massive public building and rearmament projects.

    By the way “first world countries” is post-WW2 terminology and didn’t originally have a connotation of superior economic status, but was referring strictly to ideological alignment. Whether a country belonged to the capitalist/communist/unaligned block in international politics during the cold war.




  • In Germany, Mein Kampf is banned except for educational purposes, eg in history class.

    Strictly speaking this is incorrect, although the situation is somewhat complicated. There are laws that can be and were used to limit its redistribution (mainly the rule against anti-constitutional propaganda), but there are dissenting judgements saying original prints from before the end of WW2 cannot fall under this, since they are pre-constitutional. One particular reprint from 2018 has been classified as “liable to corrupt the young”, but to my knowledge this only means it cannot be publicly advertised.

    What is interesting though is how distribution and reprinting was prevented historically, which is copyright. As Hitlers legal heir the state of Bavaria held the copyright until it expired in 2015 and simply didn’t grant license to anything except versions with scholarly commentary. But technically since then anybody can print and distribute new copies of the book. If this violates any law will then be determined on a case-by-case basis after the fact.




  • That’s not really contrary to the point, but orthogonal to it.

    What? According to the article based on which we are discussing this news that is the point (allegedly). And it is unrelated to your point yes. I’m not entirely sure where you even came up with your point to be honest.

    Your argument is the same kind of “consumer rights” argument that I’ve seen everywhere on the internet, because you are implying that there is material harm to the people of Vietnam caused by Steam’s banning. Which is a fairly specious argument. It’s the loss of a luxury item. No one is materially harmed by it.

    I guess the consumers, i.e. the people of Vietnam in possession of this luxury item, would disagree with that assessment. Especially if they have sunk significant finances and/or time into their Steam account.

    It’s not like Vietnam banned insulin.

    Nobody said it is?

    And while you may not use the same language, you are effectively saying that every consumer on the planet should have free access to the best products available for whatever “thing” they want. In this case, video games.

    Again, what? I’m saying people will want to keep access to something they already paid for, their games on Steam and the according metadata like savegames, multiplayer access, and such. Not sure how you managed to pull this interpretation out of what I said, but be assured it’s incorrect.

    It’s a de facto argument for free market economic policies.

    Since the whole logic chain that led you to this conclusion was already riddled with errors from the very beginning this is simply a non sequitur.


  • But if the Vietnamese video game industry is actively harmed by Steam, an American company, using its vast resources to outcompete Vietnamese publishers, then what is your opposition to this that doesn’t encompass a de facto defense of free market capitalism?

    Not GP but the article didn’t say that Steam outcompeted local developers by “using its vast resources”. On the contrary, it alleged that local developers cannot compete on Steam with international developers, because those do not have to apply the local regulations:

    Citing it as “an injustice to domestic publishers”, Vietnamese studios reportedly say that local game development “will die” if Steam is able to keep releasing games without the same government scrutiny as domestic games.

    A somewhat shaky argument considering that the same is true for many other countries applying their own local regulations, which Vietnamese developers do not have to follow.

    But anyway, what is my opposition that doesn’t encompass a de facto defence of free market capitalism? The damage to the users. What about all the Vietnamese people losing access to Steam’s online features, which are arguably necessary nowadays for many games, especially multiplayer ones. And for what? To benefit Vietnamese businesses? Not very socialist of you comrade Vietnam. *smh*

    In any case, this is all pure speculation at this point, since both parties have yet to make a statement about the situation:

    At the time of writing, there’s been no formal word from Vietnamese authorities or Steam about the “ban”, […]

    That said, my current head cannon goes something like this:

    Vietnamese devs: Dude, these regulations on games are killing us. We can’t compete on Steam with games like these.
    The Party: Okay we hear you. *bans Steam*
    Vietnamese devs: Wait, what? (← we are here)

    Edit: formatting




  • If you rise anywhere above lever 5 or so, the difficulty ratchets up so much it makes the main quest nearly impossible to complete.

    Didn’t Oblivion already have the difficulty slider? You could just adjust that, no?

    I know level scaling is a big topic in the industry, but for me, the way it’s implemented nearly ruins what is otherwise a mostly great game.

    Two of the first RPGs I played were Gothic and Gothic II which released approximately alongside Morrowind and Oblivion, and they just had no dynamic level scaling at all, so I don’t really see the appeal either. A tiny Mole Rat being roughly the same challenge as a big bad Orc just breaks immersion. If you were to meet the latter in early game it would just curb stomp you, which provided an immersive way of gating content and a real sense of achievement when you came back later with better armour and weapons to finally defeat the enemy who gave you so many problems earlier. Basically the same experience you had with Death Claws in Fallout New Vegas when compared to Fallout 3 - they aren’t just a set piece, they are a real challenge.

    The games had their own problems, for example the fighting system sucked, and I’m told the English translation was so bad the games just flopped in the Anglosphere, putting them squarely in the Eurojank category of games. But creating a real sense of progression and an immersive world were certainly not amongst their weaknesses.