PlayStation and Xbox shooting themselves with shotguns. Epic Games shooting themselves with two shotguns. Steam being shot by all the AI companies using shotguns. Nintendo seeing everything with concern, but with a shotguns in their hands.

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[–] 146 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Nintendo should be shooting their fans

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  • [–] 70 points 2 months ago (9 children)
  • [–] 39 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    On one hand: GOG is unfortunately having a case of the ultranationalists. On the other hand: we still have Itch.io, Zoom Platform, and GameJolt, so that's something?

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    before anyone jumps in to say this was visa/mastercard or collective shouts fault - no. itch.io could've communicated with the creators, given them notices, and information. have public announcement on what and why. they didnt even inform most of the creators their content was removed until it was manually checked by them

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Any information on the moral standing of Zoom and GameJolt? Otherwise I think there's no alternative, literally

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    i have no idea what zoom is. havent heard anything good or bad on gamejolt

    ik there's not many alternatives in terms of hubs, there's some games u can buy directly from devs but thats rare. but its important to keep in mind the bad shit that each of these platforms have done and keep pressuring them to change when we can

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  • [–] 45 points 2 months ago (27 children)

    Why is steam being killed by AI?

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  • [–] [S] 82 points 2 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Might want to add TSMC and the other silicon manufacturers to the ones shooting. The silicon cartel isn't just a cog in the machine here, they're also a large part of the ones behind it. That's why they're trying to lock in high pricing.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    TSMC's market dominance certainly has caused an upward trend in logic chip prices, but they make no RAM, which is the most insane price at the moment.

    RAM is made by Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 months ago (16 children)

    Yeah that doesn't make sense at all

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  • [–] 14 points 2 months ago (15 children)

    People keep blaming AI for the steam machine pricing but nobody is forcing the semiconductor and memory manufacturers to raise their prices. Most of the ram capacity is held up in non binding agreements. Furthermore most likely the ram manufacturers are artificially raising their prices to cash in on the AI boom.

    (Yes AI does play a massive part here but they're only half the problem).

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    The problem is that a majority of the supply was bought out by AI companies who couldn't compete by offering a better product, instead needing to make them be the only ones with hardware to run models. It isn't a problem inherent to the technology, but one manufactured by American billionaires riding on over speculation while it's still hot.

    If anything, these companies are holding back machine learning from reaching its true potential by wasting all the hardware on overgeneralized slop. The most productive uses of machine learning aren't most of what these fuckheads use it for or force down our throats. The increases in productivity for most uses of LLMs are marginal at best, while more specialized models can save orders of magnitude more time by doing very specific things. However, all that hardware being dedicated to corpo models makes it more expensive for people to run what they actually need.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    If silicon was manufactured like any other technology, by thousands of companies all around the world, rather than by a handful of companies who all work together. Or even, by nationalized government branches, after all computers are a key piece of what makes modern life possible (not just for entertainment but to provide the services for a healthy and sanitary life). Then this whole fiasco wouldn't be feasible or even possible. The silicon supply chain is fragile and there is little being done to fix that.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    If you offer a fungible good at limited quantities there will be a long waiting list or randomness in who gets one and scalpers.

    Why are you asking them to donate their income to your personal enjoyment?

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    These companies are keeping inventory low on purpose to cash in. There's even a lawsuit now against them colluding to inflate their prices.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    If we didn't have a literal silicon cartel who controls the whole world's manufacturing it wouldn't have happened in the first place. If there were more companies manufacturing semiconductors, or dare I say, they were nationalized and not for-profit companies. The option to buy up all silicon production in the world would be less feasible if even possible at all.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    it's so fucking baffling that the EU hasn't gone through with the plans for a german chipfab, it's such an obvious thing to do

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  • [–] -1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Plus, VALVe knows that people will defend anything they do and purchase anything they sell no matter the cost, while saying that VALVe is just a small indie company that needs their personal money.

    Genuinely, half the shit VALVe gets away with would be talked endlessly if any other company did it. VALVe stans are the Disney adults of gaming culture.

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  • [–] -5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    It's adequately priced in the market and sold out on release. It ain't dead.

    AI hate bros are pushing this narrative because they don't like the supply shortage.

    The RAM and semiconductor industry are like a massive container ship. Difficult to get going and all but nimble. But they deliver a product at very low prices. People are asking them to turn on the spot and offended and entitled when they are told that that's impossible.

    In particular ram and memory are produced at very tight margins and well matched to demand enabling them to be(were) this dirt cheap for a ridiculous product.

    It would take longer to produce more stock than the time to what's going to happen next.

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