Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: shawnsterpSo, the questions run through my head: Are these mindsets indicative of the majority of linux users, or is it the usual vocal minority aholes that like to spend all day on comment sections / reddit? And if this IS the way most linux users act, how do I feel about being associated with them? And, is this actually more toxic than windows gamers / users?

My guess is that other communities are just as toxic, which is depressing to say the least. But, I don't really know. All I know is that the one that I am in IS toxic.

Well, first, consider yourself lucky. On this site, there is an argument happening between different sides; count up the posts and the posters and I think you'll find the solidly "oh no cancel culture" side doesn't make up a majority--and they're mostly fairly polite. I'm pretty sure in some places any voice on your side would be shouted down, and not pleasantly. (To be fair, in some other places anyone taking that side would be treated pretty viciously)
In this connection we should all be glad that Liam moderates this stuff and keeps these discussions relatively civil.

As to where Linux gaming culture fits in all this . . . well, there are at least three cultures mingling there. First, there's gaming culture overall, which traditionally has a reputation for toxic, antifeminist stuff and general crudeness. It would be a miracle if Linux gaming culture had none of that from broader gaming culture. Second, there's the "techie", "computer nerd" culture. It's actually kind of similar--a bit more intellectual, but traditionally very white male dominated and very reluctant to face its biases; on top of that there's a flavour of "meritocracy" that tends to advocate letting the talented, or in some cases the "talented", do whatever they want. Linux culture is in large part a subset of that culture, so . . .

To the extent that Linux culture has its own specific characteristics distinct from normal computer culture, it's ambiguous. Linux culture values freedom and individuality, which cuts two ways--on one hand there's the "freedom to act like a dick if I want" implication, but on the other there's the "don't judge people for being different, belonging to different categories" implication. Even this latter tends to result in a sort of "colour-blind" ethos that ignores built-in barriers--like "What? We're not treating her bad because she's a woman, we're treating her bad because she won't swap sexist jokes with us!" However, Linux culture is also dedicated to co-operation--the freedom in open source is about people freely building things together. This ethos doesn't have much patience for people messing other people over and making them not want to participate. And Linux people are used to being a minority, so they may extend the concept of Linux minorities wanting good treatment to the concept of other kinds of minorities wanting good treatment. Overall I'd want to claim that the specific Linux culture has a positive impact. But Linux gaming culture is still to a fair extent a piece of gaming and techie cultures, so go figure.

Add to that that the Linux community being a "nerd" community turned up to eleven consists to a somewhat high degree of people that are (and/or are feeling) marginalized by society at large and thus cannot really grasp that you can still be part of white/male privilege and still be marginalized.

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Quoting: Patola

Quoting: F.UltraBiased about racism? You do know that the alternative would be "pro racism" right?!

No, that's a false dilemma. And I would suggest not to go this way on this thread, this has nothing whatsoever to do with racism and the current topic is controversial enough.

Is it really? How else can one interpret "biased about racism"? If it was written that way by mistake then by all means, but if not then how on earth can one interpret it in any other way?

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Quoting: ElectroDDIsn't Kotaku known to be biased about issues like racism and such ?
I'd be cautious to use Kotaku as a source on the subject...
I'd even go as far as disregarding them. Thus making this story like that.

I've read part of the senior animator letter, and that's the typical snowflake fake complain when things don't go their way.
Could be true, could be false, but currently, the trend is false accusation everywhere on those peculiar subjects for revenge.

Biased about racism? You do know that the alternative would be "pro racism" right?!

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Quoting: slapin

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slapinWell, in case of Ubisoft or when you either VPN or torrent, this choice will bias things towards torrent which I don't like. I wonder why Sony Playstation managed to do it right and Steam can't do it...

What do you mean by "Sony Playstation managed to do it right"? AFAIK they have both regional locking and prices.

Sony made sure everyone gets the same content for regional prices, so you do not get poorly localized version without ability to switch to original language. On playstation you get the same game with all the stuff in it, not crippled version.

If you speak one of the major languages yes, for my language there exists close to zero games on either platform unless it's something that is targeted for very small children (and even then most of the time English is the only option).

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Quoting: The_Aquabat

Quoting: F.UltraWhat is the source though? Wikipedia uses the IMF estimates for 2019 so hardly "outdated" since that would be the very latest available data possible.

Completely off topic though since this is not a thread about the Economic siltation in Argentina (a topic that you for some reason brought to this thread).

it's data from the world bank here it's more updated.
 
https://miro.medium.com/max/1000/1*w9cdWPA7xFDkieFNLre_hg.png

yes I know it is not the topic but if you follow up the linked thread to ResetEra there's some mentioning that, I'm sorry I went off topic.

And if you use the comparison function on the World Bank site: https://data.worldbank.org/?locations=AR-PL-UA you see the same differences that I quoted earlier from Wikipedia.

edit: And more to the topic at hand, looking at the GDP per capita between Sweden, Argentina, Poland and Ukraine show why game devs wants to apply different prices in different regions: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2019&locations=SE-AR-PL-UA&start=1960

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Quoting: The_Aquabat

Quoting: F.Ultraedit: And btw Argentinas GDP per capita is 62% of that of Poland and 255% of that of Ukraine so not sure where "GDP per capita is comparable to some eastern european countries like Ukranie, or Poland" is sourced from. And Argentina have 4 times the population of the highest populated Scandinavian country (Sweden).

I used the Wikipedia numbers for reference.

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that's outdated, now we are probably a middle-middle income not high-middle income, we have some fluctuations here. in economics the pandemia has been catastrophic here, more than the average.

What is the source though? Wikipedia uses the IMF estimates for 2019 so hardly "outdated" since that would be the very latest available data possible.

Completely off topic though since this is not a thread about the Economic siltation in Argentina (a topic that you for some reason brought to this thread). And if you didn't get it from my prior post you cannot say that Argentina is like Poland or Ukraine when there is a huge difference between Poland and Ukraine to begin with.

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Quoting: The_Aquabatwwwow I'm surprised how many people have a stereotype of third world countries, many here think that they are like a slum dumpster. Third world is a Cold War definition you should update your definitions, here for example, GDP is comparable to a Scandinavian country (but yeah with double population) and GDP per capita is comparable to some eastern european countries like Ukranie, or Poland. We are not even a low income country considering statistics just a middle income. I'm not saying there is no poverty which there is but the mayority of my country is quite nice. Sad that you have that picture of some countries. I hope that stereotype don't stick and maybe you should come to take a tour . It's just that cost of living is quite a less here even for the CIA factbook Argentina is ranked quite good in therms of Purchase Power Parity.

but likewise I guess it's understandable, I'm totally ignorant of countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanie, Hungary, lots of countries for me are like "exotic", I guess Argentina is likewise exotic for some people in Europe or North America.

Not entirely sure where this is coming from, just to check I went through all the posts in this thread so far and yours is the only one that contained the term "third world". Also I see exactly zero people comparing Argentina with "a slum dumpster" or anything even near in comparison.

edit: And btw Argentinas GDP per capita is 62% of that of Poland and 255% of that of Ukraine so not sure where "GDP per capita is comparable to some eastern european countries like Ukranie, or Poland" is sourced from. And Argentina have 4 times the population of the highest populated Scandinavian country (Sweden).

I used the Wikipedia numbers for reference.

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Quoting: slapinWell, in case of Ubisoft or when you either VPN or torrent, this choice will bias things towards torrent which I don't like. I wonder why Sony Playstation managed to do it right and Steam can't do it...

What do you mean by "Sony Playstation managed to do it right"? AFAIK they have both regional locking and prices.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: WorMzyMy opinion is that the price should be the price, and that should be converted to the real-time equivalent for the currency you're buying in.

So game = £10. At time of writing:

• UK: £10


• USA: $13.15


• Japan: ¥1386


• Europe: €11.12

etc. Then apply whatever local tax applies (which is probably where most of the pressure on Valve comes from, taxperson always wants their cut...).

If you have fixed prices then you will loose lots of sales in countries where income is low while you get next to nothing from countries that can afford to pay. Now if you are a small indie and can price your game sufficiently cheap then this might work but not for big titles that costs billions to develop.

The small indie doesn't have the marketing to sell gajillions of copies, though. I don't think they're in a position to happily lose sales.

Of course, I was more thinking in the terms of a single dev indie studio does not have to sell that many copies in order to keep afloat as compared with when you have an actual team of people that needs wages and so forth. Could have worded it better since of course not all indies are of the single dev type.

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Quoting: LinasTo be honest, it has always escaped me how games in e.g. Russia cost like 10% of what we pay in the EU. I mean, I do get that purchasing power and salaries are very different, but we are talking about digital goods. It takes whatever amount of money it takes to make a game, in whatever country is was made. It's not like the prices in Russia are lower because it is somehow cheaper to distribute them in Russia. Somehow feels arbitrary and fake in the global economy.

It's 10% in Russia because that is where you have to be in order to sell any games, and it is 100% in EU since we in the EU both have a higher income and have a higher incentive to buy games so if you don't take 100% here then you are loosing potential income.

It's not always just income however, e.g traditionally HIFI is cheaper in Germany than in Sweden because HIFI is seen as a luxury item in Sweden so we tend to pay more while Germans see it as more of a commodity while computers are cheaper in Sweden than in Germany due to Swedes seeing computers as a commodity and not as the luxury item that the Germans do (at least this was how it was some decades ago).

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