Community MetaSteam | November 2023 - I'd Buy That For A Dollar...during a Steam Sale

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C-Dub

C-Dub

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The lack of Steam Deck in Australia is probably not regulatory for the most part (but someone do correct me if there are specific regulatory hurdles related to electronics or game systems in Aus), but more related to challenges unique to such a large country with a low population density.

Shipping and storage for a population of less than 30m, versus their other two markets (300m or more), is probably not feasible.

Steam Deck goes to Australia when Valve gets a partner to help them distribute it, like Komodo do in Asia.
 
Arulan

Arulan

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Derrick01 said:
Starfield being such a dud is not something I honestly expected at all. Like sure I didn't expect the game to be good personally but that's never mattered in the past, their games were always massive and "event" like. But sales were low from what we could tell and as we can see on the circana/NPD charts it dropped from #1 to 14 best seller (biggest drop of anything on their chart month to month) and just before I posted this I checked the steam numbers and they've dipped so low that Witcher 3 is just about to surpass it in CCU.

Combine all this with the game only getting a single nomination at TGA yesterday and it paints a really dire picture. Entering this year starfield was probably the most hyped game next to zelda which makes sense since Bethesda has the 2nd most gotys ever behind Naughty Dog. I guess their game design has just fallen too far behind the rest of the industry and it's finally hurting them.
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I was completely shocked as well. I've been disappointed in Bethesda to varying degrees since they failed to re-capture the magic of Morrowind's setting and attention to detail and their very uninspiring take on Fallout. That said, much like Fallout 4, I expected another critically-acclaimed title, fantastic sales, and GOTY awards despite my feelings towards it. Seeing Starfield get panned by a lot of critics, some very lukewarm impressions from players, and almost completely ignored by the TGAs was not on my bingo sheet for the year.

And on the opposite spectrum, I never in a million years expected to see BG3, a CRPG, get the mainstream success it has gotten. And if that wasn't crazy enough, it seems like it could win several GOTY awards in a year already packed with titles I'd expect to win in any other year.
 
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PC-tan

PC-tan

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C-Dub said:
The lack of Steam Deck in Australia is probably not regulatory for the most part (but someone do correct me if there are specific regulatory hurdles related to electronics or game systems in Aus), but more related to challenges unique to such a large country with a low population density.

Shipping and storage for a population of less than 30m, versus their other two markets (300m or more), is probably not feasible.

Steam Deck goes to Australia when Valve gets a partner to help them distribute it, like Komodo do in Asia.
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There was the whole refund thing with Valve and Australia and the funny thing is that I don't think MS,Sony, or Nintendo faced anything similar from the Australian government about refunds. It makes no sense, one of the reasons that I can think of for why Valve got sued but not the others is because of just how small Valve was back in 2014 and compared to the other 3? The other 3 didn't offer refunds like the laws that they should. In 2010 Nintendo of Australia sued some people and won.

It looks like the main reason for why they got sued is because of broken PC ports? Which would make sense, but if that's the case, was Nintendo okay with people refunding Pokemon then? I'm not from Australia but maybe they did and if not then they could get sued.



So that might actually clearify things a big more. I'm also guessing they would have to refund a lot of Steam Decks as well?


By the way Sony did get sued by Australia in 2019 for not allowing refunds and it was for faulty games, but I could not find the court ruling for that case though.
----------------

I just learned today that Valve is on The Game Awards advisory board.

This would explain last year with all those free Steam Decks.
 
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low-G

low-G

old school cool
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Mivey said:
For normal media use, we are pretty much at a point where you can use OLED without having to think about it, and have warranties from companies that cover 5 of use (for TVs). For monitors, it's pretty much about whether you feel fine restricting yourself to just media use. Of course it probably depends on what kind of games you are playing. 1000s of hours of DOTA 2 or something like that is likely still a terrible idea for OLED. But if you can avoid stuff with static elements, or the same static element over 100s of hours, then it's probably fine.

Thinking of getting an OLED monitor next year, some time after I get a new PC. Want to wait and see whether we get some cool new things in the meanwhile.
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This was not part of the deal though. Back in ancient times I figured they'd have the whole burn in issue actually sorted out on the panel level, not even with mitigations, by about 2005...
 
Mivey

Mivey

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low-G said:
This was not part of the deal though. Back in ancient times I figured they'd have the whole burn in issue actually sorted out on the panel level, not even with mitigations, by about 2005...
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The organic material that forms the O in OLED degrades with use, from what I understand. So while one can try via clever methods to make sure that this degradation is spread as evenly as possible across all pixels (thus reducing brightness, but without creating any patterns that have been "burned in"), it is not something that can be avoided. To be fair, at this point the lifespan of individual pixels is at 10.000s of hours, which is comparable to LCDs even and at the far end of that you get uneven color grading even for LCDs. It's just that the particular risk of simple pattern burning in due to extreme use will never be completely gone with OLED, even if ever more complex engineering will likely reduce it more and more.
 

Nano

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Workers at Sega of America say the publisher behind Persona, Yakuza, and more beloved gaming franchises is trying to lay them off as retaliation for unionizing. A new unfair labor practice filed by the Communications Workers of America accuses Sega of forcing employees into a meeting where they were told their jobs would be offshored to Japan and Europe, rather than bargaining over the layoffs directly with the union.
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:disapproval-blob:
 
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low-G

low-G

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Mivey said:
The organic material that forms the O in OLED degrades with use, from what I understand. So while one can try via clever methods to make sure that this degradation is spread as evenly as possible across all pixels (thus reducing brightness, but without creating any patterns that have been "burned in"), it is not something that can be avoided. To be fair, at this point the lifespan of individual pixels is at 10.000s of hours, which is comparable to LCDs even and at the far end of that you get uneven color grading even for LCDs. It's just that the particular risk of simple pattern burning in due to extreme use will never be completely gone with OLED, even if ever more complex engineering will likely reduce it more and more.
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Yeah, I was reading about OLED for a really long time. I remember the big issue earlier was that the blue compound broke down much faster than other colors. But I wholeheartedly disagree that it's not something that can be avoided. There has never been a technology that went from inception to perfection in just a few decades. I'm absolutely certain that all the limitations can be eliminated. There's no reason they can't improve the technology. At least within margins that I could display a fullbright bar across my screen for 3 years and not have very noticeable effects even on a grey screen in motion. (probably would begin to wear out the plastics at that timespan).

I think the issue may be that this sort of failure rate works a lot like planned obsolescence. What's the point of delivering a perfect product that lasts for decades?
 
Mivey

Mivey

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low-G said:
Yeah, I was reading about OLED for a really long time. I remember the big issue earlier was that the blue compound broke down much faster than other colors. But I wholeheartedly disagree that it's not something that can be avoided. There has never been a technology that went from inception to perfection in just a few decades. I'm absolutely certain that all the limitations can be eliminated. There's no reason they can't improve the technology. At least within margins that I could display a fullbright bar across my screen for 3 years and not have very noticeable effects even on a grey screen in motion. (probably would begin to wear out the plastics at that timespan).

I think the issue may be that this sort of failure rate works a lot like planned obsolescence. What's the point of delivering a perfect product that lasts for decades?
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As I explained, you can work on clever techniques that spread out the degradation of the organic components, and thus try to avoid burn-in. That's all you can do. Other solutions I have seen is working with the sub-pixel layout, to make the blue pixels larger, for example, to further reduce the risk there and recently LG explored the addition of white-supixels (WOLED) where to show pure white you don't need to use the coloured sub-pixels at all. All these idea of course bring downsides. Messing with subpixels reduces colour accuracy (or makes it harder to achieve) and the WOLED is said to lead to more washed out colours. But I don't see much in terms of planned obsolescence, when company like LG give you 5 years of warranty for you TVs that no burn-in will happen. We will probably get there with OLED monitors to eventually, certainly before we ever get something new like microLEDs.
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

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Do gpu come with a video cable ? I don’t remember but I… don’t think so ?
Just sold my 2060 Super for 150e.
 
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「Echo」

「Echo」

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Mt. Whatever
Steam Keys for "My time at Portia" and "Unheard: Voices of Crime." If you take, be sure to post so i can cross them out.

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Things i already had from that Chinese games Humble bundle.

Edit: All grabbed, Cheers.
 
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low-G

low-G

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Mivey said:
As I explained, you can work on clever techniques that spread out the degradation of the organic components, and thus try to avoid burn-in. That's all you can do. Other solutions I have seen is working with the sub-pixel layout, to make the blue pixels larger, for example, to further reduce the risk there and recently LG explored the addition of white-supixels (WOLED) where to show pure white you don't need to use the coloured sub-pixels at all. All these idea of course bring downsides. Messing with subpixels reduces colour accuracy (or makes it harder to achieve) and the WOLED is said to lead to more washed out colours. But I don't see much in terms of planned obsolescence, when company like LG give you 5 years of warranty for you TVs that no burn-in will happen. We will probably get there with OLED monitors to eventually, certainly before we ever get something new like microLEDs.
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So human technology is at its peak and we cannot improve the technology. These are engineering workarounds. Not solutions to make the tech viable. Science will find a way.
 
Mivey

Mivey

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low-G said:
So human technology is at its peak and we cannot improve the technology. These are engineering workarounds. Not solutions to make the tech viable. Science will find a way.
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Not to be mean, but I get the impression that you think of science as magic that makes problems go way.
One simple theoretical solution to all issues that ail OLEDs is to give up on organic LEDs, and move towards inorganic ("normal") LEDs. That's what microLED is, we just make inorganic LEDs that don't require bio luminescence and work by the same principles as existing LEDs in lamps. The issue there is to get the LEDs small enough, and do so very efficiently and in a mass reprodicable way. Which, as one might guess, is a big challenge. We will deffo get there, but at this point I think OLEDs are a decent compromise and it's tech that is already here.
Besides, tech having compromises and needing workarounds is pretty much true for all technologies. There is no free lunch, you always compromise on something. With microLEDs it will likel be price and probably something will need to give to produce such miniature LEDs, but that's just guesswork until the tech gets actually commercialised.
 
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Amzin

Amzin

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Mivey said:
But I don't see much in terms of planned obsolescence, when company like LG give you 5 years of warranty for you TVs that no burn-in will happen. We will probably get there with OLED monitors to eventually, certainly before we ever get something new like microLEDs.
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Bit of an aside but 5 years is a terrible lifespan for a TV. I would consider 10 years on the shorter end. A 5 year warranty for an appliance / device that historically people can keep using for 20+ years is not a selling point to me. I had a like 30 year old tiny CRT TV in my room as a teen when my family finally upgraded to a "nice" 27 inch for the living room (my, how things have changed for the better in that regard).

Modern TVs are better in a million ways but it's pretty inarguable that most modern home devices (TVs, fridges, washers, etc.) have either intentionally shorter lifespans, or shorter lifespans through lack of effort of the companies. Either way is bad and we should 100% demand better. Planned obsolescence through 0 investment into durability is still planned obsolescence even if big corpos don't say "planned".

I bought a 65" 4K TV like 5 years ago and I honestly would be happy to use that as my main TV until I die or some crazy hyper-3D-now-also-cleans-your-house tech comes out. But there's almost no chance it'll last as long as previous generations of TVs did, which sucks for the environment most but also consumers.

Edit: I just remembered we had to buy a new Fire Stick for my GFs bedroom TV, she's had it for like 6-7 years but app "updates" made it so slow most of the streaming apps would just crash when trying to play videos. That's another form of obsolescence, but at least it's a lot cheaper and less wasteful to work around.
 
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C-Dub

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
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Man, I love my iPad(s), but Steam Deck for me is awesome.

If I had to pick between buying one or the other, I'm honestly not sure what I'd choose.
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

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C-Dub said:
Man, I love my iPad(s), but Steam Deck for me is awesome.

If I had to pick between buying one or the other, I'm honestly not sure what I'd choose.
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Forgetting the Deck is already hard, but damn at Apple pricing.
I rode an Ipad Pro 2017 or something, just before Apple went berserk with their prices.
 
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C-Dub

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
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Li Kao said:
Forgetting the Deck is already hard, but damn at Apple pricing.
I rode an Ipad Pro 2017 or something, just before Apple went berserk with their prices.
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They are expensive, but do last a long time in comparison to other devices. I have an iPad Pro 11" (M1) and an iPad mini 6 (A15 Bionic) and I expect both will last me many more years to come.
 
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Kyougar

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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Li Kao said:
Incredible. One hour before order and my ipad sleep button broke.
I have so many feelings.

Not really sure about what to purchase anymore, I use the ipad A LOT.
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I was a PC Tower purist for a very long time but after I got a tablet I don't want to miss it anymore.
I have struggled with insomnia for over 2 decades and apparently, the easiest solution was just to lay in bed with a tablet either reading novels/manga or listen to Audible audiobooks.
Only the Youtube watching experience isn't that great, need a bigger display for that.
 
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Sobatronix

Sobatronix

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I'm gonna ask a friend of mine who lives in Miami to buy the 512 gb OLED model for me. Hopefully, there are still decks left when she buys it. I gave into fomo guys :notlikethisblob:
 
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