I don't trust these announcements. They announced that the early Fallout games were "going to be free next week". Then, the next week, they weren't. They were replaced by other games for the week.
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
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When a company's products are free then you're a free product for the company.
Says the dude using a free lemmy account.
Why even complain about this? Paid products are also harvesting your data for resale. This isn't a unique feature of Epic.
Lemmy's not a company shrug
Didn't one of the fediverse developers sign an NDA with Meta
I mean some of the fediverse devs work at Meta so surely right?
These aren't totally cut and dry because of the open nature of the software and network.
You can have Marxist Leninist build an app with support for donations and have someone turn around and interoperate with Meta using the protocol whos standard is hosted by a industry non profit.
Life's weird living in the free world shrug
You don't think companies pull data from lemmy? Do you use an app to access the website? Are you on Windows, android, or Apple OS?
It's not that hard to wrap your head around this.
I use a FOSS app and the website from a Linux desktop. What I am saying is the incentives for the Lemmy devs to work on Lemmy are ideological and funded by donations. The fact that companies can extend it isn't relevant to the intention of design of Lemmy.
On your FOSS phone right? Not Apple or Android?
Dude what's your point?
Like I normally love going down the Libre rabbit hole, I love learning about Libre boots, firmware, ISAs, Hardware, p2p user own and operated networks, etc but what does that have to with the idea that Lemmy isn't a for profit entity incentived to collect and sell user data?
Where are trying to go with this?
So why do you keep avoiding admitting you are carrying a GPS tracker and complaining about epic tracking game time lmao
It's pretty obvious what my point is if you aren't intentionally dense to cope with your reddit stance on free games.
Are pro both? Like do you think its good that most phones make money selling surveillance and Epic doing the same to give it competitive advantage over those that don't?
I'm against both personally, both are bad. I support GOG and l8bre games, I bought a librem 5, I support Tor, etc etc
Because I try to act on my values. All that said, what I replied to was trying whataboutism Lemmy in this discussion but they represent a another fucking way besides being fucking carion for companies like Epic, Google, and Apple to fucking be torn apart and devoured for.
Because Epic's store is bad and rather than trying to compete on quality, they use anticompetitive practices such as paid exclusives to force you to use their inferior app store.
The free games as bait pulls in people to inflate their user counts artificially for investors, because from what I've read devs aren't seeing a lot of purchases from their store.
And they are trying to force these terrible practices into the iOS ecosystem by abusing the legal system in multiple markets.
At the end of the day Epic's attempt to purchase market share has already been bad for me as a consumer on one platform and it seems like they're going to cause that same harm on another.
It's not comparable to lemmy, which is FOSS and supported partially through donations. It's entire existence is to avoid the problems that Epic-style companies cause. They are the reddit version of App stores.
They’re free games though. You may be on a crusade against the epic store and I don’t like multiple stores/launchers/exclusives either, but it’s pretty shitty to begrudge people for downloading and playing free games just because you think it’s counterproductive to the progress of your pet issue. The Outer Worlds is a good game with a compelling story, and your average person who would like to play that game doesn’t have a bunch of spare cash available to buy it when the option of getting it for free is available and extremely easy.
People have the choice between supporting Epic or sailing the high seas.
I would argue that the latter is the more ethical option.
I'm not averse to donning my hat and eye patch every now and then, but Epic is still more convenient. Maybe the high seas need their own front end...
Honestly, I bet it would have better features and still somehow make more money for indie developers than the Epic store!
Unfortunately I suspect that the legality of actually putting it together would somewhat interfere with the technical aspects needed to make it good.
Darn. Someone should pirate Steam and then use it as a storefront for pirated games. That way it's like twice as pirated.
You just said free games were bad 3 times with no justification lmao. Like you said it as a building block to a larger point that never landed, then described it as a horrible practice. What horrible practice are you specifically complaining about?
A loss leader is standard business practice across all businesses. Steam became the defacto pc game page by the use of extreme sales, undercutting their competitors. Do you think they are equally evil?
Loss leaders aren't bad.
Epic games is bad and their loss leaders support them, which is bad.
You're raging about a publisher providing deals to games that are done selling and helping them get some extra coverage.
Your solution is how you would rather people steal from the developers because that is a better way of supporting them. Your reasoning is that Epic under pays them, while your solution is to pay them nothing.
The irony in this tantrum hurts to read.
My solution is to pay for the games I want on Steam. Which is only possible for me when Epic doesn't force exclusivity.
Other people can choose as they like.
There's no such thing as a free lunch unless it's FOSS.
I had no idea this would be controversial on lemmy.
There's no such thing as a free lunch unless it's FOSS.
They said from their free Lemmy account lmao
And I absolutely love the bit about them invading the apple ecosystem. You have the strangest loyalties on who is allowed to abuse capitalism.
Do you know what FOSS stands for?
Do you know what irony is?
You seem to have learned its definition from Ms. Morissette.
But if it helps, it's not ironic to use Free Open Source Software-based, donation-supported platforms to call out capitalist practices by for profit corporations that one doesn't like.