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Joined 3 年前
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Cake day: 2023年10月25日

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  • Yeah but it’s fairly simple.

    You can generate Steam keys using the Steam developer tools. This allows a game key to be purchased on any storefront that supports selling them, which can then be activated on Steam.

    The main requirement? You can’t price those steam keys on a 3rd party store cheaper than on Steam itself.

    For that, it means if the 3rd party store takes a smaller cut than Steam itself would take, the developer makes a bit more profit through almost no additional effort. Steam is the system users use to download and update the game, and cloud save syncing, and community guides, forums, workshop, etc.

    The developer is, afaik, more than welcome to also sell a UPlay key if they partner with Ubisoft at any price point they want (regardless of the Steam price) because Ubisoft is the taking on the burden of distribution, etc.

    The only price requirement Valve imposes is on selling Steam keys on 3rd party storefronts. Not UPlay keys. Not Xbox keys. Not Epic Store keys.

    Edit: and I read the article, while albeit short (can’t access the linked Bloomberg article sadly), they claim exactly that, that the version on UPlay was significantly cheaper than the version on Steam for essentially the same game. Valve was arguing that Rainbow Six Siege needs to change their pricing on UPlay or they would be delisted.







  • Anyway, 99%+ of people can’t consistently tell the difference between a 160kbps OGG and lossless, because of limitations in either their equipment, training, ears, or a combination thereof. This has been blind tested many times and the audiophiles that ‘swear they can tell’ are always proven wrong, they then usually blame the equipment or test. There’s tests you can run yourself too, eg here: https://abx.digitalfeed.net/list.html

    Ooohhh I did that test when I got a new speaker / amp setup at my PC and as a musician I thought “I got this”. Plus I was trying to decide if Tidal was worth upgrading to from Spotify.

    I did slightly better than average. Like just slightly. I might have the results somewhere.

    I ended up doing Tidal’s free trial. I couldn’t tell a difference. Went back to Spotify. (though now my group of people are on an Apple Music family plan).


  • I mean I’m sure it was a mix. There are a lot of stories out there about how if you didn’t stay on top of your outsourced factory they would look everywhere to cut corners to save a few extra cents here and there.

    You (used to?) have to constantly check production quality and make sure nothing was changed out for a low cost part or lower cost source material. Otherwise your product quality falls off and you’re losing money on warranties and repairs and losing customer goodwill.

    The other thing that happened is these factories, once they had your design, would make the same thing with lower cost parts / materials as a knockoff and sell it unbranded, as they don’t care about US or European IP Laws. Word might get around that “hey you can get the same brand X product as brand Y or from Aliexpress and save 50%”. Now they’re undercutting you, and you lose customer goodwill because people think your product is overpriced. Then the knockoff fails and they are happy they never bought your product in the first place because they think yours would have failed too. Through word of mouth people say “oh that broke after a month” not realizing the offbrand was made with shoddy materials, less screws, cheaper batteries, an inferior screen, literally anything they can do to save money.



  • Yeah I work at MSFT on a completely different team.

    Teams recently asked if I wanted this and I was like… “sure!”

    Now when I’m in the office and people check my status it tells people my desk location and when I’m WFH or elsewhere it tells people I’m not in the building. I don’t get people asking “hey are you in today?”

    A lot of people in this thread are taking the headline literally like it’s “are you online or away?”. No. This is more of "are you at your desk in the office or working from a different building or from outside the facilities.