The developer of Fist Puncher has an insightful "Promoted Comment" now on the Ars Technica article:

therealmattkain I'm one of the creators and developers of Fist Puncher which was also published by Adult Swim on Steam. We received the same notice from Warner Bros. that Fist Puncher would be retired. When we requested that Warner Bros simply transfer the game over to our studio's Steam publisher account so that the game could stay active, they said no. The transfer process literally takes a minute to initiate (look up "Transferring Applications" in the Steamworks documentation), but their rep claimed they have simply made the universal decision not to transfer the games to the original creators.

This is incredibly disappointing. It makes me sad to think that purchased games will presumably be removed from users' libraries. Our community and our players have 10+ years of discussions, screenshots, gameplay footage, leaderboards, player progress, unlocked characters, Steam achievements, Steam cards, etc. which will all be lost. We have Kickstarter backers who helped fund Fist Puncher (even some who have cameo appearances in the game) who will eventually no longer be able to play it. We could just rerelease Fist Puncher from our account, but we would likely receive significant backlash for relaunching a game and forcing users to "double dip" and purchase the game again (unless we just made it free).

Again, this is really just disappointing. It seems like more and more the videogame industry is filled with people that don't like and don't care about videogames. All that to say, buy physical games, make back-ups, help preserve our awesome industry and art form. March 7, 2024 at 12:51 am

The developer of another game distributed by WB, Fist Puncher, commented on the Ars Technica story about this.

Found it, it's the "Promoted Comment" now.

therealmattkain I'm one of the creators and developers of Fist Puncher which was also published by Adult Swim on Steam. We received the same notice from Warner Bros. that Fist Puncher would be retired. When we requested that Warner Bros simply transfer the game over to our studio's Steam publisher account so that the game could stay active, they said no. The transfer process literally takes a minute to initiate (look up "Transferring Applications" in the Steamworks documentation), but their rep claimed they have simply made the universal decision not to transfer the games to the original creators.

This is incredibly disappointing. It makes me sad to think that purchased games will presumably be removed from users' libraries. Our community and our players have 10+ years of discussions, screenshots, gameplay footage, leaderboards, player progress, unlocked characters, Steam achievements, Steam cards, etc. which will all be lost. We have Kickstarter backers who helped fund Fist Puncher (even some who have cameo appearances in the game) who will eventually no longer be able to play it. We could just rerelease Fist Puncher from our account, but we would likely receive significant backlash for relaunching a game and forcing users to "double dip" and purchase the game again (unless we just made it free).

Again, this is really just disappointing. It seems like more and more the videogame industry is filled with people that don't like and don't care about videogames. All that to say, buy physical games, make back-ups, help preserve our awesome industry and art form. March 7, 2024 at 12:51 am

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/03/its-kind-of-depressing-wb-discovery-pulls-indie-game-for-business-changes/

But Steam is pretty dominant. Steam is also pretty well behaved and privately owned. If they ever went public, I could see all sorts of hijinx Steam could pull with their PC gaming dominance, between exclusive release deals, leveraging publishers to use Steam exclusive tools, etc.

That's all hypothetical though at this point, but I still like to buy stuff on GoG and Humble Bundle at least sometimes, even though with my Steam Deck, and just Steam's Linux support, Steam is by far the best and easiest way to buy games.

I think as long as Gabe and actual Steam employees continue to run things, we are okay. It's when the venture capitalists and such get in, that they start to "maximise profit", and everything gets enshittified, the service tanks, becomes a shell of it's former self, and yet the vultures all take off with mad stacks. Steam has earned my trust, and they seem to continue to deserve it.

My monochrome Brother Laser is around 15 years old. Works great on Linux, as it should on any cups system. It's still the same printer or was 15 years ago, drivers shouldn't change.

I think I'm on the 3rd drum for that thing. Lord knows how many pages. Just keeps trucking.

Interplay, Microprobe, Sierra On-Line, Bullfrog, Dynamix, Origin, all long gone.

Activision is still around, but it's something completely different. Same with Atari (although theres a nostalgia brand now, so maybe back).

Of them all, I think is have to say I'm most nostalgic for Sierra On-Line, although Origin gives them a run for most nostalgic.

Valve better have Steam Deck 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. Valve doesn't do 3 well

Trump just wanted everyone to spend more on the military. He wasn’t a threat to nato.

Not US-ian, so I'm going to have to disagree hard. Back in 2016 and 2017 he called NATO "obsolete", although he later changed his mind and said it was "no longer obsolete", as well as taking a while to affirm US support for Article 5, and even saying “If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes,” when asked if the US would defend the Baltic NATO countries.

Now you could argue that he was using this to push the NATO defence spending requirements, which is a fair critique, but it sent a pretty clear message that under his presidency, the US honouring article 5 was conditional. This wasn't just a message to the other NATO members; it was a message to Putin as well whether intentional or not.

I believe that the silver lining of Trump's presidency is now being felt as Europe is seriously taking it's ability to autonomously defend itself seriously. This is probably why Petr Pavl is musing that it may be necessary to go beyond NATO's 2% spending targets, because Trump could get elected again, or someone like Trump, and there could always be more conditions added to US NATO commitments.

Ugh. $125k to get an organ transplant in the US without the vaccine. Also, the stupid tweet speculating that vaccines aren't required to donate organs. Nope, they absolutely aren't. Idiots. Imbeciles. Morons. It's absolutely infuriating that people can be so willingly ignorant.

Sure, hospitals willing and able to do organ transplants are rare, but that's because organs to transplant are exceptionally rare. Other than kidney donations, and I think liver (IIRC), all organ transplants require someone to die, and to die under pretty controlled conditions so that their organs are still in a usable condition. For every organ transplant that occurs, there are a dozen others that die waiting.

To give this woman an organ transplant is to deny someone else an organ transplant. The question is not whether she should get an organ transplant despite not taking every reasonable measure to increase the odds of that organ contributing to a longer and healthier life; but rather who else dies if she doesn't want to take every reasonable measure.

The fundamental calculus of organ donation is not everyone who needs one will get one. Who will benefit the most? This is absolutely the practical application of those philosophical paradoxes where you are asked to pick which life to save under various circumstances.

Her whole case reeks of the entitlement that oozes from the Convoy protesters. I shouldn't be inconvenienced, I shouldn't have to compromise to help others. I should get to live, screw everyone else.

I have a friend who got a lung transplant around 10 years ago. It's a little unnerving how bloodthirsty I got whenever I saw an aggressive motorcycle driver. "I hope they are an organ donor" became my new curse. I wasn't exactly wishing death upon people, but it was sobering to feel how mixed my feelings became knowing a friend was waiting for an organ donation.

The inverse of this story of this woman dying is the story of everyone who skipped past her in line. One of those organs could have been hers. I'd like to hear stories about people whose lives were saved.

Or a renewal step. If it's not worth renewing, let it into the public domain.

This is why It's A Wonderful Life became a Christmas classic. Because it was in the pubic domain, it was used as late night filler.

The MPAA and RIAA miss the point. If It's A Wonderful Life was still copyrighted, it wouldn't have become a classic.

It's like the concept of Abandonware. If video games had a large copyright clearing house like the MPAA or RIAA, Abandonware wouldn't work, but abandoned media will disappear. Heck, non-abandoned media also disappears because profits don't reward preservation.

…but I totally get what he means. Some people just aren't excited about fiddling with settings, hardware, software or otherwise. It's just a pain. Even myself, I've noticed I've lost most of my appetite for twiddling with drivers and such so I get it. When I play a game, I want to play the game, not set up the game, tweak the game, etc.

This has always been one of the key advantages of consoles over PC gaming. You can go to Gamestop, buy the game, plug it into your console, and then play. Or at least you used to.

Consoles have gotten more fiddly over the years, and the Steam Deck meets them halfway. If you are okay with online game stores, managing storage space for your games, you are already good to go with your Steam Deck. If you want to, you can tweak your settings for more battery life or performance, or venture outside the Steam Deck Verified games.

Since I learned that the EU and Germany have been running official Mastodon servers for a while, and have recently been joined by Netherlands, I'm hopeful that this initiative might be a catalyst for an open and interoperable system. Details are pretty light though in the article, and it sounds like mostly establishing regulations. Still, if those regulations are structured well, there could be an open and interoperable "Metaverse" (whatever that might mean).

Women's reproductive rights are strongly supported in Canada, but that doesn't stop one of the main national parties playing coy with a commitment to not reopen the debate.

To be fair, it seems most Americans support women's reproductive rights as well, with a referendum in Kansas passing with 59%.

It's gerrymandering and the Supreme Court that are changing things down there.