Supreme Dumbass of Thyme
Well-Known Member
- May 12, 2022
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Your argument is understandable all things considered. It is annoying at the end of the day, and I guess there really isn't any obligation as a consumer to just turn a blind eye. The only thing I have an issue with is how you framed my use of "made aware" as if I expected them to just magically learn. I was using it as a short hand way of saying "if they looked for other options, they didn't find any better ones, and the audience to their current knowledge hasn't presented a better alternative."Except now "as many people as possible" are made to wait longer, including those that never planned on buying the game on Steam, anyway. That is what I was alluding to with the "effort" part: like I said, "altering the game" appears to have won over "postponing Steam release" - it was absolutely the dev making that choice, no technicalities there.
This is just silly: nobody is "made aware" of things, you have to put effort into looking for knowledge - it does not magically pop up in your head at random. And frankly, if the thought "what other options are out there?" never even crossed their mind - that would concerning all on its own. Not finding anything is one thing, not even thinking to try looking - vastly different.
I was leaving a loophole with the "extenuating circumstances" part there: for example, maybe the dev did do due diligence, and at the end found only options that were SO MUCH WORSE that sticking to Steam felt like the only way forward. But that would once again bring us back to changing the game VS moving outside Steam.
"Release outside Steam" part + "extenuating circumstances": Steam release could have been postponed rather than abandoned, but maybe the dev, for example, expected the non-Steam profit/distribution side to be so bad that Steam was worth all the hurdles. Does not matter, because once again: their call.
Would be [a similar issue for me] if that decision were to be made this late into development AND used as an excuse to delay the release. It is not about accessibility, but about the timing of the [abrupt] decision to add such accessibility.
To be "fair", I am not even blasting the developer - at least, not in the sense of my understanding of "blasting someone". Heck, you would not see me give flak to Steam for this, either. But I still frown at the whole thing happening, even though that does not make me mad or boycott the game/dev or any of that crap: I am still planning on buying the game, this alone is not going to drive me away. In line with what the other poster before me said: not gonna hate the dev, but the delay sucks.
At the end of the day, I am not going to blame a creator for wanting to profit more off of their creation - I am not so disconnected from reality that I think "thank you"s and "wow, nice"s are a substitute for living necessities, but that is not an excuse I am going to sympathize with as a consumer, either. I understand why the dev might have been forced to make the choices they did make - does not mean any of it obligates me to appreciate the consequences.