I wrote something but I'm not 100% sure it wont go against the latest mod message so I'll just leave it out.Wait, we have to be accepting of being spied on to be more acceptive of other cultures? Huh? Not to mention it's almost impossible to consume nothing from China, I would be willing to bet my entire life savings on the fact you have an electronic device in your house that had the majority of it manufactured in China. Not to mention if you've ever played games like LoL or used gaming services with Chinese stakes in them.
I've seen a tonne of (RIGHTFUL) criticism of the Chinese government but dislike and distrust of the Chinese government =/= xenophobia or racism against the Chinese people and saying otherwise is super disingenuous. Saying that, yes anti-Chinese sentiment and xenophobia is getting louder and larger which is fucking awful but acting like the majority of people talking about the Epic scraping debacle were subscribing to conspiracies or xenophobic rhetoric is disingenuous at best.
This article, in particular, comes as a massive red herring. Yes there were conspiracy theories, no the conspiracy theories weren't the point for the vast majority of people I saw talking about this, ESPECIALLY on ERA. Completely ignoring the Tencent stakes in Epic, there are legitimate privacy concerns with the Epic data scraping and the way they have handled their storefront and privacy policies that this article tries to handwave away as xenophobia which is terrible journalism, for shame USGamer.
I have actually been thinking about the whole ethics thing behind Steamspy for a whle now.It also collects playtime data, which, given Epic's head of publishing strategy happens to be the person behind SteamSpy, has understandably raised some eyebrows.
Good to see someone finally calling this stuff out.
You can say the Epic store sucks, fine, whatever.
You can say the Chinese government sucks, sure why not.
But you can't say Epic's involvement in Tencent makes them a willing or unwilling puppet of the Chinese government. There is simply no evidence. And people falling back to this baseless argument is nothing more than racism.
So I went and looked back at the Era thread on the topic of Epic Game Store lifting Steam data through the Steam folder and not through the API and, yep, as I guessed it was OP'ed as a look at the data scraping: https://www.resetera.com/threads/de...ry-up2-valve-responds-see-threadmarks.105385/
Nowhere is there mention of Chinese government influence in the OP and it was indeed only coming from the end part of the Reddit thread as if a throw in conspiracy was casual banter. The main argument was and has always been Epic scraping Steam data illegitimately which Epic even confessed was the case and they had to implement the Steam API. So this article is not actually that great, because it is muddling in the core issue being Epic conducting scraping of data that they should not have been doing due to a legal, Steam-supported API.
In other words, this US Gamer article is poop. It is skewing on a very minor part of the overall issue, which is definitely worth a discussion because xenophobia is very easy to blend into any argument these days without actually realising you are partaking in it but this just confuddles the main argument.
Hand-waving of legitimate arguments against Epic's conduct so far should not be allowed and is just stifling proper discussion on the topic. You saying that those who are "more vocal" are just haters and need to lay off Epic is simply ignoring legitimate arguments against which for the most part are actually quite sound and entirely supportive of most of what Epic is doing. The majority in Era threads even encourage Epic to be a part of the PC platform, simply the exclusivity bandwagon is not needed and just fracturing a market in which Epic previously stated they hated such monopolies.
I don't remember anyone making accusations that Epic was spying for the Chinese government.
I have actually been thinking about the whole ethics thing behind Steamspy for a whle now.
Yet people in this very topic accuse everyone who has problems with the EGS of being racist.I do. It was a definite thing. Not a major thing, but it did come up.
There was also the thing where some peeps were saying Epic paid journalists to cape for them, which again, wasn't major, but was definitely something that popped through.
It's important to note that if you think the article is about you, that's going to color your response and make you super defensive. This article is more specifically focused on the people using the situation in an opportunistic manner. That is a very small amount of people.
Do you know the guy behind it is still taking a large amount of money from Patreon for SteamSpy data? While being fully employed by Epic? Not scummy at all.
No it's an incredibly real sentiment. I've even seen streamers I watched asking their chat if the Chinese spyware thing was real because it was all over Twitter.I don't remember anyone making accusations that Epic was spying for the Chinese government
Yet people in this very topic accuse everyone who has problems with the EGS of being racist.
The problem is that no-one can say anything definitively either way.It allows you to (opt-in) import your steam friends. nothing I've read anywhere suggests, that they collect anything more than that. yes, it should have been done through their API, no that doesn't make it spyware.
I do. It was a definite thing. Not a major thing, but it did come up.
There was also the thing where some peeps were saying Epic paid journalists to cape for them, which again, wasn't major, but was definitely something that popped through.
It's important to note that if you think the article is about you, that's going to color your response and make you super defensive. This article is more specifically focused on the people using the situation in an opportunistic manner. That is a very small amount of people.
Tencent does not have a majority stake in Epic. It's close - 48% or so - but it's not majority.I would not trust anything that Tencent has the majority stake in.
That's just logical.
Tencent does not have a majority stake in Epic. It's close - 48% or so - but it's not majority.
Nope. Majority stakeholder is over 50%:Majority stakeholder means that one company owns more stocks in another company than anyone else. Nearly 50% is the majority, because no one else can beat that, not even the owner of the company (Sweeney).
Do you remember when Ubisoft was going insane with loans to buy back their own stock to prevent ZeniMax from doing a take over? ZeniMax owned less than 30% if I recall right.
Normally I would say this is conspiratorial nonsense, but considering the shadiness of the likes of Huawei and how deeply they have penetrated the west, these days you just can't underestimate the chinese government and their influence.
Era has a pretty huge hard on for Steam/Gabe so it was to be expected.era was happy to follow along, so yeah, maybe not just single out reddit there
I really don't like that several western countries with the US at the front have started with racism against chinese. Yes, I've seen posts (not on era but on other forums/news sites of how bad the chinese people are.... It's everywhere, last weeks it's been about how Huawei spies on everyone. I'm from Sweden and I can say that I don't really care if the chinese would spy on me, I already know that US is spying on me and that scares me more because I consume american media and services, while I don't consume a single thing from China.
We should be more open to other cultures.
Epic Games Store not being availalble in China has more to do with EGS being a glorified modification of the Fortnite Launcher. Fortnite being a F2P game has some tougher regulation in China and they did not it launch it themselves there (and irc is published by Tencent in their own platform together with Pubg).Isn't Epic Games not releasing titles in China more evidence that Tencent may have some kind of influence over them? Isn't Tencent like 'the' digital games platform in China? Pretty much the Steam of China? If EGS were to release there the would be competing with their own shareholders.
I'm pretty sure it's been stated 2 members of the Board of Directors on Epic are from Tencent so they aren't totally hands off they are a part of every major decision the company takes.
Isn't Epic Games not releasing titles in China more evidence that Tencent may have some kind of influence over them? Isn't Tencent like 'the' digital games platform in China? Pretty much the Steam of China? If EGS were to release there the would be competing with their own shareholders.
I'm pretty sure it's been stated 2 members of the Board of Directors on Epic are from Tencent so they aren't totally hands off they are a part of every major decision the company takes.
It's expected that by using EGS, Tencent acquires data on how you use EGS. That's not a big deal. Tencent also owns a huge share of Reddit. The problem is if the competition is mining data from its competitor. EGS absolutely finds value in Steam user data. They proudly told us what percentage of EGS' users don't use Steam.Out of curiosity if epic were to be pawns of the Chinese government what value would they even get from mining it's users data? I don't see how knowing that xXGoku420Xx spends 40 hours a week playing fortnite is of any value. Time and money would be better spent making a shell company and buying users personals details from facebook and similar sites who already sell that stuff.
"Only, that isn't true. In a recent post on the Facepunch forums"
Could be true - BUT - I would not base the "insight" on Facepunch and someone in their Forums.
Nope. Majority stakeholder is over 50%:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/majorityshareholder.asp
"A majority shareholder is a person or entity that owns and controls more than 50 percent of a company's outstanding shares."
https://definitions.uslegal.com/m/majority-shareholder/
"Only those persons who own more that 50 percent of a company's shares can be a majority shareholder."
Also, you got the second part mixed up. It was Vivendi who was going after Ubisoft, and the trouble was that under French law, no entity can holder more than 30%; if they hold more, they're obligated to launch a public takeover offer on the target. Vivendi got real close - like I want to say...mid-high 20s? but it was defused by selling their holdings to Tencent and others.
It also comes from "no Steam no buy" mentality which means every competitor has to be attacked.Era was super guilty of this too. Obvious it came from a place of ignorance, lack of understanding of technology and a seemingly innate desire to whine.
I don't remember anyone making accusations that Epic was spying for the Chinese government.
But now of course people who I don't even remember seeing in the actual thread are pointing fingers like it was a thing on Era.
Can't say I'm surprised.
Era has a pretty huge hard on for Steam/Gabe so it was to be expected.
This shit is so tiring. Do you seriously believe that people choose Steam for no reason but only to worship Gaben? Not because the features it offers and the ease of purchase for a lot of people around the world?It also comes from "no Steam no buy" mentality which means every competitor has to be attacked.
If steam/valve was a really awful anticonsumer service than that wouldn't have ever been the case. People are a fan of steam for a reason. From a consumer standpoint it has never been bad but it's a dev thing more than anythingEra has a pretty huge hard on for Steam/Gabe so it was to be expected.
~$12k per month LOL.Do you know the guy behind it is still taking a large amount of money from Patreon for SteamSpy data? While being fully employed by Epic? Not scummy at all.
This would be true, if they weren't silent about it it.It's worth remembering that just because USGamer is criticising this aspect of the Epic discussion, doesn't mean they are dismissing the issue outright. You can laugh at the made up reasons people give as part of the EGS pile on without having to take sides and defend Epic outright.
'kinda does' lolGood to see someone finally calling this stuff out.
You can say the Epic store sucks, fine, whatever.
You can say the Chinese government sucks, sure why not, it kinda does.
But you can't say Epic's involvement in Tencent makes them a willing or unwilling puppet of the Chinese government. There is simply no evidence. And people falling back to this baseless argument is nothing more than racism.