I look at what services I use and see if I can replace any of them w/ a self-hosted solution. Rinse and repeat.

Looking for more stuff to host will just overcomplicate things. I instead try to look for ways to consolidate services down.

It’s Debian based:

The 64-bit version is built directly from Debian for the arm64 platform, while the 32-bit version is derived from Raspbian, a customized Debian variant created in 2012 for the original Raspberry Pi.

The SOC also isn’t fully open, so you won’t get top tier performance with a purely FOSS stack. I push the limits on mine (Retropie mostly), so using their OS is the better bet (I use the one shipped by Retropie, which is super old).

I actually kinda hate the Raspberry Pi because of how closed it is. It’s gotten a bit better over the years, but the Pi 5 took a big step back. But unfortunately, its competitors aren’t much better, so I still use my RPis, but I probably won’t buy more.

I’m also not a fan of Debian in general, so if I switched, I would probably use openSUSE or Arch instead (I tried Arch, but it had issues syncing to disk after updates; they fixed that, but it shows that other distros will be a bit wonky). Raspbian works, so I stick with it.

Yup.

It’s a popular proposal, and gamers like to game the system.

Is that a simulator game? I thought “tycoon” was a different category.

If it fits, I’m on board with it as the GOAT.

He worked at Blizzard, but not as a developer, it’s been likened to someone who worked in the billing department at a hospital weighing in on medical care.

A QA would probably be more involved, since they would be testing the game or something related to the game. How relevant his experience was depends on what he worked on and who he had access to talk to. I learned a lot about electrical engineering while working as a software engineer at a company that built custom antennas because I talked to the EEs a lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a similar experience at Blizzard.

preferring the ego boost of being a streamer

And probably the money. With a big enough audience, it pays reasonably well. I doubt his games are selling well enough to live off of.

He claims he was review bombed

He claims the other publisher was review bombed, I’m talking about his studio’s games, which do seem to be review bombed (overwhelmingly negative for recent reviews, positive all time).

I think a lot of people who are mad at him were following him

Perhaps. But a lot of people knee-jerk join the bandwagon as well. Look at everyone jumping on the Godot hate train. I refuse to form a negative opinion without being fully informed, because the cult of public opinion can be absolutely reactionary.

So I err on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt.

And yeah, content creators jumping on the bandwagon isn’t my cup of tea, since they have a motivation to exaggerate to get views. I want a pretty unbiased, fair take, not a rage bait take, and that’s more likely to be found on a forum like this instead of on YouTube. Hence why I’m asking.

Jason on the other hand is relying on his credentials to back up his arguments and why people should listen to him.

Perhaps. But he also has some relevant credentials, since he has worked with a big AAA studio, worked w/ an indie publisher, and has been working on games w/ a team.

It’s a bit odd IMO for him to go out of his way to defend live-service games since that rarely describes indies, but I wish he’d clarify his point there in the context of a revised understanding of the petition. It wouldn’t sway my opinion, but perhaps it could sway others who are on the fence about the petition.

It might have caused less of a stir if he didn’t flex on others about how good he is.

Sure, but isn’t that kind of what streamers do? If you’re not wanting to watch someone flex on others, then perhaps watching a popular streamer isn’t the best move.

I think the main issue is that he didn’t step to self-correct. When you have a controversial take (and I’m sure he was aware his take was controversial), you need to be extra careful you have accurate facts. When he got a bunch of pushback, he should’ve reached out to Ross to have him on to talk about the petition, which would both provide a chance to elucidate the facts, as well as give viewers more context on the issues he has with it. That didn’t happen, and I think that’s the main issue here.

That said, I think the response to Jason/Thor was way too aggressive. Yeah, he has a bad take, but I saw some review-bombing on his own games, which doesn’t really help things (I didn’t even know he made games until I was trying to find out why so many people cared).

Anyway, I’m happy to continue largely ignoring him, because he doesn’t produce content that’s interesting to me.

Nowhere near as big as yours. I haven’t bothered checking, but probably something like 100 movies and about the same number of TV shows (only a handful of series). It consists pretty much only of what I’ve ripped from physical media, plus a handful of things my SO uploaded. Total storage is about 2TB, and mostly DVDs w/ a handful of Blurays. Rips are full quality, and mostly ripped from MakeMKV, with a handful ripped w/ Handbrake.

We don’t watch a ton, but I do order new stuff periodically, so it slowly grows (most recent addition is Adventure Time).

Unfortunately, I’m ineligible to sign.

But yeah, it’s incredibly dumb that you have to claim you’re a Steam Deck to be able to play if your internet drops or whatever.

I just want to play SP, and the game requires being online always, and I think an Activision account. So I didn’t buy it. I hear they have a “Steam Deck” mode that allows offline play, but why isn’t that just standard? Why do you have to use a Steam Deck or pretend you’re a Steam Deck for it to work?

I loved the originals, but this is just a bit too much friction for me.

Yeah, I always run Raspbian. It’s stable and let’s me largely forget about it.

I haven’t followed him at all, in fact, I’ve only watched a few videos by him over the last week or so due to this controversy, and read a couple articles about it. I found this wiki page about him, which claims his career has been:

0. worked as a freelance security researcher and developer (I’m guessing basic pen tests, given his likely experience at the time)
1. started at Blizzard in QA, left after 6 years as a pen tester
2. created indie studio w/ friends, and so far has completed one game, has one as “early access” (for 7 years!!), and one in progress
3. streams a lot

I don’t know what claims he has made in the past, but working at a major studio for several years in multiple capacities would certainly give him some insight that most outside the industry don’t have. He has also likely learned some game dev in his stint as an indie developer, though I don’t think that’s particularly relevant to the claims he has made about SKG.

Is that history inaccurate?

From what I’ve read, the main complaints are:

• take on SKG - people don’t think he has the credentials necessary to make the claims he has (for the record, Ross Scott also doesn’t have any relevant credentials)
• something about WoW? Sounds like a misunderstanding that he cleared w/ his team (I watched a clip of the original stream)
• people claiming, without evidence, that he’s lying about his credentials

Here’s my opinion:

• agree w/ take on Godot
• disagree w/ take on SKG, though I do understand that the petition is a bit vague in some areas, but that’s for legal reasons (i.e. you can’t force a studio to release their server code)
• he’s a bit abrasive, hence why I haven’t been able to actually finish any of his videos; had I found him months earlier, I would’ve been turned off purely based on his style

I don’t think he deserves the flak he’s getting, I do think he made some serious mistakes on the SKG opinion, and he should’ve been better at reading the room and actually had Ross on to discuss the initiative and air his concerns.

Or just close off the most common vectors, such as disabling root ssh login, doing key-only SSH auth, and block traffic from regions of the world you don’t need to support.

Yup, we don’t have IPv6, so we’d need a VPN or something to do that.

Is it going to be online only like the other one?

1&2 got offline mode for Steam Deck, but not for regular PCs, which is really weird. Are they going to pull the same nonsense on this one too?

I haven’t picked up 1&2 specifically because of that restriction, though I’d really like to play it.

Yeah, idk. I’m guessing it’s one of those cases where he started solo, then Disney noticed and paid him to publish w/ them.

Sure, Disney acts as a publisher, but I think it would be naive to think that they don’t direct the content of those books. Likewise, I imagine they use a lot of Disney outsiders for their movies as well as part of the production process. At the end of the day, it doesn’t exactly matter whether it’s Disney staffers doing the writing or someone on the outside, it’s being published under the Disney brand.

For reference, this is the first time I’ve watched anything by PirateSoftware, and I’ve only heard about him in the past week or so. So I’m coming at this from a pretty neutral position and as someone who generally supports SKG (I’m not in Europe so I can’t sign, but I would if I could).

Clip of his response

Looks like he’s responding more to online bullying, not the petition. The only time he mentions Ross at all (and not even by name) is him giving sarcastic support (hope petition gets everything you asked for, but nothing you wanted), which underscores his view that the petition is overly vague.

The video summary is useful, it looks like PirateSoftware completely missed what the petition was for. I’ve read the petition and watched the supporting materials, and it’s clear to me that the focus is to make games (SP or MP) continue to work in some fashion for those that bought it after support ends. But it seems PirateSoftware somehow misinterpreted it as “all games must be playable SP after support ends,” which isn’t the case at all. Using the WoW example, players just want to keep doing raids w/ friends after support ends, and they’re happy to host the server themselves.

here’s the best I could find

I think that’s the one I read. Here’s my takeaway, I obviously haven’t confirmed everything (I’d rather not dig through his videos)

WoW controversy part

Idk, that situation looks dumb. I don’t know who the group leader was, but here’s how it seems to have unfolded:

1. someone says run (beginning of the clip), so he runs
2. on the way out he exhausts his manna trying to save the group
3. someone else says to come back because they’re getting wrecked
4. seconds later that same person says “just run”

I don’t think there’s a good outcome there. Either he returns to help the person getting wrecked and likely dies (I’m not familiar w/ WoW, but it seems he’s out of resources), or he runs and doesn’t die, and there are conflicting commands from the group. It was a tense situation and the group was looking for someone to blame. The article mentions the group worked it out.

I think what he’s done is pretty scummy

Here’s how I see it, taking things from PirateSoftware’s perspective:

1. misinterprets the petition (honest mistake IMO), probably because Ross Scott isn’t some suave presenter and jumped to conclusions (i.e. this is just some angry gamer who threw something together); that last part is absolutely speculation on my part, drawn from my own initial reaction
2. got a ton of unrelated backlash, like people digging through his history to defame him, death threats, etc
3. he doesn’t see his error, and instead sees Ross Scott as the unwitting leader of a horde of angry gamers who are going to accidentally destroy a chunk of his industry

What needed to happen is for PirateSoftware and Ross Scott to jump on a call to clarify the petition. It’s absolutely fine if he still thinks it’s a bad petition, but at least ensure you understand what it’s talking about so you can elucidate reasons for opposing it.

I think PirateSoftware is your typical self-centered streamer/YouTuber. He probably didn’t watch Ross Scott’s rebuttal, probably because the community’s reaction left a bad taste in his mouth. On the flipside, one of the streamers I like also initially rejected the petition (not sure if he changed his mind, I don’t watch him all that often), probably because the rational initial reaction to proposed laws is to reject them.

I think it’s an unfortunate situation. I wish Ross Scott was more charismatic. I wish PirateSoftware didn’t misread the petition. I wish they jumped on a call to work through the details, which would be especially valuable to Ross Scott to get the feedback of an industry insider. A lot of unfortunate things happened, but I still don’t think PirateSoftware is a bad person, I think he’s just a typical streamer who tends to jump to conclusions (easy to do when doing things live) and is a bit self-centered (which you need to be as a streamer IMO).

Anyway, that’s my take given the limited amount of time I’ve spent on this.

indie games that no one plays

Well yeah, most indie games suck. If I pick a random game from Steam, the chance of it sucking is pretty high. Indie games fight an uphill battle of marketing and standing out from the crowd.

Some indie games rock, the problem is finding them. AAA solves this with massive marketing budgets.

Notice how Disney hasn’t cracked the novel as a medium.

They have.