It's Steam Summer Sale time. Thankfully my wallet has managed to remain unsullied. I think a lot of it is that the same games seem to be what go on sale every time, so I've already bought most of the games that would have interested me. At least that's the conclusion that I'm drawing with the way that every time I see a sale on a game I might want, I already have it. Seems the gimmick this time is that players are split into 5 teams, and they get points when they craft a badge. At the end of each day the points are tallied, and thirty people on the winning team get three of the games on their wishlist for free. Only problem is that there are tokens that players can randomly (albeit rarely) acquire when they craft a badge that allows them to switch teams. This has had the predictable effect of causing players to jump to winning teams, thus causing them to gain all the more advantage. So far, of the 3 days the sale has been running, only one of the days has seen a close race, and even that was only between 2 of the 5 teams. The other two days it was a wide gap between the winning team and the rest. If they do something like this for the rest of their Summer/Winter sales, I'm hoping they do away with the ability to hop teams. It's a neat idea outside of the blatant one-sidedness of the whole thing.
Meanwhile Google Play switched to a song that I'm having a hard time ignoring. It's a chiptunes song by Big Giant Circles called Far Beyond Eyes. I've never heard it before, but it's freaking amazing! It's like a compilation of standard RPG tropes; boss fight music, overworld music, title screen music, dramatic scene music; all wrapped into a single song. It's... kind of a little bit awesome. That is definitely getting tossed into my favorites playlist. Alright, back to typing that last paragraph now that the track has switched to something still awesome, but not distractingly so. Almost sounds like something out of Mega Man X at parts... *Ahem* But yes, right... back to that first paragraph. Yeah, I know, this is the end of the second paragraph. Just think of it as time travel or something.
After talking to a friend about Tribes the other day, I decided to download it and get back into it. Unfortunately, it seems that the developers have stopped supporting it, which means the community has shrunk a lot. The main effect of this is that the players who stick around are generally the highly skilled ones. As much as it sucks when a lot of "n00bs" join multiplayer servers, they're kind of a vital tool in the longevity of a game. I suppose I can't blame the devs for dropping support for the game if it wasn't making them much money, but at the same time I have to wonder how well it was advertised; which I guess is a double-edged sword in and of itself. Game isn't doing well, and advertising is not only expensive, but doesn't guarantee an increase in sales. So now Tribes has kinda devolved into the Team Fortress Classic problem where there is no getting into the game because nearly 100% of the community who still plays it has damn-near mastered the game.
Thanks for joining me today's PAD, and I hope to see you back on Monday. Until then, I need to trim my beard. Oh, and game well.
-Shiro
Showing posts with label Steam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steam. Show all posts
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Game 4 Thought: When is it Okay to Break ToS?
Here's a little Game 4 Thought:
A bit of controversy was sparked when a developer was banned from Steam for exposing a security loophole in Steam's announcement pages. Tomáš Duda said in a Reddit post that he had reported the issue a few months prior to the incident (source). When he learned that it had gone unfixed after all this time, however, he took the more proactive approach of exploiting the weakness in a fairly harmless manner. Specifically, he made an update page for one of his games play a song and shake around. When Valve saw what he did, they nearly-immediately fixed the vulnerability and then gave him a year-long ban from his developer access, and from the Steam Community. Thankfully they were able to get in touch and the ban was lifted within a few days. So it all had a happy ending, but there was still some controversy during the interim that I feel is worth talking about.
Simply put, some people felt that Valve was being completely unreasonable in their ban, while others basically shrugged and said "He broke the ToS, he got a ban. What's the big deal?" The latter group is who I would like to address with this. The big deal is that it isn't as cut and dry as simply breaking the ToS. It's about the message he was trying to send. Yes, he did break the ToS, but he did so in order to expose a weakness that Valve was apparently content to ignore. Just how harmful could the weakness be though? After-all, he only made music play and caused the screen to shake around. Well, according to posts on the Reddit thread discussing the matter, it can get a lot worse than that. Worse as-in someone could write-up a script that directs you to what looks like the Steam Store, but when you make a purchase the money goes to the script writer instead of to Steam, and obviously you don't get the game. Apparently there are other possibilities other than that, but I'd say that even just being able to steal money from Valve's customers is enough of an exploit to label this vulnerability as a big freaking deal.
So here's a little breakdown: Best-case scenario, Valve simply has a very slow ticketing process, to the point where reporting an issue could take months before anyone sees it. The exploit would probably have been fixed, but who knows when they'd finally get the ticket alerting them? In this case, Valve seriously needs to send someone down there to kick some asses into gear. It is completely unacceptable that vulnerabilities like this could exist, and they aren't getting fixed because the guys in charge of reading bug reports are too busy playing Skyrim or something. Worst-case scenario, an official at Valve DID read the ticket, and then just threw it out! Regardless of whether or not the vulnerability was explained in a way that made it sound threatening, an exploit is still an exploit! It's Valves responsibility to seal-up any potential threats, big or small. In either case, it is 100% Valve's fault that the developer was able to take advantage of this loophole when he did; it should have been long-since fixed.
As a customer on Steam, knowing that they're so slap-dash about fixing security loopholes is kind of worrying to me. So when someone makes it apparent by doing something completely harmless? Damn straight I'm on his side! The thing that worries me is the people who were rallying to support Valve on their decision. Don't get me wrong, I understand that some people are just Neutral/Lawful, so the law is the law is the law (or in this case, the ToS is the ToS is the ToS), but that still doesn't address the core issue: Valve was told about a vulnerability in their program that would, in addition to other potential problems, allow an enterprising hacker to create a pseudo-store that would steal money from their customers, and they didn't fix it! So are we saying that we DON'T want developers to take the pro-active stance of doing something harmless when these exploits go unfixed in order to draw attention to them?
"Well, if Valve doesn't fix the problems, then it can just be their fault when someone DOES take advantage of them. This guy didn't have to break the ToS, so he still deserves his punishment," the argument tends to go. That's just it, though, I DON'T WANT SOMEONE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE IN THE FIRST PLACE! I am a customer on Steam. You know who gets screwed when someone hacks into Steam and is able to, for example, create a false Store that sends customers' money to someone's account and then doesn't reward the game that was "purchased"? ME! I don't care how much egg gets on Valve's face when the exploit happens. I don't care that some developer can jump-up and shout, "HA! I reported this AGES ago, it should have been fixed!" No, I care that potentially up to $60 of my money (per game in the purchase) is now squatting in some guy's account. Maybe I'll get the money back, but I probably won't. Maybe Valve will give me a key to unlock the game that I didn't actually purchase, but maybe they won't if there's no sufficient way to prove that I did in fact fall victim to the exploit.
No, I'd rather just avoid all of that potential hassle, and any hassle from other problems caused by this exploit. I might not even fall victim to the exploit, but I'd still rather not have to deal with it happening in the first place. I would rather a well-intentioned developer create a harmless little prank to illustrate the loophole so that Valve has to notice and fix it. I would rather that any exploits in Steam's coding be fixed and sealed-off. I would rather not like to hear about Valve banning developers when they do something harmless to highlight an exploit that has seemingly gone ignored. I'm not saying that Valve should throw this guy a ticker-tape parade, but to have banned him when his actions were strictly in favor of pointing out a loophole before someone can use it in a way that's actually harmful? As a customer on Steam, I don't like that one bit.
This has been some Game 4 Thought. Thanks for reading.
-Shiro
A bit of controversy was sparked when a developer was banned from Steam for exposing a security loophole in Steam's announcement pages. Tomáš Duda said in a Reddit post that he had reported the issue a few months prior to the incident (source). When he learned that it had gone unfixed after all this time, however, he took the more proactive approach of exploiting the weakness in a fairly harmless manner. Specifically, he made an update page for one of his games play a song and shake around. When Valve saw what he did, they nearly-immediately fixed the vulnerability and then gave him a year-long ban from his developer access, and from the Steam Community. Thankfully they were able to get in touch and the ban was lifted within a few days. So it all had a happy ending, but there was still some controversy during the interim that I feel is worth talking about.
Simply put, some people felt that Valve was being completely unreasonable in their ban, while others basically shrugged and said "He broke the ToS, he got a ban. What's the big deal?" The latter group is who I would like to address with this. The big deal is that it isn't as cut and dry as simply breaking the ToS. It's about the message he was trying to send. Yes, he did break the ToS, but he did so in order to expose a weakness that Valve was apparently content to ignore. Just how harmful could the weakness be though? After-all, he only made music play and caused the screen to shake around. Well, according to posts on the Reddit thread discussing the matter, it can get a lot worse than that. Worse as-in someone could write-up a script that directs you to what looks like the Steam Store, but when you make a purchase the money goes to the script writer instead of to Steam, and obviously you don't get the game. Apparently there are other possibilities other than that, but I'd say that even just being able to steal money from Valve's customers is enough of an exploit to label this vulnerability as a big freaking deal.
So here's a little breakdown: Best-case scenario, Valve simply has a very slow ticketing process, to the point where reporting an issue could take months before anyone sees it. The exploit would probably have been fixed, but who knows when they'd finally get the ticket alerting them? In this case, Valve seriously needs to send someone down there to kick some asses into gear. It is completely unacceptable that vulnerabilities like this could exist, and they aren't getting fixed because the guys in charge of reading bug reports are too busy playing Skyrim or something. Worst-case scenario, an official at Valve DID read the ticket, and then just threw it out! Regardless of whether or not the vulnerability was explained in a way that made it sound threatening, an exploit is still an exploit! It's Valves responsibility to seal-up any potential threats, big or small. In either case, it is 100% Valve's fault that the developer was able to take advantage of this loophole when he did; it should have been long-since fixed.
As a customer on Steam, knowing that they're so slap-dash about fixing security loopholes is kind of worrying to me. So when someone makes it apparent by doing something completely harmless? Damn straight I'm on his side! The thing that worries me is the people who were rallying to support Valve on their decision. Don't get me wrong, I understand that some people are just Neutral/Lawful, so the law is the law is the law (or in this case, the ToS is the ToS is the ToS), but that still doesn't address the core issue: Valve was told about a vulnerability in their program that would, in addition to other potential problems, allow an enterprising hacker to create a pseudo-store that would steal money from their customers, and they didn't fix it! So are we saying that we DON'T want developers to take the pro-active stance of doing something harmless when these exploits go unfixed in order to draw attention to them?
"Well, if Valve doesn't fix the problems, then it can just be their fault when someone DOES take advantage of them. This guy didn't have to break the ToS, so he still deserves his punishment," the argument tends to go. That's just it, though, I DON'T WANT SOMEONE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE IN THE FIRST PLACE! I am a customer on Steam. You know who gets screwed when someone hacks into Steam and is able to, for example, create a false Store that sends customers' money to someone's account and then doesn't reward the game that was "purchased"? ME! I don't care how much egg gets on Valve's face when the exploit happens. I don't care that some developer can jump-up and shout, "HA! I reported this AGES ago, it should have been fixed!" No, I care that potentially up to $60 of my money (per game in the purchase) is now squatting in some guy's account. Maybe I'll get the money back, but I probably won't. Maybe Valve will give me a key to unlock the game that I didn't actually purchase, but maybe they won't if there's no sufficient way to prove that I did in fact fall victim to the exploit.
No, I'd rather just avoid all of that potential hassle, and any hassle from other problems caused by this exploit. I might not even fall victim to the exploit, but I'd still rather not have to deal with it happening in the first place. I would rather a well-intentioned developer create a harmless little prank to illustrate the loophole so that Valve has to notice and fix it. I would rather that any exploits in Steam's coding be fixed and sealed-off. I would rather not like to hear about Valve banning developers when they do something harmless to highlight an exploit that has seemingly gone ignored. I'm not saying that Valve should throw this guy a ticker-tape parade, but to have banned him when his actions were strictly in favor of pointing out a loophole before someone can use it in a way that's actually harmful? As a customer on Steam, I don't like that one bit.
This has been some Game 4 Thought. Thanks for reading.
-Shiro
Saturday, May 31, 2014
PAD #9: Can't Be Bothered to Come-up With a Title 'Cause I Wanna Get Back to Wildstar
And Wildstar's early access has started today. It's a game that's had my interest ever since their first trailer a number of years ago (which I was gonna link to, but couldn't find), but I never really followed it all that closely like one of my WoW guildmates did. Now that the game is finally out (for pre-order customers, at least), we've all jumped into it with the hopes that we'll get into it like we did with WoW. From what I've played so far (both of beta and live), it's an interesting game. Probably my favorite part about it is how the combat varies from other MMOs. Nearly every attack is AoE-based, with the area of effect showing on the ground so you know where you're targeting. Some attacks will follow you if you move, where others will continue their effect based on where you were when you launched it or where you placed it. So far I'm having a lot of fun with a Cassian Medic (though I wanted to be an Exile Esper).
The creator of "Rust" (who I didn't know was also the same "Garry" behind "Garry's Mod") chimed-in about the massive amount of games being put on Steam's service. Short version, he sees it as a good thing. That's undoubtedly going to ruffle some feathers, but I don't necessarily disagree with him. His stance is that it's a good thing because it forces developers to have to step up and make sure that their game stands above the others; do a little extra leg work, as it were. Basically the idea that more competition is a good thing. Why play this game and not the dozens of others that play just like it? Because this one has that extra bit of polish that I like, or maybe it has an art style that appeals to me. I've always been on the fence about the whole issue, mostly because I know how to look for a good game and am not afraid to do a little extra skimming to find it. Sometimes I wonder if maybe gamers just got too accustomed to the model where only "good" games were ever released, so now they feel a little spoiled for choice now that they actually have to filter passed a few lemons. I'll definitely say this, though: Gamers got what they asked for. They just didn't consider the negative side effects of what they wanted.
The creator of "Rust" (who I didn't know was also the same "Garry" behind "Garry's Mod") chimed-in about the massive amount of games being put on Steam's service. Short version, he sees it as a good thing. That's undoubtedly going to ruffle some feathers, but I don't necessarily disagree with him. His stance is that it's a good thing because it forces developers to have to step up and make sure that their game stands above the others; do a little extra leg work, as it were. Basically the idea that more competition is a good thing. Why play this game and not the dozens of others that play just like it? Because this one has that extra bit of polish that I like, or maybe it has an art style that appeals to me. I've always been on the fence about the whole issue, mostly because I know how to look for a good game and am not afraid to do a little extra skimming to find it. Sometimes I wonder if maybe gamers just got too accustomed to the model where only "good" games were ever released, so now they feel a little spoiled for choice now that they actually have to filter passed a few lemons. I'll definitely say this, though: Gamers got what they asked for. They just didn't consider the negative side effects of what they wanted.
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