So that's Valve's game

Story: Valve Now Lets Steam Controller Users Carry Their Configurations to Any PCTotal Replies: 9
Author Content
cybertao

Dec 17, 2015
1:25 AM EDT
The controller in conjunction with configurations stored in (or perhaps only linked to) your Steam account map the button layout for each game. Most games don't offer any configuration options and getting a controller to work properly for everything, even an Xbox controller that's been the standard, has been troublesome for a lot of people.

Committed Steam users are likely to need one of Valve's controllers. And it can probably only be customised for Steam titles, I assume. While Valve have always been a company distributing proprietary software through their proprietary, DRM enabling platform, I feel they have taken on a much more commercially aggressive attitude - something that's been misconstrued as a good thing by Microsoft haters and free-software lovers alike in recent years.
jacog

Dec 22, 2015
3:52 PM EDT
I doubt anyone would ever *need* a Steam controller. For PC games typically a mouse&keyboard will always be the superior method.
dotmatrix

Jan 10, 2016
9:49 AM EDT
I consider video games entertainment and art, and am more than willing to pay for a title or two that I wish to play... like music or movies. Having said that, there are numerous FOSS games that I am quite addicted to... probably the worst addiction is, Angband. I try not to start a character, because Morgoth [P] needs to be beaten... must... win... and, I've never found "The One Ring"

BTW, the main problem I have with music and movies is that shifting sands of the copyright laws.

Take a look at some of the things that I consider were 'stolen' from the public:

http://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976

jdixon

Jan 10, 2016
9:54 AM EDT
> BTW, the main problem I have with music and movies is that shifting sands of the copyright laws.

If Disney and the other big entertainment companies have their way nothing will ever again come out of copyright. It's reached to point where blatant and widespread civil disobedience of copyright law is the only rational response. Fortunately, as far as I can tell, that's what we're getting.
CFWhitman

Jan 10, 2016
2:13 PM EDT
The government has broken its copyright agreement many times. I find it interesting that I know of no high profile challenges to the legality of retroactive copyright extensions in higher courts. It's fairly clear that they shouldn't be legal, but that hasn't stopped congress from retroactively extending copyright numerous times. Is the court system too corrupt to consider such a case?
jdixon

Jan 10, 2016
10:52 PM EDT
> Is the court system too corrupt to consider such a case?

I'm not sure corrupt is the right word. Bought and paid for might be more accurate.
JaseP

Jan 11, 2016
9:12 AM EDT
Quoting: > Is the court system too corrupt to consider such a case?

I'm not sure corrupt is the right word. Bought and paid for might be more accurate.


I wish there was a "Like" button...
CFWhitman

Jan 11, 2016
10:42 AM EDT
I don't really understand why the big proponents of copyright don't realize that their actions are turning copyright into a farce rather than a practical system. The continued extension of copyright toward infinity has the inevitable effect that more and more people will start to either make their own judgments about what's fair or ignore copyright altogether. There is a point at which their efforts become counterproductive toward their goals, and they've already passed that point. If they kept copyright terms reasonable, more people would respect copyright.
cybertao

Jan 11, 2016
3:57 PM EDT
I mostly agree with you, CFWhitman, and believe copyright should be a fixed term of around 20 years (instead of life of the author + 50/70 years). Unfortunately things are moving in the direction of good encryption/DRM coupled with hardware. Especially hardware which was my frame of thought when I started this thread. When they have control of the hardware, they have control of you. This limits effective copyright protection to big publishers while the small, struggling players languish. Things are getting worse, not better.

I doubt people would respect copyright if it was more socially balanced. Most are oblivious to copyright law and licensing, if they had genuine principles they would follow them; such as only pirating media over a certain age.. They'd boycott the likes of Disney instead of wanting the latest Star Wars movie and listen to Creative Commons licensed music. Heck, they might even consider running a GNU/Linux system instead of Windows or OSX.
jdixon

Jan 11, 2016
4:31 PM EDT
> I mostly agree with you, CFWhitman, and believe copyright should be a fixed term of around 20 years (instead of life of the author + 50/70 years).

Even 20 years is a bit long for software. But other works I'd have no problem with 25 years with a 25 year extension if you requested it. The main thing I would argue is that copyright should only be able to be held by real people, not corporations. I'd make the same argument about patents. The only thing that makes sense for corporations are trademarks, and even they're badly abused.

Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]

Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!