Accurate. In order for this to stop the punishment needs to be more than the cost of doing business. Thankfully, Valve seem to be hell bent on doing right by their customers, in most cases at least (just to leave room for scandals I haven’t heard about or forgot 😅)
If you think that an arbitration company isn’t going to end up sympathetic to the people signing their cheques after some amount of time in operation, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Even if the loser pays (and that’s not a guarantee, some companies foot the bill regardless to make it seem like the better option to the consumer), it’s still the company contracting the arbitrators and the consumer doesn’t get a look in on that, so future business is absolutely an incentive to put the thumb on the scale. “After all, both parties agreed to be bound and waive their right to trial, so what are consumers going to do?” is the logic. Most will drop it after losing arbitration, and there are savings on court costs there too.
I don’t assume arbitration wraps up in any arbitrary amount of time (🥁). I say it’s quicker than litigation because it is, every single time. Because it is quicker it is also cheaper, every single time. Small claims court is different again, and not at question here, just to head that off at the pass.
You however do assume a lot like my location and the location of the suit I brought though, based on my vernacular, and I’d recommend against that. “Mate’s rates” could put me in the UK, or Australia, or New Zealand, or even some places in South Africa and other former colonies. None of those would be accurate.
If you push everybody into arbitration, you’ve already got the arbitrator in your pocket and your costs will still be less than litigation in 99% of cases - even class action. I don’t think you understand just how long and expensive and unpredictable litigation can actually be, but I’ve brought suit before so I do. It took four and a half years to get an initial court date from first filing the complaint. Not the trial, just a date so the judge could hear the facts of the case and opening statements from attorneys. Four and a half years of paying my attorneys, as a private individual, with a lot less money than you might think. And they were giving me mate’s rates; I’ve worked with companies where the legal work billings were in the tens of thousands per day for a single participating law office. That shit is expensive.
Maybe Valve did this to fuck their customers, but they don’t really have a track record of that, and since in the majority of cases arbitration is without question an anti-consumer move, I’d say that if your aim is to paint Valve to be the villains for this then it’s going to be an uphill battle.
Arbitration is always cheaper and faster than the courts, because the courts are very backed up especially since the pandemic, and there’s a lot of admin cost which doesn’t exist in arbitration. That is why almost every other company is trying to force arbitration. So if the goal was to save money, forcing court would have the opposite effect.
All of those mean the same thing, though.
Also, for added pedantry, it’s “pedantry” 😉 (I wish the troll face was a standard emoji as it would fit better, but you get I’m just playin’ I hope 😅)
Yes, and at wholesale rates it’s a pretty good bang-for-your-buck, as an advertising scheme. Advertising is a numbers game about getting as many eyeballs as possible on the product, and I know I actively check for free games on the Epic launcher most weeks. Even if I don’t ever buy anything because of that specifically, it keeps the app on my computer and keeps me checking back in.
Edit: And I shit you not I just opened it to check 'cause I can’t remember if I looked at this week’s free game. Turns out it’s a good thing I did too, the Fallout collection is free right now!
(dammit, see what I mean?)
How much could one milk cost? Ten dollars?
If I have ADHD then it’s comorbid with and somewhat masked by my autism (which lets me hyperfocus, but when I’m not, I’m all over the place and switching tracks constantly). My partner though does have a diagnosis, and I’ve been doing some research into ADHD treatments for her because of the Adderall shortage. I came across a few papers like this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6574559/
L-Theanine is the main stimulant in tea (also found in other stuff like coffee and mushrooms, but in lower quantities). Maybe coffee would help with your symptoms if it had more theanine? I bought a bag of micronised theanine powder for our morning energy mix (100mg caffeine + 400mg theanine, in about 1L of water) on a health supplement site like this: https://taiyogmbh.com/en/start-en/brands/suntheanine-en/
Dissolves well, and it’s working for us as a replacement for coffee. It seems to help her focus even without the Vyvanse, more than when she hasn’t had either anyway. I really like that we can add any flavours we like, and we got a carbonator to make it seltzer too. Really refreshing on a hot sunny summer morning.
If you or anyone else in the thread try it, I’d love to hear how it works for you after a few days! Data points, y’know.
I didn’t know you can monkeys paw science
Hallo! Zis is ze German Coast Guard. Vot are you syncing about?
In practice, though, the actual sleepers would be so happy to arrive to find a nice McDonalds and a charming small town instead of shuttling down into the middle of uninhabited Arrakis with a 3D printer and a prayer.
As a guy who sometimes gets told “Hey, don’t worry about that work you had to do, you can skip it”, hard agree. No better feeling in the world. And after thinking you’d have to build a whole civilisation from scratch? Yeah, nah, sign me up for the generation ship please.
So the police just outright abduct and intimidate citizens they don’t like, in Canada?
Where do they think they are, America?
Man, Darksiders and 2 were both great. I actually beat the first one. I got pretty far in the second, but keep falling off before I can finish it; it’s a big game and I am a completion goblin, so there was a lot of searching every nook and cranny. Anyone play 3 or 4?
Np dawg, I gotchu 🙌 I barely remembered myself, it’s been a while!
Lol I think we were replying to the guy at the same time even - don’t worry, I gotchu (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
And no you right, about FromSoft and Sanderson - that guy’s a hero, in my book! I got my little sister into his work, she just finished the Mistborn/Alloy saga, so I gave her Stormlight to start on. So good.
I think this was a reference to Miyazaki saying it’s the size of Limgrave: https://gamerant.com/elden-ring-dlc-map-size-shadow-of-the-erdtree/
Like OP meant
Yeah okay Miyazaki, “smaller games”, like how SotE was “the size of Limgrave”
deleted by creator
I’ve gotten as far as generating an infinite procedural terrain for the stock Unreal doll to run around in, so I have some sense of what a feat it is to even get close to building a full game with art and sound and mechanics. This looks great, congratulations on hitting the point where you can show it off, and good luck with the release! 🙌
They should just extend the Mitchell & Webb version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y27MfF-n_Y
But then they’d have to spend money on shoes to send to Russia, instead of not paying their lawyers!