Disclaimer: I love me some wine, so feel free to dismiss what I say as one of those brain-washed wine snobs.

So in other words, taste is both subjective (different people rate wines differently) and subject to preconceptions?

Get outta town!

If you can't tell the difference, great! Buy the cheap stuff and enjoy yourself. You're not "wrong" for liking it. I've been to wineries where I've bought the "$15 easy drinking wine" over the "$30 complex cellaring wine" because I preferred it.

Personally, I've almost never bought an "expensive" (>NZ$50) wine without tasting it first (aside from a few occasions where I know the wine maker and know it's going to be good). If you like the wine and can afford it, who cares?

Once again, it's a subjective thing. It's wine, not medicine. If spending an extra $10 gives a placebo effect of enjoying it better, then it's worth the $10.

OTOH, great food, good company, a happy occasion.... all of these can make an ok wine seem great.

I really hope that policy makers listen to viewpoints like this, from volters who have strong viewpoints about testing.

Yes, but who's the developer...developer of what? The game, or the mod? If that means the mod developer has the option, that's better.
I read it as 25-30% to Valve/Steam...the remaining 70-75% to be split between the game creator, and the mod creator, on a split to be determined by the game creator, usually giving the mod developer what amounts to 25-30% of the total. That seemed fair to me, since that means the work product is worth 75% of selling price, and the original creator did way more than 2/3 of that work...meaning the mod developer gets a great deal at 25%.
Auto repair is not analogous. Making a replica/kit car is closer, and I believe they do pay royalties...certainly replica car makers do. If the mod makers were fixing the game, that would be different, but they are not. Shelby and Ford had contracts where they shared profits, as do many other professional car modders.
It is a problem if someone takes a game, mods it, then sells the mod as if they created the entire thing...they did not. They used someone's work product to create something else. Without the original program, they would have nothing.
These companies are under no compulsion to allow mods, and if they believe charging for the privilege is a good business model, they have every right to try. I think it's a toss up. People expect them for free at this point, but developers have a right to demand payment for their product...and any new product based on their product.
Really, I have no idea what I'm talking about? I've played many a mod, and 'playable fan fiction' is an apt description to my eyes. (see Blood Dragon) It's taking a known series and skewing it in some way. What you end up with is BASED on the original, is created using the original as a 'template' (and in the case of games using the program itself), is using/riding the popularity of the original to be seen at all, and would not exist without the original. To me that's pretty damn close.
I think it's actually more analogous to plagiarism, which is actionable...or may be condoned and/or licensed....but it's up to the creator of the original to decide that.

What's the first paragraph of the description say?

"...making Workshop mods now have the *option* for the developer to lock them behind a paywall..."

I understood it to be 25% goes to the mod maker and the remaining 75% goes to valve and bethesda (splitting to 30% to valve and 70% to bethesda). But maybe its 30% to valve then 70% to mod maker and bethesda (splitting it into 25% to mod maker and 75% to bethesda)? Either way its stupid.

Do you think auto repair and service centers should pay the car companies a percentage of their profits when they paint your car or make modifications to it?

The fact is modding has been grand for the last 30+ years without anyone doing it for the money. Some have gone on to make full games based on their mods and sold them, and there's no problem with that, because the mod still remains free.

Game companies like Bethesda release mod tools because it is good business for them. It extends the life of their games, grows their community and brings in more people who buy their games FOR the mods. Just go and have a look on the Nexus to see how many mods there are for the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.

Both Valve and Bethesda are now just in PR mode and trying to put out the fires. Do you think their sole intent was purely for the money to go to the mod makers like they say? Then why is the split so heavily in their favor and the mod makers are getting a pissy 25%. Its contradictory.

And if you think it's "playable fan-fiction" then you obviously have no idea what you're talking about

Actually, you seem to have said it's up to Valve and the game developer (also Valve often enough), not the mod developer. Did I misunderstand?

True, you didn't do a break down of the 75% (apparently actually 70%?)....but in the case of Valve games, Valve gets 75% (70%?) and the mod developer 25-30%.

The mod maker seems to not get the option of making their mod free...at least that's how I read your description and took the video.
It makes sense to me that the mod maker only gets 25-30%....they only worked with the tools that the game developer spent hundreds of thousands-millions to develop. I think if you count total man hours to create, they would be getting over paid quite a bit at 25%. It's like saying people who write fan fiction should get 75% of anything they can make, and the series creators and distributers should split what's left.

I think they should leave it up to the mod developers how much to charge, but I can support the split. If you make a good mod that 100000 people 'buy' for $10, you just made $250000 for what amounts to playable 'fan fiction' made at home on your free time.
Just how I see it.

I mentioned that pretty clearly in the description. And it wasnt originally going to include pay what you want until the backlash started.

I also never said Valve gets the full 75%. They get their cut and the publisher of the game gets the remainder. Dont you think if their real intention was for the mod maker to make a living off their work the split would be 70-30 in favor of the mod maker? They're clearly shortchanging the mod-maker giving them only 25% and taking the rest. Which is of course going to make the mod-maker push up their price so they see more money.

Implementing built-in donations option for all mods on the workshop of which 70%-80% goes to the mod maker and the rest to Valve and the game maker makes much more sense. It doesn't close off or segregate the modding community and is a more democratic way of making sure the good, quality mods get promoted and get more money than shit, money-grubbing mods.

Bethesda has as much blame here as Valve do. And besides, both see they were completely wrong on doing this...

https://np.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3434it/paid_mods_in_the_steam_workshop/

"We missed the mark pretty badly"

I thought you couldn't sue gun makers anymore ?

@00Scud00, it's annoying because most sites don't tell you what the max size is when you make a password, but I usually try a onepassword-generated one that's huge, and see how much the password-maker complains.

128, though. I suppose I could concatenate some more stuff to it.

If it were left to the moderates - and you are not one, you are the other extreme - then change would never happen, because no one would be angry enough. How far would the abuse have to go, how rife would it have to be, before you got angry enough to try and change it? During the height of racism in america, you would have wondered why the million man march was necessary given that you never had any problems on your traffic stops.

I have read comments from newt praising the actions of the police when they act in ways which deserve praise.

Yet you - you never seem to rule out that a beating is unacceptable. You always add the caveat "maybe he wasn't putting his hands behind his back," (or similar) but in the same breath claim that you've never been in that situation. Perhaps if you had, you would understand that the human survival instinct is not something that can be turned off when you are being attacked.

Do you honestly, even in your closeted, warped and twisted mind, think that you can kick and punch someone in the face UNTIL they put their hands behind their back? You are excusing them on the basis that they make an impossible demand and the demand is not met.

Your guarantee is worthless, on what authority do you make it!? You have a pathetically ignorant world view in which if it works for you, it works for everyone - damn the evidence, and damn those who it doesn't work for. If your traffic stops went without a hitch, then all these videos of psychopaths in uniform are outliers and don't need to be dealt with. You're an excuse maker and an apologist for violent, dangerous individuals who are given exceptional power which they abuse.

Unless some people get angry about it, nothing will change, because people like you will always find a justification for them, and that's more reason to get angry.

Your video, Game Maker's Toolkit - Redesigning Death, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 16 Badge!

"what if.... you ask so many 'what if's' that people stop caring.....?"

Also they'll need to give royalties to the makers of Half Life for like.. every vehicle here.

@radx

As I mentioned in our previous conversations, my expectation is that once significant structural reform goes through, all the things I talked about before - much of the debt will be forgiven to speed up recovery for Greece and the rest of Europe. If that's not the case, then I agree that the policy was misguided. But it's the whole issue of trust again. Debt forgiveness certainly won't come before the fact, especially when a country like Germany is the main decision maker.

Putting that in perspective, I still think Merkel is broadly making the politically realistic best of a bad situation. I mean Merkel herself, from what I have read, is facing not insignificant opposition from a euro-skeptic right. Suppose she were more bold in funding Greece, was thrown out of office, and the policy abruptly reversed, what would that accomplish?

I can't speak to the specifics, but all those examples you mention of corruption and/or bad policy throughout the austerity process do not sound good. I have no doubt there were instances of malpractice or favoritism, and I hope if they are credible, they are investigated. I can only really argue on the merits of the broad intentions of the policy.

I would agree that the general attitude towards the Greeks being lazy and reaping what they sowed is unjustified. As an example, public sector workers did enjoy unjustified job security and there was a generously low retirement age compared to the rest of Europe. But much of the population didn't benefit from that early retirement or work in the public sector. From memory, actually measures like hours worked per capita were roughly in line or higher than the rest of Europe.

But unfortunately the brunt of the repercussions are borne by the populace who at best are responsible for not demanding more from their politicians because like mentioned before, the beneficiaries have emigrated and squirreled their ill gotten money away.

Wall of text incoming. Again.

Sorry. Again.

tl;dr:

Debt relief right away was proposed, was neccessary, and was skipped to protect the European financial system.



You are 100% correct, we both are as convinced as one can be that a disorderly collapse would have been much worse for Greece. Might have turned it into a failed state, if things went really bad.

But the situation in Greece at the time the Troika got involved suggested a textbook approach would work just fine. Greece was insolvent, no two ways about it. A debt restructuring, including a haircut, was required to stabilise the system. Yet it was decided against it, thereby creating an enormous debt bubble that keeps growing to this day, destabilising everything.

Why?

People in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin knew in May of 2010 that Greece cannot service its current debt, nevermind pay it back. I remember rather vividly how it was presented to us, as it stirred up a lot of dust in Germany. They pretended as if the problem was a shortage of liquidity, even though they knew it was in fact an insolvency. And to provide an insolvent nation with the largest credit in history (€110-130b) is... well, we can all pick our favorite in accordance to our own bias: madness, idiocy, incompetence, a mistake, intent. They threw Greece into permanent indebtedness(?), and also played one people against another. People in Germany were pissed, still are. Not at the decision makers, but the Greek people.

Again, why?

Every European government, pre-crisis, drank the Cool Aid of deregulation, particularly with regards to the financial sector. When the crisis hit, they had to bail out the banks, a very unpopular decision in Germany, given the scandalous way it was done (different story). Like I pointed out before, when Greece was done for, German banks were on the hook for €17b+, and the French for €20b+. So no haircut for Greek debt.

It gets even better. The entity most experienced in these matters is, of course, the IMF. But IMF couldn't get involved. Its own regulations demand debt to be sustainable for it to become involved in any debt restructuring. Strauss-Kahn had the rules changed in a very hush-hush manner (hidden in a 146 page document) to allow the IMF to lend vast sums to Greece, even though they knew it would not be payed back. Former EC members are on record saying the Strauss-Kahn decided to protect French banks this way as a part of his race for President in France. So they changed IMF rules and ignored European law to bail out German and French banks, using the insolvent Greek government as a proxy.

Several members of the IMF's board were in open opposition. The representatives of India, Russia, Brazil and Switzerland are on record, saying this would merely replace private with public financing, that it would be a rescue package for the private creditors rather than the Greek state. They spoke out in favor of negotiations of a debt relief.

And if that wasn't bad enough, there's an IMF email, dated March 25th, 2010, that was published by Roumeliotis, formerly IMF. They put it very bluntly:

"Greece is a relatively closed economy, and the fiscal contraction implied by this adjustment path, will cause a sharp contraction in domestic demand and an attendant deep recession, severely stretching the social fabric."

Even the IMF, who chose parameters according to their own ideology, thought the European program to be too severe. That's saying something.

All that is just about the initial decision. The implementation is another story entirely, with unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats telling a democratically elected government what to do. There are former Greek ministers on record, telling how Troika officials basically wrote legislation for them. Blackmail was common, bailout money held as leverage. The Memorandum of Understanding was to be followed to the letter, and the Troika program was as detailed as a government program, so they really had their hand in just about everything.

The specifics of the program are a discussion of their own, with all the corruption going on. The Lagarde list (2000+ Greek tax dodgers) was held in secret by order of an IMF official – that alone should trigger major investigations. The nationalisation and sell-off of the four largest Greek banks, or the no-bid sale of the Hellenikon area to a Greek oligarch – all enforced by Troika officials.

The haircut of 2012, ~€110b wiped out, came two years late. As a result, it didn't hit any German or French institutions in a serious way. Most of the debt was in the hands of these four largest Greek banks -- NBG, Piraeus, Euro, Alpha – who subsequently had to be recapitalised by Greece to the tune of €50b. Cut by 110, up by 50 right away. Banks were nationalised and shares later sold again, at 2/3 the price. Lost another €15b, because the Troika demanded the sale to appease the markets.

The legal aspects of all this are nightmare-inducing as well. They violated numerous European laws, side-tracked parliaments, used governmental decrees, etc.

Let me just say this: when they forced Cyprus to give away two banks' branches in Greece for a fraction of their worth, Cyprus lost €3.5b, at a GDP of €17b, and those two banks went belly-up. It was pure blackmail, do it or you're out. Piraeus Bank received those €3.5b, and its head honcho had €150m of personal bad credit wiped clean right then and there, all at the command of the Troika. Those €3.5b had to be taken from ordinary folks by "suspending" the deposit insurance, perhaps the most stupid decision they had made so far.

Why did they do it? Because Greece was more important than Cyprus, and Cypriot banks were involved in shady deals with Russian oligarchs. Still illegal, and massively so.

Edit: I cut my post in half and it's still too long.

@radx

Nothing really new I can say again in response.

It's natural that France and Germany being major decision makers in the eurozone will suggest bailouts that also help their own banks, no surprise at all. Witness the US's about turn post WWII from rebuilding Germany into a de-industrialised agricultural state to an industrial powerhouse to counter Soviet influence in about a year.

I think you have to look, not at Troika funding with or without pension cuts and the like, but with or without the funding. See my post above for what I think would happen in a disorderly collapse. I think honestly we can both be certain that the effect on output and unemployment would have been far worse in a disorderly collapse.

Like I said to oritteropo, I'm not debating that the IMF estimates were correct or even that the IMF has a particularly good history of reform (although you could certainly argue that Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia economically at least were successes). As far as low/middle class Greeks suffering, yes I agree it sucks. Most who risk being indicted for corruption are sure to have emigrated permanently to their vacation homes purchased on stolen money, but that doesn't unfortunately change the reality.

So which school do I go to in order to learn how to become a filthy rich watch maker?