So, I know you got a lot of replies to this already (probably more than you expected lol) but I’d like to throw in my 2 cents.

For me, there’s two big reasons to be public about your sexual preferences. The first of those is awareness. For me, I grew up homeschooled in an extremely rural area. My parents did their best with the whole ‘birds and bees’ thing and gave me books to handle puberty stuff (which worked really well for me since I read an insane amount back then). But none of those really went over anything about different sexual preferenes, leading me to waiting my entire teenage life for that point where I’m supposed to suddenly start being into girls (or guys, bc that had enough media attention at that point where I was dimly aware lol).

It was only thanks to the internet- I think posts about it during pride month- that I even learned about asexuality as a concept. If nobody talked about that kind of stuff at all, I’d still probably be feeling like I was supposed to feel physically attracted towards people yet for some reason didn’t.

The second reason, is for equal rights. We don’t live in a perfect world, and people discriminate against others. And you can’t just hide everything- you can be quiet about it, sure, but for example: if you’re gay, and in a committed relationship, people are going to notice it the same way they’d notice if you’re in a committed relationship with someone of the opposite gender. And many people have backwards views that would cause them to discriminate against you for that. One shouldn’t have to be afraid that if their boss finds out they’re gay, they’ll lose their job.

We have protections against discrimination for that, but those protections didn’t come into existance because people were quiet about that. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so to speak. And same goes for gay marriage- that was only a relatively recent change, but it would not have happened if not for gay people making their presence known and demanding they should have the same rights to marriage as hetero couples.

As much as I’d love to be in a world where we don’t need to worry about all that anymore because we have those rights now, there’s still a lot of people in positions of power who hold a lot of unjust prejudice against lgbtq folk. Especially with the current state of politics here in the USA. And I don’t see that changing anytime too soon, either.

I remember doing a playtest a few months back! I’m really looking forward to when the full game releases. c:

I know enough people have already said it, but the whole “you’re licensing not buying” has been a thing for as long as I’ve used Steam.

The answer to your question though, for me anyhow, is convenience. It is very easy to buy games on Steam, there are frequently sales where you can get games for lower prices. It’s super easy to play your games with a friend using Steam’s in-game overlay, and it also gives a unified platform where you can show off achievements, clips from your gameplay, screenshots, share guides about games, browse forums about your games, etc.

On top of that, Steam has become a trusted name for many people, myself included. While they can take your games, legally speaking, they don’t- and they’re very often pro-consumer in a way that many other companies aren’t. (To address your Destiny example, Destiny is the one that decided to sunset half their fuckin’ games it was one of many reasons I stopped playing. Didn’t matter where you bought it from, you gotta connect to Destiny’s servers to play at the end of the day.)

On the contrary, they’ve done many things that are helpful to gamers- and yes they also help Valve/Steam, but comparing to others in their field, it’s worth noting imo. Steam pushed VR adoption ahead significantly with their Index headset. They’ve done phenomonal work in making gaming on Linux viable without extra work from game devs, which is especially great with how Windows keeps getting worse and worse. Up until recently, if you had a legal dispute with them, while it WAS subject to arbitrition, they would pay all legal costs, whether you win or lose. (that has since changed after a law firm took advantage of that to try to pin Valve with hundreds of individual claims in order to get a payout, but I digress).

I’ve got my issues with them- being a TF2 player, I’m still sore over their treatment of the TF2 bot crisis and their overall neglect for their older titles. They need to get their shit together for moderation purposes, the amount of bot accounts and scams are downright shameful, especially with how obvious it is once you know the patterns. But overall, when compared to their competitors such as Epic (for game distribution) or Ubisoft, Activision, etc (for game development), they’re one of the better companies imo.

I have never had a serious injury requiring medical help (broken bones, concusssion, anything that should have you going to the ER, regardless of whether or not you actually did)

Lmao, why am I not surprised that when I see someplace I grew up around in the news, it’s only for bad reasons? Still sad tho, tbh

While I agree that I think that in most formal situations you should not write that way, I personally see no problem with a more casual writing style like that in a post like this. Seeing as it’s written as the writer’s personal account of their journey to regain privacy, a slightly more casual writing style is fitting. The benefit of a more expressive writing style, in this context, outweighs the potential reduction in clarity, given that most readers will be able to use context clues just fine.

As a side note, y’all shouldn’t be so quick to downvote this guy. While I don’t agree with his perspective myself, it’s still a fair point of view to have, and it ain’t like it’s being written in bad faith or such. But that’s just my two cents, I s’pose.

I don’t know the term for it (I’m sure someone who does will chime in later), but that still makes sense. It’s a way of typing things out how they’re pronounced. Some other examples includes: ‘at’ll (as a shortening of “that’ll”), ol’ (as a shortening of “old”, as in “good ol’ boy”), or the most common y’all being a popular southern way of shortening and contracting ‘you’ and ‘all’.

Note that I’m not claiming this is perfect proper English, but just saying that from the perspective of myself being a native speaker, it makes perfect sense to me, and just adds some character to how my mental voice reads their text.

Well you couldn’t tell now lol, but when I commented, about 25% of the comments were accusing OP of being a corporate shill or similar “you’re just giving Spotify free advertisement” stuff.

People are like piranahs on Lemmy when it comes to anything ad-adjacent lol. It’s good to be vigilant, but damn, not EVERYTHING is something, lol. Honestly, getting all riled up over an ad someone saw in a subway and was amused by is pretty shellfish of them…

Sent a friend request just now.

If you’re still looking for folk to playtest your game, I’d be down to give it a go! I’ve not done that kinda stuff before, but I have played an unhealthy amount of games, including the Stanley Parable. c:

Minimalist logos. I love minimalistic design, but I hate how absolutely BORING logos are becoming. Looking at you, Firefox…