The original Mafia developed by Illusion Softworks and originally published by Gathering of Developers has disappeared from direct purchase on Valve’s digital platform, Steam. The earliest recorded knowledge of this happening was from user GH0STexe on October 7, 2012 on the Steam community discussion tab for Mafia. Currently the game is available digitally for purchase at Amazon and Gamersgate.co.uk. Both are through direct link only and do not appear in the respective sites search results.
Finally, the Vietnamese government has officially responded to Steam being blocked in the country.
VPN to buy games, fuck that if it's allowed or not, or just use a VPN and torrent what you can.
If the game is crap then yes there will always be negative feedback it comes with the territory. It's called word of mouth or welcome to the internet. Where the truth about a game comes out really fast whether the game is good or crap. If you can't handle the criticism because of a game then why publish the game. Why should people who never criticized or even played the game be punished? Vietnam has some really screwed up laws block Steam because they don't answer us rule. And going on a witch hunt with Steam please. Where's the proof, where's the evidence of this witch hunt. Somebody is butt hurt and has a Vietnamese Karen leading the witch hunt.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick doesn't think AI will reduce employment or lower development costs, and calls it "stupidest thing" he's ever heard.
They already have AI trained to do coding.......
How he thinks it's stupid is beyond me, Especially since we see it happening in real time.
Company A has 300 employees and lays of 200 to replace them with AI to release the same quality game.
Company B has 300 employees and keeps all 300 but instead uses AI to release a game with dramatically larger scale, scope, complexity, short dev cycle etc.
Company B would release a dramatically better product by using humans + AI and consumers would buy the better game.
I actually agree with this concept.
This is key facet. Its how the AI is used. It's actually is impressive as is and really would make an amazing addition to alot of people in their jobs, not just tech. It also has the potential for businesses to use to lay off large amounts of people, as much as they could to save money on labor. I hope too many companies don't go with the latter. But since usually companies are worried about bottom line over people...we will see some try and hopefully fail. But yeah, if its to help workers like in your company B scenario I'm totally down...Just scared Company A may be too enticing to some ceos and businesses.
Value of AI and value of humans will both be increased with human-AI complex. Each, by themselves, will not be independently better than the other. Whether AI will ever be independent from humans is the fear question of humans, ironically because of our doing. At this stage, most of the doing is because of humans, not because of AI. AI is doing exactly that by our design, until we have failed ourselves with an AI development that went awry. The biggest take is that humans have only ourselves to blame when things become wrong, and we have to decide what is the ultimate goal with AI we want to accomplish. It would take a person with high morals and high ethics to make right of AI. I would not want businessman to decide what AI should do or what capabilities it can have. AI should be in the hands of people with high moral fiber, or those operating on love, kindness, and compassion.
AI is SUPPOSED to be used as a tool, not a replacement. It's designed to do two important things artists can take advantage of immediately.
- Make the ideation/reference imaging process much quicker and easier (basically using it as a google search)
- Make mundane and time consuming tasks faster and easier so more time is spent on creation.
Unfortunately, what many have done is used it as a way to replace rather than supplement.
CS7
In the ideal world yes.
In the real world where companies have shown little desire to innovate and spent every effort to maximize profits the end result will be the same quality games (if were lucky) made by less people and more AI.
Company Real World: Fires 200 people and makes the same game cheaper using AI and the executives get record bonuses.
Edit:
Lets look at history, specifically auto manufacturing.
In the 70's and 80's the auto unions tried to oppose automation of jobs (robots) stating that they would take peoples jobs. And the people in charge who wanted to make more money said the exact same types of things that are being said about AI. But we can look at history and see that countless types of jobs were in fact replaced by automation, that was of course even compounded upon by computers.
The net effect was that the rich got richer less jobs were needed so wages were forced down by competition for the jobs that were left.
that concept works in the initial beginning phase of AI but once AI learns and surpasses the knowledge and coding expertise of even the best human employee than this CEO will no longer need competent humans in that line of work.
@Hue_My£D_Long
Yes but that is a choice then by massively increased productivity and this greater income and wealth and stagnating with similar levels of productivity and output and not creating much wealth. Usually the option that creates wealth prevails because a rising tide raises all ships.
You can already make your own SFX with text prompts now as well, of course it will lower development cost and time
WARNING WARNING ‼️ SARCASM AHEAD
Sure Strauss and robots didn’t take jobs from car factories.
Edit:Sad thing is he believes it and unfortunately he won’t be replaced for a long time by AI
He doesn't, he's just lying. These people lay people off so they can get bonuses. If AI takes jobs, their bonus goes bigger and the workforce goes smaller.
Because he sees AI as a tool to aid development. He wants to use AI to help make bigger and better games in the same timeframe. Other CEOs want to replace devs with AI to cut costs and make lifeless games faster for a quick buck. Strauss has the right idea, this is how AI should be used. To extend and expand the capabilities of devs.
There will be few companies who will go overboard and try to replace their employees with AI tech. The ones that will make the most money will be the ones that utilize ai, along with their employee talent, to make the best product possible
AI could handle some of the most time consuming processes. To expediate the development, so in return, costing the publisher's last money end time.
Not reliably they haven't. Coding done by ai is generally abysmal for all but the most generic tasks.
I think maybe sometimes we give people in these positions too much credit when it comes to intelligence.
I think you mean candor, not intelligence.
If you take him to mean what he's saying at face value, sure.
I don't. And I think he's clearly lying.
As long as it doesn't effect his inflated executive salary or his ridiculous bonuses I'm sure he's fine with it.
Hahaha yeah trust the CEO suit over the actual developers making the games. Good one.
The Outerhaven writes: While Steam has come out recently, stating that Steam accounts can't be transferred, we need to think about it since we all will eventually kick the bucket. But if Valve is denying transferring accounts, what can be done? Plenty, actually.
It goes to my kids because I gave them the passwords.
To Steam: Missio has a song that conveys my feelings about you stealing my purchase after I die. It's called "Middle Fingers"
Yeah worrying about digital ownership when you’re on the other side of the grass seems a little strange, but also on brand for these millennial journalists to worry about.
I suppose if I have kids, I'd just give em my account details by retirement age. If I die young then...idk lol.
Yea, I mean just give someone the password to your account. Is that difficult to do or something? Like, I’m legit asking because I don’t know.
It's not difficult but It's against the policy. If they find out, they will lock the account permanently.
Ah ok, I had a feeling there was something like that. It seems kind of weird that you can’t just hand your account over to a family member or friend and let them take over the account.
