Comment on I hate when a PC game is ONLY available on Epic Games store

• chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Main problem I see is payments

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  • JayDee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Each server would likely have to utilize a payment service. In that fashion it’d be no different than how stores host their own websites you can order from. In my mind, the federated protocol would simply be a means for a person to browse stores similar to how one can navigate a mall or market.

    For games, the further benefit after would be that via a client of the protocol, you could then download your games from the various stores in a singular library page.

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    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Each server would likely have to utilize a payment service.

      Yeah but that would mean each server has to take custody of funds, have their own individual contractual agreements with game companies, handle refunds, bear all the legal and tax burdens of this, and get people to trust they won’t scam them. It’s just too much of a burden, these are all things that benefit heavily from centralization and economies of scale, due to the legalistic nature of payments. You would end up with one dominant instance and unused federation, if there was even anyone willing to deal with all that stuff to begin with.

      I feel like you could solve this stuff pretty well with crypto, having payment go directly to the game devs, and a no refund policy or something to simplify things, but crypto is too hated so that wouldn’t work right now.

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  • ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    It also sounds like a cheater’s paradise.

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    • JayDee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      What do you mean by ‘cheater’? Like ‘scammer’?

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      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Like people who would otherwise get banned from a platform for cheating in games. Tracking that down is so much more complicated/impossible with federation. See also: email spam.

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• aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Surely we’ve learned by now that decentralization and markets don’t mix well

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  • JayDee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I’m not following.

    Markets were originally decentralized, and while that has its problems, a decentralized market is miles better than a monopolized market.

    Like, are you thinking of Etsy or Amazon or something? Because those are all run by a single point-of-sales and logistics collectives.

    What we’re talking about is basically building a means for getting all the websites around the web of small shops and such (or in this case all the various game store fronts like steam, itch.io, GOG, and EPIC GAMES) and giving you client which allows you to browse and order from them simultaneously. All that store’d have to do is add the protocol to their server and add themselves to a list.

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    • aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Oh I thought you meant decentralized currency. What you’re this is just standardized apis though, the vendors don’t need to talk to each other (federate) for it. unless i’m missing something

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