Ugh. I guess Facebook is making a play to become the Steam/XBox Live of VR. Why can't we just have gaming peripherals anymore without some kind of platform tie-in?
As someone who prefers to play games alone, it's frustrating. The first five minutes after installing Steam is a constantly stream of "stfu and stop shoving game release/update/sale announcements in my face", "gtfo with the popup messages that a friend is playing a game", "wtf? why are you auto-logging me into the messenger", "no, I don't consent to you building a hardware inventory of my machine and using it for internal stats", and "jfc, please just leave me alone and let me play some games".
It's almost enough to make me buy a shack in Montana and support the post office.
You can download an executable installer from their website that is DRM free, can be installed offline, and you can keep a copy of forever.
The quotes have a real Tim Sweeney vibe to them.
Plug in a cartridge and go from power on to playing the game in a matter of seconds, with no privacy invasion.
I don't usually do this, but I don't think it is against the TOS, so here is my HB referral link [4] Here's also a 20% discount on the humble store for 30 days for one lucky person who isn't a subscriber [5]
[1] https://github.com/MayeulC/hb-downloader/tree/next-next
[2] https://github.com/talonius/hb-downloader
[3] https://gitlab.com/silver_rust/trove_downloader/
[4] https://www.humblebundle.com/subscription?refc=Y9dywp
[5] https://www.humblebundle.com/subscription/activate-discount?...
The good thing about Steam, which makes it good software in my opinion, is that you can easily customize it and turn features off, and nothing really gets forced down your throat. It's almost like Valve feels they actually have to make an effort to keep you as a customer. Compare that to anything from the tech giants.
If there's a way to turn off most of the recent UI updates I'd love to know how.
To keep Steam from starting when you log in, select "Steam" from the menu bar and then choose "Settings". Under "Interface", untick "Run Steam when my computer starts". While you're in here, uncheck "Notify me about additions or changes to my games, new releases, and upcoming releases" if you want Steam to not tell you about those. You can use "Set Taskbar Preferences" to select what options appear in the right click menu from the taskbar icon.
I run Steam in Small Mode, which makes it look like the old, old version of Steam before they introduced the full screen library. To do this, go to "Steam"->"Settings" and bring up the "Interface" group. Set "Select which Steam window appears when the program starts, and when you double click the Notification Tray icon" to "Library". Click okay and then select "View"->"Small Mode" to show the classic small Steam interface. To the right of the search box at the top of the screen is a selector where you can toggle what is shown - I set this to "Installed" so only installed games are shown. See here[0] for an example. This UI will revert if you uninstall a game - just go to "View"->"Small Mode" to set it again. If you set it before closing Steam then the next time you open Steam it will start in this mode.
To avoid being logged into the Friends system by default, open the "Friends" menu from the menu bar and choose "View Friends". Then click the cog in the upper right hand corner of the window that appears - this brings up the settings window. Set "Sign in to friends when Steam Client starts" to off. There are a bunch of notification settings in here - set them as you will.
To make the Steam store not suck (bandwidth), go to the "Library" tab in "Steam"->"Settings" and set "Low Bandwidth Mode", "Low Performance Mode", and "Disable Community Content".
To turn off Broadcasting, "Steam"->"Settings", "Broadcasting" group and set "Privacy setting" to "Broadcasting Disabled".
You can tell Steam to create desktop shortcuts or Start menu shortcuts if you want to not have to open Steam manually to play a game. When installing a game, tick the "Create desktop shortcut" or "Create start menu shortcut" when installing and then you can start the game (and Steam with it) by double clicking that icon. There is no option to automatically quit Steam after a game exits (because of course there isn't - "wHy WoUlD aNyBoDy WaNt To ClOsE sTeAm" the fanboys go). For installed games, you can right click and choose "Create Desktop Shortcut" to get a desktop shortcut for your game. You can use the "steam://" URL generated anywhere Windows accepts URLs to launch steam games.
Some people like auto-updates. Some people hate that they suck bandwidth, especially for single player games. Unfortunately, there is no option in not auto-update the game - you can chose "Always keep this game up to date", "Only update this game when I launch it", or "High Priority - Always auto-update this game before others" in the game properties. Setting this to "Only update this game when I launch it" will try to perform updates when you start a game - if you have this set and you have the downloads set to not download while in game, you should be able to force launch a game without updates and download will not start.
Set up "Offline Mode" now. If Steam is down and you haven't used "Offline Mode" recently then you won't be able to play your games with Steam offline. Choose "Steam"->"Go Offline..." to run Steam in offline mode. This has the benefit of being disconnected from the Steam service, updates, friends, etc.
The Switch is the first console I've used in years where it seems like the maker of the console actually wants me to play games.
(Anybody reading this - there are publicly available NFO files and posts from Fitgirl that indicate what is included in a release/repack. I would never advocate violating copyright, and I certainly do not do so in a personal capacity.)
The rest of your post stands, just thought you might be interested
Just imagine eye tracking tech in VR headsets. What a trove of data for advertisers! Did the user see may ad? For how long? Etc.
I hadn't imagined that before writing this, but they could do the exact same thing in the real world with AR. Did you spend some time looking at that car? You are interested in cars. Spending some time in the garden? Watching birds? Running? Etc. What's better than an always-on, always-ouside device which you use as a proxy to see things, and request information? MITM TLS (which Google technically does with Chrome) becomes useless if you just have access to the eyes.
Do you have a source?
I wondered if there was some correlation between Google pushing for HTTPS and their introduction of chrome, but I guess that's unrelated, as they didn't have this capability before (except for users of their toolbar).
Google does not (need to) do this. Download a program like Fiddler and check for yourself.
In a world where everyone has a service subscription or a data hose to subsidize their hardware (see: most phones, game consoles, kitchen appliances, "smart assistants"), it's very difficult to be competitive just making hardware.
Given that the Oculus Quest is effectively a flagship phone with a strap attached to it at ~1/10 the sales volume of a flagship phone (rough figures: [0] [1]), it would be very difficult to even pay engineering expenses without a secondary income stream enabled by a) real-identity advertisement targeting/data sucking and b) ecosystem lock-in.
[0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Galaxy-S20-series-sales-number... [1] https://arinsider.co/2020/05/25/data-dive-has-oculus-sold-80...
Steam is already the Steam of VR, btw. They have the flagship title (Alyx) and Oculus exclusives aren't necessarily compelling enough to make it a deal breaker.
It's just like "Download our app" to get a service the company can easily provide through a Web page, but refuse to. It's not there to benefit you. It's there to benefit the company.
This was the whole oculus spirit since the beginning.