#and the steam

[chromegnomes]

the most frustrating thing about AI Art from a Discourse perspective is that the actual violation involved is pretty nebulous

like, the guys "laundering" specific artists' styles through AI models to mimic them for profit know exactly what they're doing, and it's extremely gross

but we cannot establish "my work was scraped from the public internet and used as part of a dataset for teaching a program what a painting of a tree looks like, without anyone asking or paying me" as, legally, Theft with a capital T. not only is this DMCA Logic which would be a nightmare for 99% of artists if enforced to its conclusion, it's not the right word for what's happening

the actual Violation here is that previously, "I can post my artwork to share with others for free, with minimal risk" was a safe assumption, which created a pretty generous culture of sharing artwork online. most (noteworthy) potential abuses of this digital commons were straightforwardly plagiarism in a way anyone could understand

but the way that generative AI uses its training data is significantly more complicated - there is a clear violation of trust involved, and often malicious intent, but most of the common arguments used to describe this fall short and end up in worse territory

by which I mean, it's hard to put forward an actual moral/legal solution unless you're willing to argue:

Potential sales "lost" count as Theft (so you should in fact stop sharing your Netflix password)

No amount of alteration makes it acceptable to use someone else's art in the production of other art without permission and/or compensation (this would kill entire artistic mediums and benefit nobody but Disney)

Art Styles should be considered Intellectual Property in an enforceable way (impossibly bad, are you kidding me)

it's extremely annoying to talk about, because you'll see people straight up gloating about their Intent To Plagiarize, but it's hard to stick them with any specific crime beyond Generally Scummy Behavior unless you want to create some truly horrible precedents and usher in The Thousand Year Reign of Intellectual Property Law

#hoped I was mostly done discoursing about this deeply annoying subject #but twitter's butlerian jihad is starting to pick up more and more steam on here

[steampoweredwerehog]

Felt compelled to draw @gasterofficial’s post

Hang in there everyone

#trans #undertale #deltarune #gaster #wd gaster #ut/dr #wingdings gaster #Gasterofficial #Steamed doodles

[a-soft-fluffy-nerd]

TL;DR: Steam just made library sharing so much fucking easier and so much fucking better. Instead of login-trading, it's just a simple goddamn invite.

Read this. Really. It's a good read. Because it shows that, full-stop, Valve isn't just doubling down on their stance to make sure that people can and should be able to share their copies of digital goods as easily as they can physical ones, but they're making it better and easier than ever.

But you know how Steam allowed you to, with either friends or family, link accounts with another person to be able to establish an ability to share game libraries with one another? The general gist of Steam Family Sharing was that, with a limit of five people plus you (six in total) on a limit of ten computers total could share account access to willingly mix your libraries. You could play theirs. They could play yours.

This was a huge boon. It was meant to emulate sharing a physical copy of a game. A way to allow children to play games their parents or siblings had bought without having to fork over double the cash to buy it a second game. But it had some major limitations and drawbacks, and was archaic to use.

If a person did not share the same computer, you had to manually log into that computer to give it and the accounts on it access. This wouldn't be a problem if both accounts were used on the same computer, but many households (and astronomically more family and friend groups) had multiple computers, all used by different people.

If that computer, at any point, was hard reset to any point before the sharing occurred, you lost access. And had to do the whole process again. This was also an issue with computer transfers. The whole kit and kaboodle needed to be redone on upgrades. On top of that, the old computer is now just dead weight that you may not realize you have to manually revoke access to.

Putting your account information on another person's computer opens up security issues. They could, intentionally or accidentally, land themselves on your account if the login information was stored. Which could easily lead to purchases or bans you did not want to happen.

If anyone was, at any point, playing any game on their own library, you had no access to their games. Even if it was a totally different game, you had to wait your turn as if waiting for their computer to be freed up to sit at. (Admittedly this is kind of like the "mom said it's my turn on the xbox" meme, but hey, kinda archaic.)

You could not choose whose library you accessed a game from. Not at all. It always prioritized the first library it gained access from, DLC access and multiplayer be damned. If another friend you were accepting games from had more DLC? Too bad.

And yet here we are. Steam Families Beta fixes EVERYTHING about the above issues. By just going through Settings > Interface > client Beta Participation and clicking onto Steam Families Beta? You get:

No more login sharing. No more computer links. You can now choose which person's library you borrowed from. And you can play any other game from someone's library, even while they're in-game. It just needs to be a different game than what they're playing.

Pick five people. Invite them to your family. And now everyone has access to everyone's library. My goddamn library went from 150-ish to almost a goddamn thousand in ten minutes of setup.

Account sharing and password sharing are dirty words that "lose" billions of dollars. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Max. They aren't game storefronts, but they still allow you to access massive libraries and scream like you murdered their firstborns for daring to share your password with your mother after you moved out.

Microsoft tried pushing to demonize and undercut used games sales and borrowed copies of physical games. Remember the first attempt to reveal the Xbox One? People forget, but these vultures tried to make an always online console that checked to see if you were the account that owned the game, even if you had a physical disc, and prevent access to the disc's contents if you weren't the original downloader.

Valve walked the fuck up. Valve tapped the mic. And Valve dropped the fucking thing right onto the ground with one feature's revamp.

About the only issues I can see with this are twofold:

If someone sharing your library gets banned from a game's servers... so do you. No one else in the family does, but the both of you do. This is... rather unpleasant, because banhammers can be dropped quite frequently by mistake. I'd urge Valve to rethink this one, but I see the logic: don't cheat and effectively bite the hand feeding you. Still making me side-eye that, though.

If you leave a family you've joined? You have to wait a YEAR to join a new one. It's to prevent people form jumping ship to another group and screwing over who's in the former one in the process, but a YEAR? OUCH.

Problems aside, though... it's probably the biggest fucking power move I have ever seen a media distributor make in the current economic climate. It's the kind of thing that would let so many new games be available in a way that's easier than ever. Just a few clicks to send or accept an invite, and bam. Permanent access to dozens or even hundreds of new games with so much more freedom than earlier drafts of the system.

It's the kind of thing that slaps you in the face with positivity after so many Ls from the games and media industries. And I'm all the fuck for a W like this.

#steam #valve #video games #steam games

[phlebasthebroenician]

#196 #196 migration #19684 #steamed hams #the simpsons

[shoomlah]

HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY STEAM just wanted to share a couple of my favorites from the whole set! Can't believe that I got to draw these on company time baybeeeee 😎

#steam #steam 20th anniversary #valve #team fortress 2 #portal #half-life #dota 2 #CS2 #steam deck #my art #those Spies are making people feel things and I'm so proud

[canisalbus]

I love the duo, both the historical setting and modern AU. Does Vasco ever go to confession while Machete is running it, just to 'confess' to something they did before as a way to tease?

#own art #own characters #CanisAlbus #Vasco #Machete #hippiemeerpup #there's no way that never happened #but Vasco isn't mean he must know Machete actively dislikes confession duty #I don't think he'd want to make him more uncomfortable on purpose #if anything he might pop in to exchange meaningless chitchat as an attempt to cheer him up #wanted to draw an actual pretty and polished confessional but ran out of steam early on #some other time #this week has been really trying and it's barely wednesday morning

[skrankku]

Concept: Karlach-powered steam sauna.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #karlach #gale dekarios #wyll ravengard #astarion #lae'zel #shadowheart #lae'zel is getting steamed like a gyoza up there #withers is rehydrating #he'll be smooth as a peach in a few hours

[late-draft]

I sketched out the Fire Nation royal family, it's curious to follow who resembles whom physically and which traits got passed

#atla #avatar the last airbender #azulon #iroh #ozai #ursa #lu ten #zuko #azula #yea like keep track of the eyebrows #IM SO ANGRY I wanna see how the missing women looked like also #also rip Roku but I lost steam while drawing so you're missing #my art

[finalhaunts]

I don’t think y’all realize that we’ve finally gotten a piece of official artwork depicting Caroline for the first time in 12 years since we saw her portrait in Portal 2 and it’s this

#portal #portal 2 #steam #steam 20th anniversary #greatest hits

[waneella]

My pixel art for Steam Winter Sale 2023! ❄️

#steam #pixel art #illustration #artists on tumblr #pixel #ドット絵 #waneella

[ltwilliammowett]

Large lighthouse lamps with Fresnel lenses, 19th century

#naval artifacts #lighthouse lamps #fresnel lenses #19th century #age of sail #age of steam

[steampoweredwerehog]

It’s time for Knight Posting

When mages keep creating homuncului out of dead knights, they’re eventually gonna become their own whole species, & someone’s gotta take care of ‘em. That’s where the Knightrearers come in!

Knight Bite Ratings based on this

#Knightrearing #knights #knight husbandry #knightcore #OC #OCs #monster design #Brenna #Amelia #Perseus #Brunhilde #Venus #Steamed doodles #Knight #fantasy art #medieval fantasy #Knights is creatures

[sweet4nothing]

This is how used to going into archive of our own I am - I wake up, I chill sad that it’s only Tuesday, and then without conscious thought I automatically hit that aos home button. This time I’m greeted with a page that reads this site may be attempting a dns rebind attack and I’m like that’s wonderful as I remember that AOS is down and we don’t know when it’ll be up.

#I’m officially sad #I want my fluff back people #and the steam #and the slight angst #what am I supposed to do now #read books???? lol

[hattersarts]

isobel & aylin commissions for @mxjinn !

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #aylin x isobel #isobel thorm #dame aylin #if ur wondering why you havent seen me draw more of them under my own steam its bc they're happy and canon #and besties u know i v rarely draw fanart of that #i loooovveee consuming it but i have nothing to add #bg3 spoilers

[mushramoo]

I WOULD LET THEM SHAKE ME AROUND IN THEIR MAW IF IT MADE THEM HAPPY

#FORBIDDEN DOGGIES #I LOVE YOUUUU #I WOULD DIE TO PET THEM #lethal company #steam games #eyeless dog #steam #indie game #indie games #video games

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

chinese mantou by Mima-密码

#china #fun #video #douyin #food #mantou #steamed buns