I still think it's weird that Valve is viewed as so friendly to gamers when they're probably more responsible for taking away game ownership on PC than any other one company.
Prior to Steam, I used to routinely buy used games, give away copies of games I didn't play anymore, etc. Steam basically ruined all of that.
Prior to Steam there was StarForce and other copy protection messing up your OS and DVD drives, and plenty of stuff needed online activation as well. Of the last few physical games I bought, none work anymore, Bioshock couldn't be installed due to lack of patch servers last time I tried and Arkham Asylum failed due to GFWL being dead. Even when everything worked, you often had to manually go hunt for patches, sometimes multiple that needed to be installed in the right order, and that might not even be compatible with the localized version of the game you had.
Still sucks that used games died and the forced game upgrades that come with Steam have their issues too, but PC gaming was a horrible mess before Steam cleaned that up. Heck, I'd rather rebuy a game on Steam than find out what those vintage DVD copy protection does to a modern Windows. Most PCs don't even have a DVD drive anymore anyway.
There were definitely issues, but I think that some of those basically extend from Steam and the way it worked. GFWL was Microsoft's competition to Steam, so it just copied Steam (~3 years after a Steam came out) and worked similarly to the way other physical releases worked after Steam became popular.
It's true that some of the heavy DRM was an issue back then, but I'm not convinced that's guaranteed to be less of an issue going forward. Steam probably won't live forever, and there are tons of titles on Steam that use Steam DRM, third party DRM, or rely on servers that will kill the game eventually. Just because the lifecycle is longer now doesn't make it less of a mistake than it was previously.
My biggest complaint, though, is that the ownership terms simply got shittier with Steam. Many of those old games, even from big, "evil" publishers like EA, explicitly allow license transfers in their EULAs. Steam explicitly forbids transfers.
> I'm not convinced that's guaranteed to be less of an issue going forward.
I am sure it's going to be an issue at some point in the future, it already is an issue when it comes to sharing games or keeping older versions around, but what's the alternative? The alternative isn't no DRM, it's whatever DRM Apple, Google, Microsoft, Epic, EA and friends come up with, and of all of those, I take Steam any day.
Even GOG kind of loses to Steam here, as while GOG gave us DRM-free downloads, Steam gave us Linux support and Windows-emulation and I'd rather have Steam DRM on Linux than being stuck on Windows with DRM-free GOG games. And unless I am missing something, GOG's DRM-free games didn't lead to a used digital games market either, they explicitly forbid selling or sharing in their user agreement[1]:
>> 3.3 Your GOG account and GOG content [games] are personal to you and cannot be shared with, sold, gifted or transferred to anyone else.
Digital goods ownership is just not a thing that exists at the moment. There was an attempt based on blockchain with Robot Cache[1], but that just shutdown.
Says you. Steam made DRM a no-brainer for developers and even got almost all players to stop complaining about it. If that hadn't happened who's to say where we would have ended up.
> Steam gave us Linux support and Windows-emulation
No, Wine gave us Windows-emulation. Even DXVK was not originally developed by Valve. They polished it all to make it more user friendly and fixed game specific issues, which is nice of course, but let's not pretend that it was simply impossible to play Windows games before Gaben graced us with his attention.
> Digital goods ownership is just not a thing that exists at the moment. There was an attempt based on blockchain with Robot Cache[1], but that just shutdown.
Right of first sale is well tested for digital goods sold on physical media and cannot be restricted by EULAs no matter what they say. Do you have evidence that courts would see this differently with a digital download?
> If that hadn't happened who's to say where we would have ended up.
We went through numerous years of that before Steam became a thing, almost a whole decade passed between the Internet getting popular and Steam really taking off. DRM filled DVDs and online installs with activation limits were the results.
> but let's not pretend that it was simply impossible to play Windows games before Gaben graced us with his attention.
Let's also not pretend that fiddling for hours with Wine configs is somehow similar to pressing "Play" and having stuff Just Work™. That extra level of polish that Valve provided is critical for making it actually useful for the masses.
> Do you have evidence that courts would see this differently with a digital download?
Can you show me a place were I can buy used digital games? Itch.io doesn't disallow reselling games as far as I can tell, but yet we don't have a used digital games market. Buying a random .zip file, with no proof of ownership, is just not something people are interesting in.
Not really… the rules were heavily influenced by big tech in a way that basically exempts many devices. For example iPhone 15 onwards already meets the defined standard and thus doesn’t need a user replaceable battery.
So the headline is misleading. Removable batteries aren’t mandatory. They’re only mandatory if the battery fails to meet certain performance standards.
Based on other comments, there are apparently two separate sets of rules. One of them has exceptions and supplies specifically to phones and tablets, and one of them doesn't have any exceptions and applies more generally.
Last time this was discussed, it was stated that the text exempting based on cycle counts was removed from the final, adopted version. Is that incorrect?
The batteries regulation[1] doesn't contain such an exemption. The legal argument that iPhones may be exempt goes like this:
- The batteries regulation is a general regulation and article 11 specifically says the following:
> This paragraph shall be without prejudice to any specific provisions ensuring a higher level of protection of the environment and human health relating to the removability and replaceability of portable batteries by end-users laid down in any Union law on electrical and electronic equipment as defined in Article 3(1), point (a), of Directive 2012/19/EU.
- There is a different regulation, the ecodesign regulation for smartphones and tablets[2], that is more specific and therefore might supersede the batteries regulation on this front, which says:
> (ii) manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives may provide the battery or batteries referred to in point (i)(a) only to professional repairers if manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives ensure that the following requirements are met:
> (a) after 500 full charge cycles the battery has, in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 83 % of the rated capacity;
> (b) the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery has, in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;
But what exactly is a charge cycle? I mean, the effect on a battery being loaded from 0% to 100% and drained to 0% again is vastly different from a battery being charged from 40% to 50% and being used until 40% ten times in a row.
And how many people have the free mental space to manage the charge capacity of their phone?
I plug mine into the charger when I go to bed, and unplug it in the morning when I start my day. I don't have time to think about phone charge levels much beyond that.
Can’t say I really trust that stuff like “charge only when green energy is available”. It’s a nice idea but whenever I’ve used Android devices my expectation was that sometimes I plug in my device at night but it doesn’t really charge and I am not going to pay top dollar and deal with life in a walled garden to have that experience.
Maybe you can do an 80% charge limit on Android the same way I do on my iPad 10?¹ My charger is plugged into a smart plug, and I have an automation written using Apple Shortcuts that turns that smart plug off via Matter whenever the iPad's charge rises above 80%.
I don't know much about Android but assume there must be some way to do similar automations (because I've never seen in any of the Android vs iPhone arguments someone say go with iPhone because of superior automation support).
I recommend going with Matter for the smart plug because if you use the manufacturer's app to control it those often require that you be logged in. The problem with that (beyond any annoyance you might have at needing to make an account to use your device) is that the login might occasionally expire, then your automation breaks.
¹I can't use Apple's charge limit setting because for some reason I can't even guess at when they finally added it to iPadOS they only added it iPads newer than my iPad 10.
I have latest Android on the Pixel 8. I just checked and found it under Settings > Battery > Battery Health
It specifically has an option for 80% (const) or an
"Adaptive Charge" predictive algorithm that charges to 80% and then only fully charges to 100% right before you typically unplug it from the charger.
I also wonder how this is impacted by time. If I have a device that's at 75% capacity at 200 cycles, but it's 7 years old, does that fail to meet these requirements?
Because my experience has been that the cycle count doesn't matter that much as the battery gets old. Old batteries just lose capacity.
That's another valid point: when you just keep a battery around and don't use it, it also loses capacity at a certain point.
So even when you don't use them, you have to babysit lithium-ion batteries. That's why I still love devices with those crappy AA batteries. In general, those have lower capacity, but you can just dump a device into a drawer for 3 years (remember to take the batteries out or use rechargeables) and just put fresh batteries into the device when you need it.
For example, I have those wireless Sennheiser over-ear headphones, which are probably 10+ years old, but they just keep working because they use AAA rechargeables.
> Consequently, in the case of portable batteries included in products covered by Regulation (EU) 2023/1670, the removability and replaceability obligations set out in Annex II of that Regulation prevail over those set out in Regulation (EU) 2023/1542.
The ecodesign law (spare part but 1000 cycle exemption) pevails over the batteries law.
On the page linked to it mentions the two exceptions that exempt iPhone and other flagship phones - long lifespan (80% after 1000 charges) and waterproof (IP67).
The other exemption criteria is for specialized (medical) devices and devices where a removable battery would be unsafe.
It does, but, in the previous HN discussion, there was a link to the what was reportedly the adopted version of the bill, and those exemptions were gone from the text.
> the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery has, in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;
Another user pointed out that there are actually two sets of rules. There's a general one that doesn't have the exemptions, and a tablet and phone specific one that does.
It's not clear to me which takes precedence, though, as it sounds like the wording of the phone and tablet-specific rules leaves open the possibility that it can be made more strict by other sets of rules.
Yeah I found the exception for waterproof devices (which isn't any waterproof devices; arguably phones wouldn't count). But there doesn't appear to be anything about cycle counts:
> To ensure the safety of end-users, this Regulation should provide for a limited derogation for portable batteries from the removability and replaceability requirements set for portable batteries concerning appliances that incorporate portable batteries and that are specifically designed to be used, for the majority of the active service of the appliance, in an environment that is regularly subject to splashing water, water streams or water immersion and that are intended to be washable or rinseable. This derogation should only apply when it is not possible, by way of redesign of the appliance, to ensure the safety of the end-user and the safe continued use of the appliance after the end-user has correctly followed the instructions to remove and replace the battery. Where the derogation applies, the product should be designed in such a way as to make the battery removable and replaceable only by independent professionals, and not by end-users.
Doesn't the article address some of that in the next paragraph, which includes a link to a study from 2013?
> That sample of blind children is small, but the pattern holds across more than 70 years of evidence: not a single congenitally blind person with schizophrenia has ever been reported. The protection seems to be specific to cortical blindness, which is caused by damage to the brain’s visual cortex.
I believe that also addresses the discrepancy between the 2014 study you linked and the article. That 2014 study you linked is noting that it does happen with other kinds of blindness. I haven't been through the whole 2014 study (or the 2013 one, for that matter), but it does say
> As the case-reports presented in this section show, only congenital/early cortical blindness—the type of blindness that occurs when bilateral lesions of the occipital cortex deprive the individual from vision (Cummings and Trimble, 2002, p. 110)—seems to confer protective effects.
Isn't that saying the same thing the article does. What am I missing?
> but the pattern holds across more than 70 years of evidence
No, those are also stupidly small samples. Look at the papers I listed.
> That 2014 study you linked is noting that it does happen with other kinds of blindness
Yes, from 1950 till 2014, as more and more kinds of blindness were found with schizophrenia, the type of blindness has been dwindling to smaller and smaller classes, ensuring there is not enough predictive power in the claims. Again, look at the papers I listed. ALL of this is covered.
> Isn't that saying the same thing the article does.
The article says lots of nonsense, like the most likely outcome of data is somehow the best evidence for an unproven claim. It implies the Australia study says a thing it DOES NOT SAY. Is this not enough bad reporting to question the accuracy of the article?
> What am I missing?
Simply look at the papers I posted. They are right there for you to read. The article is click bait trying to claim there is some surprising scientific claim that HAS NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF.
Isn't Denuvo actually implemented in a game by the DRM developers, though? I remember reading that they have a process where the game dev sends Denuvo an unprotected executable, who adds the DRM to that executable and sends it back.
Thus, I believe the poor implementations are directly the fault of Denuvo.
Your straight up guessing with zero information is ridiculous.
The average apartment cost in Tokyo is a little north of $400k (USD), since the year 2000 or so the value of Tokyo apartments has appreciated somewhere around 3% per year. Apartment prices are ALMOST back to where they were in 1989.
> Apartment prices are ALMOST back to where they were in 1989.
You mean when Japan was in an epic price bubble (ie: the imperial palace land alone was worth more than all of California) which was followed by decades of economic stagnation? I'd guess that has impacted their view on real estate to a somewhat unique degree in the world.
I guess it is a small island after all. Not a great example to extrapolate to more connected economies.
Still, it is twice as expensive per square meter as my European capital city. So looking at it without any historical data it is still much more expensive even with declining population and no immigration.
More like an exception to the rule really as it really has unique conditions as opposed to rest of the world.
> Sure, but if you felt you didn't get a good deal you're not going to go back.
If you feel that way about all of them, you're not just going to starve to death, though. If you've got two options and they're both bad, you probably just go to one of them anyway.
I assume this doesn't work with every airline / in every case? E.g., if I am booking with a US-based airline like United or American, to fly between two US cities, do they really bother to offer cheaper tickets based on your international location?
In my experience tickets are always cheaper on the VPN, Bulgaria, The Balkans… I just bought airline tickets that were much cheaper and I also do other bookings this way as well, I got a hotel in Philly a month ago 18% cheaper. it is not bullet-proof thing and I am not traveling all the time but I don’t recall a time I did not find at least a little bit better deal
I think, if you follow the airport guidelines (at least in the USA), trains win (or at least come close) for even longer distances than that. Most airports recommend that you arrive at least two hours early to ensure that you can make it through security and get to your gate on time. That means that a 3 hour flight is actually a 5 hour time commitment. And, as you noted, you've also got to get to the airport first, and airports tend to be far away (45 minutes+) from the main part of the city in a lot of places. So, a 3 hour flight might actually require 6 hours of transit time / waiting in many cases.
Prior to Steam, I used to routinely buy used games, give away copies of games I didn't play anymore, etc. Steam basically ruined all of that.
reply