• Re: The Disney+ price hik

    From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to Dumas Walker on Mon Oct 6 10:42:56 2025
    Dumas Walker wrote to POINDEXTER FORTRAN <=-

    PBS Passport is the only "pay" service I have, so to speak. I have not been able to watch anything on their service in nearly a year, though.
    I worked with my local channel, and PBS, tech support for a while and
    they couldn't figure it out. Called my cable company and the tech had
    me try a bunch of things, then suggested that I plug the PC directly
    into the modem, bypassing the router. That caused it to work.

    That is weird, PBS is just TLS-enabled web traffic. If you could surf
    the web you should be able to get to PBS.


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  • From Dumas Walker@VERT/CAPTEST to POINDEXTER FORTRAN on Wed Oct 8 07:57:19 2025
    PBS Passport is the only "pay" service I have, so to speak. I have not been able to watch anything on their service in nearly a year, though.
    I worked with my local channel, and PBS, tech support for a while and they couldn't figure it out. Called my cable company and the tech had me try a bunch of things, then suggested that I plug the PC directly into the modem, bypassing the router. That caused it to work.

    That is weird, PBS is just TLS-enabled web traffic. If you could surf
    the web you should be able to get to PBS.

    You'd think. I was using the local affiliate's website because the video player on the main PBS website does not play videos in any web browsers attempted (firefox, chromium, epiphany) on (my) linux systems.

    The back and forth handoffs between my affiliate's Passport site, and the
    PBS site, is where it would fail. I suspect they changed something on
    their end regarding these handoffs but could never get anyone technical
    enough who understood what that meant -- the best they could do was "log directly onto the PBS site."

    If I had some sort of "parental controls" activated, I would expect that
    might happen but, as the only restrictions I have set are for inbound
    traffic (i.e. which ports are open for BBS traffic), it is weird.


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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Accession on Thu Oct 9 01:46:37 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Accession to Nightfox on Sat Oct 04 2025 08:55 pm

    Sure, it installs on your PC and runs locally, but you still need Steam to launch the game, right? At least that's been the case for every single game I "own" on there. You do not own a physical copy of the game you

    I'm pretty sure you can run the game executable directly if you wanted to. At least, I've run several Steam games that way. Steam doesn't obfuscate the game's files. I thought Steam put a shortcut icon on your desktop for the games, too.. The launching from Steam is just a convenience, I thought. You can also add non-Steam games to your Steam menu so you can launch those from Steam if you want to. I added Minecraft to my Steam menu once, so that my Steam friends knew when I was playing Minecraft (since Steam lets your friends know what you're playing).

    Nightfox

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Dumas Walker on Thu Oct 9 01:47:46 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Dumas Walker to NIGHTFOX on Sun Oct 05 2025 09:36 am

    I don't know how people can forget about something like that. The charges
    would at least show up in your bank statements. And I thought people
    generally kept track of their money and spending and would be aware of
    stuff like that..

    With as many ads that I see on TV for services that keep track of these things *for you*, I suspect that there must be quite a few people who do not keep track of such things on their own.

    Interesting.. I don't recall ever seeing ads for anything like that.

    Nightfox

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to DaiTengu on Thu Oct 9 02:01:57 2025
    Re: RE: The Disney+ price hik
    By: DaiTengu to Matthew Munson on Sun Oct 05 2025 09:17 pm

    I actually am paid by Israel. sort of. I work for an Israeli company.

    (Yes, what they're doing in Gaza is basically genocide. Most of my Israeli co-workers would agree with that statement)

    I'm in Paris, France right now. Last night, while walking back to our hotel, we saw a protest a couple streets down from our hotel which looked like a pro-Palestine rally, and there were a good number of police waiting across the street in case something happened.

    Nightfox

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  • From Dumas Walker@VERT/CAPCITY2 to NIGHTFOX on Thu Oct 9 11:00:25 2025
    I don't know how people can forget about something like that. The
    harges
    would at least show up in your bank statements. And I thought people
    generally kept track of their money and spending and would be aware of
    stuff like that..

    With as many ads that I see on TV for services that keep track of these things *for you*, I suspect that there must be quite a few people who do not keep track of such things on their own.

    Interesting.. I don't recall ever seeing ads for anything like that.

    I don't see how. ;) They are everywhere. They are specifically ads for
    phone apps so maybe you are tuning them out. I see them here, on TV and
    during YT videos, about as often as the celebrity endorsements of those two "Royal" phone video games.

    IIRC, at least one of them is related to a financial or mortgage company...
    I am thinking that Rocket has one, and there are a few others.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Accession on Thu Oct 9 13:40:28 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Accession to Arelor on Fri Oct 03 2025 09:49 pm

    I don't do subscriptions, but I feel the same way using Steam for most of my games. While you're buying the game, you can only actually play it on Steam. If you ever were to decide to leave Steam, there goes all of your games.

    That is a related matter. While I agree that with a service like Steam you are mostly paying "something" in exchange of more or less "nothing", with Steam you have the potential to pay less "something" and get a bit of a better "nothing". I mean, if you buy (license) Steam games only when they are on discount you can get many games licensed for cheap.

    That said, even Gog has decent sales every now and then, in which case you are buying "something" instead of "nothing". And I don't think Zoom does sales, but their prices are so low to boot it makes no difference.

    These days it is extremely easy to build a library for insultingly low prices, which is one of the reasons why I say that serious gaming is in serious crisis. You could buy a mediocre gaming system and survive on freebies from Epic games, Gog and Steam only. Yeah, freebies usually suck, but if you get one each month that doesn't, you already have enough.

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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to MRO on Thu Oct 9 13:58:54 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: MRO to Dumas Walker on Sat Oct 04 2025 03:53 am

    so i went with using ooma (phone service only using the cost for 911,etc) and using using slingtv. that lasted for a while but then the shows we wanted where on other networks. that's how they play the game.

    there's no way to win except going to the download/steal model of doing things.


    You have reminded me of a video on which somebody complained that private equity was purchasing so many American cultural products it was becoming dangerous.

    One of the points he made was that it was becoming harder to have mass cultural references that connect people within a generation. When I was a kid there were 4 TV channels, the show offer was limited, so if they had anything good a given year you could be sure everybody in your classroom had watched it, or knew about it, and it was a potential common theme of conversation that helped tie the culture together.

    Fast forward to today, there is so much stuff and all of it is scattered. If you ask somebody about a recent thing you have watched it is becoming incresingly likely they are not connected to what you are talking about.

    The answer to this problem, ofcourse, was pirating everything to ensure things were widely available.

    Personally, I am not sure having the population absorved by the same set of shows is that good. I was the weird kid that didn't watch TV, therefore I found the fixation people had regarding certain shows... unhealthy. On the other hand, since I belonged to the 1% who was not watching those shows, I was automatically classified as a weird nerd everybody had to avoid. That kind of proves the point the guy was making, in that TV generated tribal bonds, but I am not sure it was that good.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Ron Lauzon on Thu Oct 9 14:00:51 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Ron Lauzon to MRO on Sat Oct 04 2025 08:35 am

    In related news, I guess The Pirate Bay is getting more popular again.


    I don't know, The Pirate Bay is kind of meh these days.

    Most people I know who are heavy pirates either use direct download sites, or private torrent trackers, or niche public trackers.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Nightfox on Thu Oct 9 14:05:00 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Nightfox to Accession on Sat Oct 04 2025 10:22 am


    Years ago, Steam had a way to let you make backups of your games so you could more easily re-install them later. One of the options would have it make CD-R or DVD-R images so you could burn your backups to optical discs, though I imagine most people probably aren't doing that anymore.. It looks like Steam still has a way to create a backup of a game though.


    As far as I know they don't give you an automated way to create a backup that can be operated independently of the Steam ecosystem. I mean, so many games depend on Steam network activation anyway. It is crackeable, you can bet no backup solution from Steam would break their DRM on purpose.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to MRO on Thu Oct 9 14:08:46 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: MRO to poindexter FORTRAN on Sat Oct 04 2025 04:38 pm

    whaaaaa? i thought you did it in protest for your buddy jimmy!
    ---

    The fun part is that Disney is a left-wing company. The idea lefties are dogpiling on them because they are not pure enough would be so fundamentaly wonkers. I kind of wish it was true, though.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Accession on Thu Oct 9 14:14:01 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Accession to Nightfox on Sat Oct 04 2025 08:55 pm

    The same goes for any other game you buy from any of the other companies.

    Well, Gog provides a launcher but you can absolutely use their games with no launcher at all, and they hand you, themselves, install files for you to perform offline installs with no activation or anything.

    Zoom-platform does something similar. I think Itch.io is DRM free for the time being too.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Nightfox on Thu Oct 9 14:24:27 2025
    Re: RE: The Disney+ price hik
    By: Nightfox to DaiTengu on Thu Oct 09 2025 02:01 am

    I'm in Paris, France right now. Last night, while walking back to our hotel, we saw a protest a couple streets down from our hotel which looked like a pro-Palestine rally, and there were a good number of police waiting across the street in case something happened.

    Nightfox

    Well, not surprising. France's muslim population has been raising for a good while, and muslims have a tendency to stand together at non-muslim threats.

    Then they gouge each other's eyes because somebody's uncle has a different interpretation of Al-Hudud than somebody else's grandfather.


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  • From Accession@VERT/PHARCYDE to Nightfox on Thu Oct 9 18:10:20 2025
    Hey Nightfox!

    On Thu, 09 Oct 2025 01:46:36 -0700, you wrote:

    I'm pretty sure you can run the game executable directly if you wanted
    to.

    Try it. Hell, try to find the actual game executable and original game directory structure, even (especially if you install to default Steam directories). It's so intertwined into Steams subdirectories

    At least, I've run several Steam games that way. Steam doesn't
    obfuscate the game's files. I thought Steam put a shortcut icon on your desktop for the games, too..

    It optionally can, yes. However, using said desktop icon still loads up Steam (same goes for any other launcher said games are tied to) to launch the game. There's even situations where, for example, you buy and install a game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023). Your installation will also install Battle.net as well as run it when you launch the game, because that's the launcher/social crap that came with Call of Duty games at that time.

    The launching from Steam is just a convenience, I thought.

    I'm not so sure about that. I imagine there's probably some kind of exclusivity to where you can't just use any launcher for any game you want. If the launcher comes with the game, thay're going to make sure you can't bypass it, etc..

    You can also add non-Steam games to your Steam
    menu so you can launch those from Steam if you want to.

    When I run "The Division 2" from Steam, that launch actually points to:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Tom Clancy's The Division 2\thedivision2launcher.exe

    When you add non-Steam games to your Steam library, you're still loading up the game's original launcher (in this case, Ubisoft launcher).

    I added Minecraft to my Steam menu once, so that my Steam friends knew
    when I was playing Minecraft (since Steam lets your friends know what you're playing).

    Yep, and I'd bet when you hit the "play" button, it still loads up the Minecraft Launcher. Same scenario I'm referring to.

    Either way, I don't think you can run the games you buy from a service like Steam or Ubisoft without the actual service you bought it from. Even if you were to find the actual executable, I'd guess it would still load the launcher that is originally tied to the game.

    Regards,
    Nick

    ... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
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  • From Accession@VERT/PHARCYDE to Arelor on Thu Oct 9 18:53:26 2025
    Hey Arelor!

    On Thu, 09 Oct 2025 14:14:00 -0500, you wrote:

    The same goes for any other game you buy from any of the other
    companies.

    Well, Gog provides a launcher but you can absolutely use their games
    with no launcher at all, and they hand you, themselves, install files
    for you to perform offline installs with no activation or anything.

    Zoom-platform does something similar. I think Itch.io is DRM free for
    the time being too.

    Oh, nice. However, you'll never get that kind of trust from the big boys, though. ;)

    Regards,
    Nick

    ... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Arelor on Fri Oct 10 00:17:06 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Arelor to MRO on Thu Oct 09 2025 02:08 pm

    The fun part is that Disney is a left-wing company. The idea lefties
    are dogpiling on them because they are not pure enough would be so fundamentaly wonkers. I kind of wish it


    i dont think disney is left wing. i just think it's an evil entity that wants to stay off the radar in regards to controversy.

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  • From Dumas Walker@VERT/CAPCITY2 to ARELOR on Fri Oct 10 10:37:03 2025
    The fun part is that Disney is a left-wing company. The idea lefties are dogpiling on them because they are not pure enough would be so fundamentaly wonkers. I kind of wish it was true, though.


    Some "lefties" have been dogpiling on other "lefties" because they are not "left" enough, so it is not as wonkers as you think.

    Just let a "lefty" say something about how women deserve to have sports
    that are their own, and maybe we need to rethink letting trans-women participate, and then watch what happens.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Accession on Fri Oct 10 20:27:09 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Accession to Arelor on Thu Oct 09 2025 06:53 pm

    Oh, nice. However, you'll never get that kind of trust from the big boys, though. ;)


    Big game publishers can choke on my dick for all I care. I rarely buy a game these days, and when I do it is always indie titles on sale.

    There are many games out there. Too many. Offer is enormous, it dwarfes demand. No reason at all to spend big money on gaming, specially if you don't get to buy the game but you only license it. It is not justifiable to pay 90 bucks to play the current iteration of Super Mario Kart when quality indie precision racers are bellow the 20 USD mark BEFORE discounts.

    The sort of stuff I consider buying always makes it out of Steam. It is the stuff that sucks or wants to abuse your good will that refuses to be anywhere else. No big loss. Again, offer is so big that becoming hostage to Steam is a conscious decision which is easily avoidable. People only does because they don't think much about it.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to MRO on Fri Oct 10 20:37:32 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: MRO to Arelor on Fri Oct 10 2025 12:17 am


    i dont think disney is left wing. i just think it's an evil entity that wants to stay off the radar in regards to controversy.


    My parents were friends with some of the people involved in that Lion King Musical show which is so popular in Spain they are still playing it to this day.

    They never gave too many details but you could tell the power structures within the company were political motivated. In fact I think they were already priorizing sexual orientation hires much, much before it was fashionable or politically profitable at all.

    If Disney was a company trying to stay off the radar they would not make politically charged movies, specially those that play blame games.


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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Arelor on Fri Oct 10 21:43:31 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Arelor to MRO on Fri Oct 10 2025 08:37 pm

    They never gave too many details but you could tell the power
    structures within the company were political motivated. In fact I
    think they were already priorizing sexual orientation hires much,
    much before it was fashionable or politically profitable at all.

    If Disney was a company trying to stay off the radar they would not

    disney is just trying to appear to be woke because that's what is expected
    and followed in the entertainment industry.

    have to have lots of jews and love the jews and be woke.

    replace as many characters with black or trans.
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  • From Accession@VERT/PHARCYDE to Arelor on Sat Oct 11 06:40:50 2025
    Hey Arelor!

    On Fri, 10 Oct 2025 20:27:08 -0500, you wrote:

    Big game publishers can choke on my dick for all I care. I rarely buy a
    game these days, and when I do it is always indie titles on sale.

    I guess I somewhat agree, but if I want a game, I'm going to get it. I used to pre-order, but now I wait until the first sale where they knock off about 20 bucks. But, kind of like you, I don't buy games nearly as often as I used to. I do still enjoy the Resident Evil series, some of the Tom Clancy games, and might grab Battlefield 6 whenever they have a sale on it. I won't pay full price for it, though (this coincides with me not caring to have the latest and greatest GPUs, also - as I don't need it and it would be a waste of money in my case - getting a GTX5090 to play the shit out of Minecraft and Fortnite is hilarious, but some people will do it).

    There are many games out there. Too many. Offer is enormous, it dwarfes demand. No reason at all to spend big money on gaming, specially if you don't get to buy the game but you only license it. It is not justifiable
    to pay 90 bucks to play the current iteration of Super Mario Kart when quality indie precision racers are bellow the 20 USD mark BEFORE
    discounts.

    The 90-100 dollar price tags they put on games these days is usually just the game itself, that includes some sort of season pass and maybe some extra gear. Absolutely not worth it, IMO, especially if you know you're not going to play the game throughout the entire "season" or year or whatever that pass is good for.

    The sort of stuff I consider buying always makes it out of Steam. It is
    the stuff that sucks or wants to abuse your good will that refuses to be anywhere else. No big loss. Again, offer is so big that becoming hostage
    to Steam is a conscious decision which is easily avoidable. People only
    does because they don't think much about it.

    PUBG and maybe even Counter Strike are great examples of not ripping people off and providing a quality game that peaked higher than any other game when it comes to player base. I believe they were released at $40, and stayed that way. Both games are 10+ years old now, still popular and going strong.

    When COD had 3+ active developing companies of the game, it was a bit better because each company had 3 years (they rotated) to create a new game. Now, I think it's only one or two that rehash the same shit every year.

    Regards,
    Nick

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to Dumas Walker on Sat Oct 11 14:32:28 2025
    Dumas Walker wrote to ARELOR <=-

    Some "lefties" have been dogpiling on other "lefties" because they are
    not "left" enough, so it is not as wonkers as you think.

    Never got reimbursed for the punks that were first
    I was a punk before you were a punk
    You don't believe me? Just step outside and see me, baby
    I was a punk before you were a punk
    You want some action? I'll put your ass in traction, baby
    I was a punk before you were
    I was a punk before you
    I was a punk before you were
    I was a punk before you

    ("I was a punk before you were a Punk", by The Tubes)



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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to Arelor on Sat Oct 11 14:32:28 2025
    Arelor wrote to Accession <=-

    There are many games out there. Too many. Offer is enormous, it dwarfes demand. No reason at all to spend big money on gaming, specially if you don't get to buy the game but you only license it. It is not
    justifiable to pay 90 bucks to play the current iteration of Super
    Mario Kart when quality indie precision racers are bellow the 20 USD
    mark BEFORE discounts.

    I think the big money is in-game purchases. I've played War Thunder
    since 2015 or so and when I look at the store history at how much I've
    spent on in-game coin to get a specific plane, I weep.

    Instead of grinding out to get to the higher levels, some people buy
    the premium planes when they come out. I swear, us thunder dogs pile up
    on the premium players when a new plane comes out. :)

    Although, lately, it's all top-tier planes as premiums.






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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Dumas Walker on Sun Oct 12 01:29:55 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Dumas Walker to NIGHTFOX on Thu Oct 09 2025 11:00 am

    With as many ads that I see on TV for services that keep track of
    these things *for you*, I suspect that there must be quite a few

    Interesting.. I don't recall ever seeing ads for anything like that.

    I don't see how. ;) They are everywhere. They are specifically ads for phone apps so maybe you are tuning them out. I see them here, on TV and during YT videos, about as often as the celebrity endorsements of those two "Royal" phone video games.

    Where is "here"? Also, I have a paid YouTube subscription right now, so I don't see YouTube ads.. Also I don't use streaming services a whole lot; also haven't noticed ads for them on broadcast TV.

    Nightfox

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Accession on Sun Oct 12 01:38:32 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Oct 09 2025 06:10 pm

    I'm pretty sure you can run the game executable directly if you wanted to.

    Try it. Hell, try to find the actual game executable and original game directory structure, even (especially if you install to default Steam directories). It's so intertwined into Steams subdirectories

    That's not hard to do.. The quickets way is to open your Steam library, right-click on one of the games you have installed, and select Manage > Browse Local Files. It opens a Windows Explorer window in the directory with the game, and the .exe and everything is right there. The game is in Steam Library\steamapps\common\<game name>.. Doesn't seem terribly complicated to me.

    At least, I've run several Steam games that way. Steam doesn't obfuscate
    the game's files. I thought Steam put a shortcut icon on your desktop for
    the games, too..

    It optionally can, yes. However, using said desktop icon still loads up Steam (same goes for any other launcher said games are tied to) to launch

    Looks like that's true.. I checked one of the shortcuts and it runs Steam with some kind of game ID.

    The launching from Steam is just a convenience, I thought.

    I'm not so sure about that. I imagine there's probably some kind of exclusivity to where you can't just use any launcher for any game you want. If the launcher comes with the game, thay're going to make sure you can't bypass it, etc..

    Either way, I don't think you can run the games you buy from a service like Steam or Ubisoft without the actual service you bought it from. Even if you were to find the actual executable, I'd guess it would still load the launcher that is originally tied to the game.

    I just ran one of my Steam games by directly running its .exe (after clicking Manage > Browse Local Files).

    It still seems to me like Steam is mainly a mechanism to buy games.. I'm not sure it does much (if any) obfuscation to prevent you from running them directly.

    Nightfox

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  • From Accession@VERT/PHARCYDE to Nightfox on Sun Oct 12 08:12:18 2025
    Hey Nightfox!

    On Sun, 12 Oct 2025 01:38:32 -0700, you wrote:

    I just ran one of my Steam games by directly running its .exe (after clicking Manage > Browse Local Files).

    With Steam still running, I'm guessing.

    It still seems to me like Steam is mainly a mechanism to buy games..
    I'm not sure it does much (if any) obfuscation to prevent you from
    running them directly.

    Can you can shut down Steam (not even running in the background), and still run the game without it re-launching, or requiring Steam (or whatever other launcher/app the game is originally tied to) to be running?

    I just tried this with Resident Evil 4. Shut down steam, ran "re4.exe", Steam opened, and asked if I would allow Valve to access my computer.. and now Steam is again running in my background.

    Regards,
    Nick

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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Oct 12 11:04:07 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Arelor on Sat Oct 11 2025 02:32 pm

    I think the big money is in-game purchases. I've played War Thunder
    since 2015 or so and when I look at the store history at how much I've
    spent on in-game coin to get a specific plane, I weep.

    Instead of grinding out to get to the higher levels, some people buy
    the premium planes when they come out. I swear, us thunder dogs pile up
    on the premium players when a new plane comes out. :)

    Although, lately, it's all top-tier planes as premiums.


    Oh yeah, the mobile-like business model actually dwarves conventional game purchases, by miles. Microtransactions are the big money makers because people are suckers.

    Quite frankly, lots of microtransactions exist precisely because the game is not fun to play, so you buy the right to skip it. Think about it.

    I mean, take a game such as BallisticNG. It has DLC, you buy the DLC, and as a result you get to play MORE game - the DLCs come with extra tracks, extra challenges, extra ships. You buy the DLC because you like the base game and want more of it.

    BallisticNG is the sort of game in which you unlock new tracks, challenges and ships by achieving success on the available game modes. It is not grinding for points, it is achieving victories. Simplifying, If you want to unlock the next set of challenges you have to beat the current ones.

    Now, they could sell you a nice MTX that unlocked everything for a modic price, but what would be the point? Buying the game for 15 bucks, then paying 5 more in order to skip all of it? Nonsense! You get your gamepad and beat the game because the game is fun, period, and you get some ship as a reward when you beat all of the precision runs because then you can show it to friends or whatever. And the prize ship is bad as heck, but it does not matter, because you didn't beat the runs for it anyway.

    When do you pay in order to skip the game? When the game is borying. You invest into a game then pay so you can skip segments of a game. What that tells me is the game sucks balls. And the problem is every f2p and mobile game does that sort of thing. I don't think playing those games is a healthy dynamic.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Nightfox on Sun Oct 12 11:08:27 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Nightfox to Accession on Sun Oct 12 2025 01:38 am

    It still seems to me like Steam is mainly a mechanism to buy games.. I'm not sure it does much (if any) obfuscation to prevent you from running them directly.

    Nightfox

    Steam is a runtime dependency for a lot of games, specially many which support achievements, leader boards and multiplayer play. The games use Steam provided services for those, which is the reason many games that have both a Steam version and non-Steam versions distribute the non-Steam version as a pertially functional copy.

    For example, the Gog release for Redout has no online multiplayer support so they had to add a bunch of extras and lower the price so they could sell it and not be lynched.


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  • From Dumas Walker@VERT/CAPCITY2 to POINDEXTER FORTRAN on Sun Oct 12 09:28:01 2025
    Some "lefties" have been dogpiling on other "lefties" because they are not "left" enough, so it is not as wonkers as you think.

    Never got reimbursed for the punks that were first
    I was a punk before you were a punk
    You don't believe me? Just step outside and see me, baby
    I was a punk before you were a punk
    You want some action? I'll put your ass in traction, baby
    I was a punk before you were
    I was a punk before you
    I was a punk before you were
    I was a punk before you

    ("I was a punk before you were a Punk", by The Tubes)

    Yeah, something like that. :D


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  • From Dumas Walker@VERT/CAPCITY2 to NIGHTFOX on Sun Oct 12 09:28:01 2025
    I don't see how. ;) They are everywhere. They are specifically ads for
    phone apps so maybe you are tuning them out. I see them here, on TV and during YT videos, about as often as the celebrity endorsements of those two "Royal" phone video games.

    Where is "here"? Also, I have a paid YouTube subscription right now, so I don't see YouTube ads.. Also I don't use streaming services a whole lot; also
    haven't noticed ads for them on broadcast TV.

    Kentucky, but during network programming.

    I don't stream at all. They are on broadcast & cable TV pretty regular. Like I said, you are probably tuning them out or think they are for something else and not realizing it.

    Or maybe they are somehow illegal in your area.


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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Accession on Sun Oct 12 11:32:34 2025
    Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Accession to Nightfox on Sun Oct 12 2025 08:12 am

    I just ran one of my Steam games by directly running its .exe (after
    clicking Manage > Browse Local Files).

    With Steam still running, I'm guessing.

    It still seems to me like Steam is mainly a mechanism to buy games.. I'm
    not sure it does much (if any) obfuscation to prevent you from running them
    directly.

    Can you can shut down Steam (not even running in the background), and still run the game without it re-launching, or requiring Steam (or whatever other launcher/app the game is originally tied to) to be running?

    I just tried this with Resident Evil 4. Shut down steam, ran "re4.exe", Steam opened, and asked if I would allow Valve to access my computer.. and now Steam is again running in my background.

    I just tried exiting Steam and running a Steam game, and Steam started up again (in my case, I tried one of the Jackbox Party Packs). So it seems Steam does need to be running to play their games.

    Nightfox

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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Arelor on Sun Oct 12 14:23:52 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: Arelor to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Oct 12 2025 11:04 am

    Quite frankly, lots of microtransactions exist precisely because
    the game is not fun to play, so you buy the right to skip it. Think
    about it.

    I mean, take a game such as BallisticNG. It has DLC, you buy the DLC,

    well i think a lot of regular games have just cosmetic things now.
    they learned that paying help you in the game hurts the game overall.

    now mobile games, i believe don't follow that.
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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to MRO on Sun Oct 12 20:32:55 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hike ha
    By: MRO to Arelor on Sun Oct 12 2025 02:23 pm

    well i think a lot of regular games have just cosmetic things now.
    they learned that paying help you in the game hurts the game overall.

    now mobile games, i believe don't follow that.

    If free-to-play games respect their users, microtransactions tend to be about cosmetics, but there are lots of them who sell you everything else.

    I think gacha games tend to be the worst offenders. Do you want to play an ARPG with a given character? The only way to do it is to unlock the character by winning it in a lottery! Buy some tickets, see if you get the character you want to play. Most likely you get a shitty character instead but don't worry, you can keep buying tickets.

    Browser games tend to be very lame in this regard. They have lots of timed events you have to beat in order to win prizes. They deliberatedly make it so you won't have time enough to beat the event playing normally. You need to buy bonuses so you have a chance at beating the event and unlocking that awesome prize horse.


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  • From Matthew Munson@VERT/IUTOPIA to NIGHTFOX on Sun Oct 12 19:05:00 2025
    I'm in Paris, France right now. Last night, while walking back to our hotel, we saw a protest a couple streets down from our hotel which looked like a pro-Palestine rally, and there were a good number of police waiting across the street in case something happened.

    Only time I had some protesters, were the climate ones who were
    advocating for net zero.

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  • From Matthew Munson@VERT/IUTOPIA to DUMAS WALKER on Sun Oct 12 19:07:00 2025
    Just let a "lefty" say something about how women deserve to have sports
    that are their own, and maybe we need to rethink letting trans-women participate, and then watch what happens.
    I side with the feminists who want to protect sports for only people who
    are born as women.

    I even get threats from trans people for my views.


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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Matthew Munson on Mon Oct 13 00:09:07 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hik
    By: Matthew Munson to DUMAS WALKER on Sun Oct 12 2025 07:07 pm

    Just let a "lefty" say something about how women deserve
    to have sports that are their own, and maybe we need to rethink
    letting trans-women participate, and then watch what happens.
    I side with the feminists who want to protect sports for only people
    who are born as women.

    I even get threats from trans people for my views.


    trans people have gender identity disorder. they are mentally ill and need help. It's sad that society has ignored their issues and don't give them the help they need.
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  • From Dr. What@VERT/THEGATEB to MRO on Mon Oct 13 07:08:00 2025
    MRO wrote to Matthew Munson <=-

    trans people have gender identity disorder. they are mentally ill and
    need help. It's sad that society has ignored their issues and don't
    give them the help they need.

    That's by design. The Left closed all the mental instutions (probably to get more voters) and promotes mental illness.


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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Dr. What on Mon Oct 13 06:43:41 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hik
    By: Dr. What to MRO on Mon Oct 13 2025 07:08 am

    MRO wrote to Matthew Munson <=-

    trans people have gender identity disorder. they are mentally
    ill and need help. It's sad that society has ignored their issues
    and don't give them the help they need.

    That's by design. The Left closed all the mental instutions
    (probably to get more voters) and promotes mental illness.



    well there's just a total lack of sufficient mental healthcare in the usa. insurance will not cover a lot, i heard psychologists and other mental health professionals do not want to deal with insurance companies due ot the reimbursement rates and all the various BS from the ins companies.
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  • From Dumas Walker@VERT/CAPCITY2 to MATTHEW MUNSON on Mon Oct 13 09:40:58 2025
    Just let a "lefty" say something about how women deserve to have sports that are their own, and maybe we need to rethink letting trans-women participate, and then watch what happens.

    I side with the feminists who want to protect sports for only people who
    are born as women.

    I even get threats from trans people for my views.

    I am not at all surprised. I have watched videos were trans women agree
    that womens sports should be reserved for people born as women. IMHO, the
    ones who become angry and threatening are a lot like people who are
    political zealots regarding other issues/causes... there is something
    mentally not right about them.


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  • From Utopian Galt@VERT to MRO on Mon Oct 13 14:26:37 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hik
    By: MRO to Matthew Munson on Mon Oct 13 2025 12:09 am

    I even get threats from trans people for my views.
    trans people have gender identity disorder. they are mentally ill and help. It's sad that society has ignored their issues and don't give t help they need.
    I want stuff like autism, bipolar, not accepting their homosexuality addressed before we let someone transition. Any intermediate issues need to be addressed for at least a year.

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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Dumas Walker on Tue Oct 14 00:21:17 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hik
    By: Dumas Walker to MATTHEW MUNSON on Mon Oct 13 2025 09:40 am

    I am not at all surprised. I have watched videos were trans women
    agree that womens sports should be reserved for people born as
    women. IMHO, the ones who become angry and threatening are a lot
    like people who are political zealots regarding other
    issues/causes... there is something mentally not right about them.



    i think if you are trans male to female and if you don't pass what we could call the 'ladyboy' test, you should be disintegrated.
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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Utopian Galt on Tue Oct 14 00:22:24 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hik
    By: Utopian Galt to MRO on Mon Oct 13 2025 02:26 pm

    I want stuff like autism, bipolar, not accepting their homosexuality addressed before we let someone transition. Any intermediate
    issues need to be addressed for at least a year.



    yeah that would be nice. but some arent even homosexual. they are just mentally ill. thinking you are a gender that you are not is an illness.
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  • From Dr. What@VERT/THEGATEB to MRO on Tue Oct 14 07:45:00 2025
    MRO wrote to Dr. What <=-

    well there's just a total lack of sufficient mental healthcare in the
    usa.

    Mostly caused by the shutdown of the mental institutions.

    What's more efficient/cost-effective:

    A few large, special purpose institutions who are staffed with professionals in the field.

    Or a bunch of single doctors, all over the place, all having to get the same low use equipment, etc.

    insurance will not cover a lot,

    Because it's expensive - made even more so by the shutting down of the efficient institutions.

    Insurance companies are businesses and run by risk-management. To offer better care for 10% of the population, they need to raise rates on everyone. Raise rates too much and people will leave the system.

    i heard psychologists and other
    mental health professionals do not want to deal with insurance
    companies due ot the reimbursement rates and all the various BS from
    the ins companies.

    That's across the whole health spectrum. I have a dentist who's the same way.


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  • From Dumas Walker@VERT/CAPCITY2 to UTOPIAN GALT on Tue Oct 14 09:13:07 2025
    I even get threats from trans people for my views.
    trans people have gender identity disorder. they are mentally ill an
    help. It's sad that society has ignored their issues and don't give help they need.
    I want stuff like autism, bipolar, not accepting their homosexuality addressed
    before we let someone transition. Any intermediate issues need to be addressed
    for at least a year.

    Same, especially younger people. If they have another/additional issues, transitioning isn't going to fix those and might make them worse.


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  • From Utopian Galt@VERT to Dumas Walker on Tue Oct 14 19:31:27 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hik
    By: Dumas Walker to UTOPIAN GALT on Tue Oct 14 2025 09:13 am

    Same, especially younger people. If they have another/additional iss transitioning isn't going to fix those and might make them worse.
    Anyone under 25 would be required to do 18 months of therapy first.

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  • From Bf2k+@VERT/TACOPRON to MRO on Wed Oct 15 05:11:16 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hik
    By: MRO to Utopian Galt on Tue Oct 14 2025 12:22 am

    mentally ill. thinking you are a gender that you are not is an illness.

    Yes it is...

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  • From plt@VERT/MEGABBS to MRO on Fri Oct 31 05:19:00 2025
    The fun part is that Disney is a left-wing company. The idea lefties are dogpiling on them because they are not pure enough would be so fundamentaly wonkers. I kind of wish it


    I like the free services like Pluto.

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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to plt on Fri Oct 31 15:10:31 2025
    Re: Re: The Disney+ price hik
    By: plt to MRO on Fri Oct 31 2025 05:19 am

    The fun part is that Disney is a left-wing company.
    The idea lefties are dogpiling on them because they are not pure enough would be so fundamentaly wonkers. I kind of wish it


    I like the free services like Pluto.


    i didnt say that stuff, you are quoting someone else.
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