Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the say-something dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Rocky, who provided some details on why game developers take issue with key reseller G2A:

And just to expand upon the term fraudulent in this context with an example:

Someone buys a Steam-key with a stolen credit-card, sells the key to G2A, some gamer buys the key and starts playing the game. Later the owner of the credit-card discovers the fraudulent transaction and reverses the charge. Now comes the problem, who should take the cost of the fraudulent transaction? The gamer, Steam or the developer?

In reality the total cost of the fraudulent transaction is usually passed onto the developer by Steam so the gamer who bought the key in good faith can keep playing, and that’s why some indie developers thinks it’s better for people to rather pirate the game instead of buying keys from re-sellers, since the latter actually can costs them money PLUS a lost sale, ie for each fraudulent transaction they need to sell 2 more keys to make up for it.

In second place, we’ve got Thad with a response to Lindsay Graham’s technological illiteracy that also serves as a good general demand:

Bring back the Office of Technology Assessment.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous commenter who thanked our first place winner and others for their explanation of the G2A situation:

Thank you to everyone above who explained the fraudulent practice side of things. I can imagine that is probably a bulk problem. Otherwise i am left thinking that game companies are just still whining about the First Sale Doctrine, with occasional fraud, and oh-my-god-no someone resold a key we gave away. (Gee sorry someone less influence-y is playing your game, asshats.)

The issue here, when fraud is involved at scale, yeah that is a legit complaint.

I will certainly think twice about buying from a reseller, but what about genuine resales without ethical or legal baggage?

Next, we’ve got a comment from PaulT in response to someone defending the secret Facebook group for CBP agents:

“Just because they work for CBP doesn’t stop them from being human.”

Also, crossing the border, sometimes in a perfectly legal attempt to apply for asylum does not make one less than human. Yet, here we are with concerns about the way that the people in these groups are treating them anyway.

“Its also been proved that PTSD and an incredibly dark sense of humor are related.”

So, we shouldn’t be concerned about people having severe bigotry issues against people they have control over because they might have been severely psychologically damaged before they took the job? That sounds backwards to me.

I agree that caution should be taken, but those really aren’t convincing reasons.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Thad explaining how Gavin McInnes won him over by pointing out a slightly incorrect assertion by SPLC:

Ah. Well there you have it: Gavin McInnes is definitely not a white supremacist, because he didn’t use racial slurs on Fox News or VDARE, he used them in Taki’s Magazine.

In second place, it’s an anonymous commenter who couldn’t resist a quick lil’ vegan joke:

I hear they?re now selling beef milk, which is like almond milk that?s pushed through tiny holes in cows.

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous commenter responding to questions about the legitimacy of Laura Loomer’s lawyer:

I’m sure there’s a bar, somewhere that gives a damn… but they probably serve alcohol

And finally, it’s Toom1275 with a metric for the blog:

The veracity of Techdirt’s reporting is directly proportional to the number of trollskis whining about it in the comments.

That’s all for this week, folks!