in most countries, afaik, you actually can’t patent game mechanics, for the same reason you can’t patent rule sets for boardgames:

because they are essentially just logical connections. it would be like patenting math, which is also not allowed, for very obvious reasons. (with some very specific, very niche exceptions)

japan is just plain weird and wrong about their patent system.

that’s why all of the lawsuits about this stuff are happening in japan; not just because that’s where the companies are, but because japanese copyright law is (especially) fucked.

a lack of empathy is literally the defining trait of sociopathy.

autistic people DO have empathy for fucks sake. they (we) just have trouble with unclear social cues, but understand and have emotions just fine.

zuck, musk, and the rest are sociopaths; not autistic. (they probably could be both, but the autism is definitely not the issue here…)

zuck, musk, and so on use autism as an excuse and shield against criticism, because, in their minds, it absolves them having to change their behavior. “that’s just how they are” - fuck no, that’s not how autistic people act or behave at all!

it’s INSANELY damaging to actual autistic people to go around saying people clearly displaying traits of sociopaths are autistic.

FUCK OFF with that shit.

afaik the client does collect a bunch if data, most (all, i think? but not a 100% on that) of which is opt-in.

they do need stuff like IPs for internet related features.

telemetry wise there’s the steam hardware survey, which is opt-in, and it asks every single time it attempts to collect your systems hardware and OS information. this could technically be identifying information, but since it’s opt-in it’s not a privacy violation and it’s entirely optional. (plus it’s super useful for all involved: users, devs, and steam. it’s kind of a win-win and straight up necessary info for devs to know which hardware they should optimize for)

they might be putting it at the top because steam has native support for DRM?

but that’s also weird, because DRM isn’t a privacy violation. it’s a shitty practice, barely does anything, barely works, and keeps breaking or hobbling otherwise perfectly good games, all of which is shitty, but it’s little to do with privacy. and the dev has to specifically opt-in and integrate it as a feature…unless they’re thinking of 3rd party DRM that can be waaay more intrusive, like Vanguard… THAT’S a privacy and security nightmare just waiting to blow up in people’s faces.

otherwise…i haven’t really heard anything bad about steam privacy wise?

doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be concerned about, but i feel like there’d been some news about it if there was…