justOnePersistentKbinPlease

You are the one making the unsubstantiated claim that companies are ethical. You first.

A very simple search says otherwise. It is only stated as “unethical”.

Not that they don’t.

As I understand, the core issue is that the donation doesn’t happen in your name.

It collectively happens in theirs. Giving them a big tax break for almost no cost to them.

Never donate through a company, do it directly.

Very well put.

To touch on the point of “where do video games fit in media”; I am reminded of an old video that sticks with me, roughly shortly after the release of Elder Scrolls Oblivion, with Sir Patrick Stewart on the topic of covering games and whether they are art.

He put forward the framing of “who is telling the story” to classify where video games fall closest as art. You have four possible personas in storytelling/art: • the author • the director • the actors • the audience He then broke down who is telling the story: • in paintings and carvings, it is the artist telling all of the story directly through the media. • in books, it is a combination of the author and the reader, it is the author’s words that create the story through the filter and imagination of the readers mind.
• on stage, it is the actors that tell the story to the audience. • in film, it is the director telling the story through the performances of the actors who all filter the words of the writer.

He stated how he marveled at video games because they represent a new media where the storyteller is the audience directly. Yes the writer lays out the possible elements, the actors, if present, influence how the characters are percieved, and the director pulls all of that together.

But it is the audience that creates the story in every run through every action they take in the game, and as such they are closest to books.

Insofar as romance and based on the above, I think that once the planned beats are played out it is up to the audience as the storyteller to create the rest of the romance.

Epic exists as an alternative to Steam in the same way that Russia is the world power opposing the US.