About the Genuine/Non-Genuine System, or How to Avoid Dead Thread Revival

General
1

Hey all,

I was reading through the Developments category and wanted to comment on the Genuine/Non-Genuine system (without reviving a 238[?]-day old thread). Well, more specifically, the argument for changing the words used. I think what @Drachen may have been trying to say in this post was that Workshop items would have value, just not Unit value. Anything someone spends time on has value, but it’s the value of their time, regardless of whether that item is sold or not. The use of “genuine” and “non-genuine” suggests that one person’s work isn’t as valuable as another person’s simply because the developers didn’t do it themselves, or passed over it for official sanctioning. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, in cases where people are trying to make cheap copies of something that is already well-known. But on the Steam Workshop, there’ll be plenty of stuff that isn’t copying anything at all.

And besides, unranked servers are likely going to develop their own currency systems, and could very well sell Workshop items for local currency instead of Units, so the idea of all Workshop items having absolutely zero monetary value ever, anywhere, and that no one earned them isn’t going to be accurate all the time. That doesn’t mean that Workshop items should be sold in the vanilla game without official approval, of course, because as @Drachen says, it makes sense to prevent people from getting vanilla paid-for items for free and then claiming that they’re real when they’re not. But the choice of words does imply that things that users have created aren’t as good as things that pixelTail created, and I believe that could have an adverse effect on how willing people will be to contribute to the Workshop.

Now, I don’t believe in bringing up a problem without proposing a solution if I have an idea for one, so I suggest you use “Sanctioned” vs “Non-Sanctioned”. It directly relates to the approval system y’all will put in place, establishing consistency by using the same terminology; it establishes a clear distinction between items players have without a doubt earned vs items players may not have earned; and it doesn’t sound judgemental (at least not to me).

I understand that this is all about a few words, so I’d be fine if reviewing and considering changing these terms was classed as low-priority. What do you think?

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Genuine vs non-genuine doesn’t just refer to Steam workshop.

A genuine item is one that was achieved in-game with Units. A non-genuine item is one that was not achieved. Non-genuine could be an item that was cheated into existence. Genuine means the item is truly on their Steam account.

I think the terminology could be discussed more when it comes to workshop items.

1 Like
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That’s a fair general distinction. I don’t believe that was communicated in the thread I read, although it is rather old and so a change in the application of the terminology is understandable.

Can Workshop items be added to Steam account inventory even if the item isn’t sanctioned by pixelTail? If so, then perhaps the Genuine or Non-Genuine qualities should be applied to all items and then a separate Workshop quality to all Workshop-originated items, including those sanctioned by pixelTail (if this wasn’t your plan already, of course).

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Unfortunately they would have to be sanctioned to be part of the Steam inventory as each inventory item has to be explicitly defined by us.

5

Right, that makes sense. In that case, I suggest that only sanctioned items get the Genuine/Non-Genuine qualities and then all non-sanctioned Workshop items get a Workshop quality. If they aren’t sanctioned, they can’t be officially earned, and it might be difficult to know which items are earned unofficially (i.e. with non-Unit currency).

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Pretty much hit what I was trying to say. I still think the terminology is stupid, but such is the way of things. There’s a lot of questionable naming decisions made around here, so my suggestion is to just ignore it. Ultimately there is nothing special about a genuine quality, it’s just a trivial way to identify what’s included in the game.

And damn, nearly a year since that post. Time flies.