Side note: DEGA (Store, Client, etc) has the best shot, out of all other stores/clients (itch, gog, egs, uplay, win store, ea, Bethesda, battlebet, etc, at actually being a real competitor, assuming cards are being played right, as it provides what small and large game publishers want (them being in control, not giving a cut of the revenue, and taking benefits of the accumulated shared market eyes of a hub), while also providing what customers/gamers want (game ownership, absolute clarity of license/rent/non-ownership, no base DRM, no base forced updated to play, much higher chances of playing older versions of games, and modernized physical game copies), as well as providing both publishers/developers and customers/gamers with censorship resistance, being permissionless, and zero worries about the store/company/DEGA getting shut down (as it wouldn't matter if it did). The only friction there will be in regards to game producers and consumers from using Steam over DEGA is simply "all my games are there / I'm already on Steam", with overwhelmingly positive benefits on the other plate of the scale that wouldn't be feasible if it was being developed traditionally. Not to say the DEGA will overtake Steam, that won't happen anytime soon or in the decent future, however, it'll overtake everything else and be the closest to a competitor that has ever been launched or will launch, and if something happens to Steam, well, DEGA is there to take the top spot. Steam is the "ultimate destination" for games. DEGA is the inevitable destination for games. On a side note for this side note: Pretty much completed the landing page's design after 30 to 40 hours (yes, that long x3), now onward to other pages.

Slowly designing the store, looking at all stores that I know and taking all the best bits and leaving out the worst ones (or fixing them), and designing the solutions to the problems that both publishers/studios and gamers have with all of them (not just about censorship), with a sleek look but also not compromising on functionality and information scanning... Man, it's still nowhere near ready to showcase, but damn I'm already going "can I switch now? I want to use this x3" and the feeling will only grow as I continue it's design progress. But ya, still a decent while until it's done (DEGA is way bigger than DEG in scope), and I'm not rushing it because I want to do this really right, to have people look at and go through it and have a desire to really want to use it, just by the design alone, but so far so great. Speaking of DEG Mods, the filehosting system is coming along. It reached a point where I was able to do a quick test, me as an admin deleting a zip file and having able to still download it from a mod post as an average user. So fucking cool! (Still need to test it with larger files, though a similar result might not happen for larger zip files, but the more popular deg gets, the more this infrastructure also gets popular, the more this becomes less of an issue)

Made that coming soon page for the store, and will probably stay static for a decent while. Anything unclear or missing / nice to have? (Send a wishlist item of a feature kr system that other stores don't have or would live improved, if you have one)

DEGA Store

Every now and then I see someone reply with the concept of zero-knowledge proofs as a privacy and non-doxing method of ID verification. I haven't really looked into zkp before, so I did some digging to better understand it, and that more to see its application and ID verification, and if I understood everything right, while it is cool, however, because there is a "trusted source", then that can be abused to all high hell because in the end a "trusted source" would be targeted to reveal the connection made between my personal data and the encryption output and my digital footprint history, at which point I can be fully abused by all parties involved.

>Got time to kill, why not be productive >Figure out the logo and mascot for the store project >After thinking and researching, I came up with an idea with lore and a massive design reference >Laughing my ass off xD >Once revealed: If you know, you know x3 I know I'm being vague, but this'll keep me entertained for a while x3 Kind of happy I managed to figure this out in less than an hour, the mascot, it's character, base lore, and from it the logo would be created. Now to write it and gather references for the enevitable drawing of it in the future.

Btw I also thought of a way to satiate people's desires for wanting to go back to the days of physical media/games, while also modernizing it and having it cost-effective as well. It'll be even longer to reach that point where development/production starts for it, since it's physical. Fun times ahead =3

Caught up watching the latest 10 episodes of One Piece (til 1137). Me through most of them: 😭😭😭😭😭

So yea, because of what's happening with Steam and Itch and pretty much any store (delistings/censorship of thousands to tens of thousands of games, and will continue to grow), I started mentioning the game store project, where relevant, in regards to the current marketing efforts from DEG Mods. Not that it's in development, but mentioning it's been in the planning stage, and will continue being in that stage, until either DEG Mods sees decent success, to fund its development, or investments come along for it. What's neat is, the knowledge from building DEG Mods and a lot of the code used would carry over to the game store project. And yes, already thought of a way to handle game producers to sell their games using traditional payment systems, without the store being a single point of failure. Hasn't been developed, of course, to know that it'll work, but the path to that goal is there. Envision the future where this is out and its core systems are fully developed and ironed out, this would be the most high-value store for both game producers (indie and AAA) and buyers that solves most of their issues with all current stores. The future with Freedom Tech is very hopeful. It already is awesome for those using it =3

Wish: A one box that's 1) Internet router 2) Home server (think Umbrel) 3) Mesh network capable (Think Althea meets TollGate) For myself, and for people around the globe to buy, and have it as a good product, where overtim everyone would have more of their data and online actions private, and the realization of a mesh network internet happening where most people are an ISP and basically decrease surveillance and censorship and increase freedoms.

I just recalled one thing that made me go "huh?" I forgot which store it was (EA store maybe?), but I wanted to buy something using my debit card, and when I hit purchase it refused to process the payment, mentioning that it only accepts credit cards. "???" So apparently there are stores out there that won't take money from you if you have it but will take money from you if you don't have it. After my brain processed everything and stopped being dumbfounded: "I guess we are living in a society 🤡"