The official blog of the Saved Content site

The aim of this blog is to collect and archive my selected thoughts, ideas, feelings, reactions, and opinions on subject matters that pique my interest. These entries represent initial drafts that may contain grammatical and spelling errors and whose substance and position could still change, and which, at some point, I could decide to put together into in-depth articles that will be posted on the main Saved Content and Poverty Sucks sites.

"God save us all from that evil Satanic Nazi, Paypal."

Valve Is Banning Fake Screenshots From Steam

If you take a look at the product page of any game on Steam, you can immediately see the screenshot area.  Sometimes you can find cinematic game trailers, screenshots of cinematics, or images with a small screenshot of the game with the game's features or critical reception.  The problem with these particular videos or images is that they either don't actually show the game being played or they make it difficult to see clearly how the game is played.

Now, Valve is banning from the screenshot area for a game's product page on Steam, any image or video that isn't taken from the game being actually played.  Valve is saying the screenshot area in the product page is there to help customers see clearly how the game is played.

If the screenshots don't show actual gameplay then it will only confuse customers.  Any game trailers, cinematic screenshots, or marketing images should not be in the screenshot area but instead be placed in the appropriate area on the Steam product page.

Valve is clamping down on these so called fake sceeenshots I believe as a direct result of the recent and highly publicised 'bullshots' controversy.  Bullshot was the term coined by the website Penny Arcade in 2005 to denote the practice of using video game screenshots that are so obviously different from what really appears on a game's actual screen that they appear to have been doctored.

There are so many examples of bullshots but the most recent and controversial has been No Man's Sky.  It has gotten so bad for that game that the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority have investigated both Hello Games, the developer of No Man's Sky, and Valve for false advertising.  This is probably why Valve has made these changes.

Source: Travelers Today

Researchers Identify Fossilized Brain Tissue for the First Time

A brown pebble has been identified by researchers as the fossilized brain tissue of a dinosaur.  The is the first time that fossilized brain tissue has been identified.  The results were reported in a Special Publication of the Geological Society of London.   The research was coordinated by Professor Martin Brasier of the University of Oxford and Dr. David Norman of the University of Cambridge.