3/22 Deals Thread

Kyeh shared some links said Sat, Mar 12th 2022 at 4:10pm ET

There hasn’t been one for a while.

I saw this in the Wired deals email:
https://www.wired.com/story/itch-bundle-for-ukraine-charity/

Edit for direct link:
https://itch.io/b/1316/bundle-for-ukraine

{VMod: added direct link to the itch.io bundle.}

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Kyeh said Sat, Mar 12th 2022 at 4:11pm ET:

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- Direct link (See note about Wired below):
  
  https://itch.io/b/1316/bundle-for-ukraine
  
  Its not exactly 992 games. More like 600 windows games. All mostly indy games. Some games have LBGT+ themed concepts, and are from LGBT+ developers.
  
  All with no DRM. All are downloaded directly from itch.io. No steam, origin, GOG, epic, or other storefront DRM keys.
  
  The other 300 or so in the bundle are physical game instructions, graphic novels/comics, gaming ebooks, and other gaming sundries.
  
  Worth it for $10. You can contribute more. The money (100%) is split 50/50 with two charities below:
  
  Over 700 creators have joined in support to donate their work. All proceeds from this bundle will be split between the following charities:
  
  International Medical Corps provides medical assistance in the region. They have very low fundraising overhead (1% of income), with 89% of donations going to medical aid and 10% to administration.
  
  [url=https://voices.org.ua/en/who-we-are/]
  Voices of Children[/url] is a Ukrainian organization that helps children cope with the horrors of war, PTSD, readjusting to school, and getting back to being kids. They have also been doing a lot of grassroots impromptu work during the war, such as helping set up shelters. Our hope is that this war will be over soon, and they can begin the work of healing these kids’ hearts.
  
  mike808 said Sun, Mar 13th 2022 at 10:04am ET
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mike808 said Sun, Mar 13th 2022 at 10:27am ET:

Please link directly to sources.

Wired is owned by Condé Nast.

Condé Nast is home to some of the world’s most iconic brands, including Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, Vanity Fair, //Wired//, Architectural Digest (AD), Condé Nast Traveler; and La Cucina Italiana.

So how does Wired and Condé Nast make money?

Condé Nast’s primary source of e-commerce revenue is through an affiliate model, meaning it makes money when consumers click on links and purchase products featured in its content. Condé Nast in recent years has managed through some high-profile internal crises (e.g. hostile workplace, #metoo) that tested its ability to navigate social change.

So who owns Wired and Condé Nast?

Condé Nast is owned by parent company Advance Publications currently in the hands of descendants of Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. This media legend personally bought the Condé Nast group in 1959 for 5 million dollars in order, the legend tells us, to offer it to his wife Mitzi. A birthday present.

In short, a company run by the founder’s descendents (his sin, Sam Jr) that inherited immense intergenerational wealth from a businesses meant “as a birthday present” to his trophy wife. Corporate values.

How did Samuel Newhouse Sr create this wealth?

Ruthless capitalism and monopoly-building. Corporate values, remember.

Newhouse focused on purchasing bargain-priced papers in growing communities; he had no interest in starting new papers or in unrelated ventures, even declining an offer to purchase the New York Yankees. He typically acquired a city’s oldest newspaper and then purchased the city’s second newspaper, thereby allowing him to set advertising rates. Although he generally promised to keep both papers in business and in competition, (he flat out lied) he typically merged the two, generally closing the afternoon paper and keeping the morning, effectively establishing a monopoly, then used the profits to purchase additional newspapers.

Meaning he was a jobs destroyer and laid off the workers of the businesses he acquired - a corporate raider like Carl Icahn and Al “Chainsaw” Dunlap.

/image the more you know

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- @mike808
  tl;dr
  I find many of the Conde Nast magazines interesting and worthwhile, despite their corporate hegemony. I also buy from Amazon and many other politically objectionable/questionable
  mega-corporations.
  
  Kyeh said Sun, Mar 13th 2022 at 4:02pm ET
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- @Kyeh @mike808 and just to add I was never presented with a “rule book” for posts. @narfcake can you post the link to the tule book so we can all be on the same page. Thanks
  
  tinamarie1974 said Sun, Mar 13th 2022 at 4:32pm ET
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- @Kyeh @narfcake @tinamarie1974
  Maybe you should post a link to the wired article about the rule book instead of the actual link directly to the source. Just to fit in. Maybe a post on Twitter to your Instagram with the link to Wired. Because, yeah, that’s so much easier and less likely to mess up.
  
  mike808 said Sun, Mar 13th 2022 at 6:22pm ET
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- @Kyeh Just saying Wired deserves zero credit for the noble cause and the effort created entirely by the folks at itch.io. Wired is just interested in your clicks, nothing more.
  
  mike808 said Sun, Mar 13th 2022 at 6:24pm ET
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- @mike808
  Fine, but I wouldn’t have known anything about this if I hasn’t seen it in the WIRED newsletter. I’ve never heard of itch.io
  
  Kyeh said Sun, Mar 13th 2022 at 6:59pm ET
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- @Kyeh @mike808 @tinamarie1974 As it doesn’t really fall into the No BULLSHIT rules, editing in the direct link into the opening post is about the furthest I’m doing.
  
  narfcake said Sun, Mar 13th 2022 at 7:07pm ET
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- @Kyeh @mike808 personally I found the article interesting and it gave some validity to the product as I’ve never heard of itch.io
  
  tinamarie1974 said Sun, Mar 13th 2022 at 7:40pm ET
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- @Kyeh @mike808 @narfcake @tinamarie1974 I’m certainly glad that bullshit has been banned from these forums.
  
  phendrick said Mon, Mar 14th 2022 at 1:06am ET
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