Edit: Looks like the GOG version is available for OS X, so I'm hoping that'll work. I guess I was just a little tipsy when looking at the GOG page since it's the holidays and missed it. Also, I didn't think about Steam gift cards/PayPal. That's another way of getting games on Steam without giving payment info. Thanks everyone for your help!
Edit 2: Just talked to my dad. I misunderstood his issue a bit with Steam. It's less about giving Steam his credit card (because you kinda have to give away your CC info in order to use it), rather he's not a fan of the fact that you have to log into Steam just to play your game. I think you can technically launch BG3 without going through Steam, but it's sort of a pain to go through the file directories in order to do so. Again, thanks for all the suggestions!
So, my dad's expressed interest in playing Baldur's Gate a bunch since it's come out and since I've been telling him about my play through. I also have great memories of playing Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance with him when I was younger on Game Cube so it would mean a lot to me to play BG3 with him. The issue comes down to his setup and stubbornness with privacy (I'm hoping Lemmy will have some good suggestions on this front).
The first hurdle is that he only uses Apple and doesn't want to get a windows machine just to play games, which IMO is reasonable. This doesn't seem too bad since, as far as I can tell, BG3 is available on Mac. The issue comes down to the fact that he doesn't want to download Steam and give them his credit card. He already has Epic because that's the only way he can play MTG online and he doesn't want to download another game client. Also, he has it in his head that you have to play all your games through steam. As in all your data goes to Steam before going to the game and you have to be online in order to play games on Steam. I think I've convinced him that this isn't the case, but he still doesn't feel comfortable giving them his CC. To be clear, he plays MTG without any in-game purchases so he hasn't given Epic his CC so he feels less bad about that although he's still not super thrilled about having to go through Epic just to play MTG.
My solution at the moment is to have him make a Steam account and I'll buy him BG3 for his Christmas present. Is this the best solution, or is there another way to go about it? I know BG3 is available on GOG, which he feels a bit more comfortable about, but I can't get a solid answer if the GOG version works on Mac OS.
Thanks for any help!
It's a pretty common mindset in the neurodiverse community. It's partially based on black and white thinking, and partially based on a type of anxiety that causes a sense of pre-dread before doing almost anything, once you break through and actually start it, that type of anxiety goes away. To be replaced by whatever other types of anxiety the individual has, lol.
And of course with most of these it's more accurate to say it's a result of the trauma of growing up with these cognitive differences in a world where they aren't standard.
It might be a bit frustrating trying to navigate his defenses, hopefully you end up getting it all worked out.
Not everyone has to be neurodivergent to not want to use a credit card on the Internet - there have been plenty of leaks for this to be a valid stance. Also, let's not forget about other countries where credit cards play basically no significant role in day to day payment activities and people view them as "oddities" (for a lack of a better term).
Also, depending on how you hand your credit card info over, and if mechanisms like EMV 3d secure are in place, some merchants basically obtain a copy of your card and it's on you to check the validity of the transaction and also re-check that no additional transactions have been made over time. While it is certainly good practice to go over your credit card statement each month, I could totally understand if someone wanted to avoid that hassle and the one that comes with a dispute.
Lol, it wouldn't surprise me if he's neurodivergent (I probably am too tbh), but I think it's just more how he was raised and now he's just too old to change his way, lol. He's been a computer engineer since the 80's and has been on the internet since about then. I think he's just gone to too many security conferences and gotten a bit paranoid. Better to be too cautious than the other way around in my opinion. And to be clear, it's not like he's overly paranoid to the point of affecting his life, he just doesn't like giving his info out online to places he doesn't trust.
Hehe yeah sorry. It wasn't just the credit card thing. The whole story there was like 10 different hints. I know alot of normal people and alot of neurodivergent people, and there are alot of parallels there, too many to be coincidence.
But I don't get why so many people push back on it. Not only is it fine to be neurodivergent, but it's not like you can change it by pretending you aren't. This isn't the olden days anymore, we know a ton of stuff now that can really help even getting diagnosed in your later years. Still always best to get the diagnosis before school, since the standard school experience causes alot of unnecessary grief. But the next best time is always "as soon as possible". Many things can be un-done with surprisingly little effort when done the right way.
I know the old mentality is to not get a label so people won't treat you different, but that is not at all how anything works anymore. Getting diagnosed is basically everyone's favourite day of their life nowadays. It's the turning point where their life finally started to make sense for them. And they "caught back up" to where they were always supposed to be.