• @SynonymousStoat
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    301 month ago

    “…their useless proprietary launcher.” Steam is by far the least useless launcher out there. Steam has so many incredibly useful features such as remote play together, community controller layouts, the workshop, cloud saves, family library sharing, etc. Not to mention that they continue to keep adding new features that no other launcher is even close to having such as the new game recording feature that is currently in beta.

    Sure, Valve charge a pretty decent amount to game developers for the sale of a game, but they provide a load of features in exchange.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 month ago

      And it’s been said by many developers that they literally 100x their sales when they go to Steam. PCs are an open ecosystem.

      Not directed at OP.

      • @SynonymousStoat
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        31 month ago

        You’re right, I don’t, but it sure as hell makes it a lot easier to keep the hundreds of games that I have purchased organized. Not to mention I don’t have to manually keep each of the 95 games I currently have installed updated or have to worry about backing up game saves or having them available across multiple different devices with zero effort from myself.

        Steam isn’t perfect, but it does add a massive amount of value for consumers like myself who take advantage of a lot of the different features that are mostly unique to Steam as a platform.

        Also, I believe when a developer releases a game on Steam they are given the opportunity to use Steamworks, which provides a lot of potentially useful tools for a game deceloper.

        • @[email protected]
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          -131 month ago

          You’re right, I don’t, but it sure as hell makes it a lot easier to keep the hundreds of games that I have purchased organized.

          You are trading your privacy and freedom over your disorganization and lazyness

          Steam isn’t perfect, but

          Reddit has many of the fancy comsumer features you seem to love perhaps you should go back there

    • @[email protected]
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      1 month ago

      It’s primary purpose is DRM which is a net burden to society. Everything else you list is to help you forget that.

      30% is mad decent. For all the haters on California’s insane tax, steam takes a 3x larger cut on all income, and California build roads with it. Steam maybe develops half-baked features.

      • @[email protected]
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        91 month ago

        The steam drm is basically non-existent, in fact pirated games use steam specifically to participate in multiplayer with cracked versions

      • @SynonymousStoat
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        91 month ago

        It’s a developers choice to release on Steam with DRM, Valve does not enforce it, there are games with no DRM on Steam.

        Half baked features? I don’t remember the last time I tried using one of Steam’s features that I listed (and others I didn’t list) and it didn’t work incredibly well.

        Don’t get me wrong, I believe DRM generally only causes problems for paying customers and I’d be much happier without it, but I think Steam’s DRM is one of the least invasive solutions that currently exist.

        • @[email protected]
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          51 month ago

          Exactly. Steam DRM is totally up to the developers to use or not. So don’t be mad at Valve for devs using it, be mad at the devs. But remember, if they aren’t using Steam’s DRM, they’re probably going to use something much worse.

          Steam is an incredibly user-friendly launcher. They have useful features, and I’ve honestly never had any problems with anything on their platform. It just works, and that’s about all I can ask for as a user.

      • YeetPics
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        31 month ago

        You can manage the file destinations and launch .exe’s without loading the Steam client.

        Are you sure you know enough about this to be loudly proclaiming your hot take without looking like a jackass?