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From the opinion piece:
Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin’ back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.
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I know everyone loves Valve, but it feels super weird to be celebrating a monopoly so much and so ferociously. (I know Steam isn’t a technical monopoly. We don’t need to have that discussion)
Gaben is old, and he’s gonna retire. It’ll likely be a lot sooner than anyone here is comfortable with. When Valve gets sold, or even when gaben isn’t in total control anymore, things are going to start changing, and there isn’t going to be a healthy, diverse marketplace to soften that.
There is a very good chance that the PC platform will be a really horrible place because of the lack of consumer choice in which they can purchase and play games.
This genuinely doesn’t get talked about enough. Steam is a private company and Gabe Newell seems to be the de facto “head” of the company, despite its famously “flat” management structure. There is no guarantee a new leader will have the same values or lead the same way. There is ripe opportunity for Steam to become a steaming pile of shit. I don’t know about the exact ownership structure beyond Newell, but unless the employees are far more empowered through things like ownership stake in the company, new leadership could effectively destroy how things currently work at Valve to be replaced by any number of terrible business decisions.
Gabe is old as hell. It’s coming.
Dude, he’s 61. You guys are making it sound like he’s as old as a presidential candidate…
You don’t need to be old to die tomorrow.
True, but that’s unrelated to people pretending that he’s older than dirt 🤷
Yes its so damn bizarre. Every time talk about steam comes up, people start talking about how ancient Gabe is. What are they on? Lol
It’s probably teenagers talking. To them 61 IS nearing death.
61 != 450,000,000
Long live the King!
Hopefully they have some sort of transition plan for who will take over when Gabe retires. As long as they hand the reigns over to someone with similar ideas and not some business type they could be fine given they are privately owned.
Has there been any news at all on who the potential successors are?
Read somewhere that his son who has a similar philosophy was going to take over
First time hearing about this. Hope it works out.
Because nepotism usually works out amazingly and never goes badly. /s
I looked it up and apparently Gray Newell doesn’t work at Valve, so it’s actually unlikely that he’s going to be the successor.
So steam is a family owned company?
Gabe is only 61. But based on his size he will probably go from health issues from that sooner than old age will get a skinnier Gabs.
That’s because at a certain point things like this should just become services.
But that’s wildly against capitalists mindset so…
This genuinely doesn’t get talked about enough. Steam is a private company and Gabe Newell seems to be the de facto “head” of the company, despite its famously “flat” management structure. There is no guarantee a new leader will have the same values or lead the same way. There is ripe opportunity for Steam to become a steaming pile of shit. I don’t know about the exact ownership structure beyond Newell, but unless the employees are far more empowered through things like ownership stake in the company, new leadership could effectively destroy how things currently work at Valve to be replaced by any number of terrible business decisions.
Agreed, further the behavior of valve has to be understood like that of bandcamp before it was sold, an anomaly in a capitalist system that is vastly underperforming and dysfunctional from the perspective of those with money and power. It isn’t, valve is doing great (so was bandcamp) but and I really want to stress this point for the naive gamers here who dont have a very well developed sense of the political realities of capitalism as an ideology (as opposed to some “natural order” of commerce or trade), it doesnt matter if valve is in its most profitable state right now. When it falls under the control of different rich business people it will immediately begin having its heart ripped out, rationality actually comes a lot less into the picture than you think if you believe in economics as a pure science rather than a belief system that uses more math and acronyms than most.
If there arent robust alternatives to valve then, it will be a big step back.
It’s not Steam’s fault if their competitors can’t make a good product. Steam is still the only one with Linux support.
There is nothing exclusive to steam with respect to Linux support. All of the things required for games to run on Linux which valve support are fully open source and even existed before valve got involved. They just threw money at the efforts and turbo charged it (which is great).
All of the things required for games to run on Linux which valve support are fully open source and even existed before valve got involved.
Yes, which makes it even more puzzling that the competitors don’t even try to capitalize on the success of Steam Deck and publish their own store on Flathub, utilizing the very same FOSS technologies to make the games run.
Maybe they’re making more money behind the scenes from another corporation that perhaps pays for them not to do so? Exclusivity deals, etc. etc.?
It is the simple fact that linux is too low a market share, even with steam deck, to bother throwing money at it.
It is the simple fact that linux is too low a market share, even with steam deck
Three million Steam Decks sold.
to bother throwing money at it.
You act as if packaging existing open source software is such an insanely expensive task. It is not.
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Which is why steam invested in said FOSS projects to begin with, they can now forego having to pay licensing costs to microsoft. It is not like steam did this out of the goodness of their hearts, but rather for their own bottom line.
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Yes it absolutely is for a megacorp, for 0 return. Anybody who wants to run games on non-steam launchers can do so just fine, there is mostly only convenience to be gained. The megacorp needs to hire entire teams / departments that understand linux, that understand wine/proton and that can maintain and keep said packages up to date, it is realistically not simple or cheap in corporate hell.
The idea that there is money worthwhile for any store but steam in linux gaming is detached from reality. There is only money in it for steam only because of steam deck.
Which is why steam invested in said FOSS projects to begin with
Steam is not a company, Valve is.
they can now forego having to pay licensing costs to microsoft. It is not like steam did this out of the goodness of their hearts, but rather for their own bottom line.
I don’t care. My experience matters to me and Valve delivers on that experience, so I only buy games on Steam.
there is mostly only convenience to be gained.
I pay for convenience. If I wanted to jump through burning hoops, I pirate the games.
The megacorp needs to hire entire teams / departments that understand linux, that understand wine/proton and that can maintain and keep said packages up to date, it is realistically not simple or cheap in corporate hell.
No. Valve for the most part didn’t (Pierre-Loup Griffais is a notable exception) but I wouldn’t expect someone who can’t get Valve’s name right to know what outsourcing is.
The idea that there is money worthwhile for any store but steam in linux gaming is detached from reality. There is only money in it for steam only because of steam deck.
Through Flathub Epic, CD Project, etc. could get on Steam Decks and completely circumvent any royalties to Valve. Epic also have an affiliation with One-Netbook, the makers of OneXPlayer, though Tencent. An Epic Deck is only one phone call away.
Steam Deck sells well because of superior usability to Windows handhelds.
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Because there’s no money in Linux. Valve can afford to target Linux for long term growth because they aren’t a public company that has to answer to investors every quarter. People mistake that for valve being pro-consumer, which they’re not.
Because there’s no money in Linux.
You should have a chat with the CEOs of Red Hat, Canonical, etc. about that. They surely will value your opinion.
People mistake that for valve being pro-consumer, which they’re not.
As a consumer, I don’t care about their motivation, I care about the results. Steam Deck is more comfortable to use than Windows handhelds.
Companies focusing on long term growth is good for the consumers compared to the ones that only focuses on short term profits. Though why valve is able to do that and other companies like ea or abk can’t is beyond me.
Lol it is literally steam’s fault and they intended to be this way from the very beginning. They intentionally cornered the market with HL2. It’s incredible how people act like this just accidentally happened because valve made a supposedly good product.
Epic is worth 5 times as much as Valve and EGS is still fucking garbage years after it launched. If anything, Valve is the underdog here, yet Steam is objectively better than every other store. It’s not their fault if competing products are trash. Valve is not responsible for UbiSoft being incapable of making software that works as advertised, of for Epic refusing to support Linux.
You can’t solve this problem with money. People don’t want multiple game launchers. It’s like asking why Apple hasn’t cornered the desktop market when they’re one of the largest companies in the world.
Valve 100% knew what they were doing with HL2.
You are sure an old head, you saw Half-Life 2 bound to Steam once and never forgave it. People don’t care that much about Half-Life 2 today, it’s not that which is keeping them there. Meanwhile today Epic not only makes their in-house games exclusive but games from other publishers as well.
The gaming market is much more fickle than general computing, one generation Sony might be on top, and the next one is Microsoft or Nintendo.
Sure people don’t want multiple game launchers, but a launcher that has their favorite game and does all that they need would be enough to get people to switch over. Epic got Fortnite and loads of players because of it. If their launcher did all that players wanted it to, maybe more people would make it their main platform. But Epic doesn’t care to add features to it. If I want to read guides, or listen to game soundtracks, or mod games, I can do that without leaving Steam. But other than exclusivity, you know, the thing that you denounce Valve for having done, there is nothing that Epic does better than Steam or any other store on the market.
Apple could easily eat into MS’s pie by licensing macOS to OEMs.
Next CEO will literally just kill the program and pocket the money. Saying they need to focus on their core windows users, times are hard, “the economy”
“This product is worthless because it doesn’t cater to… Let me check my notes… Under 2% of the market and even less if we don’t count the Steam Deck!”
Ok buddy
I really don’t understand this argument. Aren’t you basically pointing out that Steam is better because they cater to a demographic that most companies won’t consider because of the small market size?
No, I’m pointing out that it’s perfectly normal that other companies don’t see the point of spending money on it. Steam has 70% of the PC market which is 96% of the market and you think it’s a good idea to put energy into trying to capture some shares of less than 2% of the market where they have basically a 100% hold.
Don’t start a business.
I understand that it’s normal, but the argument still doesn’t make sense for the purposes of this discussion. For people who do use Linux, it is worthless since they can’t use it. I also can’t blame Linux users for not liking a company that has been hostile to them (i.e. removing Linux support from a game that had it.) You’re just reinforcing that Steam is a better option for them.
The problem is that the complaints aren’t “It might be a good product, I can’t try it because they don’t support my OS of choice and that’s understandable considering the small user base” which is perfectly reasonable, the complaints are “Epic sucks because they don’t support Linux and [insert a bunch of stuff that hasn’t been true for years or that also applies to Valve as a company]” which isn’t reasonable.
It’s not just that though. A lot of people have already pointed out that Epic appears to be actively hostile towards Linux by removing compatibility for games that had it before. People have also pointed out that turning on Linux compatibility for EAC is fairly trivial, but they refuse to do it. For some games, Linux users have to go through extra loops just to make it work. So when it looks like a company is treating a certain demographic as something that’s worth less than shit for no apparent reason, I’m not surprised that they’ll have a negative attitude towards that company.
And say what you want about Valve, but they have pushed Linux compatibility and it’s not surprising why Linux users have a more positive view of them over Epic. As I’ve already said, your argument reinforces this point.
You have a comforting and appealing way of getting your point across that totally leaves the listener/reader readily open to considering your opinion. Keep doing that.
Bruh, the Steam Deck is Linux.
Yes, but its only use (in the vast majority of cases) is playing games so it’s not comparable to Windows PCs (a versatile tool) which are 96% of the market and are comparable to Linux PCs. The people who buy a Steam Deck intentionally buy it to play PC games with a portable device and couldn’t care less what OS is on it, the people who run a Linux PC intentionally use Linux.
Although now that I say that, I wonder how many Deck owners are just Linux users who bought it out of OS loyalty and wouldn’t have shown any interest in the equivalent product (ROG Ally, Legion GO)… When wouldn’t make them much better than the Apple fanatics if we think about it…
I very specifically bought a steam deck because it can double as a Linux desktop. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
that the difference, instead of getting their ass fucked for what ever stupid decision microsoft do, they created their own market, that btw already run faster than the microsoft’s one while windows is getting worse day by day, linux is getting better, an they are doing it in the most pro-user way
Under 2% of the market
more than macOS lol
“Already runs faster than the Microsoft one”
Yeah so that article you’re referencing doesn’t have any credibility when you actually understand how sampling works.
One computer setup, ignoring the games that don’t work at all, Windows offering marginally lower performance at peak but much higher fps stability… Let’s present it as a major win for Linux!
Do you know what my stats teacher would have told me if I had presented a study based on a sample of one? They would have told me “See you in this same class next year, you clearly didn’t understand anything I taught you so we’ll try again.”
Caution, though, this same principle applies to the disabled, and soldiers; both groups gaming companies have made many direct attempts to support even if it’s just for a positive public image.
The difference being that you choose the OS you’re using.
Uhoh. I didn’t think this would be how I learned about the US draft being reinstated.
Find me one soldier/veteran that would choose to have PTSD or their limbs mangled.
In an ideal world, if Gaben was a real saint, he would turn Steam into a foundation or steward-owned purpose organization before he retires, that can’t be sold.
Thank for the interesting read
Didn’t the Patagonia owner do something like that?
Yup. If you open the link they mention Patagonia. They also mention Signal, which I didn’t know was also like this.
I’m just glad GOG is surviving. It’s even closer to an ideal of DRM-free games you own. I try to buy from there whenever I can.
Gog is on life support last I checked, it wasn’t profitable and they had to cut headcount dramatically
I found out recently GOG was created by CD project, the same company behind CD Project Red which made The Witcher and CyberPunk. Was very glad to find out about that.
Even closer? Implying that steam ever cared about digital ownership?
Steams biggest competition isn’t another launcher, it’s piracy. Gabe is wise enough to know that, if the next guy to take over is a chode they’ll learn the hard way.
Absolutely. I have not pirated a single game since I got steam. Before that it was almost exclusively pirated games. no shops close by, and buying on mail order took FOREVER! and was very much hit or miss… And impossible to return.
I did buy most of the games that i enjoyed, and played a lot. Since i wanted the box on the shelf. but i still played the pirated version. since that was much easier then puling out the book and look at the 5th word on the 3rd paragraph on page 121 for the copy protection. :)
It’s absolutely weird and unhealthy to celebrate it.
Gaben is old, and he’s gonna retire. It’ll likely be a lot sooner than anyone here is comfortable with. When Valve gets sold, or even when gaben isn’t in total control anymore, things are going to start changing, and there isn’t going to be a healthy, diverse marketplace to soften that.
This is it. Look at history and every major company in the past 200 years. Once the shift happens, it all goes to hell. And yet people are still shouting about some “Steam Victory” like wtf?
Nothing lasts forever, but occasionally things can hang on for awhile. Nintendo isn’t quite the beloved company they were a few decades ago, but they’ve been doing ok for the past ~130 years.
Meh, I think there are some private companies that manage to remain vigilant in their purpose even as leaders change.
In my opinion, most problems happen the second a company goes public. So I’m just hoping that Valve never chooses to go public and is thus never legally beholden to shareholder interests.
I agree with all your points… but… IMHO some things keeping Steam honest are services like GoG and if course the High Seas, but more than that there’s the plethora of other entertainment options.
This isn’t housing, air, or water. A person can just not play if it’s too much hassle or too costly. If Steam or any given entertainment option isn’t worth using, people just won’t. There’s no shortage of things to do other than play games, much less use Steam for gaming.
I agree that we shouldn’t imagine Steam will never change, nor should we blindly worship or glorify Valve/GabeN. I just think that games and entertainment generally is an arena where market forces actually work to benefit the consumer.
Of course employment practices and company culture is a whole 'nother thing…
There is a very good chance that the PC platform will be a really horrible place because of the lack of consumer choice in which they can purchase and play games.
I agree with the sentiment that Steam will eventually have a shitification, but I remain optimistic because the PC platform is more open than mobile platforms.
GOG and Humble are existing, smaller stores. Microsoft had three stores they use to sell and install games. Half of the FAANG companies would love to get in on this space if an opportunity showed itself. If we get past high interest rates, I can see VCs getting in on this space.
It won’t be pretty and we can support smaller options now. But I don’t think it’ll be horrible.
It is technically a monopoly, you don’t need 100% market share to be considered one otherwise Google wouldn’t be considered a monopoly but it is.
In the Epic trial, Google made some of the same arguments as those used to defend Steam, like the presence of competing stores or the claim that it wins people over by the quality of the product.
Epic’s expert made these relevant points:
Google impairs competition without preventing it entirely
Google’s conduct targets competition as it emerges
Google is dominant
And we know who won in the antitrust case. Let’s see what happens in Wolfire et al v. Valve.
Wowww this is crazy misleading.
The difference is that Google’s software is forced onto OEMs without them having any real choice. That Google makes them sign contracts forbidding other default app stores. That Google has secret back room deals with some app developers and not others waiving the store fee, giving them an unfair advantage.
Valve does none of that. Can you point me to valve forcing, say, Dell or HP to pre-install Steam and no other game stores? Or them not taking a cut for some games?
Valve’s actions do not have to copy those of Google for it to engage in anti-competitive behavior. Focus on the Steam-specific arguments deemed reasonable enough for the judge to allow the trial to go through, like those on the MFN, high profit margin related to the 30% fee, user reviews manipulation, and so forth.
I said pointing to the Google antitrust case and equating them is misleading, not that it’s impossible for Valve to engage in any anti-competitive behaviour.
And the reason why I said that is because they’re completely different and not even in the same stratosphere in terms of shady ongoings. Nor are they doing the same thing. The Google case has zero bearing on this one.
As for the 30% cut, that’s been deemed fine. See the Apple case and the Google case. Even in Google’s case, where Google lost, it wasn’t down to pricing.
And Valve would have an easier time justifying it too. They could point to their service being much more bandwidth intensive, and including things like friend systems, a messenger, voice chat, streaming, cloud saves, Linux compatibility layers, compatibility for controllers that the OS doesn’t natively support, matchmaking APIs, Steam overlay, custom control options for when the game doesn’t officially support it, etc.
One day, Valve will be under different ownership, and we will regret the time we fought for their monopoly.
That will be a shame for already purchased Steam libraries, but because the PC is an open platform and their “monopoly” is drastically overstated, it might just be the opportunity for GOG to rise up. Or maybe even Epic, if it actually bothers doing better. Valve can’t, and won’t ever be able to completely control where people buy PC games.
You know, as opposed to consoles like Playstation, which, if you don’t like how they are doing business, you just gotta deal with it.
I wouldn’t call it fighting for a monopoly. It’s just that for the last decade people have been doing exactly what everyone keeps saying to do, voting with their wallet. Steam isn’t a clear market leader because people wanted it to be, it’s one because every competitor has not put in the effort to compete but rather chosen to be shitty towards the customer rather than be beneficial to the customer.
It’s just fanboyism. Everyone shits on PS and Xbox users, but PC gamers weren’t privy to the fact that the PC master race trope was meant mockingly and kinda just ran with it. Now they stan a corporation.
I know Steam isn’t a technical monopoly. We don’t need to have that discussion
That’s one way to swat away all criticism about the premise of your comment…
When Valve gets sold, or even when gaben isn’t in total control anymore, things are going to start changing, and there isn’t going to be a healthy, diverse marketplace to soften that.
Considering the fact that Steam is not a monopoly and alternate storefronts continue to exist (Microsoft will not stop selling games individually on their own store even if it’s just an afterthought to GamePass but it’s the same platform as GamePass), there will be alternatives to Steam if Valve turns anti-consumer. There is little actual loyalty among gamers. Just look at Blizzard: At one point their customer base was almost as die hard as Nintendo’s and it took only a couple of years to throw that away. (I noticed it when the audience actually booed at the Diablo Immortal reveal.)
Yep.
People fanboy over Steam endlessly without realizing that with time, it will turn to shit as well.
More competition is good, and maybe Epic is shit today but if their leadership changes then maybe it could actually significantly improve and surpass Steam.
But if it doesn’t exist, then if Steam turns to shit then you’re much more likely to just be stuck with shit.
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Well, hold on. Why shouldnt we rely on pirates for preservation?
Valve is the only major PC game store that isnt public. Possibly the only PC store period, tho I dont know that for a fact for the smaller distributors. The private nature is why they currently operate as the best option for users, and the odds of the other stores going private is basically zero. So when valve shifts winds, they will be the end of an era.
Do you expect us to be able to request or rely on public companies to ever do better for game preservation and user to user trade than a private company does? You already arent pleased with valves stance, and there is no indication anyone will ever do better than them.
Who else would ever do better? Pirates are the best option.
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Ok, but thats still also not about steam. Steam is a store, but they dont make much product. Game devs do that.
Game devs are the ones no longer making physical copies of their games. We should be pushing for the producers of games to be offering these.
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Preservation is a joke. Sure, for super old games sold on cartridges it works. But for anything around… 1998 to 2010 or so? Forget it.
Even when you owned the original PC CDs with the box, the game updates are no longer available (Developer might not even exist anymore, site is shutdown). And if you get the wrong DRM like SecuROM you can’t start your game at all. Valid CD key or not (I tried it with Sacred 2, couldn’t get it to run due to the DRM servers being gone. Support from the shop I bought it years ago just gave me a Steam key afterwards, lol). And of course even if you get things to run, the online servers are no longer available, so that limits it to singleplayer games mostly.
Looking back at all the games I bought right now Steam is doing the best job when it comes to actually keep them running. GOG is a good second place. Hell, my PC doesn’t even have a DVD drive anymore, it’s simply not necessary.
Having played on PC for the last ~27 years I really don’t understand the nostalgia. PC gaming back then was a major hassle between physical media, manual game patching (version 1.01a to 1.01b to 1.02 to 1.1 to …) and shitty DRM that barely worked. We can only hope Steam isn’t going down the gutter, but for now they rake in tons of cash and it’s a privately held company so it should be fine.
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Well, physical media breaks, discs get scratched and you might no longer find the updates.
If you want to preserve your games nowadays your best option is buying from GOG and backing up your installers (it’s DRM free and with no launcher). But it’s a massive hassle compared to just using Steam and having auto updates. The GOG launcher that does updates for you exists, but it’s a bit meh.
Anything that’s delisted will, outside of piracy, die when the account holders die.
Not totally true, it’s allowed to bequeath your account to someone through your will. At least for your Steam account. Of course you have to take care to do that before you die…
Valve isn’t going broke anytime soon, they get around a 30% cut of every game sold and on top of that they also get a cut from all the steam market transactions. Valve is a privately owned company, which means no shareholders who want constant growth for any price, so for a company worth around 7.7 billion USD in 2022 I’m really not afraid Steam will go away anytime soon.
And even if Steam has to shut down, Gaben at least made the promise to give you downloads for all your purchased games. You can decide how much that’s worth.
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No exception was provided for this last time I looked through the subscriber agreement. I’m not real keen on reading through it again. Can you share the relevant portion?
Ah, it’s unfortunately not in the contract. They do it (See for example this answer where another family member got the account after their little brother died), but it looks like it’s not a guarantee.
As for the big red button at Valve, I can only find snippets of information. The only “official” one: https://imgur.com/4sa1Ln6 Most information is just from interviews or private messages, claiming there is an inner senior circle at Valve and they do have a contingency plan.
And they’re probably gonna figure out the account isn’t being used by the original owner and delete it when it’s 120 years old or some shit.
They actually have terms that cover that. You can’t sell or transfer accounts, and upon the death of the owner of each account, the account will be closed and licenses to games revoked. So yes, effectively, they will have accounts with a general “time limit” for existing, although they’re still coming up on the first time they might invoke that, at being a 20 year old service. The oldest people who have bought games on Steam are probably in their 50’s and so they may be facing it soon. As the user base ages, you might see more “end of life” account options. You know, so you can make sure all those anime porn games disappear and your grandkids won’t be dealing with that after you’re dead.
You can’t sell or transfer accounts, and upon the death of the owner of each account, the account will be closed and licenses to games revoked. So yes, effectively, they will have accounts with a general “time limit” for existing
How does that work with the family share games option in the Steam client?
If they’re playing a shared game does it just disappear on them all of a sudden?
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I guess we’ll see how this shakes out in the coming years. God willing, not much will change.
The only reason I support them as a monopoly is because they are the closest thing to an ethical/moral capitalist company around. They are proof positive that treating employees, customers, and vendors fairly can lead to an obscenely strong company with profit margins that the amoral assholes out there looking for every way to shaft everyone to make an extra penny can are envious of.
From what I understand discussing the issue with friends who run game studios and deal with Valve/Steam, the employees pretty much have his mindset from the bottom to the top of the org chart. He has been smart in who he hires and who is promoted so leadership is not a bunch of sniveling money grubbers who will sell out immediately when he retires. 🤞
I know Steam isn’t a technical monopoly
They try hard to monopolize mods for that. An issue especially with GoG & Steam multireleases; they hog all the mods (community work) on their Workshop.
There’s no good company, only less shitty ones.
Nothing lasts forever.
Plus, we have enough games. Shut it down, play old games lol
Newell is only 61, and an avid gamer with a lot of demonstrable business intelligence. I wouldn’t worry too much.
Only? I mean people die in their 50s and 60s all the time. You never know. I just hope the one that takes over has the same morals as Gabe.
Btw, some sort of “optional Peer to Peer”, where volunteers host the platform P2P and everyone else can log in normally, does something like that exist?
To have a decentral platform for mods, against the near duopoly of Steam Workshop/Nexus.
I’m not celebrating a monopoly, I’m celebrating a good platform for consumers. Steam likely knows that if it angers people its monopoly is ripe for a ton of regulation, at least in the European market where PC gaming is huge.
They’ve been hit with an anti trust lawsuit in Europe, lost and didn’t cooperate and instead paid some more.
They offer refunds because they got sued for it.
They’ve introduced more and more ways to monetize whales and to trigger people’s dopamine secretion to get them to buy more games.
Valve is still a company that aims to make profits, it’s not your friend.
I’ve been weaning myself off of Steam for years now.
I only use it at this point for games I’ve already bought and games that are exclusive to Steam, like TF2.
Anything else I just download for free.
So many viruses.
I know Steam isn’t a technical monopoly. We don’t need to have that discussion
Yet you still refer to it as such. 🤦♂️
Epic bought rocket league and promptly tanked it in favor of their stupid fortniteverse. Maybe steam keeps winning because they’re not actively screwing over their customers.
Or Pheonix Point, where Epic bought an kickstarter game that was funded under the promise of releasing on Steam, GOG and potentially other stores and promptly made it exclusive - and this was in the early days when their launcher/store was in a much worse state too.
Rocket League is such an easy slam dunk of a game. The mechanics are so good there should be a family of game modes (like Turbo Golf Racing) that surround the core game mode that have spawned entirely new genres of car games by now. Almost no other video game has a core gamefeel as locked in as Rocket League and honestly Epic should be ashamed Rocket League isnt a household name like minecraft by now.
Epic bought rocket league and promptly tanked it in favor of their stupid fortniteverse.
Sadly Valve is guilty of a similar thing. Valve bought Campo Santo and (at least that’s the public statement) the developers were free to work on whatever projects and chose HL Alyx instead of that new game after Firewatch. Game development gets cancelled all the time and perhaps the new game just wasn’t that good.
There must be more to success than that, because Valve likewise bought Campo Santo, the developer of Firewatch, and now their next game is all but canceled. These companies can’t help but focus on their big money makers at the expense of all else.
All I can find about their next game is called “In the Valley of Gods” which looks like it is still being developed. What game was cancelled? Also how is that the same as buying an IP then running it into the ground so their main IP can get a mildly popular game mode that will likely be forgotten about in a couple months? I’m already bored of rocket racing and I only installed it because a friend kept begging me to play fortnite zero build which I also don’t enjoy.
It is on indefinite hold. It is still being “developed” in the same way Valve won’t confirm or deny the existence or cancelation of Half-Life 2 Episode 3/Half Life 3, but articles I’ve read previously essentially confirm that no one has been working on it for years.
I’ll happily eat my words if the game does come out because Firewatch was a beautiful game that left me wanting more, but Valve’s internal development structure doesn’t really encourage passion projects.
but Valve’s internal development structure doesn’t really encourage passion projects.
Could you elaborate?
Not the person you’re replying to, but from what I’ve read before Valve is kind of notorious for this because they do encourage people to work on what they want. The problem with this is that it also means it’s hard to get support for your project. For example, in order to get Half-Life: Alyx pushed out, they had to suspend that policy of working only on things that make them happy.
Here’s a quote from the wiki article about HL: Alyx’s development:
Valve abandoned episodic development and made several failed attempts to develop further Half-Life projects. Walker blamed the lack of progress on Valve’s flat management structure, whereby employees decide what to work on themselves. He said the team eventually decided they would be happier if they worked together on a large project, even if it was not their preferred choice.
Here’s some additional info on how they work from an interview:
Robin Walker: We started in February of 2016, I think, with a small team, and we brought out a small prototype. Then people started to play that, understood what we were trying to do afterward, and started joining up. We had 80 people on the team when we were about midway through. The exact size of the team I wouldn’t be able to tell you. The way things work at Valve, people organically join once they’ve finished up what they were doing before, and if what you’re doing makes sense to them. So it was always full steam ahead, I guess, but not in the sense that all 80 people were there from day one.
Jane Ng: I joined the project last year, I think. People just sort of see that “Hey, this project’s getting pretty cool,” and then they roll their desks over when they’re done with whatever they were doing.
Putting a product out requires 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. The reason so many people make hour long video essays is that they can regurgitate their inspiration directly to a camera while doing little substantive work.
Valve likely has other “1% inspiration” tasks people often choose over the “boring” parts of game development - the bits that don’t excite anyone, and would only be done with the direct promise of a paycheck. Who wants to write up a design document, and go through 8 drafts for feedback?
I think the quote from Jane is pretty telling. Some people at Valve only help out when a project starts “getting pretty cool.” It’s probably the cause of a lot of inertia in game development over there. Also, just an interesting detail, Jane Ng is from Campo Santo and she stopped working on In the Valley of Gods to work on HL: Alyx.
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Maybe steam keeps winning because they’re not actively screwing over their customers
Idk, they are kinda screwing over the publishers. But that doesn’t impact the users buying the game, so they don’t care. Which I guess the percentage they take is worth the value they bring, given so many keep selling on steam.
Genuinely curious but how are they screwing over the publishers?
I’m especially curious how that can be true along with the seemingly contradictory conclusion you came to in your last sentence.
Steam gets something to the tune of 30 % as their fee.
30% is industry standard from Apple, Microsoft, Google, Sony, etc.
Steam taking 30% is nothing out of the norm
It’s just a pretty ridiculous cut for steam. Steam gets 30% of every transaction.
But I was saying that I suppose the extreme cut of 30% must be worth it since so many developers keep coming back to steam. But that also could just be because they have such a monopoly that users don’t want to switch DRMs.
You people need to watch the GDC Talk by the spiderweb software indie dev from like half a decade ago. He said, loud and clear, that the 30 cut is great and worth it for what he gets. Sure, lower cut is always nice, but let’s not be stupid and say that the devs don’t get their money’s worth.
Let’s not be stupid, and recommend an hour long video without a link (it’s here) as an answer to why 30% is a good deal. He says it loud and clear, but also it’s hidden somewhere in the hour long talk. Like I said, 30% must be worth it if so many developers are willing to take the cut for the services. But if a big part of what you’re getting is the number of users that use your platform, then you’re in a bit of a loop. The 30% is worth it because so many people will see your game, and users don’t leave steam because it’s where all their games are. The users have incentive to stay, because it’s nice to keep all your games in one spot. I have over 1,500 games on steam, so for me to leave steam would mean leaving behind thousands of dollars worth of content I paid for already. So how can another service enter the arena and have any viability? 30% might be fair, but it might also be too high. What if it doesn’t matter if it’s too high because they get more sales on Steam? It’s a complicated topic, but I’m just saying that 30% of each and every sale is a pretty big cut, even if it has become standard (a standard set by steam).
Apple also takes 30% (or did it change to 15%? Definitely used to, tho). So does Google, Amazon app store, Samsung Galaxy store (just to name some in the mobile industry). And guess ehat, even GOG takes 30%.
I would argue that, compared to other services that also take 30%, and taking them as a baseline for what they offer on top of “buy download play” model, Steam is still very generous as it offers cloud saves, achievements, workshop, community forum, chat, streaming, offline mode, and tons of little stuff that make your life easier.
That’s different
The 30% were introduced by Nintendo for cartridges iirc. So I would not say valve set that standard.
I’m glad steam and gog exist. Both provide an amazing service.
Especially GOG being DRM free but they really need a Linux client.
Hard ask for a Linux client when the Windows client is barely functional.
It would be nice but I like Heroic launcher a lot. I probably wouldn’t bother installing a gog Linux client.
Heroic is currently the best option imo, it at least has cloud saves and updates.
My friend said he installed gog galaxy onhis steam deck just fine
Try Lutris
Why? The website works fine.
downloading 30 separate 4GB files one by one is an unecessary chore. A ‘download all’ would make the website good
I’m fine with them existing, but if there are clauses preventing publishers from proposing their games both on steam and elsewhere while they can’t make it cheaper elsewhere, I would like these clauses to stop. I read somewhere there are such clauses and these kind of clauses seem very uncompetitive to me and I wonder why they are legal (if they are).
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It’s not about what the publisher sets as price, it’s about restricting his options.
I don’t see a problem with it. Steam provides a ton of service as a marketplace and distributor. The social aspect of steam friends seeing what games you’re playing translates into advertising for your game. They allow for regional pricing adjustments so it’s not about blocking players from poorer countries from affording the game. And they have huge frameworks for digital item trading, achievement management, community discussion, modding and more. Their 30% cut of each sale policy is unilaterally enforced and in line with the fees charged by the VAST majority of other distributors. They don’t make exclusivity deals in exchange for taking a smaller cut, unlike some much less consumer-friendly markets. Their market is completely fair across the board. I think it’s also pretty fair to ask publishers not to push that 30% fee onto the consumer, by requiring the price on Steam to not exceed the price on any other marketplace.
That policy is to the benefit of steam customers, because they can be reasonably sure the steam price is the best price (currently) available. It’s not about exclusivity, it’s about protecting the value that Steam offers to the consumer.
I don’t see how any of that justifies that valve prohibits publishers from selling their games for cheaper on a platform other than steam.
If anything, the 30% cut is significant and if a developer finds a cheaper platform elsewhere, why wouldn’t he also be allowed to sell his game for cheaper there too?
It’s really dubious to see valve try to control developers market strategies on platforms other than steam.
I think it only prohibits them from selling steam keys for cheaper elsewhere. It serves to protect steam from bad actor publishers that would try to cut steam out by selling keys on their own website, not paying the 30% platform fee while still using steam’s infrastructure to deliver the game to players. Source
It’s amazing that steam offers this functionality at all, not even mentioning they don’t charge anything for generating keys.
Reddit is not a source, but the source linked in that post isn’t really clear.
However, in this Ars Technica article they state ‘Sources close to Valve suggested to Ars that this “parity” rule only applies to the “free” Steam keys publishers can sell on other storefronts and not to Steam-free versions of those games sold on competing platforms. Valve hasn’t responded to a request for comment on this story.’
Has that lawsuit gone anywhere? I’ve seen games published on origin and GoG for cheaper then they are on Steam. And Steam will honor developer provided game keys (hence why places like Humble and Green Man can sell games so cheaply). And after trying to research the claims, all I found was reports about the lawsuit existing. It seems like if that was real, there would be more than reports of a lawsuit and contradictory evidence by way of literally being able to buy games for cheaper on other platforms.
Not saying it’s total bullshit, just seems kind of suspect all things considered.
I wish someone would actually link that clause because I’ve searched and I didn’t find it.
I don’t have any, but I see the following: Cyperpunk 2077, which is available on steam, is cheaper than on the developer’s own platform (gog.com), despite both being at 50% off. Is there any incentive for CDPR to sell it more expensive on their platform?
They’re exactly the same for me, 50% off from 59,99€? If the pricing is not in EUR or USD the comparison between pricing become much harder than because it’s a whole other world with regional pricing and currency conversions etc. that I don’t fully understand. It’s most likely the case that Steam does a better job at calculating the pricing into your currency than other storefronts.
Yes, it seems you are right. Nonetheless, even at equal prices, isn’t it surprising?
This isn’t really that hot of a take. Steam does keep winning and it’s because of convenience for consumers. Valve also is probably the best of those companies when it comes to not violating rights. I really hope when Gaben passes the torch for valve ownership that it’s someone with his vision and priorities
Steam does keep winning and it’s because of convenience for consumers.
As a Linux user, nothing else comes even close. I can read on ProtonDB if I can expect a Windows game to just work, and more often than not, it does.
GOG is also a great concept, and somewhat Linux friendly, but it doesn’t have the Steam “click and play” convenience.
Epic Game Store however, has been decidedly Linux hostile for some reason??? As I see it, Steam and GOG are for gamers, Epic Game Store is for business. It would be a dark day for gamers, if Epic ever became dominant.The contributions Valve has made to Linux really, really can’t be understated.
It’s been 20 years of the joke “It’s finally the year of the Linux Desktop” and Valve took the desktop for a miss and made 2023 “the year of the Linux Portable PC Gaming Handheld.”
Epic is Linux adverse mainly because of its Chinese investors. They don’t want to open source their spyware.
Why would they have to open source anything? Just because it’s running on Linux doesn’t mean it’s OSS or even F(L)OSS. Steam isn’t open source either.
Not to mention that open source software can and sometimes does contain spyware.
That seems allot more like a one-off, a one time thing.
Also, anyone can view the source code for the open source product.
Nobody with two brain cells says foss can’t have spy/malware. What’s true is only that in important projects, it is very likely it will raise flags very soon. For example, see your link
That makes literally zero sense. If anything Chinese investors would want the open source operating system to be the most popular since the US is becoming more hostile and banning them from stuff more and more. Its why they’re investing in RISC-V development and the US is considering being hostile towards it for “national security reasons”
I would think China would be eager to get out of western (USA) dominated Operating Systems.
I know Russia has attempted it as couple of times, but with very little success.
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Steam and GoG are not just free services for gamers either. At their core they are businesses, and they invest significantly to try and make people spend more/get addicted to their services.
I hate this whole idea that some companies are your friend. That just shows their marketing and branding is working on people and blinding people.
I hate this whole idea that some companies are your friend.
It’s not a matter of them being your friend or not, it’s a matter of them respecting their customers, and giving their customers what they want, generating a win-win.
These days most corporations are very happy with the win-lose scenarios, as it maximizes their profits.
Publicly traded companies, which we’ve all learned to hate and not take as our friends, are in no way comparable to Steam which is privately owned. Gabe Newell is in no way forced by shareholders to push for increased profits, the company has no interest in pushing for enshittification unlike VC funded startups.
Thank goodness Gabe will live forever and Steam will always be a private company then!
Oh… Shit.
This is exactly what I mean. It’s like people just have no concept of the future. Point me to any private company that’s been around a long time and is still not shit.
Valve is also a privately held company, unlike most (all?) of the other big players. Therefore they don’t have the ever present drive and threat of “the line must always go up” to contend with. Valve can do whatever the fuck they feel like, however the fuck they feel like, and as long as they’re bringing in enough revenue to keep the lights on and keep Gabe Newell in Acapulco shirts and Cheetos, or whatever his jam is, there’s nothing anybody can do about it.
They can gamble and release a VR headset or two, and if it’s not a huge success, who cares? There are no shareholders breathing down their necks. They can support the Linux community and if it pisses of Microsoft, or whoever, so what? They want to wait 16+ years before getting around to releasing the sequel to their flagship franchise? There is no boardroom pushing them to slap it together and shove it out the door before Christmas, so they can just do that. Etc.
All true, but Gabe is old and the de facto leader. What happens when he goes? Do employees have stake in the company to make sure the way things work don’t change? Will a new leader want to “shake things up” to be able to “claim ownership” over what is happening at the company? (This is something many many managers do, and it’s bad management, but it’s so so common)
There’s still ripe opportunity for things to go south here.
Gabe is 61. Looking at the presidential candidates for the upcoming US election and it even looks young.
GOG is also good for consumers, too (in some ways, moreso than Steam, like DRM-free games with install files) but it doesn’t get the same love. I understand why, Steam was already the market leader, has a way more polished product, and GOG really still focused on “what’s in the name” of Good Old Games. Most of their catalogue seems to be focused on older titles, which definitely makes it seemingly more catered to an older, classic gaming audience.
I love the idea of gog but they need to invest in their own store. They need to make a client that’s worth a damn, or make the website work better, or both. I routinely forget that gog exists, if I had a client on my computer with a store that worked I would probably give them more money. Getting old games from gog working on Linux is usually fine but new releases are often a shit show. Lack of steam deck support really kills my willingness to buy from them. I will never enjoy downloading X amounts of 4gb files to run a game, just use a better protocol like BitTorrent or something. I don’t think it’s fair to consumers that the best gog clients are 3rd party, unsupported and receive zero funding from CPR for making gog a usable platform.
I don’t like monopolies, but it’s hard to argue that any other service offers the same value to the end user.
Well yeah, because gog is selling games ethically… That’s great, I think it’s good that they exist, and if I want a specific game I’ll often go to them first
But that’s kind of the limit… They don’t have much power, they advocate against drm and all, but I don’t see them fighting in the courts or the media the way the EFF always leads the charge.
That’s fine - they’re a store, and like a local shop, I’d rather give them my business than a chain
Steam gets so much praise because they’re Walmart, but instead of destroying the local economy, they go out of their way to add value to it and lower the barriers of entry for everyone. They’re a monopoly that goes out of their way to improve the industry they dominate, including by improving competition
I’ve said this before but as soon as Valve becomes a public company, immediately start protesting and sailing.
They were the company who had people who recognized that they already did all of their ideas and their best bet was to get out of the way for the next generation of developers. The other studios are apparently run by narcissists who still think they are at the top of their game. The world could learn a big lesson from Valve.
It’s not narcissism. It is a rational decision with major upside if you can pull off building your own storefront and launcher. If you can stop paying steam 30 percent of every sale, and have direct access to the user for data collection and targeted advertising, you try to execute. There is a ton of upside for Epic, EA, or Ubisoft to go direct to consumer and not have a middle man (and possibly be the middle man for others).
I’m referring to the young Gen X and elderly Millennials who still run the industry and still think that everything should be full of micro transactions, huge bugs, and DLC with no content. I’m referring to the people who are scared of Baldurs Gate III and claim that nobody can reach that standard. They are still thinking of games as they were 15 years ago but the world has moved on.
young Gen X and elderly Millennials who still run the industry and still think that everything should be full of micro transactions, huge bugs, and DLC with no content.
As a Gen-Xer I can say with some level of confidence that my gen was all about Shareware and cheering developers on when years later they would release the source code to their games (Doom, etc.). And the games you bought were all complete, no DLC.
I can’t tell you how many years I used the RAR compression format before finally paying for a license for it.
Early gaming/computing was a lot more socialistic than it was capitalistic.
Also Gen X. I seriously never paid for a single piece of software. Then it started to come with your computer. Then you got it for free or through a work account.
In the end I only pay for games.
So much contradiction and ageism in this comment. Older people are the problem thinking of games they were 15 years ago, but also aggressively pushing micro transactions that a pretty new for non mobile games in the past 10 years.
That’s literally my argument. That’s literally what I’m saying. This is not a boomer problem, it’s a problem with those that came after. The world is ready to move on but the industry insiders aren’t.
Older millennials got in and reinvented the world. Time to let the zoomers do the same.
See also CD Project Rekt saying that they don’t want to be bought up because they are about to become big again.
What are you talking about. Millennials are just now turning 40 years old. Gen X is the age of the major CEO’s and leaders in the industry. How do millenials “get out of the way” when they finally are hitting mid career where they have a say?
I specifically said younger gen x and older millennials. When the millennials got in, they had great new ideas that changed the world. Now they are out of touch and holding back the industry. Just look at Bethesda and EA s examples of this.
All I’m really trying to say is that when you run out of ideas, get out of the way of those who still have them.
This is pretty much what I said would happen in some other threads. EGS came and portrayed itself as a savior or developers, but the cost of solution comes from consumers. They didn’t try to compete in quality of service or features, but spent hundreds of millions on exclusive deals. Who in their right mind would switch from something like Steam where sole focus is the consumer.
Yes, Steam takes a huge percentage but it’s not like anyone is forcing developers to go there. Developers go there because that’s where the people are. And people are there because they get many more benefits for the same or lower price. Steam offers so many conveniences and features it’s hard to list them all. From cloud saves to Proton, chat, family sharing and so on.
Steam Input is another underrated feature, makes use of any controller plug and play.
What’s funny though is that a game was exclusive to the Epic Games Store, the devs of the game recommended to launch the game launcher via steam to use steam input as EGS or game had some controller detection issues lol
But like seriously, it’s 2024, all games should support all controllers natively, without the need for steam input/rewasd/ds4windows etc
While some games do support dualsense and dualshock natively, but they don’t support switch controller?!
While we’re at it can we also have both sets of controller glyphs available on PC for games that released on Xbox and Playstation? My ps5 controller works fine but I still see “press Y to interact” in game
some games do show ps5 glyphs, if the game uses steam input api completely it will show
and some other games show glyphs natively like FIFA/FC 24 and other ps games like spiderman, god of war etc
Unfortunately FromSoft missed this memo and only has Xbox/MKB glyphs native. Since Elden Ring uses anti-cheat I can’t even mod the ps5 glyphs in without losing online functionality :(
The games that just let you choose within the options are gold. With GeForce Now, OSX, Moonlight, or 3rd party controllers it is sometimes a total mess to just display as a damn PlayStation or Nintendo controller. I can’t stand the Xbox layout and it is even worse when I get used to playing a game with one layout and then I am expected to use a different one because using X launcher on other system doesn’t see the controller that way.
I can’t help that my brain can’t switch back and forth easily nor mentally remap buttons that clearly say something different when I look down. I have put labels next to the buttons on my 8bit controllers so I can “remember” what the Xbox layout is… The only layout I don’t need labels for is PlayStation.
If Epic had required developers to, say, sell games 15% cheaper (they only take a 12% cut instead of 30%, so the devs would still win out!) then they could have had a really cool argument on their hands. “Look how much Steam costs you as the consumer just from them enriching themselves!”. Then the dearth of features would have been excusable, sure the shop is shit and does ˜nothing but hey, 10% cheaper in return!
Instead, as you say, they wanted to completely brute-force consumers onto the platform by putting their big fortnite money dick on the table, and it backfires and they spent a ton of money on a fat load of nothing.
Plus they’ve nicely trained their consumers that all the EGS client is for is launching it once on Thursdays to get your free game. Not the thing you want customers to associate with your supposedly money-making scheme.
If Epic had required developers to, say, sell games 15% cheaper
Epic cannot do that because
In response to one inquiry from a game publisher, in another example, Valve explained: “We basically see any selling of the game on PC, Steam key or not, as a part of the same shared PC market- so even if you weren’t using Steam keys, we’d just choose to stop selling a game if it was always running discounts of 75% off on one store but 50% off on ours. . . .”
(source)
However, Epic regularly offers coupons out of pocket. Right now you can get 33% off any game above $14.99 or the regional equivalent, as many times as you want, even if the game is already discounted by the publisher. You also get 10% as cashback.
What’s in your wallet?
Thursday games: they made that harder. I’d have to login in again and 2FA every week. I stopped doing that because it wasn’t worth my time. Uninstalled EGL and didn’t install it on my new computer. Not worth it.
Steam doesn’t allow games to be cheaper elsewhere if they want to also sell on Steam. So the only way Epic can do that is by … (gasp) exclusives.
Pretty anti-consumer of the store that “keeps on winning” if you ask me.
Steam doesn’t allow games to be cheaper elsewhere if they want to also sell on Steam.
How does that work when there is the humble bundle store, and IsThereAnyDeal with a shit ton of stores almost always cheaper than Steam?
Don’t they sell Steam keys? Maybe the rules are different in this case.
They do but some sell direct downloads along with Steam Keys.
That seems to be incorrect, and quite possibly originating from Tim Sweeney.
The only thing I found is that steam keys, which (as a publisher/developer) you get from steam without paying, cannot be sold for cheaper off-steam. The reason for that is obvious, since steam doesn’t get their cut on keys, but they still have to provide the support and infrastructure for those users.
If you have a source on that claim though, I’d love to see it - I tried finding anything else on it once and failed.
So the only way Epic can do that is by … (gasp) exclusives.
Even if your initial premise was correct (the comment from KubeRoot suggests it’s not), you claim that only Epic exsclusives were a way around that is obviously BS. The most obvious way around Steam would be to sell everywhere except Steam, so EGS, Microsoft Store, GOG, EA Origin, Uplay,… and whatever else is out there.
Yeah but while they’re not allowed to be on sale within X time of launch, I’ve seen games be part of variable discount bundles or run coupon systems before. Clearly Steam isn’t investing infinite resources into tracking this, and probably doesn’t actually care for anything but AAA games.
That is assuming the language in the contract even includes such coupon or bundle schemes.
And you can properly UNINSTALL games on steam. Epic is a joke when it comes to this. Have to right click and delete folder contents like it’s a 90s version of hacking a game illegally downloaded. They just need a little key generator with an 80s game sound you can’t mute. I thoroughly hate my experience with epic. Archaic POS.
Buuttt Alorn Waek 2 is great!
Fuck Epic with a rusty shovel.
It’s funny that back in 2009 Gabe Newell was talking about the focus on the customer, and making the DRM be above all useful and do things that benefit customers instead of just benefitting the developer/publisher…and here we are today where people really don’t give a shit about the revenue split, but the fact that Steam is an extremely convenient and useful platform that does a lot of legwork for the end users that people don’t even think about anymore.
Epic is trying to wave a banner of revolution, where we the end users just want our shit to work and run nicely. Obligatory mention of Linux here as well, where it seems Valve is truly trying to foster an ecosystem that benefits customers as opposed to fucking them over. That’s in lieu of the Polygon hit-piece https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/16/15622366/valve-gabe-newell-sales-origin-destructive where they point out the scummy things Valve has done…but if you take Valve away you’re left with a barren landscape of shitty publishers that actively treat customers awful with none of the good things Valve does.
This article didn’t research the VR bits…Gabe has said multiple times, even recently, that they are working steadily on VR and it’s hardware. Their next headset even has a codename, Deckard.
Also, I don’t think most people realize Valve doesn’t have much of an internal structure. It more resembles a community of people working together because they want to.
Oh god, I just realized… Imagine if they brought Portal back, but in VR like they did Half-Life.
We’d get so many videos of people falling over in their living room
working steadily on VR and it’s hardware.
If they fix the bullshit joystick switch on the goddamn index controllers I will throat every valve employee that made it happen.
Open up for gaben
Funded by the cash cow steam store, they just kinda do what they will in the mean time.
Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin’ back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.
Why is it so hard for companies to build a game launcher that doesn’t suck? Is it just a lowest bidder situation?
Steam sucked, really bad. For 8 years, maybe? Maybe more? It takes time to build something, but consumers demand everything immediately.
GIF from that period.
I wish I had a use for that.
I mean steam sucked for 8 years like 20 years ago. Technology wasn’t the same as it is. They revolutionized the pc gaming scene and I’d argue that even that Steam version was better than the current EGS version. Was it uglier? Yea maybe but it did the job. You could install, manage and launch your games, cloud saves and it wasn’t bloat or spyware. The Steam just kept getting better even if with a messy ui in some places. They do a ton of shit that generates them no direct profit but that makes using Steam a no brainer. And gamers respect and value that even if not all of them.
Heck I’m sure that they very quickly came up with a functional shopping cart at the very least.
Heck I’m sure that they very quickly came up with a functional shopping cart at the very least.
Steam has been offering third-party titles since 2005 but still had no shopping cart as of 2008.
So 3 years? How long did that take epic? About the same time almost 2 decades later?
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… Because years later, steam got good.
Epic started out shit, and then used their fortnite money to impro… No, wait, sorry, they used their fortnite money to buy exclusivity of games people had already preordered from other stores.
Starting out shit and then slowly improving is one thing. Starting out shit and then kicking your customers in the teeth is completely different.
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No, not exclusivity. Pointedly spending large amounts of money to take already purchased games away from people.
Exclusivity isnt a new concept. Im still patiently waiting for the next horizon game to come to PC at all. Exclucivity isnt kicking your customers in the teeth.
Wagging your fortnite cash in peoples faces by showing them you can take away what they already paid for is the kick in the teeth.
And, more importantly, it showed me how they value me. They will spend extra money to directly inconvenience me in the hopes Im stupid enough to pay them for inconveniencing me. Bad launcher? Thats fine, blizzards launcher is dogshit and I played overwatch for years. Exclusivity again, fine. Ill wait if Im really going to be stubborn, and I wont if I really want the game.
But going out of their way to antagonize other users of the competition, as if Im supposed to find that cute and rebuy what I already purchased at a store I already chose? Zero respect for your customers means you will do the same or worse to me even if I am stupid enough to pay you, if you think antagonizing me again will wiggle out more of my money.
Fuck them forever, they cannot rebuild that trust. The only reason they havent done it again is because steam changed their tos. And they will do it to you as soon as they think theyve got a stable userbase
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Yea no
People complain because the EGS launcher is shit and not getting better in any meaningful way. Plus all the anti consumer shit that they do.
EGS didn’t come out last year. Heck GOG galaxy is fairly decent and it’s not even required and they have a fraction of the budget. And guess what a lot of people like and support them.
Origin is still bad and so is whatever Ubisoft’s launcher is called.
edit: for the record I didn’t say that steam was the best launcher, but I have found the launchers for world of warships and warthunder to be serviceable
Origin is now the “EA App” and Uplay is now “Ubisoft Connect”
They can’t even keep consistent branding.
they change the names because they suck
Ea app is origin without linux compatibility
It’s kind of funny. I feel that the rebranding was because those launchers sucked ( a common marketing tactic.) The thing is though, the EA App still sucks so it doesn’t do anything for its reputation.
I mean steam sucked for 8 years like 20 years ago. Technology wasn’t the same as it is. They revolutionized the pc gaming scene and I’d argue that even that Steam version was better than the current EGS version. Was it uglier? Yea maybe but it did the job. You could install, manage and launch your games, cloud saves and it wasn’t bloat or spyware. The Steam just kept getting better even if with a messy ui in some places. They do a ton of shit that generates them no direct profit but that makes using Steam a no brainer. And gamers respect and value that even if not all of them.
Heck I’m sure that they very quickly came up with a functional shopping cart at the very least.
I think it’s just priorities, those other companies weren’t interested in making a launcher, they were interested in tying their customers into their eco system.
Steam started out like that in appearance at least, nobody really wanted it and it was kind of forced on you if you wanted to play HL2 but since Valve seemed to understand the value in a platform like steam and actually work at making it good it became pretty good.
At this point it’s actually kind of hard to fully appreciate how much work has gone into steam. Not just the basic stuff like chat and forums and a store with a functioning search, or the banal stuff like inventories and trading cards and points I still don’t understand, but also the stuff most people don’t see like all the stuff for developers launching a game on steam and managing sales and keys and betas. Not to mention all the experiments they’ve done along the way to try and figure out what the best way forward is.
Steam is kind of a huge undertaking and unless a company is really invested in competing with it they’re simply not going to be able to.
they were interested in tying their customers into their eco system.
Data, they were also interested in that sweet, sweet, data harvesting. Previously only Valve was grabbing all that via Steam.
If your goal was only to make a good launcher, it would be easy. If your goal is a lot of DRM shenanigans as if we were still in 1998, it’s really hard.
IMO my favorite launcher to use out of all is probably Battle.net, even over Steam. This is probably mostly because Steam is terrible unresponsive and its startup is still kinda ass (I just tested the start and noticed its 3 fucking loading screens: Verifying installtion, Logging in and finally loading the page. All as separate windows).
Wow. Ive never heard someone say something positive about battle net
well, I don’t think battle.net is the worst launcher
Yeah I agree. I don’t play Blizzard Activision games for other reasons, but the battle.net launcher was by far the best.
I don’t get why, when PC gamers spend thousands to get a quick, smooth machine, that they put up with the shitfest that is Valve. I mean, it’s 2023 why is the UI still a website? Why is it that I can’t stop the news from popping up? And it’s so damn unresponsive and laggy.
It’s rare that I wholeheartedly back a billion dollar company, but I do with Valve. Until Gabe is no longer CEO and their business model changes to something more nefarious, I will stick with them for years to come. No battle.net, No epic, just Steam.
Maybe there’s a disproportionately high amount of linux users on lemmy, cause I keep seeing it come up in the comments. But I would use Epic if they had linux support. Heck some games like satisfactory I have access to on both cause I paid for it twice lol
https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher
Works like a charm.
For reference I do have it installed… i think… The one that runs overwatch/blizzard games, haven’t played or launched it in about a year though. As apart from fortnite, which I just dont play because of lockout, satisfactory is the only one I have on there i care about. Plus I can share the epic login with my less fortunate windows friends… dont tell anyone I said that though haha
can confirm!
Call me whatever, but Valve does so much for Linux gaming that when I do buy games I make sure to get them through Steam. Between Proton and the Steam Deck it seems like Valve is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Linux gaming is in a great place right now and Valve deserves a lot of credit.
They also have Steam Input which is incredible. The customization and control you have over your experience is insane.
Epic Games on the other hand can’t even be bothered to support Linux properly. Valve earns their cut.
🤡
They won me over permanently when they instituted a refund policy.
What I’m wondering: is this going to happen to the many streaming services as well? They’re many and expensive. Are they going to consolidate in a few or are they going to lower their prices so that they don’t continue to lose users?
No. They’re repeating cable history. The great bundling has already begun. Hulu and Disney are being rolled together. You’re going to have fewer options moving forward. You’ll have to buy the netflix-hulu-disney-peacock-hbo-starz bundle or the other one with all the rest. Then they can keep cranking up the price because it’s all or nothing. Prices will go up until too many people choose the “nothing” option, then they’ll start doing a “build your own package” to let you drop half and save 10% just because you want one of the services.
The unpopular ones like Paramount+ and Peacock will probably lower their prices, rely on ads, realize they can’t keep the lights on with their lower prices, and probably sell to Amazon or Disney someday. The larger ones will consolidate the popular content and continue raising their prices and inserting more ads. The previous prices were just a loss-leader to get people to sign up.
I’ll be honest, star trek is keeping my wallet open to paramount. All their other stuff meh…
It’s going back to cable once they consolidate.
or are they going to lower their prices so that they don’t continue to lose users?
We all know this isn’t happening
HBO and Disney are already delisting some shows and selling the rights for the more successful ones to buy and add it to their catalog.
are they going to lower their prices so that they don’t continue to lose users?
If they lose users, they’ll increase the prices for everyone else. Then they’ll lose even more and increase prices even more.
Makes sense Santa would holiday somewhere sunny.
Pretty sure Gabe lives in New Zealand now. Unless I’m remembering incorrectly, he just got stuck there during COVID and then never left once restrictions were eased.
By the way, that sun is the ozone hole.
Unless I’m remembering incorrectly, he just got stuck there during COVID and then never left once restrictions were eased.
Yeah, there was some fuss recently about him getting ordered to attend as a witness at some trial in the US instead of video conferencing as is the norm since covid.
Count this comment as irrelevant if you will, but I think one of the biggest missed opportunities of EGS is mod support. They have this world-class game engine, and they do so little with it. Maybe it is because of Unreal Tournament 4 failing to take off. Maybe they think just hamfisting a bunch of this modding stuff into Fortnite is all they need, but still I feel like the EGS version of the steam workshop is an open goal. Hell, with the money they’re saving from pawning off Bandcamp you can even buy off mod.io to get support for virtually no work at all. Like why hasn’t this happened yet?
We did it boiz.
Pat yourselves on the back if you never used an alternative.
This is a weird mentality. Competition in the space is good, even if the current “default” thing is really good.
The key is to use an alternative that’s actually good, and most of these companies were never going to make an alternative that was good, just one that was exploitative.
Most of my purchases the last few years have been gog. The only game service where you actually own the game afterwards.
Competition is good…when the competition is actually competitive.
But what has happened is games on are steam … which installs the launcher + game.
So it’s not a win at all. It’s actually a loss for us. If steam was to force “yeah you can publish the game on steam, but you cannot use your launcher”
Fanboys and monopolies, name a better combination.
Cheese and a cheese slicer.
You missed an opportunity to say “coffee and biscuits” and I’ve never been more disappointed 😔
I failed myself 😓
Sorry you got swindled into buying games on a bunch of different launchers.
I’ve not been “swindled” into anything, I’ve never paid for shit twice and I get most of my games DRM free on GOG. I use Epic exclusively for their free games.
I’m just sick of hearing Gabe’s personal blowjob brigade pretending that monopolies and capitalism don’t apply when it’s a product they personally enjoy.
Monopoly isn’t bad (or illegal) if it doesn’t exploit and/or abuse it’s market position, which Steam doesn’t.
Monopolies are always bad. They give too much power to the people who do not deserve it. Even if the one in charge looks benevolent.
Tell me, what do you think would happen if Gabe died tomorrow?
Also it depends what’s driving that attitude… if it’s an ethos from Gabe then great but he won’t be around forever… what happens when he dies/retires?
Many companies have started with great ethics that went out of the window when the founders moved on, and Steam is in a fantastic position to enshitify if it wanted to.
That’s a lot or what-ifs. If a lot of companies enshittify, that doesn’t mean all do. Especially when Valve is not publicly traded (sure, “for now”). It has a lot of credibility, especially compared to other launchers (EA, Ubi, Bethesda, Battle.net). And while there is GOG which is a great launcher aswell especially by selling games without DRM, it’s one in a million.
By your logic, we shouldn’t trust any company because they can all enshittify.
If you replaced “company” with “monopoly” in your last sentence, I agree.
Doesn’t even have to be a monopoly, I have zero loyalty to any business beyond the product they give me. Trust is for people, not for some nebulous corporate entity who wants my money.
Monopolies are bad. Period. End of story.
You probably identify as leftist yet here you are shilling for corporate capitalism the moment you like the product.
I don’t identify as neither, I do no follow politics, nor do I care about some left right bullshit.
But yeah, if a product is good, I do recommend it if there is discussion. Your regular Joe is not gonna build his own home printer, he goes to the store and either buys an HP, or a Brother. They don’t know how to pirate games, they go to a launcher and buy it there.
You have to understand that not everyone has the freedom to choose, because they simply don’t have time or don’t give a fuck, and settle for something that someone recommends.
But it does abuse its market position. By setting very high developer/publisher fees and forcing everyone to pay them. Don’t forget that from Steam perspective, developers and publisher are their consumers, not you. Their business is similar to supermarkets. Supermarkets don’t sell stuff to you, they provide selling and logistics services to produce manufacturers.
But those fees are counteracted by large user base, which is large due to the fact the platform is great and provides it’s users good features that aren’t elsewhere. A s large user base means large buying power, which directly translates to higher sales and thus higher profits.
If a supermarket gives the customers a nice place to stay, and provides extra features others don’t, the extra cost for having your store in there (in Steam terms higher commissions, although I personally think it’s adequate, but I digress) is offset by having bigger profit overall.
That doesn’t mean Steam doesn’t abuse its power. Because they sure do.
How? By being a good company? Look at the Google Play Store lawsuit, and why were they sued, any why they lost. Steam is not abusing it’s position. And if you think they do, gimme an example or two please.
The competition kind of shot itself in the foot
Competition for the sake of competition isn’t intrinsically a good thing.
Seems to me, most of the people complaining about Steam are greedy devs who want to make more money off of their products.
For me, as a user, that’s not my concern. For me, as a user, it’s more important that I can play games without having to download different launchers just to make someone else richer.
GOG is probably the only legitimate competitor with Steam. They provide value to customers instead of just themselves or greedy devs.
A nice thing about GOG is that you can choose whether or not you use their launcher. You can use GOG Galaxy, and it will download game updates and sync saves. or you can just not use it; and just launch the games directly. Or you can put shortcuts to the gog games into steam and launch them from there. Or you can launch your steam games from galaxy if you like. … I appreciate that kind of stuff a lot, because although I think Steam does a good job, I’m very wary of lock-in and companies becoming too powerful.
(And of course, for real indie games, itch.io is the place to go.)
For me, as a user, that’s not my concern. For me, as a user, it’s more important that I can
have my convenienceFTFY
Also, the only truly bad competition is subsidized competition. As long as it’s not surviving on some kind of grant or funding, instead of its actual market value, then it’s always a good thing as it keeps competitors on their toes.
That is looks like it’s supposed to point out something negative.
Convenience is always something to consider as a customer in literally any product. It’s most often the main driver between competitors and can make or brake a product.
So, yeah. Using another launcher that has 10% of the features and not a single upside while being incredibly inconvenient has not worked out. Fuck origin, uplay, and the likes.
Listen. Some of us have our life savings in our Steam library. If competition ever drives Steam bankrupt, we go down with the ship! We take Steam’s health personally and very seriously. Your mumbo jumbo about competition doesn’t factor into it.
That’s why you buy from GOG.
No one wants Steam bankrupt, they just want more than one videogame vendor on PC to be viable.
“Mumbo jumbo about competition” I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or are just legitimately a braindead moron.
There are exceptions to the notion that competition is good. If we attempt to map out all the exceptions, we will be left with mumbo jumbo. Economic libertarianism is the true death of the brain. Some monopolies are good and any threat to the monopoly is a threat to the consumer.
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As I’ve said elsewhere in this thread, the only bad competition is one that gets subsidized in order to survive. If they are operating on their own profit margins then they are definitionally “good competition.”
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No, zero monopolies are good. If you can even name one that you personally believe to somehow be good then I can explain why you’re wrong.
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At no point in time has a natural diversification of product sources has been bad for the consumer. The only exceptions to this relate back to point #1, the subsidized or otherwise “assisted” business model.
Any threat to the monopoly is a threat to the consumer
Tell me, does your childhood home have a lot of lead paint on the walls? We aren’t trying to take down Steam FFS, just provide alternatives that force them to stay competitive by giving better service to the consumer.
The fact that you think a second source for videogames is somehow going to threaten you personally just shows how much of a zombie you are. Gabe isn’t your lord and savior, he’s just another rich guy who has a monopoly on his corner of the market. Grow the fuck up.
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Ya because so far it doesn’t seem to impact the consumer so it works for me lol. Valve has always had great sales too. If they jacked up prices YoY, and did evil things, then I’d welcome competition. But all I see at this point is lousy extra software to install a single game or two. Annoying. Fragmented. Just just media streaming.
