Steam is still basically the only option AND they are actually helping Linux a lot with game compatibility. Altough, if I need games specifically on steam I'll be buying the key from Greenmangaming (UK) or GamersGate (Sweden). If anybody has more alternatives feel free to let me know so I can add them to my list.
GOG sadly misses a majority of games atm so I just can't replace steam with it yet.
Third party key market places are kinda iffy, and there have been numerous cases of the keys being offered on there having been bought with stolen credit cards, or otherwise generated in ways that aren't quite above board.
I remember one interview with an indy dev in which they said they prefer people pirating, because chargebacks from stolen cards are actively costing them money.
For people who feel they need the entertainment games provide, but can't afford current prices, I feel pirating games from conglomerates, and buying from smaller studios and indies is the most socially responsible way to do it, but I'm not your mum.
Edit: Huh, looks like greenmangaming gets their keys directly from the publishers. Didn't know that was a thing. Guess I was a bit quick on the trigger there, should have checked first. Sorry about that.
See you already found the reason it is ok, but yeah what you are saying is completely right when talking about sites like G2A, Kinguin, etc where YOU can sell your keys as that opens the gates for illegal stuff
Hence I mentioned legit resellers (from the EU) that do support the publishers.
Huge plus that they aren't publicly traded and forced to chase profits above all. Plus their employees are far and wide the best paid in the industry, and they never do mass lay offs.
The guy could be more charitable, but aside from that, what do you want him to do? If he lowers the cost of steams cut per purchase he'll get in trouble for monopolizing the industry. Yeah, he's too rich, but he got there without exploiting or hurting anyone. Even after he passes away, the company is already employee owned.
You’re missing the part where they make the vast majority of their money from the gambling, not from the cut they take from sales. They don’t have to run the gambling service. But they do because it’s a money faucet.
Two things: First, they very likely don't make most of their money off of their loot box sales from the few games they own that have them. (CS, Dota 2, TF2).
Secondly, you're just full of shit and making up that "fact". As a private company, none of their stuff is completely public record, but using various trackers and estimates and sales numbers from game studios, Steam sells north of 700,000,000 games a year and makes a $billion or so from cs and tf2 stuff.
Since the average game sale amount is around $15; $15 X 700,000,000 = 10,500,000,000 ÷ valves cut of 30% = $3,150,000,000
Now not all studios pay that 30%. Some have lower deals based on volume and notoriety, but it's still safe to assume that their game sales make over two billion a year. AKA well over their loot box money.
I like how when valve does it, it's 'gambling,' but every other company out there it's just 'microtransactions' and 'monetization.'
Valve somehow gets 99% of the hate online for lootboxes, despite having one of the most transparent and fair implementations of them.
Like, have you people never seen a gacha? Half of them don't even fucking publish the rates for what you can get, and make far more money than Valve does.
No, there are actual gambling sites for counter-strike items that are run by scammers who hire a youtuber, give them a huge (deliberate) win to entice kids to bet their parents wage on some stupid cosmetics' slot machine.
The important part is that Valve doesn't need to sell it's own kidneys (and enshitifies it's service) just to appease shareholders. I like that Valve chooses to be evil, rather than being required to by law.
Keys can be cheaper when there isn't any ongoing steam sales. Some website are shady and should be avoided but some are 100% legit. Any reseller listed on isthereanydeal is safe to use, they get their keys directly from publishers.
Good question! Real resellers (so NOT g2a, etc) get their keys from publishers directly (so they pay for them). The publishers get these keys from steam for free and by buying them from a reseller steam takes 0% of the money. So by using an EU reseller more money stays here.
ive seen that gog is incredibly picky with what games are allowed on its platform too, which doesn’t help
iirc they refused Balatro, and initially even refused Undertale for being too low quality, before changing their minds when they saw the absolute phenomenon that game had become
(I got this from hearsay tho so don’t take it as a fact)
There ought to more indie outlets like itch.io, preferably non-American, and maybe if GOG had a similar site for just free or low cost indie games, that'd help bring upcoming indie artists in the door which eventually could make trustworthy titles worthy of their more premium store. Shame they have such odd vetting process, yet they don't have a problem with over low quality stuff like the Postal series^[https://www.gog.com/en/games?query=postal&order=desc%3Ascore&discounted=true].
You are still fucked then if Steam decides to take out a game you purchased. Again the whole "you're not buying a product but a license for the product" debacle. Other than not giving Steam any money, this doesn't change much? Could just pirate games instead.
I never said I cared about that in the first place. But even after games are removed from Steam they still allow you to download it whenever. Its only really an issue should Gabe choose a replacement for him that isn't as pro gamers as he is.
This community is about buying european, not complaining about having DRM.
Steam isn't a monopoly, there are other choices but they just suck. Epic games in terms of game availability already replaces a good 80% of my active library, itch, ubisoft, ea, etc also exist but are just so bad as well.
Steam is basically the only option... That cares about gamers and actually provides a good service.
Private companies are - often - not driven by pure greed. The people work hard for their company to be successful and they are much less likely to fuck it all over with a stupid move.
Public companies, however, are controlled by a bunch of money motivated monkeys that couldn't give a rats ass about a company's future. They'll bleed it all dry and go to the next company.
You are allowed to say Fuck on the Internet. Why are you following the self-censorship rules for Instagram and other social networks if you are making a joke about them?
I realised that those who censor themselves on the Internet, grew up on the Internet when YouTube started demonitising profanities and thus picked up the habit.
I sorta remember it being bought but I can't say I actually recall what it was like pre-google. We had dialup at the time, and just the one family computer, so I didn't really watch a lot of videos
Also, probably ones that are more global and less willing to be pushed around by a dumb ass and his followers. I bet such companies have better quarters for a while too after that.
Costco can be cool all they want once the federal government of the USA tells them to fuck over Canadians they will. It's a very dangerous game to rely heavily on American companies in Canada right now. No matter how ethical they might be. The trade war has already begun and the USA will use any lever available when the time comes to annex.
The issue isn't the federal government tells them to fuck over Canadians (or anyone else). It's that they don't tell them anything. They just make Canadian goods cost more in the US. They don't have a choice. Most businesses would rather the cost stay the same, but we have a dumb ass president who's fucking us all over for no good reason.
Well, the reason is to destabilize the west because Putin wants a new Soviet Union
It’s certainly not a good reason. But it’s not just “dumb trump pulling levers he doesn’t understand.” It’s “dumb Trump pulling the levers he’s told to. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing, but those planning the lever pulls do”
The Beta Tester position at Valve is a high-turnaround job just because of all the accidental deaths.
Cave Johnson: "Gamers are all about immersion, and have asked us to make a peripheral device that lets them feel the game even more. Our engineers just designed a monitor with a gun in it that shoots the player when they are shot in game. The legal department tells me this isn't technically legal."
Honestly, I've been weaning myself off Steam for awhile now. It's great what they did to make PC gaming more accessible, but I also feel like Steam itself is an unnecessary dependency for most video games.
There should be protocols that games can implement to integrate with launchers and organize playing online.
That's my fear too , whoever gets their hand on valve will decide the future of pc gaming kinda , I just hope it won't get sold to ea , riot , tencent or whatever
GOG Galaxy isn't bad to use. It has cloud saves, and update checking - which is useful for some people. And games installed using the offline installers still show up in galaxy (and can be updated etc.) In fact, you can download the offline installers from the Galaxy app itself if you want to.
yeah it wasn't necessarily an alternative; i was just saying they're better because they tend to support indie devs and/or are more drm free than steam. i didn't know of a purely non american one that i use :(
@cupcakezealot I like that they support indie creators as well, but Valve also did wonders in regard to gaming on Linux in general. I personally support both, as long as they are not supportive in any way to the current Trump administration.
Steam may be a very successful business, but they’re still the seed crystal for a whole ecosystem of gambling that preys on addicts and children with the whole CSGO loot box thing. Take a wild guess what forms of addiction have the highest suicide rates?
Fuck Valve. Fuck all Corps. No business has ever nor can ever, genuinely give a shit about anything other than increasing profit.
As much as I distrust and hate corporations, Valve isn't in it for the shareholders, you can't buy Valve stocks and that means they at least have a bit more soul than a lot of other corporations - even though they are profit seeking.
What I don't like about them is how they sell you a service, not an actual game. You technically buy a lifelong lease on each game, never ownership. Your shit can be gone in minutes with nothing to prove for it, except for bank statements saying Valve took your money.
Because it's a weak-ass point, quite simply. Capitalism itself does that shit, not gonna knock Valve for something every game company does, if we play that game with everyone it gets exhausting
"Wont SOMEBODY think of the children?" Is literally a Simpsons meme
Every game company does not operate a gambling system that is the center for a literal whole ecosystem of predatory shady businesses. But that was a halfway decent try at a whataboutism argument /s.
Yes that quote is at the heart of a Simpsons episode. And it’s about people using moral panic crusades as a means of enacting draconian measures of control based on a fear based in falsehood. Valve demonstrably engages in the practices I mentioned so I think your point kind of falls completely on its face. I am glad to see you recognize capitalism as inherently exploitative though.
::: spoiler I was playing around with things, noticed that at least my instance supported citation of sources. I normally do . But now I know that not every instance supports if you couldn't see it.
Publicly owned companies want more prodit because well we want out interest and return on stocks and a stable pension etc as well right? That all pushes publicly owned companies to get more and more profit every year.
They do care and have shown on numerous occasions my supporting me when I have needed it and instilling in us that we come first and the business is secondary.
Like the owners literally do the same work as us and are far more accommodating than they have to be for us.
How else would you get a pay rise and a reduction in hours, able to work from home when having car trouble, not having a good mental health day fine take it off, etc.
Anyone can start a business and treat their employees and customers fairly. It's just that in our Stockholm Syndrome Society, the businesses who abuse us are the most successful.
No that’s what Angelosaxton (American) companies are about.
Most privately owned companies don’t care about making as much profit as possible. They want a healthy company that can pay them their salary and save up money for their pension.
I thought it was pretty well known Valve is privately owned.
They make money selling off of gamers by selling games. They take advantage of and enable systemic abuse of, I’ll say it again, addicts and children. I’m not saying they aren’t also fair to their customers in most of their dealings and that they aren’t doing good things for the Linux ecosystem. But we’re also talking way more money than I bet you’re thinking. Gabe’s uber rich person kink is super-yachts. Multiple, super-yachts. You can appear and behave with decency and still contribute to the detriment of society at the same time.
Get lawmakers to make a law about it and properly work it out.
Valve is banning loot boxes even for people who are legally allowed to gamble.
The issue is that it is hard to legally define whaf a lootbox is and stop it without stopping things like TCG drafts and RGB loot from bosses or enemies on games.
Hey both things can be true. I feel like at this point though the only reason they haven’t stopped the whole gambling thing is because it’s basically a money faucet and in a monetary economy who’d ever turn off a money faucet? But that’s the rub, greed is inherently incentivized.
The crates where fine in TF2 …. Before CSGO got made, but due to CSGO and other games it’s an issue.
But while you consider it gambling, most laws don’t. It’s currently only banned in NL and BE to open lootboxes on Steam and in NL we have legal online gambling for 18+, but Valve won’t gives you access to the lootboxes.
The point is that one laws need to be more clear about what is gambling and what isn’t without ruining anything that uses randomizers and/or loot and there needs to be a better way to validate people’s age without hurting their privacy.
Yep, if you want a reason why Valve are "less evil" than other companies, one big thing to point to is the huge investment they've made into the Linux ecosystem. Even though it's in their own interests (Microsoft locking out steam would cripple their income), we can see with Epic suing Google/Apple that there are other, shittier ways that they could have attempted the same thing. The investment they've made into Linux, Proton, KDE etc benefit everyone and can't be taken away on a whim.
They seem to have a track record of lukewarm responses to social issues, lax content moderation, and a combo of flat corporate hierarchy and a complete lack of diversity in their team that have made it difficult to lead any efforts to improve the situation.
My read is that Gabe is not evil, just a comfortable old guy who, like many comfortable old (white) guys, has bought into the myth of the great meritocracy as a self serving narrative, which is really just a post-hoc mythology of success in most cases imo.
I'm reading deeply into a lot of skimmed clues, so all of the foregoing is subject to revision if I see anything compelling in the opposite direction.
Penn was an actual libertarian, not an american-style one. when listening to the things he actually believes, rather than the label he used to ascribe to those beliefs, that is very clear. the reason he turned away from the label itself was that he realized he wanted nothing to do with the people using the label because he didn't share their beliefs.
it's probably better if gabe never meets a single one of those guys.
I wont use it if it has an extreme form of DEI in it. Im somewhat in the middle with this DEI Stuff, idk so much about it yet to really form my opinion.
There are no extreme forms of DEI because DEI is just making sure that everyone is able to be included and to discourage discrimination.
An all black college for example is not DEI. It is trying to counter systemic racism by providing opportunities to those that have historically and currently been excluded, so the goals are the same but it isn't DEI.
I disagree, there are definitely extreme forms of DEI, namely when we're talking about forced equal representation. Pools of potential employees are rarely perfect representations of society, for many different reasons. So if a company forcefully tries to have a perfect representation of society, that means they will discriminate against certain groups and hire less capable workers on average.
That opinion assumes the people who weren't being hired due to discrimination are less capable. Which is the kind of thing people use to justify discrimination.
Let me explain it with a theoretical example: you are a company and the field you're hiring in consists of 90 women and 10 men. You need 10 people for the job and want the most capable. Statistically that would mean hiring 9 women and 1 man on average, giving you the 10% most capable employees. But since you want equality you want it 50/50, so you hire 5 women and 5 men. That means that for the women you hired the 5,6% most capable employees, but for the men you hire the 50% most capable employees. So you get less capable employees this way, assuming both groups are equally likely to be capable.
Are all of the people qualified? Then everything past that is likely to be subjective as to what 'more capable means'.
If so, odds are pretty high that what the hiring person thinks are more capable are just people that fut their preconceived notions of who is likely to be more qualified. Generally that is tall, white men.
Not to mention there is a lot more to being effective workers, like communication and collaboration. A more diverse workforce tends to increase communication and collaboration when being diverse and inclusive are goals.
Not to mention people can grow as they get experience. So even if they aren't the most capable at the time of hiring, they might be in a few years. And if people don't get any experience, they will always have a disadvantage against even less capable people who have more experience. It is a feedback loop that makes even a small amount of discrimination have a mush larger effect.
Let me stop you here: You seem to lack the pre-requisite knowledge of laws, and the understanding of what HR departments and DEI departments do.
What you’re describing is absolutely, totally, illegal and has been since the 1970s. This was decided in Griggs v Duke Power Co. The phrase you can look up is “Disparate impact” and in particular the “adverse impact” and tests.
DEI has big problems, but most of them stem from businesses just slapping in a 60 minute micro aggression course from a third party service and calling it done
For example, a purposeless unconscious bias training required for all employees is almost certainly less effective than an unconscious bias training deployed specifically for decision-makers like hiring managers or supervisors, to increase their familiarity with newly implemented bias-interrupting practices like hiring panels and scoring rubrics after an audit found evidence of bias in hiring and promotion processes.
All black colleges exist because blacks were excluded from existing colleges. Not because there were all white colleges, but because they were excluded from the vast majority of colleges.
They have remain because of ongoing racism at other colleges. A group that is discriminated against by society as a whole limiting who can join their spaces is not discrimination.
im euro and i dont discriminate against any people. i dont care what colour you have as long as you arent criminal or bad to me and others.
bad people are everywhere. there are many white or asian people that dont want or are to untalented for college.
i would only let people pass classes in college if they pass with a pass grade. shoving anyone trough because of colour is not good.
Grades have not depended on race in mainstream or HBCUs. Admissions however have not ever been equal, and DEI initiatives were created with the idea of counterbalancing that - or in lieu of reparations, which would be a real attempt to correct the inherent issue.
There are no extreme forms of DEI because DEI is just making sure that everyone is able to be included and to discourage discrimination.
An all black college for example is not DEI. It is trying to counter systemic racism by providing opportunities to those that have historically and currently been excluded, so the goals are the same but it isn't DEI.
So, there's no countries of majority black people on Earth? Don't you mean a majority black college in the USA? But wouldn't that majority by definition exclude other minorities like east asians, south asians, native americans, Hispanics et al? And what is a white person? A person from the south of Spain is indistinguishable from a person from North Africa, yet both originate from completely different backgrounds and neither would be white passing in the US. What about poor white people, do JayZ's children deserve a pass because they are black but the children of a Ukrainian migrant do not because they are technically white even if they are from a refugee family with little financial means?
What you said is myopic, nonsensical and a perfect example of an oxymoron, I'm going to go on a limb and guess you're US american. Congrats, it's regardation like the one you spouted that got Trump elected.
idk, must be a little one that isnt yet big enough to be in the news or whose product is not good enough so i didnt yet use or buy it. these small firms are often extreme-non-DEI/extreme-DEI.
but as i have written, idk too much about this stuff. its not in the news in europa.
Based on the way you're talking I don't think you understand what DEI actually is, and yet, you remain committed to saying how much of it you want. Having a center opinion isn't a virtue; if you don't know enough about the subject, you should have no opinion, not advocate for a central one by default. Didn't downvote but I see why people are.
I don't see the equivalency as valid though. I am white, but that's not something I'd ever be proud of in itself because it's literally just pigmentation alone. I'm so ethnically mixed and Americanised that I can't really claim the English, Croat, or Scottish heritage I have got - despite being a British citizen living in England who eats haggis with enough frequency to disturb my family. I very much appreciate my heritage but it has no hold on me as an in-group identity. They don't claim me, nobody needs to.
If I was to take the stance of being "anti-DEI", which lets face it, it's just white supremacism with updated buzzwords, I'd be taking the stance that my literal mere pigmentation is an equally valid source of pride as a black woman's history of oppression, or a trans man's struggle to be treated as their true self.
I've struggled, but I haven't struggled from being white or cisgender. I've walked alone at night wherever I liked ever since I was barely a teen with hardly so much as a glance over my shoulder. Gone to other countries where I barely speak fifty words in the local tongue with nary a care. I've spent my whole life being given credit as the person I present as. I've been unafraid to take risks, and it gives me hell to know others haven't been able to enjoy those things in life. It's not even a huge amount of empathy we're talking about here.
So that's my story. Anyone who reads this and thinks I'm a self hating white is probably in need of a smack. I'm fine with myself. I want others to have a taste of being okay once in a while like I have, is all.
As for the downvotes I don't know I'm just talking here. I can't speak for them. In America, this issue is often played to 'both sides' in bad faith, and far right ideas are given more than equal time in ways that have normalised fascist tendencies for decades, leading to the current situation (more or less a coup in progress). It's a difficult needle you're trying to thread at the best of times, and right now an "even handed" stance feels a lot like cities trying to solve traffic by adding "just one more lane" to their already massive highways.
Yeah, I haven't bought a game in years. Wish I could refund or resell most of the games I bought on Steam, but oh well. Live and learn.
Sailing the high seas has been a breath of fresh air. It's nice to have greater ownership over my software than the rubes who pay for theirs, lol. And it's cheaper!
Well, yeah, I get that... Still, there's quite a bit about Windows that annoys me, and there's really nothing I do on Windows that Linux can't handle. I've already looked it up, and the little gaming I do does work pretty well on Linux too, reportedly.
So I find myself thinking... Why am I on Windows? I could be on Linux and ditch Microsoft. It's just some anxiety, fear that things'll break. At the end of the day, I have more confidence that, if something goes wrong, I can fix it in Windows, but may not be able to fix it in Linux. Hope I'm making sense here.
As somebody who really recently migrated to linux, shit will 'break' and part of the fun is scouring wikis and random forums to get things working and the absolute rush that comes when you figure something out
Look, I enjoy fun with computers as much as the next guy, but if I need to get something done I don't want to go scouring... If I need to get in a meeting and the audio is fucked or the bluetooth broke or something, that's a big problem...
Steam isn't perfect and I sure as shit won't be the one defending a corporation, and this isn't a good excuse at ALL, but if you've never gamed you wouldn't believe how much worse it is on the other side (GOG being the only exception).
I wish more companies took the approach like steam where it seems to be they are content with the amount of money they make and limitless profits are not the end goal
Given the fact that they basically make infinite money so long as they don't fuck it up id say they are very much content. They have a golden goose why would they slaughter it.
Compared to damned near every company they may as well be, seriously imagine if fucking EA owned Steam. Ill take the neutral evil which just wants my money and giving me a decent product over the one actively trying to kick me in the balls as well.
Nobody is forcing you to pay for the loot boxes, hell nobody is forcing you to play the games with them. You could play literally nothing but Rimworld, Baldurs Gate 3, and Crusader Kings 3 without ever looking at their live service shit. Regardless even on that front Valve is still better than most.
Also I don't see profits off of gambling as immoral, I see it as stupid and weak willed by those who participate but not immoral.
Remember steam started the business model of not actually owning your games.
GOG exists, go use GOG. Steam is popular because they don't fuck over buyers, and they run a good business model, people are ok not "owning" things if the service is reasonably well put together.
Gabe has made billions by stealing profit from the workers that actually make games.
steam takes a 30% cut, which isn't all that high, especially when you consider that they develop things like proton at zero cost to anybody, including developers. You're also getting the single largest and most widely used publishing platform, period. It's really hard to beat something of that caliber, so it's definitely a tradeoff. There are also cases of devs making games that become so popular they pull in millions of dollars worth of revenue.
They host tons of malware and shovelware and outright scam games and even protect them from “”““review bombing””"
in defense of steam, if they specifically curated high quality games people like you would accuse them of gate keeping the platform. Scams are definitely a thing, malware, technically is. I've not seen malware ever in my personal experience, and i doubt most people have, and whenever it does happen, steam responds accordingly so i'm not sure its a fair statement.
They pushed “early access” into the mainstream.
there's nothing necessarily wrong with early access, i actually think it's a really productive way to provide tons of play testing and development potential for smaller dev teams. Does it also incentivize shovelware? Sure, but it's a platform you can make money on, that's not abnormal. And again, it's usually very well known when games are abandonware.
And because of people like you that would literally suck Gabes dick for the meme, they get away with it.
surprised you didn't mention gambling, that's probably the most significant argument against steam right now, they effectively run what can be considered an online casino.
That's a lot of effort to put in to trying to excuse blatantly predatory practices of a company with an almost defacto monopoly on PC games and uses said almost-monopoloy to steal 30% of the profits from people that actually make games.
GOG existing does not excuse Steam.
30% is massive. Imagine you sold something on, let's say, Ebay and they took 30% of that money. And devs could have other options of markets to sell their games if more people realised how predatory Steam is and stopped glazing Gabe like he's the video game messiah.
There's a difference between gatekeeping/allowing only AAA games, and just having 0 standards of what is allowed on the store.
Yes early access could be a good thing. But it isn't, they allow all the blatant shovelware and asset flips because, ya know, money. Again, if they just had some fairly basic standards of what they allow on their store to stop their users being ripped off, it wouldn't be a problem, but that wouldn't make them as much money, so they don't do it.
Gabe newel is a billionsire capitalist and Valve runs like any other company. Profits first and foremost.
Why have standards to protect consumers when Gabe needs an 8th super yatch to add to his fleet.
i guess technically they have a monopoly on the market place? But it's not like they're ruthlessly destroying the competition like GOG, and itch.io, and epic games. They literally just offer, a better service. The alternative being that you have to buy games from like 12 different platforms that all work differently, which i think most people, would rather not deal with.
to steal 30% of the profits from people that actually make games.
for which they offer services in return, because it's not stealing, because that's how money works.
30% is massive. Imagine you sold something on, let’s say, Ebay and they took 30% of that money. And devs could have other options of markets to sell their games if more people realised how predatory Steam is and stopped glazing Gabe like he’s the video game messiah.
i mean sure, in the context of ebay that may make sense, but ebay doesn't handle shipping for you, do advertising, doesnt provide you any services to do photography of your product, any information about the product you're using. It's literally just an online marketplace that lets you list a product, and then ship it to somebody who buys it, via a third party customer, steam does literally ALL of the middle man work. You list your game on steam, and steam does EVERYTHING else for you, except for traditional marketing, but that's a different story. Usually if your game is good people will play it, sometimes you just need some luck, but time usually helps with that.
And devs could have other options of markets to sell their games if more people realised how predatory Steam is and stopped glazing Gabe like he’s the video game messiah.
you can quite literally just do this, it won't have the same market reach, but it hasn't stopped viral games before. Many a viral sensation has come from itch.
There’s a difference between gatekeeping/allowing only AAA games, and just having 0 standards of what is allowed on the store.
steam has pretty significant standards, especially now that you can't greelight games anymore, you have to actually pay money for it to get listed, sure a lot of the games on the platform are bad, but there are also a lot of really good games, and just because a game is bad doesn't mean it should be delisted either. Sure things like asset flips really should.
Gabe newel is a billionsire capitalist and Valve runs like any other company. Profits first and foremost.
profits first and foremost, except for the fact that a lot of people really just don't have a problem with steam, and steam manages to develop products that obviously arent intended to make money, like proton.
Why have standards to protect consumers when Gabe needs an 8th super yatch to add to his fleet.
While I think capitalism encourages unethical business practices, keep in mind that Valve actively supports the development and popularization of the kernel as well as other projects like Wine from their profits.
While I have deleted Amazon, Meta accounts along with restricting what Google gets in terms of data. Steam will be the last and by far the most hardest thing I have to give up (if I ever do tbh)
For steam I only use their proton compatibility layer for my "DRM free games", I only bought Terraria on their store and I rarely play it these day I'll play it again when 1.4.5 come out
I still don't understand why the company is so highly regarded. They enable underage gambling. Life must be easy for a company. You just have to be a little bit better than the others and you are regarded as a hero.
i mean, out of all things a company can do that are bad, underage gambling is probably one of the better ones, and the argument in favor of it is that it's on games like csgo and cs2, where the age range is obviously higher than an actual child.
Realistically, i think you have to be kind of stupid to get caught in gambling, but it is also definitely predatory, and there's a reason it's a heavily regulated industry. There's definitely a better solution than we currently have, but it's not as bad as it could be either.
"underage gambling is probably one of the better ones", "you have to be kind of stupid to get caught in gambling" you seem like you do not know what you are talking about respectfully.
Have you watched cofeezilla? The industry already has armed mafia structures.
i'm just saying, i can think of a lot worse things a company can do. Amazon, notably. Most countries without substantial labor protection laws, probably also rank worse. Countries currently at war, or controlled by gang violence, probably also worse.
The prison industrial complex, that's pretty bad. Spending money because you're mentally incapable of processing how spending money in that fashion is bad, yeah probably possibly to be worse than that.
Have you watched cofeezilla? The industry already has armed mafia structures.
Sure there is always worse, but you don't have to like B because of what A did.
steam does not, but the economy, that they are center of has. Operators of online skin casinos are adopting mafia tactics. You could say "oh, that is just some fringe groups at the outside", but these actors are deeply embedded with streamers, competitive events and the entire culture.
yeah that's pretty typical of any sort of "tradeable currency" digital or not, these sites are all hosted in countries with favorable laws, and in places where it's hard to regulate them.
There's shitty people on the internet, should we personally vet and maintain every single user of the internet, or should we just be "moderate" about it. The question of the ages, how much do we actually care about this specific problem.
Look, I agree, that they do many good things for consumer protection. They blocked NFT in games and in game advertisement, but they sit at the center of a damaging marketplace and could stop it, but don't and deserve criticism for that.
and it is fair criticism, i have no problem with that. I'm just not sure it's worth demonizing them over. A lot of companies, even good ones, have bad practices, it's just the way the world works, it's hard to do everything absolutely perfectly.
Again, not trying to justify it, i'm just saying there's a level of expectation i think you need to set.
Gaben is still just another billionaire with a yacht collection. The reason games aren't cheaper is because of people like him, just like anything else we're buying everyday.
Down voted because people can't accept the fact that they're getting ripped off even by the companies they like?
Billionaire worship is so cringe. People are acting like this guy is a god just because he sells them video games. This guy might be the most evil billionaire as he sells gambling to children and manchildren.
I'm literally installing windows right now. I feel disgust, but I need it for one application that I know will never have a Linux version. I got tired of the slow as shit virtual machine I used for it before. I can't replace it with an alternative either, for business reasons.
It's crazy how it's absolutely impossible to criticize steam without getting bashed to oblivion by so-called gamers. The amount of free balls sucking Steam gets is just ridiculous. They have sub 100 employees , take 30% of every god damn games sold on the platform and you don't own you games. Yeah it's a cool platform, but in the end it's just another nasty capitalist business.
As a Linux gamer, steam has done so much to make it incredibly easy. They didn't have to make proton, but they did and it's great.
The few games they've made have pretty much all been incredible.
The family sharing means my wife has access to my whole account on her steam deck.
Sure, they take a big cut of sales, I've heard not a great place to work, and probably some other reasons to not like them. But the good far outweighs the cons. It's hard to hate them compared to other huge companies.
Well I mean, proton exists pretty much solely because of the steam deck. I will agree that it's been really nice switching to Linux as a result of proton's existence but they didn't just magically do it out of the goodness of their own heart either. It's basically the nicest version of a monopolistic gaming environment that doesn't really allow you to actually own anything that you buy.
It's kind of funny to watch the news with them; they're like two different companies struggling to coexist. One is just as greedy and evil as every other corporation and the other one fights for the consumer, so you end up with a news story one day saying that they're stifling competition by forcing price cuts on only their platform, but then they also are banning all games that force players to watch advertisements. Make make up your mind Steam 😂
How do they not allow you to own anything? Steam has drm free games, and if this is about licensing that wasn't different 30 years ago.
Valve is absolutely not perfect and I buy from gog when possible, but my god do I hate that argument. Using steam's drm is the choice of the publisher.
Well I mean, proton exists pretty much solely because of the steam deck.
proton existed many years before the steamdeck, and it's evident they intended it to be used WITH the steam deck, but it also exists outside the steamdeck, even then, it's still a huge incurred cost for a console that is actually super cost competitive for what it is. They don't even have that significant of a console market share, it seems like it's been nothing but a pet project to make gaming on linux more accessible, presumably because valve doesn't really like windows. Steam is 100% still WAY in the red on proton, and will probably continue to be for the whole lifetime of the project, it's unlikely they'll ever break even on it.
Family sharing is just replicating a feature of the disc age that valve killed of only owning 1 copy of a game and installing it one multiple people's computers. If it had DRM requiring the disc to be inserted to play (which many games did), only one person could play it at a time.
I had a couple of classmates who'd take turns buying each Sims 2 expansion because you only needed the last installed expansion disc inserted to play so that way they'd each have a fully expanded Sims 2 install at half the price. My dad would always have the latest expansion installed and I would have to wait until they got the next one before I could get that one. Certain expansions were exciting enough that I'd find times to play on my dad's computer to play the latest expansion though
take 30% of every god damn games sold on the platform and you don’t own you games.
they also provide both proton completely for free, and the entire steam marketplace, as well as any other additional functionality, steam networking for ex, with that 30% cut.
It's a large cut, but you're not really going to find a better option. Sure you could release on GOG, i think like 12 people use GOG though.
Yeah,I mean Proton is basically Wine - A free and open-source project developed by hundred of people over the years - with some extra patches. It's great, but the only reason they did it is to sell steam decks.
Steam does certain things really well, but in the end it's just a capitalist business. I don't get why gamers can be that bitchy about studios, that employ thousands of devs and artists, people who just wants to make good games but needs to deal with executives, but will rip their shirt a soon as someone criticize steam. They do no care about you, your experience, or even video games, they only care about money.
proton is not "basically wine" proton is built ON TOP of wine, yes, but the focus of the wine team is not supporting ONLY video games, it's supporting windows applications through an compatibility layer. The focus of proton is specifically enabling the support of video games through wine, via proton, and proton is open source. In fact it seems like it's BSD licensed? Which is the most permissive license out there, so the wine team could take the work of proton and upstream it tomorrow if they wanted.
It’s great, but the only reason they did it is to sell steam decks.
that's like starting a resturant franchise, by building 10000 locations in the US, just to start selling some mediocre fast food. Evidently the steamdeck must not be the intention of proton, it's goals seem to be much farther in the future, the steam deck probably a platform to test it (because its not like the steamdeck is the most successful console ever, they don't sell a live service, and the hardware isn't very expensive.)
Steam does certain things really well, but in the end it’s just a capitalist business.
yeah, we live in a capitalist society though, i guess it could be a hypothetically perfect society where money doesn't exist, but we don't live in one do we?
They do no care about you, your experience, or even video games, they only care about money.
and yet, one of the things you need to care about, is the user, because otherwise, you make no money!
You mean like Epic who takes 12%?
Or Itch that let you chose your contribution?
Or Humble that takes 25% but give half of that to charity?
BTW steam is not a publisher...
The infrastructure argument is just BS in 2025. Just admit you're an official gamer, meaning you will do anything to protect a soulless capitalist business that make millions everyday but employ like 83 people. Ubisoft bad, Steam good, I know lol.
Lol, in 2022 steam had profit margin of 70%. That makes it the most profitable company per employee in the United States, check it out. But obviously, they're not in it for the money, they just want players like you to be happy.
Oh please, Sony, Nintendo, Apple, etc all take 30%+. Epic is flailing horribly while running EGS at a deficit held up solely by Fortnige skins and gambling (but it's ok when they do it right?)
Physical publishers take 60%+.
Humble bundle is getting discounted keys because it's for charity.
Steam is a publisher. They'll also finance your game with interest-free loans, you don't even need to publish your game on Steam.
More to the point, Steam offers massive value for that 30%- forums, hosting, security, patching services, hosting, matchmaking, dlc options, the list goes on and on... And more importantly, steam doesnt care if you use those services even while selling keys elsewhere. that means that steam doesn't even get 30% of the take from those keys.
Dude will rip his shirt to protect a billionaire lol.
Kind of remind me of a certain cult...
I'll just leave this here and wait for your cognitive dissonance to explain me why it's perfectly ok:
Steam literally invented the "you don't own you games" model. But let's just pretend Ubisoft did.
Valve's have create an ecosystem for underage gambling. The main innovation they ever created is making kids addicted to lootbox and shit. In 2023, they made 1 billion fromthat system, it's FUCKING DISGUSTING. But let's pretend it's just Epic and Ubisoft right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13eiDhuvM6Y
I don't care for any of the business you mentioned, they are all dirty, capitalist and soulless but the fact is that steam is almost a monopoly, and the greediest one. It's literally it the most profitable company per employee in the United States, fact. So to see an army of dudes willing to do anything to suck a billionaire's dick is beyond pathetic.
No, I'm just tired of chuds parroting astroturfed bullshit from epic game's massive PR campaign against valve that they did instead of improving their service.
Valve did not invent 'you don't own your games', nor did they invent DRM. The entire reason it took off was that it was one of the first PC game DRMs that didn't suck ass.
Valve did not create the gambling systems, they created a trading system and a marketplace that third parties abused to create gambling sites. If they didn't have it, you would complain that you cant trade cards or items or hats.
Steam is hilariously far from "the greediest monopoly" lmao. It's like you've never heard of ma bell, meta, or alphabet lol.
Dude, you're at like a 9 and this conversation deserves about a 3, calm your tits. Yes, I'm aware of the coffeezilla video- it has numerous holes and issues.
The biggest one, and the one it fails to acknowledge, is that literally every game system with lootboxes could have third parties abuse it with external gambling. The only thing they can do is send cease and desists, which in this case, the companies ignore.
So what are valve's options? There's the nuclear route, of destroying their entire company by removing all loot boxes, hats, and items from steam overnight. Obviously, that isn't happening- they aren't going to put every single of themselves out of jobs.
The other option is taking legal action against these companies, but the entire situation is murky, and a bad result would have MASSIVE consequences. You have to remember these companies aren't in the US, which also complicates things.
At the end of the day, you're demanding that a US company polices foreign companies, and thats way more complicated than you think, and not exactly Valve's place to even do so.
Again, Valve is not condoning gambling- they've sent cease and desists, they're not fans of this, but they don't exactly have a lot of options that don't involve literally destroying the company because EGS decided to fund a PR campaign against them. League has gambling sites, epics own Fortnige has gambling sites, but nobody cares about those.
If you're going to pretend this is about gambling, at least be consistent in hating all gambling.
Valve are irresponsible. Either it should moderate its forums or there shouldn't be any. All the time we see fascist rhetoric about 'DEI' and 'Woke'. We've reported some but they functionally are useless, so why have them?
Yeah, sometimes they help to communicate with other players or the developers, seek out hints or bug reports, share cool things from the game or that you did in them, or talk to valve about features/bugs.
They would be a lot more useful if they were actually moderated but most game developers seem unable or unwilling to do it, and valve is the same, so what ends up happening is that it just becomes a breeding ground for fascism.
so what ends up happening is that it just becomes a breeding ground for fascism.
I've never seen this myself. Not saying it doesn't happen, but it's likely blown way out of proportion by the people children who can't tolerate opposing viewpoints.
I'm not using it since I'm not gaming, but I absolutely love how much they're doing for Linux. With Proton they broke windows' pseudo-monopoly on gaming and are now working on making Linux gaming mainstream with the steam deck.
What are some good alternatives to steam? Because as it stands currently i've had technical difficulties with gog (should probably try and see if they are still present) and don't know about any other non-american site which would fill that role
No, you need a third party torrenting site and a third party to crack the game and a third party torrent client.. that's somehow much better... No matter how you slice it, you still need at least one middle man between you and games.
I'm pirating. If a game I want isn't available on fitgirl repacks, I don't want it anymore. Before streaming services and always online garbage became a thing I'd buy physical releases, but the more intrusive DRM became, the less I got interested in modern game delivery services.
it's not and that's the point. People dunk on other lootboxes and gambling all the time but steam gets a pass because "I like linux support." It's a double standard that these people are showing.
Both things are currently true, they are a monopoly which is not good, but they are also acting nicely for the most part and not fucking people over despite their position
You're right - monopolies aren't just big companies. But a lack of monopoly is also not simply having access to alternatives. You can have all kinds of alternative services - that notion alone does not disprove the claim that Steam is a monopoly.
Monopoly literally means that single entity has exclusive right to the market. Like for example in Finland VR (valtion rautatie, goverments railways) or Alko (only shop that can legally sell spirits for consumers).
There is also term called natural monopoly where getting in to the marked is impossible. Like railways in USA.
Steam is neither.
There is GoG, Epic, itch.io, Microsoft store and like ten smaller stores that are straight competitors for Steam.
Being market leader does not mean they have monopoly and if Steam somehow blunders the goodwill they have with gamers and devs there will be alternatives.
They're not a monopoly, and they provide good and valuable services to their customers. That's for both gamers and developers. There's a reason why EA Play, Origin, uPlay, Epic Games Store etc... fail to take off compared to Steam, and it's not just the availability of games.
They're also very friendly to indie developers, any dev can make and publish a game on Steam for a fairly small fee compared to what you get.
They also heavily promote and contribute to open source software and Linux in general.
But fuck them for needing to make a profit too I guess?
Just because Steam is not an evil corporation doesn't mean we can't criticize them too. Both statements can be true, there is no way for an individual person to ethically own a billion dollars and Steam is for the most part an example of a business treating it's customers, workers, and suppliers with respect and dignity. Those statements are not mutually exclusive.
You forgot to mention that they get children addicted to unregulated gambling, but that would ruin the gaben wankfest you've got going on in your head for some reason.
Those other people don't have to use Steam's service if they don't want to pay Steam a cut.
The entitlement among developers on Steam is atrocious. I think a lot of useful idiots were pushing alternative storefronts years ago in no small part because they've been conditioned to accept a worse experience so someone else can take more of their money.
Steam is still basically the only option AND they are actually helping Linux a lot with game compatibility. Altough, if I need games specifically on steam I'll be buying the key from Greenmangaming (UK) or GamersGate (Sweden). If anybody has more alternatives feel free to let me know so I can add them to my list.
GOG sadly misses a majority of games atm so I just can't replace steam with it yet.
Third party key market places are kinda iffy, and there have been numerous cases of the keys being offered on there having been bought with stolen credit cards, or otherwise generated in ways that aren't quite above board.
I remember one interview with an indy dev in which they said they prefer people pirating, because chargebacks from stolen cards are actively costing them money.
For people who feel they need the entertainment games provide, but can't afford current prices, I feel pirating games from conglomerates, and buying from smaller studios and indies is the most socially responsible way to do it, but I'm not your mum.
Edit: Huh, looks like greenmangaming gets their keys directly from the publishers. Didn't know that was a thing. Guess I was a bit quick on the trigger there, should have checked first. Sorry about that.
G2A is probably the big example of Devs prefering you pirate instead of buying.
Only use G2A if you actively wish harm on the company making the game.
Don't use G2A even if you wish harm on the company making the game, it's still supporting scammers and thieves, just pirate the game.
See you already found the reason it is ok, but yeah what you are saying is completely right when talking about sites like G2A, Kinguin, etc where YOU can sell your keys as that opens the gates for illegal stuff
Hence I mentioned legit resellers (from the EU) that do support the publishers.
I’m quite fond of Fanatical. They are based in the UK and also sometimes sell DRM free books/audiobooks
Ohh I've actually been on their website sometime. Good to know they're UK based thanks!
Update:
What’s that?
My purchase on fanatical
Huge plus that they aren't publicly traded and forced to chase profits above all. Plus their employees are far and wide the best paid in the industry, and they never do mass lay offs.
This is a somewhat naive view when you consider Gabe’s multiple super-yachts.
The guy could be more charitable, but aside from that, what do you want him to do? If he lowers the cost of steams cut per purchase he'll get in trouble for monopolizing the industry. Yeah, he's too rich, but he got there without exploiting or hurting anyone. Even after he passes away, the company is already employee owned.
You’re missing the part where they make the vast majority of their money from the gambling, not from the cut they take from sales. They don’t have to run the gambling service. But they do because it’s a money faucet.
Two things: First, they very likely don't make most of their money off of their loot box sales from the few games they own that have them. (CS, Dota 2, TF2).
Secondly, you're just full of shit and making up that "fact". As a private company, none of their stuff is completely public record, but using various trackers and estimates and sales numbers from game studios, Steam sells north of 700,000,000 games a year and makes a $billion or so from cs and tf2 stuff.
Since the average game sale amount is around $15; $15 X 700,000,000 = 10,500,000,000 ÷ valves cut of 30% = $3,150,000,000
Now not all studios pay that 30%. Some have lower deals based on volume and notoriety, but it's still safe to assume that their game sales make over two billion a year. AKA well over their loot box money.
I like how when valve does it, it's 'gambling,' but every other company out there it's just 'microtransactions' and 'monetization.'
Valve somehow gets 99% of the hate online for lootboxes, despite having one of the most transparent and fair implementations of them.
Like, have you people never seen a gacha? Half of them don't even fucking publish the rates for what you can get, and make far more money than Valve does.
No, there are actual gambling sites for counter-strike items that are run by scammers who hire a youtuber, give them a huge (deliberate) win to entice kids to bet their parents wage on some stupid cosmetics' slot machine.
The important part is that Valve doesn't need to sell it's own kidneys (and enshitifies it's service) just to appease shareholders. I like that Valve chooses to be evil, rather than being required to by law.
isthereanydeal.com
No grey market key sellers, only legit.
Wait what exactly is the purpose of buying a steam key from a third party? And how is that profitable and not tos breaking?
Keys can be cheaper when there isn't any ongoing steam sales. Some website are shady and should be avoided but some are 100% legit. Any reseller listed on isthereanydeal is safe to use, they get their keys directly from publishers.
Good question! Real resellers (so NOT g2a, etc) get their keys from publishers directly (so they pay for them). The publishers get these keys from steam for free and by buying them from a reseller steam takes 0% of the money. So by using an EU reseller more money stays here.
The name GamersGate sounds like it didn't any issues at all /s
Yeahhh I don't know who thought that was a good name hahaha
Don't know if you're serious but the store is way older than that similar-sounding thing
This is the oldest "gate" scandal I can think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal but generally adding -gate after something is used for a scandalous situation. Although it makes 0.0% sense, thats just how culture picked it up. Thats how the gamergate scandal became the name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_(harassment_campaign))
I don't believe gog will ever have a full library. They require all their games to be DRM free. Until corporate gaming changes GOG won't.
Not all their games are DRM free though, they 'sold out' a long time ago.
Thats a plus for me, and why when I buy its through gog. My steam library is large, but hasn't grown in years.
ive seen that gog is incredibly picky with what games are allowed on its platform too, which doesn’t help
iirc they refused Balatro, and initially even refused Undertale for being too low quality, before changing their minds when they saw the absolute phenomenon that game had become
(I got this from hearsay tho so don’t take it as a fact)
There ought to more indie outlets like itch.io, preferably non-American, and maybe if GOG had a similar site for just free or low cost indie games, that'd help bring upcoming indie artists in the door which eventually could make trustworthy titles worthy of their more premium store. Shame they have such odd vetting process, yet they don't have a problem with over low quality stuff like the Postal series^[https://www.gog.com/en/games?query=postal&order=desc%3Ascore&discounted=true].
You are still fucked then if Steam decides to take out a game you purchased. Again the whole "you're not buying a product but a license for the product" debacle. Other than not giving Steam any money, this doesn't change much? Could just pirate games instead.
I never said I cared about that in the first place. But even after games are removed from Steam they still allow you to download it whenever. Its only really an issue should Gabe choose a replacement for him that isn't as pro gamers as he is.
This community is about buying european, not complaining about having DRM.
When cornered people finally admit that steam is a small monopoly
Steam isn't a monopoly, there are other choices but they just suck. Epic games in terms of game availability already replaces a good 80% of my active library, itch, ubisoft, ea, etc also exist but are just so bad as well.
Steam is basically the only option... That cares about gamers and actually provides a good service.
You don't really have to rely on any company to play your games
I think Steam might be the only private company in this.
Really says a lot.
It does.
Private companies are - often - not driven by pure greed. The people work hard for their company to be successful and they are much less likely to fuck it all over with a stupid move.
Public companies, however, are controlled by a bunch of money motivated monkeys that couldn't give a rats ass about a company's future. They'll bleed it all dry and go to the next company.
Dude, Steam is selling games you don't own. How greedy is that?
Like most game platforms do, except Valve actually looks after their customers.
least socialist lemmy user
Fuck them too.
You are allowed to say Fuck on the Internet. Why are you following the self-censorship rules for Instagram and other social networks if you are making a joke about them?
Looks like it was baked into the image template they used
No excuse. Build it from scratch again. Build it better.
We can rebuild him. We have the technology
I realised that those who censor themselves on the Internet, grew up on the Internet when YouTube started demonitising profanities and thus picked up the habit.
We are getting old.
youtube was good before googol bought it, now it is crap.
Daily dose of getting old: that buyout was like 20 years ago
The buyout was less than a year into it existing
Very few actually remember pre-google youtube
I sorta remember it being bought but I can't say I actually recall what it was like pre-google. We had dialup at the time, and just the one family computer, so I didn't really watch a lot of videos
I just reposted it from elsewhere, no need to read too much about it
[ removed from lemmy ]
You are even allowed to say fuck on the radio and TV in some countries (like The Netherlands)
Costco is cool too! They have local products.
And, they told the ignorant people to go fuck themselves in regards to stopping their DEI efforts.
Honestly, that's really smart. It shows which businesses are playing the long game and which ones aren't.
When democrats are back in office and businesses start re-instating DEI, Costco can always say they never got rid of them.
Also, probably ones that are more global and less willing to be pushed around by a dumb ass and his followers. I bet such companies have better quarters for a while too after that.
Keep that DEI and I will keep shopping!
And their management bust unions like their lives depend on it.
Costco can be cool all they want once the federal government of the USA tells them to fuck over Canadians they will. It's a very dangerous game to rely heavily on American companies in Canada right now. No matter how ethical they might be. The trade war has already begun and the USA will use any lever available when the time comes to annex.
The issue isn't the federal government tells them to fuck over Canadians (or anyone else). It's that they don't tell them anything. They just make Canadian goods cost more in the US. They don't have a choice. Most businesses would rather the cost stay the same, but we have a dumb ass president who's fucking us all over for no good reason.
Well, the reason is to destabilize the west because Putin wants a new Soviet Union
It’s certainly not a good reason. But it’s not just “dumb trump pulling levers he doesn’t understand.” It’s “dumb Trump pulling the levers he’s told to. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing, but those planning the lever pulls do”
I sometimes feel an anxiety when pondering what will happen when daddy Gabe isn't here to keep the wolves at bay.
gabe is a very smart person, if he doesnt have a post death plan for steam i would be immensely surprised.
The fact he is doing research on BCIs, I like to imagine his plan is digitizing himself so he can live forever on the net.
All hail the immortal cyber-lord Gaben.
Basically what Cave Johnson did, indirectly.
maybe portal was just a story about valve, the entire time.
The Beta Tester position at Valve is a high-turnaround job just because of all the accidental deaths.
Cave Johnson: "Gamers are all about immersion, and have asked us to make a peripheral device that lets them feel the game even more. Our engineers just designed a monitor with a gun in it that shoots the player when they are shot in game. The legal department tells me this isn't technically legal."
lmao
that would be pretty based, he will become immortalized as a living meme, forever.
Honestly, I've been weaning myself off Steam for awhile now. It's great what they did to make PC gaming more accessible, but I also feel like Steam itself is an unnecessary dependency for most video games.
There should be protocols that games can implement to integrate with launchers and organize playing online.
That's my fear too , whoever gets their hand on valve will decide the future of pc gaming kinda , I just hope it won't get sold to ea , riot , tencent or whatever
Depends on who inherents his shares
me: steam is terrible; it's just drm with a nice bow on top
steam: steam visual novel fest starts now
me: i love steam stuffs more items on my wishlist
(for real tho itch.io and gog are much better use them - and download the actual offline installers from gog don't use galaxy)
GOG Galaxy isn't bad to use. It has cloud saves, and update checking - which is useful for some people. And games installed using the offline installers still show up in galaxy (and can be updated etc.) In fact, you can download the offline installers from the Galaxy app itself if you want to.
heroic games launcher integrates a pretty solid proton base. Lutris also works but i find it a bit too fiddly for me.
HGL works great though, also provides native integration with EGL and GOG, which is nice.
Lutris gives you that.
@cupcakezealot wasn't Itch also American?
@Blaze
yeah it wasn't necessarily an alternative; i was just saying they're better because they tend to support indie devs and/or are more drm free than steam. i didn't know of a purely non american one that i use :(
@cupcakezealot I like that they support indie creators as well, but Valve also did wonders in regard to gaming on Linux in general. I personally support both, as long as they are not supportive in any way to the current Trump administration.
oh for sure it wasn't a dismissal of steam (which I have a large library and a steam deck) and more of a use itch.io and gog first of possible
@cupcakezealot oh, I see
Apparently GOG is Polish. DRM free, too; the one time I used it it literally just gave me the raw game files, like back in the day.
i didn't know they were polish but yup! for most games you can go into your account and download all the manuals and exes/pkgs for any game you own!
Heck, I just cut out the middleman and go straight to torrenting.
Wish I had thought to do this sooner. I would've saved a lot of money that really just ended up in the hands of landlords.
Steam may be a very successful business, but they’re still the seed crystal for a whole ecosystem of gambling that preys on addicts and children with the whole CSGO loot box thing. Take a wild guess what forms of addiction have the highest suicide rates?
Fuck Valve. Fuck all Corps. No business has ever nor can ever, genuinely give a shit about anything other than increasing profit.
On the other hand, Valve wishing to seek an alternative to Microsoft's poor decision^[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_(computer)#cite_note-cvg_newell_linux-2%3A%7E%3Atext=upon+the+release+of+Windows+8+in+2012] making has been a great boon to the Linux community. Valve was also there at the start of Vulkan^[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan#History]. But is "funny" that Gabe Newell started off as a Microsoft employee, in fact the one that led the team that ported Doom to Windows with Doom95 and in turn also helped launch Windows (95) as the gaming OS for decades to come.
As much as I distrust and hate corporations, Valve isn't in it for the shareholders, you can't buy Valve stocks and that means they at least have a bit more soul than a lot of other corporations - even though they are profit seeking.
What I don't like about them is how they sell you a service, not an actual game. You technically buy a lifelong lease on each game, never ownership. Your shit can be gone in minutes with nothing to prove for it, except for bank statements saying Valve took your money.
Which is why I'll always buy on GOG^[https://www.gog.com/en/about_gog] if possible. DRM free and European.
Does everyone just keep glossing over the ‘they enable the abuse of addicts and children” part?
I’m not saying I disagree with your other points I’m just confused.
Because it's a weak-ass point, quite simply. Capitalism itself does that shit, not gonna knock Valve for something every game company does, if we play that game with everyone it gets exhausting
"Wont SOMEBODY think of the children?" Is literally a Simpsons meme
Every game company does not operate a gambling system that is the center for a literal whole ecosystem of predatory shady businesses. But that was a halfway decent try at a whataboutism argument /s.
Yes that quote is at the heart of a Simpsons episode. And it’s about people using moral panic crusades as a means of enacting draconian measures of control based on a fear based in falsehood. Valve demonstrably engages in the practices I mentioned so I think your point kind of falls completely on its face. I am glad to see you recognize capitalism as inherently exploitative though.
Making a more specific point after the fact doesn't change the original point.
So busy trying to sound smart you proved you weren't worth engaging with
This reads like you took in all the words I wrote and then responded to them without actually understanding or comprehending any of the content.
Linux is more important to them than child abuse.
😂
[text you want to display](URL)::: spoiler I was playing around with things, noticed that at least my instance supported citation of sources. I normally do . But now I know that not every instance supports if you couldn't see it.
:::
Valve is a privately owned company.
Publicly owned companies want more prodit because well we want out interest and return on stocks and a stable pension etc as well right? That all pushes publicly owned companies to get more and more profit every year.
No business?
I work as a software developer for a small business and they do care about us and not just profits.
Recently we were all given a pay rise and a reduction in hours as they can afford to support that.
Correct, no business. That same business will lay you off in a heartbeat if they can. Businesses do not care about you.
Also, not true in my case.
They do care and have shown on numerous occasions my supporting me when I have needed it and instilling in us that we come first and the business is secondary.
Like the owners literally do the same work as us and are far more accommodating than they have to be for us.
How else would you get a pay rise and a reduction in hours, able to work from home when having car trouble, not having a good mental health day fine take it off, etc.
I cede my point. I knew I was laid off for being a piece of shit, I just knew it.
Sorry, I’m not doing great these days.
I’m not saying you’re a piece of shit, just that there are a few good employers out there. I also realise I am lucky.
Nah you’re good sorry wasn’t implying that.
What a myopic view of the world.
Anyone can start a business and treat their employees and customers fairly. It's just that in our Stockholm Syndrome Society, the businesses who abuse us are the most successful.
No that’s what Angelosaxton (American) companies are about.
Most privately owned companies don’t care about making as much profit as possible. They want a healthy company that can pay them their salary and save up money for their pension.
Depends if the business it publicly owned.
I think valve are mostly fair to consumers. The money they make from gamers is doing some good in the linux sphere.
I thought it was pretty well known Valve is privately owned.
They make money selling off of gamers by selling games. They take advantage of and enable systemic abuse of, I’ll say it again, addicts and children. I’m not saying they aren’t also fair to their customers in most of their dealings and that they aren’t doing good things for the Linux ecosystem. But we’re also talking way more money than I bet you’re thinking. Gabe’s uber rich person kink is super-yachts. Multiple, super-yachts. You can appear and behave with decency and still contribute to the detriment of society at the same time.
Get lawmakers to make a law about it and properly work it out. Valve is banning loot boxes even for people who are legally allowed to gamble.
The issue is that it is hard to legally define whaf a lootbox is and stop it without stopping things like TCG drafts and RGB loot from bosses or enemies on games.
I agree with this, but you have to admit that if all corps were like steam it would be a lot better.
Hey both things can be true. I feel like at this point though the only reason they haven’t stopped the whole gambling thing is because it’s basically a money faucet and in a monetary economy who’d ever turn off a money faucet? But that’s the rub, greed is inherently incentivized.
I'm gonna add that the ceo is a bilionare who owns an entire fleet of mega yacths
https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/gabe-newell-luxury-yachts.php
The crates where fine in TF2 …. Before CSGO got made, but due to CSGO and other games it’s an issue.
But while you consider it gambling, most laws don’t. It’s currently only banned in NL and BE to open lootboxes on Steam and in NL we have legal online gambling for 18+, but Valve won’t gives you access to the lootboxes.
The point is that one laws need to be more clear about what is gambling and what isn’t without ruining anything that uses randomizers and/or loot and there needs to be a better way to validate people’s age without hurting their privacy.
Yep, if you want a reason why Valve are "less evil" than other companies, one big thing to point to is the huge investment they've made into the Linux ecosystem. Even though it's in their own interests (Microsoft locking out steam would cripple their income), we can see with Epic suing Google/Apple that there are other, shittier ways that they could have attempted the same thing. The investment they've made into Linux, Proton, KDE etc benefit everyone and can't be taken away on a whim.
i wont delete my steam account, but lord gaben wont get my money anymore, even if hes awesome. :( sorry gabe.
Just buy future games from GOG. No need to delete Steam or already made purchases.
Not really on the table, my kid would kill me in my sleep. Just going to move forward towards other things.
Your kid would kill you, if you bought a game on GOG? 😅
If I deleted steam
yes that i will do. if its not available then there this particular other way...
I'm still gonna use American stuff that's good if they keep DEI. brb checking up on Steam.
Edit: it's not looking good tbh I think I'll switch to GOG / physical media as much as feasible.
Report your findings
They seem to have a track record of lukewarm responses to social issues, lax content moderation, and a combo of flat corporate hierarchy and a complete lack of diversity in their team that have made it difficult to lead any efforts to improve the situation.
My read is that Gabe is not evil, just a comfortable old guy who, like many comfortable old (white) guys, has bought into the myth of the great meritocracy as a self serving narrative, which is really just a post-hoc mythology of success in most cases imo.
I'm reading deeply into a lot of skimmed clues, so all of the foregoing is subject to revision if I see anything compelling in the opposite direction.
Valve has deep libertarian roots unfortunately
I knew I smelled something.
Well hell, I hope Gabe eventually meets enough libertarians to become disgusted with himself. Penn Gillette recently did, so there's always hope.
Penn was an actual libertarian, not an american-style one. when listening to the things he actually believes, rather than the label he used to ascribe to those beliefs, that is very clear. the reason he turned away from the label itself was that he realized he wanted nothing to do with the people using the label because he didn't share their beliefs.
it's probably better if gabe never meets a single one of those guys.
I wont use it if it has an extreme form of DEI in it. Im somewhat in the middle with this DEI Stuff, idk so much about it yet to really form my opinion.
There are no extreme forms of DEI because DEI is just making sure that everyone is able to be included and to discourage discrimination.
An all black college for example is not DEI. It is trying to counter systemic racism by providing opportunities to those that have historically and currently been excluded, so the goals are the same but it isn't DEI.
I disagree, there are definitely extreme forms of DEI, namely when we're talking about forced equal representation. Pools of potential employees are rarely perfect representations of society, for many different reasons. So if a company forcefully tries to have a perfect representation of society, that means they will discriminate against certain groups and hire less capable workers on average.
That opinion assumes the people who weren't being hired due to discrimination are less capable. Which is the kind of thing people use to justify discrimination.
Let me explain it with a theoretical example: you are a company and the field you're hiring in consists of 90 women and 10 men. You need 10 people for the job and want the most capable. Statistically that would mean hiring 9 women and 1 man on average, giving you the 10% most capable employees. But since you want equality you want it 50/50, so you hire 5 women and 5 men. That means that for the women you hired the 5,6% most capable employees, but for the men you hire the 50% most capable employees. So you get less capable employees this way, assuming both groups are equally likely to be capable.
Are all of the people qualified? Then everything past that is likely to be subjective as to what 'more capable means'.
If so, odds are pretty high that what the hiring person thinks are more capable are just people that fut their preconceived notions of who is likely to be more qualified. Generally that is tall, white men.
Not to mention there is a lot more to being effective workers, like communication and collaboration. A more diverse workforce tends to increase communication and collaboration when being diverse and inclusive are goals.
Not to mention people can grow as they get experience. So even if they aren't the most capable at the time of hiring, they might be in a few years. And if people don't get any experience, they will always have a disadvantage against even less capable people who have more experience. It is a feedback loop that makes even a small amount of discrimination have a mush larger effect.
Let me stop you here: You seem to lack the pre-requisite knowledge of laws, and the understanding of what HR departments and DEI departments do.
What you’re describing is absolutely, totally, illegal and has been since the 1970s. This was decided in Griggs v Duke Power Co. The phrase you can look up is “Disparate impact” and in particular the “adverse impact” and tests.
DEI has big problems, but most of them stem from businesses just slapping in a 60 minute micro aggression course from a third party service and calling it done
https://hbr.org/2022/12/the-failure-of-the-dei-industrial-complex
What DEI is supposed to do is stuff like:
an all black college is discrimination of other people imo.
All black colleges exist because blacks were excluded from existing colleges. Not because there were all white colleges, but because they were excluded from the vast majority of colleges.
They have remain because of ongoing racism at other colleges. A group that is discriminated against by society as a whole limiting who can join their spaces is not discrimination.
im euro and i dont discriminate against any people. i dont care what colour you have as long as you arent criminal or bad to me and others. bad people are everywhere. there are many white or asian people that dont want or are to untalented for college. i would only let people pass classes in college if they pass with a pass grade. shoving anyone trough because of colour is not good.
Grades have not depended on race in mainstream or HBCUs. Admissions however have not ever been equal, and DEI initiatives were created with the idea of counterbalancing that - or in lieu of reparations, which would be a real attempt to correct the inherent issue.
Europeans pretending they don't know about discrimination is always so funny.
No, it's not. And even if you want to call that a discrimination, it's a positive one.
So, there's no countries of majority black people on Earth? Don't you mean a majority black college in the USA? But wouldn't that majority by definition exclude other minorities like east asians, south asians, native americans, Hispanics et al? And what is a white person? A person from the south of Spain is indistinguishable from a person from North Africa, yet both originate from completely different backgrounds and neither would be white passing in the US. What about poor white people, do JayZ's children deserve a pass because they are black but the children of a Ukrainian migrant do not because they are technically white even if they are from a refugee family with little financial means?
What you said is myopic, nonsensical and a perfect example of an oxymoron, I'm going to go on a limb and guess you're US american. Congrats, it's regardation like the one you spouted that got Trump elected.
What the fuck is context anyway?
I'll bite. What's a company with extreme DEI?
idk, must be a little one that isnt yet big enough to be in the news or whose product is not good enough so i didnt yet use or buy it. these small firms are often extreme-non-DEI/extreme-DEI. but as i have written, idk too much about this stuff. its not in the news in europa.
Okeh. Slightly weird to have an opinion with no examples. Propaganda, much?
proud boys is a weird thing, afaik they are extreme-non-DEI so i dont like them.
a bit DEI or anti-DEI is alright.
EDIT: explain the downvotes. am i to moderate for both farleft and farright??
Based on the way you're talking I don't think you understand what DEI actually is, and yet, you remain committed to saying how much of it you want. Having a center opinion isn't a virtue; if you don't know enough about the subject, you should have no opinion, not advocate for a central one by default. Didn't downvote but I see why people are.
I don't see the equivalency as valid though. I am white, but that's not something I'd ever be proud of in itself because it's literally just pigmentation alone. I'm so ethnically mixed and Americanised that I can't really claim the English, Croat, or Scottish heritage I have got - despite being a British citizen living in England who eats haggis with enough frequency to disturb my family. I very much appreciate my heritage but it has no hold on me as an in-group identity. They don't claim me, nobody needs to.
If I was to take the stance of being "anti-DEI", which lets face it, it's just white supremacism with updated buzzwords, I'd be taking the stance that my literal mere pigmentation is an equally valid source of pride as a black woman's history of oppression, or a trans man's struggle to be treated as their true self.
I've struggled, but I haven't struggled from being white or cisgender. I've walked alone at night wherever I liked ever since I was barely a teen with hardly so much as a glance over my shoulder. Gone to other countries where I barely speak fifty words in the local tongue with nary a care. I've spent my whole life being given credit as the person I present as. I've been unafraid to take risks, and it gives me hell to know others haven't been able to enjoy those things in life. It's not even a huge amount of empathy we're talking about here.
So that's my story. Anyone who reads this and thinks I'm a self hating white is probably in need of a smack. I'm fine with myself. I want others to have a taste of being okay once in a while like I have, is all.
As for the downvotes I don't know I'm just talking here. I can't speak for them. In America, this issue is often played to 'both sides' in bad faith, and far right ideas are given more than equal time in ways that have normalised fascist tendencies for decades, leading to the current situation (more or less a coup in progress). It's a difficult needle you're trying to thread at the best of times, and right now an "even handed" stance feels a lot like cities trying to solve traffic by adding "just one more lane" to their already massive highways.
As ever, this is just me talking.
And what exactly does extreme DEI look like?
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity_and_inclusion
Presuming you can't get a game on GoG (which is European), check if the game is still from Europe.
Bit of a compromise, but this is for the people who can't give up on Steam.
Yeah, I haven't bought a game in years. Wish I could refund or resell most of the games I bought on Steam, but oh well. Live and learn.
Sailing the high seas has been a breath of fresh air. It's nice to have greater ownership over my software than the rubes who pay for theirs, lol. And it's cheaper!
same here lol and i dont play much anymore
I'm just happy to see a meme template from Half Baked.
Chappelle's old stuff is fire
Have you ever looked at memes on weed?
The man who delivered that line is now my generation's Walter Cronkite
Ha, right! Also, oy, I'm old
I barely use Steam to be honest. Gosh, I need to get off Windows...
TBH operating systems are like tools, and if windows isn’t too intrusive and neutered, it can be OK.
I use Windows for gaming/media, for performance reasons, and (CachyOS) Linux for GPU compute stuff, dev work, office, pretty much anything else.
Well, yeah, I get that... Still, there's quite a bit about Windows that annoys me, and there's really nothing I do on Windows that Linux can't handle. I've already looked it up, and the little gaming I do does work pretty well on Linux too, reportedly.
So I find myself thinking... Why am I on Windows? I could be on Linux and ditch Microsoft. It's just some anxiety, fear that things'll break. At the end of the day, I have more confidence that, if something goes wrong, I can fix it in Windows, but may not be able to fix it in Linux. Hope I'm making sense here.
Again, you can always dual boot, just in case.
What I do is dual boot and "share" a partition between them, so if windows or Linux breaks I can just swap to the other, no problemo.
Fair. I'll try that :D
As somebody who really recently migrated to linux, shit will 'break' and part of the fun is scouring wikis and random forums to get things working and the absolute rush that comes when you figure something out
Look, I enjoy fun with computers as much as the next guy, but if I need to get something done I don't want to go scouring... If I need to get in a meeting and the audio is fucked or the bluetooth broke or something, that's a big problem...
lol, ya that's totally fair, bluetooth for me so far has been total fuckery, this is my personal pc not my work one.
You can just not buy the games that have stuff like Denuvo etc. If you keep buying them, of course they'll keep including the DRM etc.
Steam is the storefront, and they have plenty of games you can buy without that crap.
And there's always torrenting. Denuvo doesn't actually stop games from being cracked.
Steam also tells you beforehand, now
Why not just turn on offline mode on the steam deck? Its easier than blocking it from the internet...
How Newell’s latest yacht? They still allow gambling in CS? Cool cool, nothing to see here.
Gaben is pretty chill, ngl
I never gamed, so...
Steam isn't perfect and I sure as shit won't be the one defending a corporation, and this isn't a good excuse at ALL, but if you've never gamed you wouldn't believe how much worse it is on the other side (GOG being the only exception).
And as far as corpo rats go, at least Valve employees own 49% of the company.
Pretty much.
I wish more companies took the approach like steam where it seems to be they are content with the amount of money they make and limitless profits are not the end goal
Gaben is a billionaire, Valve isn't content with the amount of money they make, they just have good PR
Given the fact that they basically make infinite money so long as they don't fuck it up id say they are very much content. They have a golden goose why would they slaughter it.
Then let's stop acting like they're the good guys, right?
Compared to damned near every company they may as well be, seriously imagine if fucking EA owned Steam. Ill take the neutral evil which just wants my money and giving me a decent product over the one actively trying to kick me in the balls as well.
They just have good PR, loot boxes, gambling, it's stuff that Valve also makes profit off of.
We're getting ripped off and some of us, like you, are saying that's ok.
Nobody is forcing you to pay for the loot boxes, hell nobody is forcing you to play the games with them. You could play literally nothing but Rimworld, Baldurs Gate 3, and Crusader Kings 3 without ever looking at their live service shit. Regardless even on that front Valve is still better than most.
Also I don't see profits off of gambling as immoral, I see it as stupid and weak willed by those who participate but not immoral.
I guess that's one way to not feel bad about companies praying on kids and people with addiction issues 🤷
And now I'm sending you off to the blocklist because I don't need people like you in my life, buhbye!
I also wish more companies took the approach like steam and peddle heroine to kids and recovering addicts in order to make money.
I haven't heard that one but that's disturbing
He's referencing loot boxes and all other gambling adjacent practices they're guilty of.
Ah yeah I'm not a fan of loot boxes
Why do you have to call me out like that man
Man I love it when people glaze objectively bad companies just because it's popular opinion to like them.
Remember steam started the business model of not actually owning your games.
Gabe has made billions by stealing profit from the workers that actually make games.
They had to be sued just to offer refunds.
They host tons of malware and shovelware and outright scam games and even protect them from """"review bombing"""
They pushed "early access" into the mainstream.
And because of people like you that would literally suck Gabes dick for the meme, they get away with it.
GOG exists, go use GOG. Steam is popular because they don't fuck over buyers, and they run a good business model, people are ok not "owning" things if the service is reasonably well put together.
steam takes a 30% cut, which isn't all that high, especially when you consider that they develop things like proton at zero cost to anybody, including developers. You're also getting the single largest and most widely used publishing platform, period. It's really hard to beat something of that caliber, so it's definitely a tradeoff. There are also cases of devs making games that become so popular they pull in millions of dollars worth of revenue.
in defense of steam, if they specifically curated high quality games people like you would accuse them of gate keeping the platform. Scams are definitely a thing, malware, technically is. I've not seen malware ever in my personal experience, and i doubt most people have, and whenever it does happen, steam responds accordingly so i'm not sure its a fair statement.
there's nothing necessarily wrong with early access, i actually think it's a really productive way to provide tons of play testing and development potential for smaller dev teams. Does it also incentivize shovelware? Sure, but it's a platform you can make money on, that's not abnormal. And again, it's usually very well known when games are abandonware.
surprised you didn't mention gambling, that's probably the most significant argument against steam right now, they effectively run what can be considered an online casino.
That's a lot of effort to put in to trying to excuse blatantly predatory practices of a company with an almost defacto monopoly on PC games and uses said almost-monopoloy to steal 30% of the profits from people that actually make games.
GOG existing does not excuse Steam.
30% is massive. Imagine you sold something on, let's say, Ebay and they took 30% of that money. And devs could have other options of markets to sell their games if more people realised how predatory Steam is and stopped glazing Gabe like he's the video game messiah.
There's a difference between gatekeeping/allowing only AAA games, and just having 0 standards of what is allowed on the store.
Yes early access could be a good thing. But it isn't, they allow all the blatant shovelware and asset flips because, ya know, money. Again, if they just had some fairly basic standards of what they allow on their store to stop their users being ripped off, it wouldn't be a problem, but that wouldn't make them as much money, so they don't do it.
Gabe newel is a billionsire capitalist and Valve runs like any other company. Profits first and foremost.
Why have standards to protect consumers when Gabe needs an 8th super yatch to add to his fleet.
i guess technically they have a monopoly on the market place? But it's not like they're ruthlessly destroying the competition like GOG, and itch.io, and epic games. They literally just offer, a better service. The alternative being that you have to buy games from like 12 different platforms that all work differently, which i think most people, would rather not deal with.
for which they offer services in return, because it's not stealing, because that's how money works.
i mean sure, in the context of ebay that may make sense, but ebay doesn't handle shipping for you, do advertising, doesnt provide you any services to do photography of your product, any information about the product you're using. It's literally just an online marketplace that lets you list a product, and then ship it to somebody who buys it, via a third party customer, steam does literally ALL of the middle man work. You list your game on steam, and steam does EVERYTHING else for you, except for traditional marketing, but that's a different story. Usually if your game is good people will play it, sometimes you just need some luck, but time usually helps with that.
you can quite literally just do this, it won't have the same market reach, but it hasn't stopped viral games before. Many a viral sensation has come from itch.
steam has pretty significant standards, especially now that you can't greelight games anymore, you have to actually pay money for it to get listed, sure a lot of the games on the platform are bad, but there are also a lot of really good games, and just because a game is bad doesn't mean it should be delisted either. Sure things like asset flips really should.
profits first and foremost, except for the fact that a lot of people really just don't have a problem with steam, and steam manages to develop products that obviously arent intended to make money, like proton.
also im pretty sure these are just normal yachts.
Are you also a glazer for Amazon and Bezos? Because most of these arguments can apply to them too?
no? Bezos is substantially worse than gabe
While I think capitalism encourages unethical business practices, keep in mind that Valve actively supports the development and popularization of the kernel as well as other projects like Wine from their profits.
And Bill Gates is trying to eradicate malaria. So should we all be glazers for Microsoft and use Windows?
Ok then fund linux gaming
That's one of the greatest thing Valve is doing. They're breathing life into Linux gaming.
G*mers have been too Stockholmed by Steam's monopoly to recognise that everything they complain about with EA or Ubisoft all started with Valve.
While I have deleted Amazon, Meta accounts along with restricting what Google gets in terms of data. Steam will be the last and by far the most hardest thing I have to give up (if I ever do tbh)
I'm using Steam cause of the SteamDeck. If Gabe dies and they start fucking things up I'll install bazite and sail the Seven seas once again.
steam is just so based.
I dont think a single more based company has ever existed. It rivals the greats like linux, with a touch of gambling.
Fuck corporations! Fuck any shady business, I can't think of any non shady businesses though.
I will switch to GOG or any other store the second they officially support and fund Linux gaming.
Accurate and warranted.
Yup pretty much it.
Which company is the cool one?
Valve, they make Steam. A popular gaming store that brought modern gaming to Linux
The one running an illegal online casino for minors.
For steam I only use their proton compatibility layer for my "DRM free games", I only bought Terraria on their store and I rarely play it these day I'll play it again when 1.4.5 come out
I still don't understand why the company is so highly regarded. They enable underage gambling. Life must be easy for a company. You just have to be a little bit better than the others and you are regarded as a hero.
i mean, out of all things a company can do that are bad, underage gambling is probably one of the better ones, and the argument in favor of it is that it's on games like csgo and cs2, where the age range is obviously higher than an actual child.
Realistically, i think you have to be kind of stupid to get caught in gambling, but it is also definitely predatory, and there's a reason it's a heavily regulated industry. There's definitely a better solution than we currently have, but it's not as bad as it could be either.
"underage gambling is probably one of the better ones", "you have to be kind of stupid to get caught in gambling" you seem like you do not know what you are talking about respectfully.
Have you watched cofeezilla? The industry already has armed mafia structures.
i'm just saying, i can think of a lot worse things a company can do. Amazon, notably. Most countries without substantial labor protection laws, probably also rank worse. Countries currently at war, or controlled by gang violence, probably also worse.
The prison industrial complex, that's pretty bad. Spending money because you're mentally incapable of processing how spending money in that fashion is bad, yeah probably possibly to be worse than that.
im sorry steam has a militia?
Sure there is always worse, but you don't have to like B because of what A did.
steam does not, but the economy, that they are center of has. Operators of online skin casinos are adopting mafia tactics. You could say "oh, that is just some fringe groups at the outside", but these actors are deeply embedded with streamers, competitive events and the entire culture.
yeah that's pretty typical of any sort of "tradeable currency" digital or not, these sites are all hosted in countries with favorable laws, and in places where it's hard to regulate them.
There's shitty people on the internet, should we personally vet and maintain every single user of the internet, or should we just be "moderate" about it. The question of the ages, how much do we actually care about this specific problem.
Look, I agree, that they do many good things for consumer protection. They blocked NFT in games and in game advertisement, but they sit at the center of a damaging marketplace and could stop it, but don't and deserve criticism for that.
and it is fair criticism, i have no problem with that. I'm just not sure it's worth demonizing them over. A lot of companies, even good ones, have bad practices, it's just the way the world works, it's hard to do everything absolutely perfectly.
Again, not trying to justify it, i'm just saying there's a level of expectation i think you need to set.
don't forget valve gets minors (and adults) into gambling.
Gaben is still just another billionaire with a yacht collection. The reason games aren't cheaper is because of people like him, just like anything else we're buying everyday.
Down voted because people can't accept the fact that they're getting ripped off even by the companies they like?
talking about downvotes is a great way to get downvotes out of spite, which i'm sure you're not using to make yourself appear more legitimate
Billionaire worship is so cringe. People are acting like this guy is a god just because he sells them video games. This guy might be the most evil billionaire as he sells gambling to children and manchildren.
I'm literally installing windows right now. I feel disgust, but I need it for one application that I know will never have a Linux version. I got tired of the slow as shit virtual machine I used for it before. I can't replace it with an alternative either, for business reasons.
It's crazy how it's absolutely impossible to criticize steam without getting bashed to oblivion by so-called gamers. The amount of free balls sucking Steam gets is just ridiculous. They have sub 100 employees , take 30% of every god damn games sold on the platform and you don't own you games. Yeah it's a cool platform, but in the end it's just another nasty capitalist business.
As a Linux gamer, steam has done so much to make it incredibly easy. They didn't have to make proton, but they did and it's great.
The few games they've made have pretty much all been incredible.
The family sharing means my wife has access to my whole account on her steam deck.
Sure, they take a big cut of sales, I've heard not a great place to work, and probably some other reasons to not like them. But the good far outweighs the cons. It's hard to hate them compared to other huge companies.
Well I mean, proton exists pretty much solely because of the steam deck. I will agree that it's been really nice switching to Linux as a result of proton's existence but they didn't just magically do it out of the goodness of their own heart either. It's basically the nicest version of a monopolistic gaming environment that doesn't really allow you to actually own anything that you buy.
It's kind of funny to watch the news with them; they're like two different companies struggling to coexist. One is just as greedy and evil as every other corporation and the other one fights for the consumer, so you end up with a news story one day saying that they're stifling competition by forcing price cuts on only their platform, but then they also are banning all games that force players to watch advertisements. Make make up your mind Steam 😂
How do they not allow you to own anything? Steam has drm free games, and if this is about licensing that wasn't different 30 years ago.
Valve is absolutely not perfect and I buy from gog when possible, but my god do I hate that argument. Using steam's drm is the choice of the publisher.
its the perpetual license thing, every platform that doesnt directly sell you the product does the same thing, it's the industry standard.
Yes, and video games sold as physical disks did it too.
they did use DRM, you would be correct about that statement.
proton existed many years before the steamdeck, and it's evident they intended it to be used WITH the steam deck, but it also exists outside the steamdeck, even then, it's still a huge incurred cost for a console that is actually super cost competitive for what it is. They don't even have that significant of a console market share, it seems like it's been nothing but a pet project to make gaming on linux more accessible, presumably because valve doesn't really like windows. Steam is 100% still WAY in the red on proton, and will probably continue to be for the whole lifetime of the project, it's unlikely they'll ever break even on it.
Family sharing is just replicating a feature of the disc age that valve killed of only owning 1 copy of a game and installing it one multiple people's computers. If it had DRM requiring the disc to be inserted to play (which many games did), only one person could play it at a time.
I had a couple of classmates who'd take turns buying each Sims 2 expansion because you only needed the last installed expansion disc inserted to play so that way they'd each have a fully expanded Sims 2 install at half the price. My dad would always have the latest expansion installed and I would have to wait until they got the next one before I could get that one. Certain expansions were exciting enough that I'd find times to play on my dad's computer to play the latest expansion though
they also provide both proton completely for free, and the entire steam marketplace, as well as any other additional functionality, steam networking for ex, with that 30% cut.
It's a large cut, but you're not really going to find a better option. Sure you could release on GOG, i think like 12 people use GOG though.
Yeah,I mean Proton is basically Wine - A free and open-source project developed by hundred of people over the years - with some extra patches. It's great, but the only reason they did it is to sell steam decks.
Steam does certain things really well, but in the end it's just a capitalist business. I don't get why gamers can be that bitchy about studios, that employ thousands of devs and artists, people who just wants to make good games but needs to deal with executives, but will rip their shirt a soon as someone criticize steam. They do no care about you, your experience, or even video games, they only care about money.
proton is not "basically wine" proton is built ON TOP of wine, yes, but the focus of the wine team is not supporting ONLY video games, it's supporting windows applications through an compatibility layer. The focus of proton is specifically enabling the support of video games through wine, via proton, and proton is open source. In fact it seems like it's BSD licensed? Which is the most permissive license out there, so the wine team could take the work of proton and upstream it tomorrow if they wanted.
that's like starting a resturant franchise, by building 10000 locations in the US, just to start selling some mediocre fast food. Evidently the steamdeck must not be the intention of proton, it's goals seem to be much farther in the future, the steam deck probably a platform to test it (because its not like the steamdeck is the most successful console ever, they don't sell a live service, and the hardware isn't very expensive.)
yeah, we live in a capitalist society though, i guess it could be a hypothetically perfect society where money doesn't exist, but we don't live in one do we?
and yet, one of the things you need to care about, is the user, because otherwise, you make no money!
Really we just to implement an open protocol that launchers and games can both support.
It's a testament to how much worse every other company is.
Boy are you gonna be surprised as hell when you find out what sort of percentage other publishers take, especially for physical releases!
Shockingly enough, infrastructure requires money to run!
You mean like Epic who takes 12%? Or Itch that let you chose your contribution? Or Humble that takes 25% but give half of that to charity?
BTW steam is not a publisher...
The infrastructure argument is just BS in 2025. Just admit you're an official gamer, meaning you will do anything to protect a soulless capitalist business that make millions everyday but employ like 83 people. Ubisoft bad, Steam good, I know lol.
Lol, in 2022 steam had profit margin of 70%. That makes it the most profitable company per employee in the United States, check it out. But obviously, they're not in it for the money, they just want players like you to be happy.
Oh please, Sony, Nintendo, Apple, etc all take 30%+. Epic is flailing horribly while running EGS at a deficit held up solely by Fortnige skins and gambling (but it's ok when they do it right?)
Physical publishers take 60%+.
Humble bundle is getting discounted keys because it's for charity.
Steam is a publisher. They'll also finance your game with interest-free loans, you don't even need to publish your game on Steam.
More to the point, Steam offers massive value for that 30%- forums, hosting, security, patching services, hosting, matchmaking, dlc options, the list goes on and on... And more importantly, steam doesnt care if you use those services even while selling keys elsewhere. that means that steam doesn't even get 30% of the take from those keys.
Dude will rip his shirt to protect a billionaire lol. Kind of remind me of a certain cult...
I'll just leave this here and wait for your cognitive dissonance to explain me why it's perfectly ok:
Steam literally invented the "you don't own you games" model. But let's just pretend Ubisoft did.
Valve's have create an ecosystem for underage gambling. The main innovation they ever created is making kids addicted to lootbox and shit. In 2023, they made 1 billion fromthat system, it's FUCKING DISGUSTING. But let's pretend it's just Epic and Ubisoft right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13eiDhuvM6Y
I don't care for any of the business you mentioned, they are all dirty, capitalist and soulless but the fact is that steam is almost a monopoly, and the greediest one. It's literally it the most profitable company per employee in the United States, fact. So to see an army of dudes willing to do anything to suck a billionaire's dick is beyond pathetic.
No, I'm just tired of chuds parroting astroturfed bullshit from epic game's massive PR campaign against valve that they did instead of improving their service.
Valve did not invent 'you don't own your games', nor did they invent DRM. The entire reason it took off was that it was one of the first PC game DRMs that didn't suck ass.
Valve did not create the gambling systems, they created a trading system and a marketplace that third parties abused to create gambling sites. If they didn't have it, you would complain that you cant trade cards or items or hats.
Steam is hilariously far from "the greediest monopoly" lmao. It's like you've never heard of ma bell, meta, or alphabet lol.
Dude, you're at like a 9 and this conversation deserves about a 3, calm your tits. Yes, I'm aware of the coffeezilla video- it has numerous holes and issues.
The biggest one, and the one it fails to acknowledge, is that literally every game system with lootboxes could have third parties abuse it with external gambling. The only thing they can do is send cease and desists, which in this case, the companies ignore.
So what are valve's options? There's the nuclear route, of destroying their entire company by removing all loot boxes, hats, and items from steam overnight. Obviously, that isn't happening- they aren't going to put every single of themselves out of jobs.
The other option is taking legal action against these companies, but the entire situation is murky, and a bad result would have MASSIVE consequences. You have to remember these companies aren't in the US, which also complicates things.
At the end of the day, you're demanding that a US company polices foreign companies, and thats way more complicated than you think, and not exactly Valve's place to even do so.
Again, Valve is not condoning gambling- they've sent cease and desists, they're not fans of this, but they don't exactly have a lot of options that don't involve literally destroying the company because EGS decided to fund a PR campaign against them. League has gambling sites, epics own Fortnige has gambling sites, but nobody cares about those.
If you're going to pretend this is about gambling, at least be consistent in hating all gambling.
Valve are irresponsible. Either it should moderate its forums or there shouldn't be any. All the time we see fascist rhetoric about 'DEI' and 'Woke'. We've reported some but they functionally are useless, so why have them?
Not defending valve but are the forums even necessary?
I've been an avid player for 4 years (my son even more so) and I didn't even know they had forums
Yeah, sometimes they help to communicate with other players or the developers, seek out hints or bug reports, share cool things from the game or that you did in them, or talk to valve about features/bugs.
They would be a lot more useful if they were actually moderated but most game developers seem unable or unwilling to do it, and valve is the same, so what ends up happening is that it just becomes a breeding ground for fascism.
Good to know, thanks for the info
I've never seen this myself. Not saying it doesn't happen, but it's likely blown way out of proportion by the
peoplechildren who can't tolerate opposing viewpoints.Feels like it needs another meme for this "You guys have forums?"
Can you people stop trying to browbeat others into supporting your agendas?
Not everyone has to agree with you on every online forum.
Waiting to see what excuses people bring up to keep using steam
Do I need any other excuse than liking it?
I reduce US stuff and buy more local, but I'm not dealing in absolutes here. Maybe some day I'll stop using steam but I'm going one step at a time.
I'm not using it since I'm not gaming, but I absolutely love how much they're doing for Linux. With Proton they broke windows' pseudo-monopoly on gaming and are now working on making Linux gaming mainstream with the steam deck.
don't forget that they are one of the reasons that pseudo-monopoly exist to begin with
Doesn't matter, they're clearly working for Linux now (against Windows' used-to-be pseudo-monopoly)
Also don't forget that their main product is a proprietary third party software launcher
And yet the world (or linux at least) would be worse without it
What are some good alternatives to steam? Because as it stands currently i've had technical difficulties with gog (should probably try and see if they are still present) and don't know about any other non-american site which would fill that role
You don't really need a third party software launcher to play games to begin with
No, you need a third party torrenting site and a third party to crack the game and a third party torrent client.. that's somehow much better... No matter how you slice it, you still need at least one middle man between you and games.
No you don't, videogames are software
If you wish to have a game without a middle man you must first invent the universe.
I'm pirating. If a game I want isn't available on fitgirl repacks, I don't want it anymore. Before streaming services and always online garbage became a thing I'd buy physical releases, but the more intrusive DRM became, the less I got interested in modern game delivery services.
Liking Linux is apparently their reason to support one of the biggest child gambling websities.
how is it any different than any other lootbox system that allows trading of items? That they officially allow payment in real money?
it's not and that's the point. People dunk on other lootboxes and gambling all the time but steam gets a pass because "I like linux support." It's a double standard that these people are showing.
Steam ils not cool. Steam is a monopoly position. This egemony need to end. We need many actors not just one.
Both things are currently true, they are a monopoly which is not good, but they are also acting nicely for the most part and not fucking people over despite their position
They are not, they're just a really good service so people use them more than the others
Epic, GOG, Itch, etc. still exist and are widely used
Yea, the same way youtube isn't a monopoly... Except for all practical purposes it is.
Except it's not, because you can go to multiple other sources
More than YouTube, even, and even YouTube isn't a full monopoly, though it's a lot closer than Steam is
Monopolies aren't just "big companies' you know
You're right - monopolies aren't just big companies. But a lack of monopoly is also not simply having access to alternatives. You can have all kinds of alternative services - that notion alone does not disprove the claim that Steam is a monopoly.
Monopoly literally means that single entity has exclusive right to the market. Like for example in Finland VR (valtion rautatie, goverments railways) or Alko (only shop that can legally sell spirits for consumers).
There is also term called natural monopoly where getting in to the marked is impossible. Like railways in USA.
Steam is neither.
There is GoG, Epic, itch.io, Microsoft store and like ten smaller stores that are straight competitors for Steam.
Being market leader does not mean they have monopoly and if Steam somehow blunders the goodwill they have with gamers and devs there will be alternatives.
What do you call a company that has an 85% maker share in your country ?
A company does not need total market share to be a monopoly even in legal terms
Honest question but why is a monopoly that takes a massive cut out of others labour cool?
They're not a monopoly, and they provide good and valuable services to their customers. That's for both gamers and developers. There's a reason why EA Play, Origin, uPlay, Epic Games Store etc... fail to take off compared to Steam, and it's not just the availability of games.
They're also very friendly to indie developers, any dev can make and publish a game on Steam for a fairly small fee compared to what you get.
They also heavily promote and contribute to open source software and Linux in general.
But fuck them for needing to make a profit too I guess?
Just because Steam is not an evil corporation doesn't mean we can't criticize them too. Both statements can be true, there is no way for an individual person to ethically own a billion dollars and Steam is for the most part an example of a business treating it's customers, workers, and suppliers with respect and dignity. Those statements are not mutually exclusive.
You forgot to mention that they get children addicted to unregulated gambling, but that would ruin the gaben wankfest you've got going on in your head for some reason.
In what way is Steam a monopoly?
Those other people don't have to use Steam's service if they don't want to pay Steam a cut.
The entitlement among developers on Steam is atrocious. I think a lot of useful idiots were pushing alternative storefronts years ago in no small part because they've been conditioned to accept a worse experience so someone else can take more of their money.