As Xbox and PlayStation flounder, Steam is reportedly having another record year
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210 replies
Treating your customers decently can lead to profits in the long run. What an insight. They should teach that at business schools.
Best I can do is create shareholder value by making our product shittier and more expensive. Take it or leave it kid
maybe someone should tell them we're leaving it. it doesnt seem like theyre noticing.
Valve has fundamentally different goals from Microsoft and Sony
Microsoft and Sony want to increase profit a couple percentage for the next quarter
Valve wants to be profitable 10, 20, 30 years into the future
Thing is, they have been doing this for over a decade. Publicly traded companies can't compete long-term, if there's a well funded provate competitor
Of course they can, they can use the same aim. Problem is it's more profitable to grind a company down, let it bankrupt and do the same to the next company. Hence enshittification arrived, venture capital has a full playbook for dismantling companies from the inside.
There's still a few old bastions wanting stability, Coca Cola Group is the most obvious example of this
its not actually more profitable though. its only more profitable today, at the expense of future profits. this is more a problem caused by personal gain being directly linked to short term corporate gain. its only rational behavior from the perspective of the individual executives benefitting from the crazy compensation packages for laying everyone off and enshittifying the product. literally everyone else loses unless they get lucky and bail at just the right moment.
That’s only true in an old model of individual investors who go to shareholder meetings and stay with a company forever. That’s not how the world has worked for decades and decades.
Most rich people don’t have investments in individual stock. They don’t give a fuck if a company goes bust or not. Their investments are in giving out loans, bonds, funds etc. They park their money in a family office, and their money moves around the world more than an air steward.
If a company’s stock goes down 1% they diversify into other stock. They sell to buy gold.
It really isn’t “worse in the long-term” for them. The wealthy. They are getting richer faster than any other period of history and you think they are dumb..? Not working in their own best interest? Even in the long-term..?
They pay people dozens of millions a year to make them the most money possible forever. People absurdly more intelligent than any of us here. People who would centuries ago be genius scientists.
I’m sure they know what they are doing. And they are winning and we are losing.
The big investors are earning money on it, the suits has done the calculations and they're earning a few percentages more a year dismantling companies than they would, had they chosen stability
Parts of it is also how safe of a bet it is to dismantle, as big capital likes safe investments. Which is largely also why AAA isn't innovative anymore, they consider it too big of a risk to invent a new wheel
That's why these companies love the idea of purchasing half the industry or using their resources to operate at a loss and squeeze out private competitors.
If they can't compete, they can consolidate.
Then trust busting needs to happen
The gaming industry is fine. The “wall street gaming industry” is not.
It’s about time these corporate feral hogs start to feel the pain of the free market but they deserve much worse, bankruptcy. Xbox still exists, no leaders were laid off, their parent company still supports genocide, and this is all a problem.
Do you really want your games to pay for 8-10 figures a year for a hollow executive team’s risk free compensation? One where they have 0 liability, $0 of their own money on the line, literally not even gamers, to be the last word on what games make it into our hands and how they wring our wallets dry?
But what about number go up this quarter?
Reminds me of the film Air and the principle "If we do the right thing we'll make money damn near automatic."
Who would have thought that eh?
Online subscription is a joke at this point
But I need a return on my investment now! Short term profits! Short term profits! SHORT TERM PROFITS!
Being customer friendly. What a novel idea.
I feel like this is not rocket science here, this is like business 101.
Make the customer happy
Enjoy increased sales and revenue
N,o, it is economics and at some point over the last decade or so companies decided that the customer should be subjected to a constant shift of quality until it arrives at a level where it is the worst they are possibly willing to accept. Quality down profits up. Welcome to our new world.
This is the new "the customer is always right" attitude.
profits down but stocks rise with increased investment.
The concept of "firing your customers" even became part of marketing strategy in the last decade. Amazing what kind of nonsense bubbles up out of the muck when markets see less competition.
Right behind us, is what they meant.
Are they? Their returns policy is crap compared to GOG. Not sure how its even legal for them to refuse refunds just because you used a product for over 2 hours.
20 years ago, the exact opposite was said about Steam and they didn’t change much. People just got used to it.
No.
As a person who resisted hard 20 years ago, they earned it. I didn't get used to it, I found value. In cloud saves, in steam sales, in no pushy advertising, and so on.
As a Linux user over 20 years they also did what nobody else really tried. That matters a lot.
My husband remembers buying The Ship in a store, and when he went to install it out said he had to install something called Steam for the multiplayer. He was baffled and annoyed.
Now all the games we have save a few from GOG are steam.
Some games are bought directly from the developer too.
They failed at first attempt with steamOS, but they learned the lesson, and came back swinging with years of preparation.
Yeah the steam "sales" that cost more than used physical games because valve killed them. How generous of Gabe.
The steam cult among PC gamers is fucking absurd. Valve did more damage to PC gaming than any other company on the planet.
If it weren't for national and local governments repeatedly suing them we wouldn't even have their meager 2 hour refund policy.
I see 0 reason to buy a used game over pirating it so I don't really see what was lost. In both cases the devs get nothing, and buying from someone else is a hassle, and having large physical media instead of just some files is also annoying.
If we didn't have steam we'd instead have the fucking epic games store or EA origin (or whatever they renamed it to). Just because valve isn't perfect doesn't mean any publically traded company wouldn't have been so much worse. And they also did plenty of actual positives with SteamOS, Steam Deck, being the first to push consumer VR with the Vive..
Sure they didn't change much if you ignored all the improvements they made to the platform.
If they didn't the other competitors wouldn't be irrelevant today.
They literally cornered the digital sales market from the very beginning with HL2. It has nothing to do with "improvements to the platform". By the time other companies had the infrastructure to try to catch up it was far too late. If you wanted to sell a PC game digitally, you had to do it on steam.
So much ridiculous counterfactual revisionist history in this thread.
How many years did it take epic to implement a shopping cart for their store? It's so horrible they're scrapping the entire store and rebuilding from scratch. Almost a decade and they couldn't get the basics right.
They haven’t changed much? They have like literally a million more games available on their store now.
The basic principle is the same: a DRM-enabled online store, and more often than not the only source for certain games, a monopoly.
DRM is not required by Steam. Developers choose to add it.
No difference from a customer perspective.
Thats like blaming the hotel because your vacation had bad weather.
More like blaming the traveling platform when all hotels use a crappy feature they provide that no one asked for.
And with those resources they decided to make a huge long term investment in making PC gaming on windows optional, then even the worse experience. Don't see that loser Tim sweeny doing anything of that value... It's not exactly a monopoly either.. You can install any other available store on your pc, unlike consoles. More competition would be great but steams market share was earned in an environment that wasn't a walled garden.
I mean...on one hand, it's pretty easy for
SteamValve to be doing well. They're the only major platform that's released a new console this year (except for Nintendo), they're the hardware manufacturer with the biggest recent success (except for Nintendo) in the Steam Deck, and they're the only major platform without any well-publicized egg on their face (except for Nintendo). It also helps that they basically own the entire PC space outright, where the other platforms are fighting amongst themselves (except for Nintendo).But that brings up the Italian-plumber-with-a-powerup-that-turns-him-into-an-elephant in the room. Nintendo has been doing really well, too; and while, since the Wii, they've largely abandoned the power gamer space to the three players mentioned in this headline, the Switch 2 was a crazy release.
Obviously, Steam has made a lot of great bets that have paid off, they've managed to keep up customer goodwill by limiting anti-competitive behavior and focusing on good product and service over vendor lock-in, and they're clearly the least anti-consumer player in the space right now. But Nintendo's strategy of "make the games so compelling and polished that people won't care about the lock-in" is basically the polar opposite, and it's working too; so I don't know how well we can draw conclusions about the industry from this.
Nintendo lost me when they declared they could remotely brick my switch 2 if they didn’t like what I did with it. Their wars against modders who make better versions of their games than Nintendo does is also lame. Most people won’t care but for me at least, I’m not interested in them anymore.
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm not even saying I disagree, but I don't think those move the needle on public sentiment like the Sony and Microsoft stuff. "Well, I don't pirate Switch games, so my console won't get bricked." vs "Hey! But I buy physical copies of games!" and "Hey! They're laying off a bunch of people, and I can imagine how that would feel."
Honestly, what Sony is doing to capture platform lock-in isn't substantially different from what Nintendo did. They were just quieter about it, or maybe they phrased the announcement better, or maybe they just get away with it because it's not as visceral.
Sony is also not actively getting patents that are so broad the it stifles competition like Nintendo does, and did specifically to try and win the Palworld lawsuit.
No, they're probably doing it too. They definitely did it in mobile phones, suing Apple for having phone call ringer silencing tech in their phones for instance; I would be surprised if they aren't doing it in gaming too.
Nintendo got a lot of hate and took a big loss with the palworld lawsuit.
I don't know how big a hit they actually took from that. If you ask the average gamer, I don't know if they even are aware that it happened. I think the Sony physical media thing and the Microsoft layoffs have broken containment much more than the Palworld thing, though I don't have any evidence of that.
Remember when PC gaming was dead according to every outlet for two solid years?
I remember. I also remember it was started by Tim Sweeny when Gears of War was taking off. I also remember when Sweeny come crawling back to PC with EGS after Fortnite became BR king.
PUBG made billions of dollars, Fortnite copied that, and Tim was suddenly interested in PC again lol
I hear this every time: CEOs and Exec management of companies telling their employees that costs of production or whatever have gone up, there is need for layoffs in order for the company to stay afloat. At the end of the fiscal year: champagne bottles popping because record profits have been made… and we all play along in this circus show
Executives have obligation to the board of directors and shareholders to constantly bring record profits. Technically they are doing exactly what they are paid to do.
Until that changes, every large corporations will continue to enshittifiy everything for profits.
It is theft. Just plain theft. They don't know jack about running they're companies so they resort to just running it into the ground and then running away with the cash.
In case anyone’s not clear as to why: Sony has announced that they’ll stop producing discs and that they can take your content at any time for any reason.
Historically, Steam has promised they will never do that and will offer DRM-free (clarification: they’ll remove the Steam DRM) downloads.
Also, all of them have jacked prices up. Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam have raised hardware prices around 35-40%. However, Steam runs on PCs they don’t sell, as well as Macs, and they have a Linux distribution they provide for free called Steam OS.
Can you give us a credible source? I want it to be true, but I don't want my only source to be hearsay.
I have never seen anyone back that claim up, despite it being a very popular one to make. People like to pretend they own their steam games but until that gets enforced by law; you don't.
You don't own any software! All software is licensed, yes, even FOSS software. The only software you own in a traditional sense is public domain which not only is a vanishingly small portion of software made, but is also a category that is difficult or impossible for software to be made a part of, depending on the laws in your country.
This is no different for Steam vs. anywhere else you can buy games, even with physical copies. The only benefit of physical copies is that it's much harder to remove access to those games after you purchase the license, unless there is online activation or DRM.
Edit: I should clarify the only other software you own is the software you create or paid to have created. Then you can license its use for others, or not, as you choose. So MS owns Windows, and I own some small number of applications I've created, and other companies or individuals own the software they produced. But none of that has any bearing on games on Steam or anywhere else where you're spending money to get access to a copy of a game.
Tekinukly. Software might still come with a license, but that license has no teeth without some form of DRM. This is a stupid way to try justifying the DRM steam has. In all practicality, you own whats downloaded to your drives without DRM.
I already addressed that. Steam has DRM, because Steam wouldn't exist without it, and the physical copies publishers sold instead would still have DRM. There are DRM-free games on Steam - they don't require publishers to use it. Direct your ire where it belongs.
Maybe it is better expressed as degree of control you have over the data on your drive, disk, whatever. When you choose to buy a game from steam, especially if it is on a website like GOG, you are choosing to have less control over your data. With large companies like Sony moving towards anti-consumer practices, it isn’t wise to believe that valve would never do the same.
As Gabe said, piracy is'nt a pricing issue, it's a service issue. This problem has been addressed before and it will be again, if need be.
The ESA won't thank you for spreading their rhetoric, you know.
I would think that the ESA would be happy for free support of their opinion. Unfortunately, the law is on their side. If you don't like it, you have two options: try to change it or pretend it isnt true. One is easier, and I suspect both are about as likely to change things.
I want to say I read it in an interview like 15-20 years ago
If you reach out to Steam support, you'll get a response like this.
(Not my support ticket, this was stolen from Reddit)
But who knows what measures are in place and if that would include all games.
Edit: I'm dumb and misread the convo. My response is about if Steam went away, you would still be able to access your games but the convo is about would Steam remove games from your library.
Steam delists games, however, if you already bought it, you still have access to it.
Valve has not jacked up prices: Their game prices have been consistently among the cheapest and the only reason their hardware is expensive now is because part manufacturers are mostly price gouging (lying about AI being the cause of ALL the increased costs, which isn't true, just like it wasn't entirely true with the bitcoin mining craze).
It's also worth pointing out that Valve has made massive contributions to Linux gaming (and Linux in general), which enables people to game on potato-spec machines and compared to other gaming platforms, they are far better than almost all of them except for GOG.
Well, if the Steam Deck hasn't gone up in price where you're at, you might wanna buy a couple. Keep them sealed, you can sell them for a profit later. Most places, they've gone up quite a bit.
The cost of making the Steam Deck has gone up. Valve can't sell them at a massive loss or they'll go out of business. That's not Valve jacking up the price, like I already pointed out:
Go re-read my post, because you clearly missed an important part
Building a PC for yourself has skyrocketed in price too, blaming Valve is just ridiculous and anyone making that argument is just showing everyone that they are wildly ignorant.
Also, scalping is shitty.
Yeah, but if you give Valve a pass for jacking up hardware costs, you kinda have to give everyone else a pass. Otherwise it's just bias.
I'm biased toward Valve over Microsoft and Sony, but I try to argue in good faith. Not saying you're not, just that I try to hold myself to a standard. RAM, GPU, and storage costs are up so all game consoles are up. I don't give Valve a pass here.
No, I don't.
I can (and should) look at each one on a case by case basis, compare the parts, the actual costs of said parts, and make a determination from there. In the case of Steam devices, I do not lot believe they are price gouging - you can build a similar device that's going to be on par with or less expensive than their machine, but not by all that much.
Being a scalper on the internet? It's more likely than you think
DRM is up to publishers, not Steam. Valve doesn't enforce or require it, and it's unlikely publishers would lift DRM from their games because Valve asked.
Steam does have a DRM mechanism - it's optional and easy to circumvent, but it's there
Yes, and Steam doesn't force it on a publisher. They can opt out.
Steam itself is DRM
There are many, many DRM free games on Steam.
Stop spreading this nonsense. There are arguments against Steam, but until they require DRM to be on their platform, this isn't one of them.
None of them are DRM free. Every game requires the Steam client to download, launch, and play. Stop spreading this nonsense.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
Was there something you wanted to add?
Stardew valley is one example I know of. The developer didnt enable it so you can buy and install the game then copy the installed contents to other computers and run it without steam and play multiplayer all with the same copy. Steam can be closed or removed on all of them
Incorrect. DRM free games on Steam do not require the Steam client to be running to run them.
Try it before commenting.
I have tried it. It doesn't work.
Then you didn't try it on a DRM free game.
Not by my definition. Not in the same way as denuvo or dvd movie drm is.
It is in the sense that you can't play the games without it.
You can. Many of steam games you can just archive or copy over somewhere else and they'll still work just fine.
Wow it's truly insane how you guys will just blatantly lie to defend your precious gaben.
Go ahead and disconnect your PC from the Internet for a few weeks and see what happens to your "DRM free" steam games.
I have a laptop that stayed offline for a year. Steam worked just fine in offline mode the whole time. What did you think was going to happen?
Ok dude.
And you can get a crack for most DRM out there (nowadays, even Denuvo).
Being weak and possible to work around for those with sufficient technical skill doesn't make it any less a DRM.
Steam's DRM is clearly only trying to stop the people with average and below technical skills from installing and running the games outside steam, not trying to stop the people with higher technical expertise from going around it (and in fact if you use something like the Goldberg Emulator there are even more games which can be made to run outside Steam than just the "many" you talk about).
By comparison the no-DRM posture you see in with GOG is not only "here are the offline installers to download" directly from the page for the game in your library but even "CONTRACTUALLY game publishers cannot sell games here with ANY DRM".
"The rules are there but we don't enforce them" is a very different posture from "we make sure there are no such rules".
No, cracking the game vs just copying the downloaded file is not equivalent. How did you not see that? With copying the file it means the original file is already DRM free and does not require steam. So steam is just a glorified downloader and launcher in that sense
None of this affects the fact that, contrary to what the person above claimed, there are games on Steam without DRM.
Even if Valve promised DRM-free downloads if they go belly up there's no chance in hell they'll ever actually do that
Why do you think that? Turning off DRM would be trivial and they might even end up being legally obligated to do just that either because of laws or because of how whatever hypothetical bankruptcy they go through might be structured. Never mind Valve going belly up seems highly unlikely to begin with. If it does ever happen and it happens in the way you describe, piracy will absolutely skyrocket and people will stop buying games online after they've had their trust shaken.
They'd get sued to oblivion if they disabled DRM for all their games and you know it. This is just delusional.
I've heard it requires a DLL to disable steams basic drm, and it's been that way for 20+ years.
You can do this right now with the Goldberg Emulator, but it doesn't work well for games which are deeply integrated with Steam's API (for example, to do things like Cloud Saves).
Its less that they can and more that they definitely will. The fact that they can has been fear-mongered and pearl-clutched over since the dawn of online sales.
Until now its been handwaved away as obviously nobody would actually shoot themselves in the fucking face like that. But then they did.
Sony and StudioCanal isn't the first time it's happened, though. It's just making a lot more waves.
How have Epic and GOG been faring?
Epic is run by an idiot.
GOG had its ups and downs, but I've been able to build a sizeable library there.
GoG appears to be around 2.5% market share as of November 2025. For contrast, Steam is around 75%.
Frankly, I don't give a shit about Epic Games. Tim Sweeney can go suck-start a shotgun for all I care, complete piece of shit human being.
Valve's main advantage is they don't have to make up heinous policies in the quarterly game of "tug off the shareholders".
It's all been fucked by AI RAM and SSD (and still GPU) prices. If anyone tries for a next gen £1000 console, they'll be going the same way as Sega.
The key is being consistent and transparent. We got gut punched by the Steam Machine price, but it was an expected and transparent outcome. XBOX and Sony are so volatile that it's making Steam look like a saint. From laying people off, to constant price increases, to the disc situation. Both these companies need to chill tf out.
Add to this MS buying up all of these game studios to do nothing with them and then kill them because they're so inept.
Their actions look like a typical monopoly. Buy competition to destroy it later so you're the only one in business.
That is the entire content of the Microsoft's Guide to Business Practices.
One page, one sentence.
Embrace, Extended, Extinguish.
Microsoft, monday morning: "how the fuck do we buy Linux?"
One appears to actually like their customers and the other two are actively hostile towards them. I’m sure somebody at Microsoft/Sony are scratching their heads trying to figure out what’s wrong.
Sony’s disc move just screams of a corporate accountant trying to improve the financials and they pick one of the dumbest options to cut costs on. Retailers are obviously upset as digital download cards probably sell like crap compared to physical copies. Outside of gifts I have no idea why anybody would bother.
Also worth mentioning Sony’s CEO and CSO sold 56% and 18% of their shares 2 days after the disc announcement to the tune of millions.
Sony has a 457m lawsuit against them for antitrust issues which they’ve historically defended with…physical disc sales. So I’m happy to see that decision blowing up in their face and I’ll wait for the outcome on that.
That's the point. It's not about the disc. It's about cutting out retailers.
Games sell at the same price or cheaper at the retailer as they do digitally, and the retailer takes a cut. Games sold through PSN or the Xbox store make Sony and Microsoft way more money.
And that's before we get to used sales.
Don’t get me wrong - not to argue. Hate the fact that they’re doing this but asking this genuinely objective point of view.
Why should retailers’s business would be concern to Sony? Isn’t this similar if I was an iron supplier and decided to not sell my materials to one manufacturer that I’m not tied with an agreement, just because I’ve decided not to?
Sony doesn't want to come out and say "Best Buy can get fucked" because Best Buy still sells headphones, TVs, and other products Sony makes, including the Playstation itself. They need the retailers to sell their products.
But with digital goods, they can cut out the retailers retailers. The $10 bucks or whatever the retialer would get now goes to Sony.
One could argue, with video games specifically, that they lose part of the market without the retailer.
A lot of games are played by kids, and parents, friends, and other family members still go into a store and buy a game to give as a gift.
Tell me again how many discs valve is selling? What happens to your steam account when you die?
I like valve, but don't fool yourselves, Gabe N does not give a shit about the customers any more than Asha or Hideaki.
Well, that's just objectively incorrect. Gabe at least recognizes that piracy is a service problem and being consumer friendly is more profitable in the long-term. People like Asha and Hideaki can't seem to figure that one out no matter how much evidence is given to them.
i love steam but he does raise a good point. vavle explicitly said that steam acc is legally not transferable. there's no second hand market and your library is legally gone for good when youre gone.
no matter how good valve is right now. the threat of enshittification is real, and will remain so until the discourse of the right of owning digital game is settled.
Oh yeah, Steam is not perfect by a long stretch. It mostly looks good by comparison with it's competitors who appear to take being gently asked NOT to shit directly down their customers throats as basically a death threat. Was just pointing out that saying Gabe doesn't give a shit is incorrect, as he does give a shit insofar as giving a shit has actually turned out to be the best long term strategy for Steam's profits.
That said, Steam actually does have a history of honouring wills to transfer a dead persons library to someone else on death, despite that technically being disallowed by their ToS. So they aren't bound to do it legally, but they do currently tend to. Which honestly might get them into some legal hot water if they ever try to enforce that term.
Valve is one of the few companies that has historically honored people’s bequests and allowed bequeathing their libraries to others after they die. Unlike say Apple who has outright said that your iTunes purchases disappear into the ether when you die.
Why would I want more plastic crap? I have zero issue with this.
My account is my entertainment, I see no reason to have it after I die. My kids don't want it, they have their own.
The savings and convenience far outweighs any second hand retail. I am glad I don't have to burden my kids and family with even more physical crap they would have to toss out.
The crossplatform gaming is way better than even two years, I play games with friends on xbox or playstation all the time, no special software it all just works. So yeah im definitely never buying a conolae again lol.
Fuck yeah, love you Valve.
Love your contributions to Linux more though.
Gaben-kun will notice you
Maybe he'll even send me a Steam Frame! Or a yacht! I heard he has a bunch of those.
Ew. That's a corporation. Stop.
If a corporation does something good, it's OK to say, "Hey, good job. I love that!"
If a corporation does something legitimately shitty, it's definitely OK to criticize them mercilessly too (I do it all the time, would recommend).
What's not OK is trying to tell people what they can or can't praise/criticize.
The echo chamber on this platform is spacious.
You said "Fuck yeah, love you Valve." Loving a corporation is weird. Loving the actions is less-so.
Maybe you've have enough Internet for today but before you go, allow me to explain:
When someone says something like that, they don't literally mean it.
"I love tacos" does not actually mean that I have genuine feelings of love for them (even if they are delicious).
It's just a phrase.
Ah, so I guess I shouldn't take it as "Valve is a good actor" at all? That's just the wrong interpretation or something? Valve is not an actor. It cannot be a good one. For profit corporations are, by definition, not aiming for net positivity.
Tacos are not actors. No one says "I love tacos" because they witnessed tacos acting in a behavior they deemed 'good'. They say "I love tacos" because it gives them satisfaction when they eat them. No one says "I love Meta" in the same way people say "I love Tacos" because they think Facebook is a good actor for doing some open source stuff. No one says "I love Meta" because "I love Meta" is "just a phrase" as you put it. That makes no sense.
I'm taking this out of context and there's nothing you can do about it.
Good lord you people are so gross. It's actually more than OK for me to tell you that worshiping some greedy billionaire is an insane and unhealthy thing to do.
Go touch grass, Gabe doesn't give sit about anything except making huge gobs of money. Steam fanboys are a bunch of weirdos.
Holy shit who said anything about worshiping? Unhinged response. Follow your own advice and touch some grass buddy.
I dunno, even if it results in billions or even trillions of humans deaths, I'd rather corpo die than let one thrive. The best form of economics that is not only financially but morally sounds is that of anarchy
You'd rather the entire human race be wiped out than a corporation do well?
You probably should stop having your own opinions, you really suck at them.
Post it. You know which meme.
I want an edit of the "he can't keep getting away with this" to "he can't keep winning" lol.
Valve is the only only one supporting Linux!. The rest are greedy fucks.
That sure is a lot of people who would probably like to be able to purchase reasonably priced PC hardware.
More importantly, the entire software (shops, operating system) and hardware are not a locked down platform and controlled by a single company. And the Steam prices (one word: sales) and rights (refund policy, games never get rewoked) are the best among the industry.
I would like to think people cared about that but I don't think it's true.
What exactly do you mean people don't care about? I mean which part of my reply, as I brought up multiple points. I think people care about all points I brought up.
All of them
How do you come to this conclusion that nobody would care? About game prices and refund policy? I'm baffled.
I look at the choices that people overwhelmingly make.
What choices do you mean? Steam is the defacto standard on PC. Also just because most people use something (like Windows as operating system), does not mean they don't care or get annoyed by Windows. Just for the analogy. Millions of people care about the points I listed. And you can see it in forums and social media or YouTube video creators too, if you don't believe me.
You are not very specific about what you think. It is hard to understand about what exactly you talk. What choices, which people?
Mint is cool, but have you tried Bazzite? I just switched a while back and it's been a pretty solid gaming experience.
ANOTHER $200 BILLION DOLLARS TO STEAM &VAVLE!
No mention of Nintendo.
Steam sales.
Are poop now.
Now if only they can bring down the cost of the Steam Deck and Steam Machine
Funny to see articles like this after the wave of steam machine bad press. If you visit console based subreddits there are so many bagging in Steam.
Meanwhile you’ll never own a PlayStation disc again after next year. Great contribution to the industry Sony!
The funny thing, is that if you check the people who bought the steam machine, they're happy with their purchase too
I never got a PlayStation but I was holding out for a PlayStation 6 once it finally got released. If there is no version for physical discs I will definitely not be getting one. Nothing worse then wanting to play a game you haven't played in a while and then having to redownload it because you had to delete it to free up space for other games.
So much nicer just to be able to throw a disc in and go.
Or run into weird licensing issues you have no control over and the $80 game you bought no longer exists.
Or you still have the game but they just removed the sound track and changed some of the character's faces.
That's funny because you describe the play station even when you have the physical disks.
I wanted to get a PS5 but since almost the only thing I'm actually interested in playing on it is Demon Souls I figured I'd wait until they got a lot cheaper before picking up a console exclusively to play like 2-3 games. Then AI drove the prices way up, Sony added 30 day online checks for their games, and now a digital only PS6 means I'll probably not be getting anything from them for a long time.
Not even Dermatobia hominis? Or anthropogenic climate change? Or like, genocide?
Its clear that PC is the future console. I've been buying in GOG primarily, and Steam only when it is not available there and has no chance of ever being there. Even your Android TV can play light games with GameNative installed
The only issue is that Trump can cut you off from your steam library if his regime targets you with arbitrary sanctions.
That is bad but so far Players in sanctioned countries can still play on Steam, just not make purchases. Countries like Russia and Iran still have Steam players as long as their governments aren't blocking external internet.
That reassures people!
Imagine if the vast majority of the world does not live in america haha
People use steam outside of the USA
Exactly my point my friend.
Valve corporation is an American company. America has used visa and mastercard to target ICC judges who also live outside the US. If the government wants they can try and strongarm Valve to do their bidding
for some time yes ... but when valva looses the world, and is left just with the us market ... they will change elegance real fast.
The federal government can prevent an American firm from serving a foreign customer.
Sure. And we can simply download our games off off steam or any other web page and continue playing while that company decides to move off of that country to a normal country. There are solutions to everything.
I agree there are workarounds. But it would be a massive heartbreak to lose the game collection that took years to build.
yep, anything digital is not yours.
I wonder what playstation would be like if it had embraced linux rather than fighting it.
don't quote me, I might remember things wrong but, there was a version of PlayStation 2 or 3 that had Linux, freedom spooked Sony Source
yeah. this is what im talking about. imagine if they encouraged it and yeah maybe they would have to stop selling at a loss but still if they just made their own system based on linux. I mean microsoft was their main competitor at the time.
Frankly, antitrust laws should prevent loss leaders from being a thing in the first place. Whether it's to get people in stores because of an amazing deal, people to buy into your ecosystem because hardware isn't that cheap otherwise, or using venture capital to drive competition out of business by offering prices subsidized by investor money that others can't compete with to drive them out of business and set whatever prices you want, it's all anti-competition (especially the last one, that's blatantly trying to set up a monopoly).
Sony is way too into proprietary lock-in to have allowed that long term. Hell, I'm astonished they ever allowed the release of their games to PC. They'll never do that again.
see that is just the thing. If they had went linux and relases their pc games as linux compatible but not windows compatible. I mean im thinking in that their box just became a kind of sony linux distro with their whole system made around it. Then like windows users would have to use a linux compatibility thing. I think this would have been a better play.
Now I'm imagining a parallel time line where they went full in on linux and even put a custom linux build on their experia phones, sony viao laptops and the psp.
woa. I sorta forgot they had all that. sony could be the linux brand.
I have a theory.
The “casual” or “mainstream” crowd, the one that used to buy CoD, FIFA, Madden, Sims and such yearly like clockwork, has transitioned to phone apps, or sports betting/fantasy.
Their attention has been robbed from consoles.
Meanwhile, “games as art” gamers that treat them more like movies are less affected, especially with the state of smartphone app stores. That segment continues to grow on PC, and maybe even consoles, but the attrition of the first group masks that for the console crowd.
I’d postit that another factor is Steam’s rising market share coming at the expense of other PC gaming storefronts. For market purposes, it effectively is PC gaming now.
Then explain the worldwide sensation that is the Switch. Logically speaking, that thing, if you can even call it a thing, shouldn't have worked, it made no sense financially nor economically.
It totally does. My sister got it to play Pokopia and Animal Crossing. I know of families that have gotten it for their kids, for similar reasons.
I’m not saying it’s a smart buy, but not everyone is a seasoned, mature gamer. If you have a decent budget, zero spare time, no experience with PCs, and your young kid is dying to play Pokopia like all their friends, a Switch 2 makes sense. As a plus, it’s not a tablet where you have to deal with straight up scam apps, nor a expensive PC where you need some technical know-how and a lot of oversight to make it safe for one’s kid.
The Xbox and PlayStation, on the other hand, have lost that niche, as they aren’t strictly needed to play Fortnite or whatever media is en vogue these days. It’s not like when I was a kid and literally my whole grade had Xboxes to play CoD and Halo.
There's no "extraction", you literally just navigate to the game folder (or click "game files" in the properties window for the game), and click the .exe file.
Make a shortcut to it if you want.
If it's a game without DRM (yes, those are on Steam too), you don't need to have Steam open to play it.
Thanks for the response.
This reminds me of another issue I ran into. I grabbed the F.E.A.R. pack when it was on sale, but only two games are playable. The OG, and the late latest release.
I tried every fix the community provided, but nothing worked for the me.
This is the only time I've had this problem, however I've played a minute amount of games compared to the avid steam user. I'd imagine plenty of people run into similar issues in other older games.
There are DRM-free games on Steam, but they really ought to advertise on the store page which ones those are, because we can currently only find out by experimentation and community wikis.
You'll get a human in a couple of days if the automated portions couldn't resolve your issue in full.
It's not a monopoly.
My guess is that they're actively purging chat logs at the same rate that they disappear off of your system. They're storing data for over 130M active users every month, and I'm sure they'd be happy to be rid of a lot of the least useful of it.
Chat logs are stored on the clients system? First I've heard of that. If that's true why the need to delete them off the client?
The reason this bugs me is that I've had people accessing my account when I'm not online. Which in the past 8 years, I've only been on 99% of the time.
I know this for many reasons, one of which is the 142 hours logged on No Man's Sky. I only played that game for 5 minutes.
Another reason, one day someone on my friends list messaged me. They said they were an old co worker of mine, a particularly nasty individual, someone who would never be playing any video games whatsoever. This person had detailed information about about me and used it to harass / scare me. When I was offline, someone logged in and added / accepted this person as a friend.
I blocked them and reported it to support. But never received any response. Not sure what they could do anyhow but I at least hoped for some kind of response. Perhaps the response came in when someone else was logged into my account?
No matter what I do to protect my account, they've always been able to get in.
My account is as old as Steam itself.
If I keep a chat window open for three weeks, the only one that will retain my last chat history for that long is the active chat tab. Any other tab I have open in that same window will purge the chat history after a week or two. That's about all I know for how long it's kept on the client, and I doubt they're keeping it any longer on the server. The truth is I don't know why they purge it, but if I were placing bets, my first two guesses would be cleaning up garbage on their servers that they don't need; and preventing scams from lingering that could compromise your account security. If you haven't set up two-factor for your Steam account, I would do so, and sharing your account with others like you've been doing is likely asking for trouble as well, so you might want to use the family sharing feature instead.
Yeah I'm aware of the 3 week rule. My issue with that is I have to turn off my PC when I'm not on it, for fear of nefarious actors accessing my physical PC when I'm away, remotely of course. Which has happened numerous times.
I'm only ever on my PC a few days to a week per month.
If you didn't know, a far better way to monitor what's happening with your Steam account than chat logs is to go to your Account Details-->Security & Devices, and you can see who's accessed your account, from which location, and from which device. You can hit the "Sign out everywhere" button, and then no one should be able to get into your Steam account without access to Steam Guard on your own personal phone that you probably carry on your person at all times. You don't necessarily have to shut your computer off when you're not on it, but it's good security practice to at least lock it (Windows key + L) when you step away. Even then, the only people who could access it if you're not doing that are people who share the same physical space as you, like your family or roommates.
This isn’t exactly hidden detail. I do wish you could sell/transfer a game license though.
Nothing special. Install the game. When you’re offline, play it. Of course things like multiplayer won’t work, or games that require you to be online like an MMO, but that’s about it. The online and offline experience are identical.
What do you need support for that isn’t documented, out of curiosity? I’ve been on Steam for 20 years and have never needed to contact support.
It’s the biggest, but it’s not a monopoly.
Why would you assume that Steam has access? Chats are auto-deleted after 14 days per Steam policy. This has been the case for at least 5 years now.
Why would I assume they don't have access? Based on how every other large internet company operates, they are capable of using and storing your data for any purpose they want, for however long they want, and not declare it to their users. If questioned, they lie.
Perhaps I'm an anamoly in that I don't hold Valve in such high esteem as most do.
What else would purchases be tied to??? This criticism doesn't make any sense. Support has been great for me and no, it's certainly not a monopoly: There are dozens of game stores online. Just because Valve created the best one doesn't mean it's a monopoly, it means that all the other ones are shit (except for GOG, they're awesome and even better in some ways).
It's a monopoly of attention and convenience in the same way that smart phones and social media overall.
Rest assured I enjoyed Steam in the decade plus after the launch. In throughout the years that followed, I found myself amassing games that I've yet to play. 2 bucks for a $50 game? It's too easy and convenient to resist! I feel I'm not respecting or more so showing less appreciation for games and those that make them. Most all of the physical disc games I've acquired in the past. I've played heavily. I can only think of one game I never installed / played. Most were full priced games, 40-60.
I've found that the convenience offered by Steam and other systems like it, have hidden costs, security and privacy amongst other things.
So, you are blaming Steam for other platforms being way shittier: Maybe the other companies should be less shitty instead instead of trying to nickle and dime their customers while offering up garbage-to-mediocre services. Blaming Steam for making a platform that isn't a fucking dumpster fire is ridiculous.
The first point is explained if you read
I did read and I disagree with your assessment: It was not really explained.
If i can download it and works without steam, it's not strictly tied to my account, i bought it with my account and it's the proof that i own a copy but it's on my storage devices and don't need steam itself
Thank you, that is much clearer!
Supposedly if Steam ever goes under they'll unlock everything, but if you ask me: GOG is just the thing for you!
Or set sail if it's a shitty company that stole the game you bought, arrr....
If you are a Linux user, check out Lutris for installing GOG games. I've been using it with Bazzite lately and its been pretty good but they also have native standalone installers for some games. Also, standalone Windows and MacOS installers where applicable.
Edit: Evidently, there are some games on Steam that are also DRM free. You just have to sign in to download it, which is reasonable as you need a good way to download it more than once without letting any random person with the link download it. Not exactly 1:1 for how GOG can work but could be worse.
Yeah, GOG i awesome, i currently only sail the seven seas for economic reasons but i will absolutely use GOG when i can
Support the devs when you can.
Fun related fact: Most pirates end up spending far more on games and other media than the average person in the long run.
Look, with things like the Goldberg Emulator almost all games that use the Steam API can work without Steam as it provides you with a drop-in replacement to the steam api dll.
The main practical differences between Steam and GOG is are:
Personally I buy tons of games from GOG and only a handful from Steam because I do value the certainty that if I have the hardware and OS for it (or an emulator), I can still have fun with those games 10 or 20 years in the future. Then again I've been gaming for almost 4 decades hence have enough experience with getting to a point were I miss a game that was fun but can't run it anymore.
PS: Funny enough, my latest return to sailing the seven seas was because of an oldish game I have in Steam that wouldn't run in Linux with Proton, probably because of the original DRM from the game itself. The pirated version runs just fine. I strongly suspect that if that game ever got sold in GOG it would also run just fine in Linux.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew1yU-6V8jc
The only time I needed Steam support for resetting my authenticator, they resolved the issue on the same day, no issue. And I was messaged by someone in Steam support after I submitting the ticket, letting me know it was handled.
Also, a monopoly isn't what you think it is. Steam isn't preventing or penalizing you from buying from other marketplaces. Steam isn't actively trying to kill its competition. They're not a monopoly.