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.
Microsoft, monday morning: “how the fuck do we buy Linux?”
That is the entire content of the Microsoft’s Guide to Business Practices.
One page, one sentence.
Embrace, Extended, Extinguish.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
But did Sony get that patent after the fact, or did they already have it and went after Apple for using the tech? Both are stupid, the first is just worse than the other.
That sure is a lot of people who would probably like to be able to purchase reasonably priced PC hardware.
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.
Now if only they can bring down the cost of the Steam Deck and Steam Machine
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.
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People use steam outside of the USA
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The federal government can prevent an American firm from serving a foreign customer.
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I agree there are workarounds. But it would be a massive heartbreak to lose the game collection that took years to build.
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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
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Gosh I wonder if it is to do with the fact that I can (and do) run steam on a €250 second hand pc running mint
Mint is cool, but have you tried Bazzite? I just switched a while back and it’s been a pretty solid gaming experience.
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?
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.
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
I have a few issues with Steam. #1 all purchased games are tied to the account. There’s some that supposedly you can extract it from Steam and play it offline. However it’s not quite clear to me how to go about finding that out and how to do it for each game. There should be an icon and game sub menu option in the library for any game capable of extraction for offline play and more so play with out launching Steam.
#2 Support sucks. It’s automated as hell far as I’ve experienced. Nobody human to speak with.
#3 it’s a Monopoly.
#4 Privacy issues. Mainly, no access to full friends list chat logs. Surely Steam has full access. Why withhold it?
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.
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.
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.
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:
- You need to have certain technical skills to work around Steam’s (often very weak) locking. Not crazy high (basically how to navigate a filesystem), but some.
- In Steam you do NOT know at the time of the purchase if that will actually work or not (games heavily integrated with the Steam API still won’t work with the Emulator) or if the game has or not further DRM, so you CANNOT make an informed purchasing decision in terms of “will I still have access to these games in the future no matter what”.
- You know for certain that games in GOG have no DRM, theirs or from the publisher’s, because CONTRACTUALLY GOG forces the publishers to not have DRM in their games to sell via GOG.
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.
all purchased games are tied to the account
This isn’t exactly hidden detail. I do wish you could sell/transfer a game license though.
However it’s not quite clear to me how to go about finding that out and how to do it for each game.
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.
#2 Support sucks. It’s automated as hell far as I’ve experienced. Nobody human to speak with.
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 a Monopoly.
It’s the biggest, but it’s not a monopoly.
Privacy issues. Mainly, no access to full friends list chat logs. Surely Steam has full access. Why withhold it?
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.
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 me people what they can or can’t praise/criticize.
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.
Tacos are not actors.
I’m taking this out of context and there’s nothing you can do about it.
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 probably should stop having your own opinions, you really suck at them.
You’d rather the entire human race be wiped out than a corporation do well?
The echo chamber on this platform is spacious.
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.
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.
