this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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I think people often hate steam for their success, but fail to see it's the result of customers'choice in a free market. (I see it enough I'm not sure if people get paid to hate on them... To ruin the thing they have most of customer respect)
Steam is not publicly traded and does not act like every other publicly traded company. It invests in its customers experience and custtomer come back for that. It does not nickel in dime or use its position to hold its customer captive and enshitfify its product. It's not an ISP...
It invests in hardware and software development it believes the industry needs not to make a massive profit but to be a champion of what gaming should be (Linux, steam link, index, bug picture, steam controller, steam deck) These products are experimental and usually sold at or near cost not to make money but to prove to the market there is a need and a demand.
They are often a champion and voice of the gamer.
They could have tried to be like Bethesda and tried to monetize their workshop but they didn't.
Sometimes they're quiet and we don't hear anything about what they're working on, but that doesn't mean they aren't working on things.
I can't imagine pc gaming would have survived and resurged without steam. And I hate to think what it would be like if there were just 5 epics, origin, Uplay, whatever other launcher. I think gaming would look like mobile games..,.. which takes a 30% cut too and can only sell in apple or android markets.... No one bitches there and they offer no services.
I hate them for forcing me to use a kind of DRM which will stop working once their servers stop.
Halflife was just fine without steam. Adding steam seemed to be a way to stop players from sharing CD keys.
You can play: Half-Life 1: Source Half-Life 2 Half-Life 2: Episode One Half-Life 2: Episode Two All with steam closed. Original half life expansions aside, your take is senile. I suppose alyx could've done without it.
Okay, but what about all the games that have come out since steam has launched and ONLY have online-only drm options?
Not talking about MMOs because those are their own beast. I'm talking about a huge amount of games though excluding mmos.
I don't mind ~~digital distribution~~ DRM platforms, I just want a choice. I want licenses to be portable and I want to be able to re-sell licenses for games I do not wish to own any longer. I don't want to be bound to just console games either.
I don't think resellable licenses are a great idea. It works with physical media because it will have flaws that affect quality and price, but I don't see how that would work for digital without screwing over devs. I can completely get behind transfers or trades with friends or between platforms, but not really for resale.
I can get the transfers between friends part, but why between platforms? That makes zero sense from a business standpoint.
The only way that would work is to have game companies manufacture and distribute an external storage medium themselves, because platforms sure as hell won't say "Oh you bought a license on another store? Sure, you can use our CDN for free!". And now we've almost reinvented game CDs.
I would gladly pay a couple bucks a month to use a digital distribution platform of my choice.