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.
Very true, sometimes they are also motivated by their hatred of gay and trans people.
Ye every private business hates them gays and trans people and wants to see them dead.
Go outside, touch some grass you lunatic.
Dude, Steam is selling games you don’t own. How greedy is that?
least socialist lemmy user
What, like ebay and amazon selling stuff they don’t own? They all get a commission for marketing, not all of the money.
Like most game platforms do, except Valve actually looks after their customers.
The gambling problem and grey market they created with their marketplace and their Counter Strike crates is an issue.
I never understood how that is valves problem tbh. That’s like being mad at football players for sports gambling. The second you have a somewhat open market, some people will abuse it.
Also, what’s valve supposed to do? They bab the trade bots if they can find them, they have sued the operators of those portals in the past - so what do you realistically expect from them now? Completely close the market just so some people can’t gamble anymore?
argumentum ad populum, it’s a thing, look it up
Digital companies sell digital goods and services. Shocker :o
Koch Industries and Purdue Pharma salute you in your service to attempted sanewashing of private corporations.
Fuck them too.
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.
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
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.
How Newell’s latest yacht? They still allow gambling in CS? Cool cool, nothing to see here.
At least he had the underdog story having companies try to beat him down.
Still unsure if he came from generational wealth, but at least there’s a story there.
Doesn’t every budding company face competition when they grow? I don’t know what an underdog story has to do with his exploitative business practices and his billionaire lifestyle.
Getting children addicted to illegal gambling isn’t exactly inspiring.
Yeah i’m not looking for inspiring. Guy made a company, made some good games, came within an inch of getting trounced by big bro, turned into a publishing empire then made some bad decisions.
Then we got steamdeck pushing Linux.
If not for Steam, we’re just be sitting in Epic and Blizzard’s and Microsoft’s laps.
It would be really cool if someone did a non-profit publisher, but capitalism just fucking sucks and everytime we get something nice it has to turn to shit.
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. And ofc all the gambling.
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.
No grey market key sellers, only legit.
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.
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[1].
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.
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))
Steam is still basically the only option
When cornered people finally admit that steam is a small monopoly
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You don’t really have to rely on any company to play your games
Wait what exactly is the purpose of buying a steam key from a third party? And how is that profitable and not tos breaking?
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.
I will switch to GOG or any other store the second they officially support and fund Linux gaming.
I love my Steam Deck and Proton, but it pisses me off how many Steam games are spyware / DRMware and won’t start without internet on this PORTABLE console, and especially that Valve allows this kind of toxic shit.
So, my Steam Deck stays blocked from the internet in my firewall and I buy from GOG when available or get them from other places.
Also, Gabe can STFU about piracy being a service problem until Steam bans DRM and spyware.
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.
Steam also tells you beforehand, now
Fair point.
Correct, don’t buy them.
And there’s always torrenting. Denuvo doesn’t actually stop games from being cracked.
Why not just turn on offline mode on the steam deck? Its easier than blocking it from the internet…
Still need to connect to my local network to get stuff installed on the Deck.
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.
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.
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
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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?
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.
Ok then fund linux gaming
That’s one of the greatest thing Valve is doing. They’re breathing life into Linux gaming.
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)
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.
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.
itch.io and gog
would switch tbh but it would need to have steam style proton integration first
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.
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 just reposted it from elsewhere, no need to read too much about it
You are even allowed to say fuck on the radio and TV in some countries (like The Netherlands)
I wouldn’t have started even dual booting Linux if it wasn’t for Steam after being pleasantly surprised with my Steam Deck played most of my Steam library. It’s the primary why I intend to get AMD gpu next time around for the better driver support, but that won’t be for a few years.
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.
Costco is cool too! They have local products.
Most important of all they compensate their employees like they are actual humans.
Keep that DEI and I will keep shopping!
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
Pretty much.
i wont delete my steam account, but lord gaben wont get my money anymore, even if hes awesome. :( sorry gabe.
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.
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.
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.
What the fuck is context anyway?
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.
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??
explain the downvotes
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.
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
Waiting to see what excuses people bring up to keep using steam
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.
windows’ pseudo-monopoly on gaming
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
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.
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.
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.
you still need at least one middle man between you and games.
No you don’t, videogames are software
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?
