Sorry how is forcing me to run their stupid app that gobbles system resources, ugly as hell and super invasive to run every game good for the user?
Valve doesn’t force you to run it, game devs do. Steam’s DRM isn’t mandatory for developers to implement. For example, I know FTL is drm free on Steam. If I remeber right, SteamPipe can also be used for a much more lightweight experience as well, if you don’t want to do anything but install games (and not use their DRM or features).
You can’t move purchases out of your Steam account and Steam won’t even let you transfer it after you die. Not sure how that’s good for me like I’m dead you can’t let my kid have it because you’re so nice.
They will ban you indefinitely even over a small dispute, like say a charge back or sometimes just a random violation of their TOS which says they can ban you for no reason.
This isn’t good, but its standard and unless licensing laws and/or other big publishers change, I doubt this will. Its not something that makes Valve any less of a standout in the market when every other company does much worse than this.
Needing an internet connection even for single player local games is also great stuff.
For developers that do chose to implement DRM, the offline mode on Steam is relatively permissive.
If you own a game and then buy a bundle with that game, they don’t give you another copy (that you could gift to someone) which is wild because you literally paid twice for it.
Again, this is set by the publisher/dev. Valve offers the option to discount the pack by the given amount. Not as good as traditional physical software, but again, its not as bad as basically all of the competition so…
But they are just as shit of a company as every other company. Like I said, they aren’t there for you. They just have good marketing and a good front facing VP.
Yes, because providing tools for gaming on Linux doesn’t affect the customer buying/using their products. Neither does VR, or portable PC hardware as they’re exactly the same offerings as a desktop PC with better marketing. Neither does improved controller support - its just flashy UI for what was already easy to do. Neither does providing tools and hosting for a modding API - any dev who doesn’t launch with a home-made one is just too incompetent to be selling games anyway. None of these things are anything more than flashy marketing, so we should just be using itch.io’s VR headset for the lower rates and Epic’s Linux compatibility tools for those who don’t want to support Microsoft’s anti-consumer practices. And of course, instead of doing these things, they’re secretly buying exclusivity to every game and preventing you from repairing your devices despite the repair information provided (but you don’t realize because of marketing).
Also they control so much that just wait another 5-10 years when management changes. It won’t be good for the user I can tell you that.
Given that Gabe Newell owns a majority share from what we know, and he has shown a desire to build a stable, competitve company rather than just trying to join the race to the bottom, it’ll likely be longer than 5-10 years. That said, yes, this is a concern, but thats unavoidable, and “but someday they might not be good” isn’t a reason to dislike them as they are now.
Valve doesn’t force you to run it, game devs do. Steam’s DRM isn’t mandatory for developers to implement. For example, I know FTL is drm free on Steam. If I remeber right, SteamPipe can also be used for a much more lightweight experience as well, if you don’t want to do anything but install games (and not use their DRM or features).
This isn’t good, but its standard and unless licensing laws and/or other big publishers change, I doubt this will. Its not something that makes Valve any less of a standout in the market when every other company does much worse than this.
For developers that do chose to implement DRM, the offline mode on Steam is relatively permissive.
Again, this is set by the publisher/dev. Valve offers the option to discount the pack by the given amount. Not as good as traditional physical software, but again, its not as bad as basically all of the competition so…
Yes, because providing tools for gaming on Linux doesn’t affect the customer buying/using their products. Neither does VR, or portable PC hardware as they’re exactly the same offerings as a desktop PC with better marketing. Neither does improved controller support - its just flashy UI for what was already easy to do. Neither does providing tools and hosting for a modding API - any dev who doesn’t launch with a home-made one is just too incompetent to be selling games anyway. None of these things are anything more than flashy marketing, so we should just be using itch.io’s VR headset for the lower rates and Epic’s Linux compatibility tools for those who don’t want to support Microsoft’s anti-consumer practices. And of course, instead of doing these things, they’re secretly buying exclusivity to every game and preventing you from repairing your devices despite the repair information provided (but you don’t realize because of marketing).
Given that Gabe Newell owns a majority share from what we know, and he has shown a desire to build a stable, competitve company rather than just trying to join the race to the bottom, it’ll likely be longer than 5-10 years. That said, yes, this is a concern, but thats unavoidable, and “but someday they might not be good” isn’t a reason to dislike them as they are now.