I frequently see people here justifying chrome over Firefox due to a really small feature relative to maintaining a healthier web.
I think it is lesser evil compared to having dozens of stores and accounts to manage with some of them dying and taking the products down with them. If you were to play range of titles you could possibly end up with quite many clients running in background, just for that having single big player is positive.
and it invests into wine development to make windows games run on linux.
At least mine doesn't.
(Edit: to be fair, if I had been a little quicker on the draw when Schwab accidentally transferred $60+ million into my account several years ago, I might not be making this particular counterargument.)
not really, because you'd legally have to return that money anyways. your argument still holds.
a better counterargument would be that some banks don't allow their app to run on rooted phones, which is equivalent to anti-cheat measures (since windows is rooted by default)
to protect against what though?
Keyloggers (touchloggers?), I imagine.
They do require that the price of your game on Steam be equivalent or lower than the price outside of it. That’s very anticompetitive, and IMO should be illegal as it doesn’t do anything but harm consumers.
No, they don’t. As far as I know, there is nothing in the Distribution Agreement saying that and you can in fact regularly see games sold for less on GOG than Steam.
The only thing Valve disallows selling outside of Steam for less than on Steam are Steam keys.
Realistically, the alternative without Steam would not be dozens of stores, but (eventually) 2-3 stores, that would all behave much worse than Steam.
And then I remember the third party tries... All the MMORPGs. Pretty much everyone would have their own launcher and then there would bunch of smaller stores with their own platforms.
PS. I'm not angry with Valve because they use DRM in their platform, I'm angry with Valve because they don't give publishers the option to distribute their games using an offline, DRM free installer.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g...
I know that some games might run without Steam, but it's not comfortable at all.
And yeah It's not a problem. It's just a difference between Steam and DRM-free platforms like GOG.
Even when it's working, eventually it stops working and you'll be forced to connect to the internet. I learned this the hard way once. When you're already dealing with the fact that you don't have internet access, having your access to your single player offline games taken from you is just cruel!
I'm buying games exclusively on GoG because DRM free policy.
Their docs do admittedly ask devs to make integration optional for the user, but their definition of optional includes "no multiplayer" as well.
I don't think this is ideal by any means, but I do think it's a reasonable compromise.
For better or worse, many/most modern multiplayer games are architected to use a centralized, company-run software. The server software is not built to be deployed by end-users, and getting it to that state would involve very significant engineering effort. It's just not a reasonable ask.
One advantage of GoG is that they seem to actually care that old games on their store are actually working on new Windows versions, while on Steam it's more or less a gamble (at least you can return broken games though).
I’m not saying those things aren’t worth complaining about, but frankly, they aren’t what come to mind when I think of problematic DRM in video games. What comes to mind is the inability to install and play a game without an internet connection. GOG still provides real installers, and remains the most prominent platform committed to it.
To get a sense of what people are referring to as DRM on GOG, I reference this thread: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singlep...
Until there’s a storefront that only sells games that include multiplayer servers that can be self‐hosted on your LAN, I think GOG’s explicit policy of no‐DRM installers is worth praising.
There was enough complaining about that that it got fixed, I believe, but that's how they released it.
IIRC from a discussion in their official Discord (by one of the people who work there) that is basically Zoom Platform[0]'s approach - if a game has a multiplayer component it has to allow you to run your own server.
Is steam's backup/restore game files option much different in practice?
Developers on Steam can ship their own update mechanism separate from Steam if they want to.
I feel like people don't actually know the policies of Steam and how it mostly just leaves it up to the developer, for better or worse.
If Steam decided to block developers from being able to do DRM, it wouldn't mean all the games would go DRM free, it'd mean the games wouldn't go on Steam, like they don't go on GOG - they'd go to their own launchers.
As much as people like to believe Steam has a monopoly, publishers have been able to bring out their own launchers reasonably successfully. People will go to their launchers if that's the only way to get anticipated games. Some of the most successful games started and remained outside of Steam.
The industry would look significantly different if Steam had an actual monopoly.
You buy game on GOG, dowload the installers, move it to a external HDD and you can install that game forever. This is the only thing that is actually DRM free.
Needless to say, you can't to that with ANY other store (be it Steam, Epic etc). All of them requires you to install their crap to access your bought games and they don't give you full offline installers.
You don't get an installer but many games are DRM-free on Steam so you can just zip up the directory under steamapps/common and you're good to go. I have ~180 games on my storage HDD from Steam.
I always try to have an offline copy of every game i buy (and i try to buy them from "proper" DRM-free stores than Steam where possible) and while it'd be nice if there was an offline installer, it isn't really much of an issue in practice. The biggest issue with Steam is that you don't know if a game is DRM-free or not before buying it and trying to figure out yourself (which is why i prefer other stores like Zoom Platform and GOG in the first place).
What does this mean? You can still publish your game through other channels if you publish through steam right? I mean there are games that are on Steam and other platforms.
Have to say I'm not anti-Valve at all, I appreciate their commitment to the PC platform and their contribution to the free source cause. I'm just very critical about lack of proper support of DRM-free options AND allowing people to not to depend on a working account after some product is supposedly purchased. DRM is the wrong answer to the wrong question aka how to stop people from doing something that current technology makes incredibly easy to do, instead of properly thinking about the real issue, how we keep fairly paying authors.
PS. Also I think that people should be a bit more concerned about data harvesting through the launcher.
GoG ostensibly cared about Linux in the beginning, but by now it's very clear that they don't.
It's their choice of course, and among all the alternatives to Steam I guess they're the best choice.
But they obviously don't want me as a customer, so I largely ignore them and don't recommend them to anyone.
In almost every single aspect, Steam is just the superior product.
Yes they do. There are plenty of DRM free games on Steam. DRM is optional on Steam.
Steam takes a 30% cut of all sales. If a game sells over $10 million then the cut is reduced to 25%
There is Epic Game Store: maker of Fortnite and Unreal Engine which also gives away 1 or 2 free games a week. It takes a 12% cut from developers selling through their store. Tencent, which has close ties to CCP, owns ~40% of Epic.
GOG “good old gamestore”owned by CD Projekt Red, the developers of the Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077. Takes a 30% cut from sales. Also advocates for games without DRM.
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/1888930/The_Last_of_Us_Pa...
Reviews are mixed above and a lot of negative reviews from players below.
> https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/the-last-of-us-part-1
Some 3.8 star rating above and tons of praise from press below.
PS: As game developer I think competition is good. But as gamer I personally not gonna use Tencent/CCP Game Store since it's intentionally customer-hostile. This is not Steam competitor I want to support.
People Make Games made an enlightening documentary on the Valve model and where it fails: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo
Though if you need an example: Steam still doesn't have M1 binaries. Steam uses about 15 variants of UI framework, and some of it simply doesn't work on some platforms. Steam also took record time shipping an x86_64 (over x86) binary back in the day. Everything that's not the shiny current thing receives life support at most.
After all you can install it in Parallels and play Windows versions just fine.
I suppose Proton could probably be ported to OSX with enough work. Apple isn't making it easy by refusing to natively implement Vulkan, though. DirectX to Vulkan to Metal conversion on top of x86-64 emulation is just a lot going on. It seems like no one's interested in doing the work to convert DirectX directly to Metal.
This is where I'd disagree with you. Valve has all sorts of levers they could pull to encourage ARM builds. One example, they could offer a lower commission rate on games which have ARM builds available. This would incentivize developers to target the platform.
Offering their client on Mac to those of their producers and consumers who are inherently motivated to use it but otherwise keeping a low profile there seems like just the right call to me.
They've invested massively on Linux and have attacked the problem from two angles in the last ten years because they need to diversify. They can't single-handedly rely on Microsoft for their continued existence. Hence the VR headsets, the Steam Machines, and now the Steam Deck.
They've put zero effort on macOS on Apple Silicon because they would gain nothing strategically, and the percentage of Mac users using Steam is small. The hardcore gamer on a Mac does not exist. We have consoles.
There's definitely something for Valve to gain by porting Steam to MacOS, after all they did support MacOS with Proton originally. The work required to fix it for modern MacOS is monumental though, and unless Apple sponsors it I see no reason why it would happen. Once they axed 32-bit execution support on Mac, there was effectively no reason to keep supporting the platform anymore gaming-wise. OpenGL depreciations were the icing on the disappointment cake, very clearly Valve was being told to pound sand by Apple.
Indeed the Mac support is lackluster, but it's yet another proprietary platform and Apple makes it difficult to work on.
Steam doesn't need more than 2/4GB so it doesn't seem like that matters.
They care about making money. Their investments in Linux are their future insurance policy from Microsoft, as unlike Sony or Nintendo, Valve only own the storefront but not the platform on which their games would run, and with Windows being their biggest customer platform, makes their survival completely dependent on the mercy of Microsoft and the potential dystopian scenario where, for example, on Windows 12, 13 or 14 you'll only be able to install apps through the official Microsoft store.
Linux compatibility was their only ticket out. It's purely a business decision, not a benevolent one.
Not knocking them for it, but it's good to keep in mind the reality and not blindly worship a for-profit corporation.
Microsoft has that in certain areas, like Typescript. Not so much anything related to Windows.
It also goes deeper than just Linux, and the Steam Deck is a perfect example of this. It's a real PC, and they allow you to use the device you bought as you wish.
Our incentives are aligned and due to how they operate it's likely that it'll stay that way for a long time.
As long as this is the case I will keep giving Valve my money and recommending their products to others.
They don't care what devices you use to play the games you bought on Steam since you're still tied to their platform.
Yeah companies want to survive economically. If they don't exist the products they make would be completely unavailable. It is a rather uninteresting angle to take.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
"Commoditize your complements."
In general you open source / lower price (to free if possible) your complements.
Pretty much all companies do this.
It's honestly a dice roll whether a visual novel will be accepted or rejected from Steam. Whatever reason used will weirdly not apply for titles already released and even titles that will apply after you. It doesn't matter if youre an indie game dev or Square Enix publishing a game set in the same universe as the widely loved Steins;Gate. You're still subject for a ban and for what really? Square Enix at least has the ability to talk behind the scenes to have the game approved.
This all matters so much because visual novels are already a niche. If you want to turn a profit you must sell on steam. This means that in response to an imprecise, contradictory policy it's in your best interest to self-censor as much as you can because you can not afford to have your game rejected.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/onboarding...
Visual novels and similar games with young (looking) characters tend to get rejected for sexualizing those characters (rule 8). But there are also plenty of examples of tame games getting rejected, while similar but much more risque games were permitted, so it's hard to figure out exactly what Valve objects to.
So if they are the best, why shouldn’t have the largest market share?
Such is human nature. It actually takes mental effort/mind wrestling to justify for ourselves the healthier, less attractive choice.
Same is for our bodies and healthy foods, against something like a chocolate cake or pizza.
> I wish steam didn't have an effective monopoly on PC video game distribution.
Back on topic, any other dominant actor in the market could have been the one affected by this moderation misjudgement. Let's suppose Origin was this dominant actor and this faux pas happened to them. This post would have been about Origin.
Note: I chose to say "dominant actor" instead of "effective monopolist" because other market actors are present, even if much less powerful.
They are competing with Epic, CD Project, Microsoft, Apple on macOS plus all the editors store and physical media. They are dominant but very far from being a monopoly.
Plus unlike Electronic Arts, Valve doesn't delete games I've bought from my library.
I never used Steam, nor plan to.
There isn't time to play everything.
Not anymore. Or hardly anymore. Often these contain a barely working game if at all, but might even just contain a download code for steam, origin etc.
And then there are a lot of games that release exclusively on steam. Oxygen not included comes to mind.
Also, Steam provides a good service. There's a reason people don't remember the old days where you had to download and apply several 500 MB incremental patches on unreliable connections just to play an online game.
All you needed once to play games on Linux was Steam.
Now we have a few more relevant competing game stores and you need a whole bunch of awful launchers.
I'm not saying the monopoly was a great thing for publishers though! That's a completely different story.
But for end-users it was "the one and only app store for games you ever need". This was even better than mostly everything else regarding Linux software. Steam was once like Napster. You've just got everything there. No we have the same situation like with the dozens of movie streaming providers: If you want access to everything you need accounts everywhere. That's a clear step backwards for the consumers.
If only something like Steam or movie streaming could be one globally distributed open service… Than such a "monopoly" would be the greatest thing for customers since Napster.
GOG comes closest to being good but I find their launcher to be quite buggy and slow. Origin, uPlay, Epic Games, those are all terrible in comparison to Steam. The Steam UI is far from amazing, but it's leagues ahead of the competition in terms of usability in my experience.
If you don't like Steam, you can buy your games elsewhere. GOG and Epic exist and together they have most games that aren't Steam exclusives. Xbox Game Pass has some pretty good deals on games too (which includes some PC titles). There are thousands of games to be played without ever having to download Steam if you choose to.
And yet the PC is the only platform left where the user even has a choice in the matter.
Is it always unethical to buy something supplied by a monopoly?
Is convenience an ethical good, especially convenience delivered on a mass scale?
Never, it's just unethical to operate one.
> Is convenience an ethical good
I feel like this could only be true if your life was in actual danger when lacking that convenience. This is possibly the wrong question anyways, I'd ask if the externalized costs of that convenience are small enough to justify the imputed good of the service.
Which is why we can tolerate natural monopolies where collective safety is involved, such as electrical distribution, but shouldn't where it isn't, such as video game distribution.
> especially convenience delivered on a mass scale?
What special ethical properties does this provide?
Is it? If you simply have no competition, you're running a monopoly. That doesn't seem like an unethical situation.
Having a good product that people want and prefer to buy isn't anti-competitive. Establishing exclusive contracts with publishers and preventing something from being sold somewhere else for less is anti-competitive.
I don't find it reasonable to claim that Steam is a monopoly in the PC gaming space (there might be an argument for it if one were to try to limit it to "games distribution platforms that run on Linux"). And even assuming that they did have a monopoly, they aren't using anti-competitive techniques to maintain it.
I'm trying to clarify that it's not unethical to have a monopoly, nor even maintain one - it is only unethical to maintain one in ways that are anticompetitive (and making the best product isn't anticompetitive).
If a monopoly makes something more convenient for hundreds of millions of people, think of the species-wide savings.
Add up all conveniences, and you get real progress. For instance, many women in Africa are in charge of providing water and clean laundry for their households - not agreeing, just stating the facts. These two things are almost a full-time job if done by hand.
If things ever progressed to the point where African countries have mass-scale running water and washing machines, think of how hundreds of millions of adults suddenly have time and energy to do something else.
Now that's an extreme example, but the point stands. Making things convenient for others requires hard work upfront building systems and is to be encouraged.
I have few, if any, problems with Steam.
It was basically forced on us when CS 1.6 required it.
Reality is almost everyone abandoned PC gaming for a decade+ in favour of consoles.
Valve and steam were the only real player, which is why they're in the position they're in.
I took an shining to GOG, but the the Linux situation just reaffirmed how I buy my games.
Also, if I need to choose my monopoly, I'll take Valve over Microsoft.
Imagine Diablo IV or each of the Call of Duties... free... day 1. That is huge value. Something Steam can't compete with.
That'd be CSS, not 1.6.