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Comment on Steam :: Introducing Steam Families

Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Its shit like this why I want to smack the “B-BUT STEAMS MONOPOLY” types who claim Steam does nothing with its 30%. Steam is one of the only companies out their in our late stage capitalist society that actually does things for its customer base without being forced to. We have digital refunds, completely remappable controllers, a linux operating system and portable computer that functions as a console when you dont want to use it as a computer, the only DRM in the world that doesnt actively suck, built in mod database/support, VR, official early access marketplace support (I know it has its issues), user game reviews with multiple sorting options, and thats everything I can currently think of. Steam is not only the only company I dont actively hate (Ok, I kind of like Costco too), vut I actually quite like Steam as a company.

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RisingSwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Digital refunds isn’t them being good, it’s them getting sued by Australia.

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- KoboldCoterie@pawb.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  They could have made it an AU only feature, though, and didn’t, to their credit.
  
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  - GoodEye8@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Because I’m pretty sure EU was next in line to slap them in the face for not offering refunds.
    
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    Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    and every other company would wait for every country to threaten them before enabling it there, because that’s 5 more months of extra profit!
    
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- catsarebadpeople@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I too hate everything that’s not completely perfect in every way
  
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  - RisingSwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ah yes, my comment openly states I hate steam because it isn’t perfect. It’s definitely written in there.
    
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- Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think it’s also just generally a good thing for them. I’m way more hesitant to buy stuff from humble and fanatical because I can’t return stuff, so I rather pay a bit more to get it through steam.
  
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- ABCDE@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And they repeatedly ignored my requests for games which didn’t work, as it was three weeks or thereabouts.
  
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  - A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ehh… Idk if that’s really on them. You can get around the playtime restriction by just playing offline, so there has to be an alternative restriction that doesn’t have that same vulnerability.
    
    Three weeks is more than enough time to figure out something you own doesn’t even work.
    
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    ABCDE@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I didn’t have the time to play it, tried to play it once and it didn’t work. I have a life and it often gets in the way, especially if I buy something on sale with the intention to play it later.
    
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PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

without being forced to. We have digital refunds

Small nitpick, but it’s funny that you specifically listed their refunds first. They were forced into that. Some may remember how comically awful Steam’s customer support used to be. It was genuinely horrible, with resolution turnaround times measured in days and weeks instead of minutes or hours. There was no instant messaging or ticketing system available; You had to email a sketchy email address, then wait days or weeks for them to finally respond. And chances were good that the response would basically boil down to “lul git fuckd loser, sux 2 b u”

Europe started pushing for them to be more customer friendly, because their refunds in particular were breaching some local European laws. In order to keep operating in Europe, they revamped their refund process entirely and recommitted to better customer service going forwards. But they only started the entire refund revamp in 2015 because they were going to be pushed out of European markets if they failed to comply.

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- Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I brought it up because until Steam did it NO digital game marketplace had refunds. Whether or not they got sued, Steam led the way
  
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  - Drigo@sopuli.xyz ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    And its also frecking 10 years ago now they added refunds. It’s like people like using “thet got sued to add it” as some sorta “gotcha” that steam is bad, I don’t get some people
    
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    Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m starting to think these people think we use steam because we have to, and not because its a legitimately amazing games catalogue/storefront. It makes the “Steam is a monopoly” and “What happens when GabeN dies and Steam goes down the drain” comments make sense
    
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ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Don’t forget private games, it’s a win-win because customers can buy games they don’t want to show to their friends and Valve get more money because they get more people buying those ~~embarrassing~~ ~~awesome~~ games.

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- Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  RIGHT! I FORGOT ABOUT THAT ONE
  
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DingoBilly@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This stuff is great.

But ignoring all the real issues with Steam is stupid, let alone the fact it all rides on one guy at the moment. Change of hands and within a generation or two you’ve got shit.

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- trigonated@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And it’s bizarre that some of them seem to get angry when someone else points the issues out.
  
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  - The_Lopen@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Looks weird from my side too, when someone starts frothing at the mouth about monopolies when steam is so much as mentioned.
    
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  - Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Its the braindead takes that are getting the Ire, Steam ISNT a monopoly, and the 30% cut is industry standard
    
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- Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  No ones ignoring the real issues. Steam isnt a monopoly and the 30% cut is industry standard. I’m not going to fault those who take issue with “Valve Time” or Valves shit communication. And frankly, the good stuff doesnt need to last forever, as soon as Steam enshitifies, GoG or Itch’ll be there to dethrone it, and Piracy’ll be there to get our games back if worst case scenario happens. You want better competition? Shit on Epic and EA to actually provide it
  
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  - Spedwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    This is demonstrably wrong. The 30% cut is standard because Steam has used the same strategy as Amazon to fix prices across the market (a “Platform Most Favored Nation” clause—see the Wolfire Games v. Valve class action). Competing storefronts cannot undercut Steam, so why would they take less than a 30% cut?
    
    Epic Games Store—which is trying to undercut steam at a 12% fee—still list games at the same price as on Steam because of Valve has strongarmed publishers into fixing the prices. If Epic is charging 18% less but we the consumers are paying just as much, how is that not blatantly anti-competitive and anti-consumer?
    
    enshitifies
    
    Oh good, you are familiar with Cory Doctorow. He has an article on how Amazon abuses their position using the exact same playbook Valve uses.
    
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  - DingoBilly@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t care about the things you mentioned, but yes, those are also issues.
    
    I was talking more about the issues around gambling and making loops specifically to take advantage of gamers with problems.
    
    As well as the real problem that a single leader leading a company/nation will mean that company/nation always fails. The successors will inevitably mess it up sometime.
    
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    Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You say this like the competition hasnt already failed at the get go. Valve has the market share it has because no one else is offering anything better. Itch and GoG offer some things Valve doesnt, and because of that I wont say ALL of Valves competition is shit, but MOST of the competition STARTED off as your worst fear for what Valve MIGHT become
    
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Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A monopoly is a monopoly is a monopoly.

The vast majority of games you pay for on Steam can be taken from you in a couple of clicks from a Valve employee.

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- Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  1: Steam is NOT a monopoly, competition exists for it, its just that most of it is garbage, and the few that arent, GoG and Itch, Steam outcompetes
  
  2: This is a problem of Steams competition being bad, not with Steam itself
  
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  - Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    A company can be considered a monopoly without having 100% of the market. Microsoft is considered a monopoly, so is Google.
    
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    Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m sorry bud, but Monopoly doesnt mean “Really large company” Steam has competition, it doesnt do anything to hamper competition, and its easy enough for new competition to arise. It is not a monopoly in any sense of the word. It is the top player as a digital videogame marketplace because it is leaps and bounds better than all of its competition. You dont like the risks of digital ownership? Understandable, GoG exists to fill that niche.
    
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- KoboldCoterie@pawb.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This isn’t Steam specific; this applies to almost every digital marketplace. Yeah, it sucks, but there’s some things you just have to accept. When’s the last time you bought a physical copy of a PC game?
  
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  - ParsnipWitch@feddit.de ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You don’t need to buy physical copies. Games from GoG and, for example, itch.io can be downloaded DRM free.
    
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  - blue@ttrpg.network ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Yeah, it sucks, but there’s some things you just have to accept.
    
    This reminds me of a certain CEO who said gamers need to “get comfortable not owning games” so that subscription models can grow. I can imagine so, so many gamers in a couple years saying this sentence about that and so many more new exploitative practices.
    
    The truth is, we don’t need to accept it. They need us to accept it so they can get away with it.
    
    Pushback is crucial.
    
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  - blue@ttrpg.network ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Yeah, it sucks, but there’s some things you just
    
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- Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s not steam’s fault that the competition is garbage 🧐
  
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joelfromaus@aussie.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Don’t forget Steam Link! It’s one of my favourite features. You’re not even really tethered to any particular device to play your games since so many devices support the app. I play games that are single-player “console” style games in my lounge room for comfort and Steam Link means I can use my very good PC instead of buying into yet another console generation.

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WldFyre@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yeah I love how they pioneered marketing gambling and loot boxes to children, so visionary

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- Spedwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  CSGO cases pulled $1 billion revenue in 2023. The steam store brought in $8.5 billion in that same year. That’s a 30% cut of all sales traffic on steam vs. in-game purchases on a single FTP title.
  
  Loot boxes pull insane numbers. And yes they exploit children and problem gamblers). Not sure why so many Valve fans are here to downvote you :/
  
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- Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I too love how you can make shit up on the internet
  
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  - WldFyre@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’s literally facts lol
    
    The other reply to my comment has some links, but there’s no way you like Valve and don’t also know about Counter-Strike loot boxes and the third party market sites.
    
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rdri@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The company is called Valve.

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- Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Fair point. I interact with their storefront more than I’ve played their games, so my brain jumps to the word Steam before it does Valve.
  
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Spedwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Sigh… I’m getting tired of the Valve apologetics in every thread. They make good products, yes. They alsp abuse their market share to implement anticompetitive policies. The first doesn’t absolve them of the second.

Truth is, no one has any idea what it would look like if there were actual competition among the PC games platforms. Steam may be the best possible world, or maybe we don’t know what we’re missing.

Anyone who wants to learn more about Steam’s anticompetitive practices:

See the complaint from the pending class action case Wolfire Games v. Valve (at a minimum items 204, 205 on pg. 55) for how Steam’s PMFN clause affect publisher pricing

See Cory Doctorow’s How Amazon makes everything you buy more expensive, no matter where you buy it for a dive into how a PMFN affects the market unfairly and harms the consumer
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- ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What is a PMFN?
  
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  - Spedwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    “Platform Most Favored Nation”. It’s a type of clause in platform/marketplace agreements that prohibit a seller from losting their product for a lower price on a different sales platform. Specifically, it prevents selling on a different marketplace with lower fees (e.g. Epic Games or a publishers own website) and passing the difference to the savings to the consumer.
    
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    ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Oh, I hadn’t read of it in that form, thanks!
    
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    mightyfoolish@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Doesn’t Amazon do this with every product?
    
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- mightyfoolish@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Epic gives me free games and I still don’t like them… The “problem” is Valve is Steam-rolling the competition because people want to give them money.
  
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  - Spedwell@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yep. Because honestly, Steam is better than Epic in almost every way. When you want to buy a particular game X, you get a lot more from your purchase if it’s on Steam (workshop, friends, multiplayer, etc.). There is strong inertia and network effects that keep us all preferring Steam.
    
    Epic can’t compete with the Steam experience. But if Epic was able to list everything 18% cheaper (the difference in fees between Epic and Steam)—then they would rightly be able to compete on price.
    
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    mightyfoolish@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I understand now and that does make sense. No point in undercutting your competition if you can’t pass those savings to the customers.
    
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ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What happens when the leadership or ownership changes hands?

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- Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We go back to piracy. Easy enough
  
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  - ALostInquirer@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Do you guys think we use Steam because we HAVE to? GoG exists bros, we’re using Steam because we prefer it.
    
    Do you think many are aware of options like GOG? Every other time I’ve seen it mentioned/suggested, it’s often accompanied by, “What’s GOG?”
    
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    Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Uh yes I do. Itch and GoG are pretty well known, specifically because they are competent competitors to Steam
    
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Boiglenoight@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Valve can be attributed with saving PC gaming. When people were terrified of buying “digital only” games on this fugly client called Steam—which only had Valve games and a few no name indies—the PC gaming shelves in places like Walmart and EB Games looked like a clearance section. Just a hodgepodge of games in no particular order, worn out looking boxes of new games picked up and put back down, meanwhile the PlayStation and Xbox walls flourished and even GameCube got more love from a merchandising standpoint.

Now we trust Valve with our digital libraries the way we’d trust a bank with our money. They’ve earned that trust, and I can’t say the same for Sony or Nintendo which are happy to charge you repeatedly for the same game. Microsoft actually does a pretty good job of making your old games still playable in some form, so Kudos to them.

So will we be surprised when Epic Games Store goes tits up? No. Will we care when we lose all our games? No, they were all free. Should we support Valve as long as they continue to be the champions of PC gaming? You better if you care about where it goes.

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- Kedly@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  100% These idiots shit on Valve like the PC marketplace wouldnt be infinitely worse without them. If you truly care about the PC sphere getting better, shit on Valves lack of competition, dont try to tear down the best example we have. That being said I’m hesitant to say ONLY option as at this point GoG and Itch are passable competition, even if what they provide is TINY compared to what Valve has brought the PC Gaming Sphere
  
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  - Boiglenoight@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve used GoG. It’s good. Never used Itch.
    
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Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

who claim Steam does nothing with its 30%

I don’t think that’s the argument against it. Just that it’s inordinately high. But Valve is a corporation so not unexpected.

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- Rinox@feddit.it ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The 30% it’s always been the standard though, so not just Valve. That figure comes from retail, where 30-50% is still standard practice. You could argue that retail has higher costs, therefore needs the higher cut, but when Valve created Steam, they probably went with what worked.
  
  What I really hate about Steam and all online shops, is that you can’t resell something you purchased second hand. If I can resell my physical copy of a game or movie, I should be able to do the same with the digital version. Also the fact that they can remove access to the product you bought whenever they want. In my opinion, we need a law that specifies that what you buy is yours, and you get to do whatever you want with it, even if the manufacturer doesn’t like it.
  
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  - Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Valve is in a really dominant position and has almost always been, so they got a lot of sway on what the industry standard is. So can’t really blame other corporations here for the 30%.
    
    they probably went with what worked.
    
    That’s one way to say it. I think early on they had the cost advantage to retail and needed to convince people to buy digitally instead of traditionally, so lower cut. But of course they, as any company, would keep it near to as high as possible while being competitive. I’m not trying to shit on Valve by saying that, it’s just how it works for any company.
    
    What I really hate about Steam and all online shops, is that you can’t resell something you purchased second hand.
    
    I think that was actually one usecase for NFTs or whatever. There was much talk about it a while back but after the whole jpeg fiasco and shitcoin stuff I think it was all killed off.
    
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    Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You realize there have been payment processors and retail stores long before valve existed right? And markups/cuts have always been commonplace.
    
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MonkeMischief@lemmy.today ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Also catalog filtering. I wish GoG had a search filter half as good as Steam’s!

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Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Out there*

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