I like GOG, but this is just weasel-words to take advantage of the ignorance of the public. Whether you receive the installs directly or not, you still don’t own your games, you are just licensing them, same as Steam.
This doesn’t tip the scales into the “this is wrong” territory for me, but I do think this kind of word manipulation exploiting an unknowledgeable public is a little bit slimy.
cybermass@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I love how this article takes shots at steam despite valve being THE company holding the bar up in the gaming space.
I could list examples but I honestly don’t even think I need to
b3an@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah… it’s also a new law in California is it not? Kill shot? Hahahaha. Right. Who wrote this headline xD
PunchingWood@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s like every clickbait gaming website whenever a new MMO game drops and they call it the WoW-killer for the umpteenth time in the past 15 years.
RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Valve is holding up the bar not because valve is great but because everyone else is so shit. I’ve had a ton of issues with steam throughout the years and it’s just… nothing else is better. I was actually excited for the epic store launch and it’s… Well, not the worst, because being the worst is a challenge some places take seriously, but certainly not a good steam replacement especially for low data people.
Steam may not let me control the updates to steam, but it won’t force refresh my library causing ping spikes all the time as an intended feature.
Grimy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Lmao, He is colluding with the rest, not holding up the bar.
There is nothing rhat differentiate Steam from Microsoft or Nintendo. The only difference between Gaben and Bezos is that valve has a really good advertising team that’s managed to convince everyone he “isn’t your average billionaire”.
They charge 30% because they have a soft monopoly, it’s basically robbery and it is affecting the indie scene and the quality and amount of games we receive.
Gaben has 6 mega yatchs and a number of submarines. The yatchs alone are worth around 1 billion and cost an estimated 75 to 100 million.
Now I sit and wait for the Gaben simp squad to come compare him to Jesus and tell me how “he has the only good monopoly”. Both of these things literally happened last time.
Downvote me you bootlickers.
Glide@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
No one thinks Gaben is the second coming. His platform just, actually doesn’t suck, and genuinely functions as a service to its users. It’s a low bar, sure, but it’s a good one. Comparing it to Microsoft axeing any studio that produces something worth talking about while they force more datascraping malware and adware into Windows is just dishonest.
Your comment reads more like you get off on being controversial than having actual insightful thoughts and the comparisons in what these three companies you listed are actually doing.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 2 months ago
I’m guessing you don’t remember what the market was like for indie games before Steam. Valve’s platform has done a lot of work to expose small game developers, and made it economically viable to work on and publish games independently. Before this it was very difficult for small titles without the advertising budget of a AAA publisher to get any attention at all, let alone actual sales. There’s nothing else like Steam for small studios trying to find buyers for their games, and Valve does deserve credit for that because it’s improved the video game market overall to have more people making more games and able to earn a living doing it.
The other major effort that Valve has made is Linux compatibility. Even before their work on Proton, Valve released native Linux versions of their games (they were one of very few publishers to do so at the time). I’ve been gaming on Linux since 2006, and Wine was great but rarely easy or complete. Proton has made things so straightforward that people have forgotten just how difficult it was before.
Credit where it’s due. No other major publisher has contributed to the gaming community the way Valve has.
No, you’ll enjoy the attention too much.
null@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
How much do Microsoft and Nintendo contribute to open-source projects?
YeetPics@mander.xyz 2 months ago
What a weird hill to die on.
Anyway, enjoy being wrong.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Preach brother!
NormalPerson@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Gaben has the only good monopoly, he’s pretty much Jesus.
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I think you mean holding a monopoly in the gaming space.
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I think you don’t know what that word means.
Heck, even if you want to blatantly ignore every other platform and site you can buy games from, which there are plenty, Valve gives devs a supply of Steam keys they can sell anywhere they want, they don’t even get a cut from those.
TJDetweiler@lemmynsfw.com 2 months ago
They aren’t really a monopoly. You can purchase games elsewhere. They are simply the gold standard of gaming platforms.
turtletracks@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
A monopoly on what? PC game storefeonts? Itch.io, gog, epic, gamepass, some are better than others, but steam is anti-competition
cybermass@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
The reason they hold most of the market share is not because of bad business practices it’s because the opposite. People use their service cause it’s the best.
The gov only considers a large business a monopoly if it’s doing anti competitive practices to maintain or grow it’s market share. That description in no way fits steam or valve.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
This isn’t about what steam currently is. It’s about what it will inevitably become.
I fucked up going with Steam. Should have just pirated everything Single player.
RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
You didn’t fuck up. You can always still pirate. Wait it out and see what happens, the moment it goes to shit put on your pirate hat and don’t give a fuck.