Larian Studios defends Valve: Steam's success is deserved
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And it will last til Gabe dies. Then I guarantee it enshittifes so fast it will make your head spin.
As soon as the business people gain control they will pivot everything to maximize profit. Enshitification is just a euphemism for business.
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Larian Studios defends Valve: Steam's success is deserved
While many accuse Valve of monopolising the PC gaming market, others argue that Steam\'s dominance is simply the result of doing things right.
Gamereactor UK (www.gamereactor.eu)
While many accuse Valve of monopolising the PC gaming market, others argue that Steam’s dominance is simply the result of doing things right.
These assertions do not contradict. I cannot overstress that.
This whole article is ‘Valve’s monopoly is fine because they did things right.’
Having one good store is not, in itself, a problem. But it does mean we’re one fuckup away from having no good stores.
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Larian isn’t wrong, Steam mostly works. Stable client, refunds, workshop, Proton, massive userbase and tools that actually help developers and players. A lot of other stores still feel half-baked next to that.
But deserved != harmless. Valve has way too much power, discovery is a dumpster fire, and their communication and policy decisions can be arbitrary. Dominance like that rewards sloppiness and makes it harder for better alternatives to gain traction.
So yeah, Steam earned its place, but I do not want any one company owning PC gaming. Competition keeps them honest, and right now we need more real contenders, not just storefronts throwing money at exclusives.
Competition keeps them honest, and right now we need more real contenders, not just storefronts throwing money at exclusives.
Then the competition should put in the work.
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The only storefront I wish was better/more popular was GOG. It’s not bad and has a lot of benefits (Like no DRM and offline installers), but Steam just makes everything so easy it’s hard not to get stuck with them once you’ve started.
Well the no DRM/offline installer part is the most important part. I buy a game, I download and install it. If I need more features I may be better off with Steam anyway.
As far as I know the Steam DRM is not mandatory to use for developers.
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Larian Studios defends Valve: Steam's success is deserved
While many accuse Valve of monopolising the PC gaming market, others argue that Steam\'s dominance is simply the result of doing things right.
Gamereactor UK (www.gamereactor.eu)
I only buy games on Steam, GOG and ItchIO. The main reason I don’t give a cent to stores from EA, Ubisoft or Epic Games anymore is their services and terms are horrible. I’m all in for supporting competition when it’s good competition.
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Well yeah, that will be the potential first sign to look out for. If that happens no need to think it won’t get worse like everything else.
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As far as I know the Steam DRM is not mandatory to use for developers.
Yes, I still need to go through Steam for every install.
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This post did not contain any content.
Larian Studios defends Valve: Steam's success is deserved
While many accuse Valve of monopolising the PC gaming market, others argue that Steam\'s dominance is simply the result of doing things right.
Gamereactor UK (www.gamereactor.eu)
Devs are still free to sell their game outside of Steam and charge whatever price they want for that version
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I only buy games on Steam, GOG and ItchIO. The main reason I don’t give a cent to stores from EA, Ubisoft or Epic Games anymore is their services and terms are horrible. I’m all in for supporting competition when it’s good competition.
stores from EA, Ubisoft or Epic
Better yet, games
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Devs are still free to sell their game outside of Steam and charge whatever price they want for that version
I think you’re not allowed to “sell” it for free with the same version and features. Which should be unsurprising.
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Devs are still free to sell their game outside of Steam and charge whatever price they want for that version
Not and keep their listing in Steam they can’t.
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And it will last til Gabe dies. Then I guarantee it enshittifes so fast it will make your head spin.
He should turn it into a non-profit right before he dies and put the ip under a foundation or something so it can’t be sold off in pieces.
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Is discovery a dumpster fire? I mean sure it could be better but I dont think its a dumpster fire. It seems there are constantly new small team indie games doing wild numbers on the platform. If discovery was truely bad we would be seeing the charts dominated by big studios.
I guess he talking about the search system, which is a dumpster fire relative to other Steam features.
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Competition keeps them honest, and right now we need more real contenders, not just storefronts throwing money at exclusives.
Then the competition should put in the work.
That’s kinda his point.
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Larian isn’t wrong, Steam mostly works. Stable client, refunds, workshop, Proton, massive userbase and tools that actually help developers and players. A lot of other stores still feel half-baked next to that.
But deserved != harmless. Valve has way too much power, discovery is a dumpster fire, and their communication and policy decisions can be arbitrary. Dominance like that rewards sloppiness and makes it harder for better alternatives to gain traction.
So yeah, Steam earned its place, but I do not want any one company owning PC gaming. Competition keeps them honest, and right now we need more real contenders, not just storefronts throwing money at exclusives.
Agreed. I’d add the predatory lootbox/gambling in stuff like counterstrike.
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I guess he talking about the search system, which is a dumpster fire relative to other Steam features.
Are we using the same product? There’s a vast array of quality tags that seem to genuinely work to find stuff?
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Competition keeps them honest, and right now we need more real contenders, not just storefronts throwing money at exclusives.
Then the competition should put in the work.
The competition is at work, but too many fanboys blindly bashing on anything that isn’t Steam is making it very hard for them.
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You think there aren’t a bunch of greedy finance whores biding their time until Gabe dies in order to take over and enshitify everything so they can squeeze as much money out of Steam as possible?
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Are we using the same product? There’s a vast array of quality tags that seem to genuinely work to find stuff?
You can’t filter using more than one tag as an “and” filter, only “or”. That’s pretty basic for a filter feature, isn’t it? It’s just surprising given how well implemented other Steam features had been in my experience.
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I only buy games on Steam, GOG and ItchIO. The main reason I don’t give a cent to stores from EA, Ubisoft or Epic Games anymore is their services and terms are horrible. I’m all in for supporting competition when it’s good competition.
I would buy from GOG too, if they provided Linux support in form of an official launcher. And if available also official Linux builds. Back in the days GOG did that, but they stopped doing it. And before someone comes after me, I know there are alternative launchers on Linux. But I don’t want to give GOG money for work others doing it for free. I don’t want support a company who only cares about Windows.
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