I think Steam might be the only private company in this.
Really says a lot.
steam is just so based.
I dont think a single more based company has ever existed. It rivals the greats like linux, with a touch of gambling.
Linux isn't a company.
I dont think a single more based company has ever existed.
Hyperbole much? I like Steam as much as the next guy but lets not pretend the guy that owns 6 yachts is a good person just because he's better than the next worst. Steam DRMs the shit out of games sold on their platform and if you're an indie dev that wants to sell your game Steam is THE place to do it.
Steam made $10bn last year, they have about 100 employees (their parent company Valve has about 400). I used to be a bigger fan of GabeN but more recently really started considering him and looking into it and realized he's just another unethical billionaire. This video by Coffeezilla is a good jumping off point. regarding the intentional targeting of youth with addictive gambling mechanics in loot crates and circumventing gambling laws. It's all very purposeful and continues to this day.
I will always have some admiration for a person that sets up shop in Microsoft's back yard and bases the system on Linux. I hate the DRM aspect and couldn't care less about what promoting whatever with children because quite frankly that's just not going to be solved by anything other than parents taking better care of their kids. The same can be said about exposure to any kind of media, including not letting children watch commercials on Saturday morning because gee whiz, that stuff is exploitative.
To me complaints about exposing kids to gambling is just finding something to be pissed off about and reinforces my feeling that the Left has picked up the kinds of puritanism that used to be associated with the Right.
But yeah. DRM software is a serious thing to worry about. Selling people vapor is kind of a shitty thing to do.
I sometimes feel an anxiety when pondering what will happen when daddy Gabe isn't here to keep the wolves at bay.
That's my fear too , whoever gets their hand on valve will decide the future of pc gaming kinda , I just hope it won't get sold to ea , riot , tencent or whatever
gabe is a very smart person, if he doesnt have a post death plan for steam i would be immensely surprised.
The fact he is doing research on BCIs, I like to imagine his plan is digitizing himself so he can live forever on the net.
Honestly, I've been weaning myself off Steam for awhile now. It's great what they did to make PC gaming more accessible, but I also feel like Steam itself is an unnecessary dependency for most video games.
There should be protocols that games can implement to integrate with launchers and organize playing online.
Depends on who inherents his shares
don't forget valve gets minors (and adults) into gambling.
Man I love it when people glaze objectively bad companies just because it's popular opinion to like them.
Remember steam started the business model of not actually owning your games.
Gabe has made billions by stealing profit from the workers that actually make games.
They had to be sued just to offer refunds.
They host tons of malware and shovelware and outright scam games and even protect them from """"review bombing"""
They pushed "early access" into the mainstream.
And because of people like you that would literally suck Gabes dick for the meme, they get away with it.
Remember steam started the business model of not actually owning your games.
GOG exists, go use GOG. Steam is popular because they don't fuck over buyers, and they run a good business model, people are ok not "owning" things if the service is reasonably well put together.
Gabe has made billions by stealing profit from the workers that actually make games.
steam takes a 30% cut, which isn't all that high, especially when you consider that they develop things like proton at zero cost to anybody, including developers. You're also getting the single largest and most widely used publishing platform, period. It's really hard to beat something of that caliber, so it's definitely a tradeoff. There are also cases of devs making games that become so popular they pull in millions of dollars worth of revenue.
They host tons of malware and shovelware and outright scam games and even protect them from “”““review bombing””"
in defense of steam, if they specifically curated high quality games people like you would accuse them of gate keeping the platform. Scams are definitely a thing, malware, technically is. I've not seen malware ever in my personal experience, and i doubt most people have, and whenever it does happen, steam responds accordingly so i'm not sure its a fair statement.
They pushed “early access” into the mainstream.
there's nothing necessarily wrong with early access, i actually think it's a really productive way to provide tons of play testing and development potential for smaller dev teams. Does it also incentivize shovelware? Sure, but it's a platform you can make money on, that's not abnormal. And again, it's usually very well known when games are abandonware.
And because of people like you that would literally suck Gabes dick for the meme, they get away with it.
surprised you didn't mention gambling, that's probably the most significant argument against steam right now, they effectively run what can be considered an online casino.
Ok then fund linux gaming
That's one of the greatest thing Valve is doing. They're breathing life into Linux gaming.
While I think capitalism encourages unethical business practices, keep in mind that Valve actively supports the development and popularization of the kernel as well as other projects like Wine from their profits.
G*mers have been too Stockholmed by Steam's monopoly to recognise that everything they complain about with EA or Ubisoft all started with Valve.
me: steam is terrible; it's just drm with a nice bow on top
steam: steam visual novel fest starts now
me: i love steam stuffs more items on my wishlist
(for real tho itch.io and gog are much better use them - and download the actual offline installers from gog don't use galaxy)
GOG Galaxy isn't bad to use. It has cloud saves, and update checking - which is useful for some people. And games installed using the offline installers still show up in galaxy (and can be updated etc.) In fact, you can download the offline installers from the Galaxy app itself if you want to.
Heck, I just cut out the middleman and go straight to torrenting.
Wish I had thought to do this sooner. I would've saved a lot of money that really just ended up in the hands of landlords.
itch.io and gog
would switch tbh but it would need to have steam style proton integration first
@cupcakezealot wasn't Itch also American?
I love my Steam Deck and Proton, but it pisses me off how many Steam games are spyware / DRMware and won’t start without internet on this PORTABLE console, and especially that Valve allows this kind of toxic shit.
So, my Steam Deck stays blocked from the internet in my firewall and I buy from GOG when available or get them from other places.
Also, Gabe can STFU about piracy being a service problem until Steam bans DRM and spyware.
Why not just turn on offline mode on the steam deck? Its easier than blocking it from the internet...
Still need to connect to things on my local network.
You can just not buy the games that have stuff like Denuvo etc. If you keep buying them, of course they'll keep including the DRM etc.
Steam is the storefront, and they have plenty of games you can buy without that crap.
Correct, don’t buy them.
And there's always torrenting. Denuvo doesn't actually stop games from being cracked.
Gaben is pretty chill, ngl
Accurate and warranted.
Yup pretty much it.
I never gamed, so...
- Fuck gambling
- Fuck walled gardens
- Fuck billionaires (nobody needs that much dough)
- Fuck Valve/Steam (it's easy for me to say)
Steam isn't perfect and I sure as shit won't be the one defending a corporation, and this isn't a good excuse at ALL, but if you've never gamed you wouldn't believe how much worse it is on the other side (GOG being the only exception).
And as far as corpo rats go, at least Valve employees own 49% of the company.
I still don't understand why the company is so highly regarded. They enable underage gambling. Life must be easy for a company. You just have to be a little bit better than the others and you are regarded as a hero.
i mean, out of all things a company can do that are bad, underage gambling is probably one of the better ones, and the argument in favor of it is that it's on games like csgo and cs2, where the age range is obviously higher than an actual child.
Realistically, i think you have to be kind of stupid to get caught in gambling, but it is also definitely predatory, and there's a reason it's a heavily regulated industry. There's definitely a better solution than we currently have, but it's not as bad as it could be either.
"underage gambling is probably one of the better ones", "you have to be kind of stupid to get caught in gambling" you seem like you do not know what you are talking about respectfully.
Have you watched cofeezilla? The industry already has armed mafia structures.
You are allowed to say Fuck on the Internet. Why are you following the self-censorship rules for Instagram and other social networks if you are making a joke about them?
You are even allowed to say fuck on the radio and TV in some countries (like The Netherlands)
I just reposted it from elsewhere, no need to read too much about it
[ removed from lemmy ]
Steam is still basically the only option AND they are actually helping Linux a lot with game compatibility. Altough, if I need games specifically on steam I'll be buying the key from Greenmangaming (UK) or GamersGate (Sweden). If anybody has more alternatives feel free to let me know so I can add them to my list.
GOG sadly misses a majority of games atm so I just can't replace steam with it yet.
No grey market key sellers, only legit.
The name GamersGate sounds like it didn't any issues at all /s
Yeahhh I don't know who thought that was a good name hahaha
Third party key market places are kinda iffy, and there have been numerous cases of the keys being offered on there having been bought with stolen credit cards, or otherwise generated in ways that aren't quite above board.
I remember one interview with an indy dev in which they said they prefer people pirating, because chargebacks from stolen cards are actively costing them money.
For people who feel they need the entertainment games provide, but can't afford current prices, I feel pirating games from conglomerates, and buying from smaller studios and indies is the most socially responsible way to do it, but I'm not your mum.
Edit: Huh, looks like greenmangaming gets their keys directly from the publishers. Didn't know that was a thing. Guess I was a bit quick on the trigger there, should have checked first. Sorry about that.
See you already found the reason it is ok, but yeah what you are saying is completely right when talking about sites like G2A, Kinguin, etc where YOU can sell your keys as that opens the gates for illegal stuff
Hence I mentioned legit resellers (from the EU) that do support the publishers.
I’m quite fond of Fanatical. They are based in the UK and also sometimes sell DRM free books/audiobooks
Wait what exactly is the purpose of buying a steam key from a third party? And how is that profitable and not tos breaking?
Good question! Real resellers (so NOT g2a, etc) get their keys from publishers directly (so they pay for them). The publishers get these keys from steam for free and by buying them from a reseller steam takes 0% of the money. So by using an EU reseller more money stays here.
Keys can be cheaper when there isn't any ongoing steam sales. Some website are shady and should be avoided but some are 100% legit. Any reseller listed on isthereanydeal is safe to use, they get their keys directly from publishers.
You are still fucked then if Steam decides to take out a game you purchased. Again the whole "you're not buying a product but a license for the product" debacle. Other than not giving Steam any money, this doesn't change much? Could just pirate games instead.
I never said I cared about that in the first place. But even after games are removed from Steam they still allow you to download it whenever. Its only really an issue should Gabe choose a replacement for him that isn't as pro gamers as he is.
This community is about buying european, not complaining about having DRM.
Steam is still basically the only option
When cornered people finally admit that steam is a small monopoly
Steam isn't a monopoly, there are other choices but they just suck. Epic games in terms of game availability already replaces a good 80% of my active library, itch, ubisoft, ea, etc also exist but are just so bad as well.
Steam is basically the only option... That cares about gamers and actually provides a good service.
I'm literally installing windows right now. I feel disgust, but I need it for one application that I know will never have a Linux version. I got tired of the slow as shit virtual machine I used for it before. I can't replace it with an alternative either, for business reasons.
I'm just happy to see a meme template from Half Baked.
Chappelle's old stuff is fire
Have you ever looked at memes on weed?
The man who delivered that line is now my generation's Walter Cronkite
Ha, right! Also, oy, I'm old
Steam may be a very successful business, but they’re still the seed crystal for a whole ecosystem of gambling that preys on addicts and children with the whole CSGO loot box thing. Take a wild guess what forms of addiction have the highest suicide rates?
Fuck Valve. Fuck all Corps. No business has ever nor can ever, genuinely give a shit about anything other than increasing profit.
The crates where fine in TF2 …. Before CSGO got made, but due to CSGO and other games it’s an issue.
But while you consider it gambling, most laws don’t. It’s currently only banned in NL and BE to open lootboxes on Steam and in NL we have legal online gambling for 18+, but Valve won’t gives you access to the lootboxes.
The point is that one laws need to be more clear about what is gambling and what isn’t without ruining anything that uses randomizers and/or loot and there needs to be a better way to validate people’s age without hurting their privacy.
No business?
I work as a software developer for a small business and they do care about us and not just profits.
Recently we were all given a pay rise and a reduction in hours as they can afford to support that.
On the other hand, Valve wishing to seek an alternative to Microsoft's poor decision^[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_(computer)#cite_note-cvg_newell_linux-2%3A~%3Atext=upon+the+release+of+Windows+8+in+2012] making has been a great boon to the Linux community. Valve was also there at the start of Vulkan^[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan#History]. But is "funny" that Gabe Newell started off as a Microsoft employee, in fact the one that led the team that ported Doom to Windows with Doom95 and in turn also helped launch Windows (95) as the gaming OS for decades to come.
As much as I distrust and hate corporations, Valve isn't in it for the shareholders, you can't buy Valve stocks and that means they at least have a bit more soul than a lot of other corporations - even though they are profit seeking.
What I don't like about them is how they sell you a service, not an actual game. You technically buy a lifelong lease on each game, never ownership. Your shit can be gone in minutes with nothing to prove for it, except for bank statements saying Valve took your money.
Which is why I'll always buy on GOG^[https://www.gog.com/en/about_gog] if possible. DRM free and European.
Valve is a privately owned company.
Publicly owned companies want more prodit because well we want out interest and return on stocks and a stable pension etc as well right? That all pushes publicly owned companies to get more and more profit every year.
I'm gonna add that the ceo is a bilionare who owns an entire fleet of mega yacths
https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/gabe-newell-luxury-yachts.php
Sounds like a systemic issue...
*glances at capitalism" 👀
Also an entirely voluntary issue with viable quality alternatives that exists solely due to people not chosing FOSS video games to play.
Examples:
Platformer- Super Tux
FPS- Xotonix
Strategy- Beyond All Reason
Depends if the business it publicly owned.
I think valve are mostly fair to consumers. The money they make from gamers is doing some good in the linux sphere.
I thought it was pretty well known Valve is privately owned.
They make money selling off of gamers by selling games. They take advantage of and enable systemic abuse of, I’ll say it again, addicts and children. I’m not saying they aren’t also fair to their customers in most of their dealings and that they aren’t doing good things for the Linux ecosystem. But we’re also talking way more money than I bet you’re thinking. Gabe’s uber rich person kink is super-yachts. Multiple, super-yachts. You can appear and behave with decency and still contribute to the detriment of society at the same time.
I agree with this, but you have to admit that if all corps were like steam it would be a lot better.
Hey both things can be true. I feel like at this point though the only reason they haven’t stopped the whole gambling thing is because it’s basically a money faucet and in a monetary economy who’d ever turn off a money faucet? But that’s the rub, greed is inherently incentivized.
Costco is cool too! They have local products.
Costco can be cool all they want once the federal government of the USA tells them to fuck over Canadians they will. It's a very dangerous game to rely heavily on American companies in Canada right now. No matter how ethical they might be. The trade war has already begun and the USA will use any lever available when the time comes to annex.
The issue isn't the federal government tells them to fuck over Canadians (or anyone else). It's that they don't tell them anything. They just make Canadian goods cost more in the US. They don't have a choice. Most businesses would rather the cost stay the same, but we have a dumb ass president who's fucking us all over for no good reason.
I wouldn't have started even dual booting Linux if it wasn't for Steam after being pleasantly surprised with my Steam Deck played most of my Steam library. It's the primary why I intend to get AMD gpu next time around for the better driver support, but that won't be for a few years.
Yep, if you want a reason why Valve are "less evil" than other companies, one big thing to point to is the huge investment they've made into the Linux ecosystem. Even though it's in their own interests (Microsoft locking out steam would cripple their income), we can see with Epic suing Google/Apple that there are other, shittier ways that they could have attempted the same thing. The investment they've made into Linux, Proton, KDE etc benefit everyone and can't be taken away on a whim.
i wont delete my steam account, but lord gaben wont get my money anymore, even if hes awesome. :( sorry gabe.
Yeah, I haven't bought a game in years. Wish I could refund or resell most of the games I bought on Steam, but oh well. Live and learn.
Sailing the high seas has been a breath of fresh air. It's nice to have greater ownership over my software than the rubes who pay for theirs, lol. And it's cheaper!
same here lol and i dont play much anymore
I'm still gonna use American stuff that's good if they keep DEI. brb checking up on Steam.
Edit: it's not looking good tbh I think I'll switch to GOG / physical media as much as feasible.
Presuming you can't get a game on GoG (which is European), check if the game is still from Europe.
Bit of a compromise, but this is for the people who can't give up on Steam.
I barely use Steam to be honest. Gosh, I need to get off Windows...
TBH operating systems are like tools, and if windows isn’t too intrusive and neutered, it can be OK.
I use Windows for gaming/media, for performance reasons, and (CachyOS) Linux for GPU compute stuff, dev work, office, pretty much anything else.
Well, yeah, I get that... Still, there's quite a bit about Windows that annoys me, and there's really nothing I do on Windows that Linux can't handle. I've already looked it up, and the little gaming I do does work pretty well on Linux too, reportedly.
So I find myself thinking... Why am I on Windows? I could be on Linux and ditch Microsoft. It's just some anxiety, fear that things'll break. At the end of the day, I have more confidence that, if something goes wrong, I can fix it in Windows, but may not be able to fix it in Linux. Hope I'm making sense here.
It's crazy how it's absolutely impossible to criticize steam without getting bashed to oblivion by so-called gamers. The amount of free balls sucking Steam gets is just ridiculous. They have sub 100 employees , take 30% of every god damn games sold on the platform and you don't own you games. Yeah it's a cool platform, but in the end it's just another nasty capitalist business.
take 30% of every god damn games sold on the platform and you don’t own you games.
they also provide both proton completely for free, and the entire steam marketplace, as well as any other additional functionality, steam networking for ex, with that 30% cut.
It's a large cut, but you're not really going to find a better option. Sure you could release on GOG, i think like 12 people use GOG though.
they also provide both proton completely for free
Yeah,I mean Proton is basically Wine - A free and open-source project developed by hundred of people over the years - with some extra patches. It's great, but the only reason they did it is to sell steam decks.
Steam does certain things really well, but in the end it's just a capitalist business. I don't get why gamers can be that bitchy about studios, that employ thousands of devs and artists, people who just wants to make good games but needs to deal with executives, but will rip their shirt a soon as someone criticize steam. They do no care about you, your experience, or even video games, they only care about money.
As a Linux gamer, steam has done so much to make it incredibly easy. They didn't have to make proton, but they did and it's great.
The few games they've made have pretty much all been incredible.
The family sharing means my wife has access to my whole account on her steam deck.
Sure, they take a big cut of sales, I've heard not a great place to work, and probably some other reasons to not like them. But the good far outweighs the cons. It's hard to hate them compared to other huge companies.
Well I mean, proton exists pretty much solely because of the steam deck. I will agree that it's been really nice switching to Linux as a result of proton's existence but they didn't just magically do it out of the goodness of their own heart either. It's basically the nicest version of a monopolistic gaming environment that doesn't really allow you to actually own anything that you buy.
It's kind of funny to watch the news with them; they're like two different companies struggling to coexist. One is just as greedy and evil as every other corporation and the other one fights for the consumer, so you end up with a news story one day saying that they're stifling competition by forcing price cuts on only their platform, but then they also are banning all games that force players to watch advertisements. Make make up your mind Steam 😂
Family sharing is just replicating a feature of the disc age that valve killed of only owning 1 copy of a game and installing it one multiple people's computers. If it had DRM requiring the disc to be inserted to play (which many games did), only one person could play it at a time.
I had a couple of classmates who'd take turns buying each Sims 2 expansion because you only needed the last installed expansion disc inserted to play so that way they'd each have a fully expanded Sims 2 install at half the price. My dad would always have the latest expansion installed and I would have to wait until they got the next one before I could get that one. Certain expansions were exciting enough that I'd find times to play on my dad's computer to play the latest expansion though
Really we just to implement an open protocol that launchers and games can both support.
Boy are you gonna be surprised as hell when you find out what sort of percentage other publishers take, especially for physical releases!
Shockingly enough, infrastructure requires money to run!
You mean like Epic who takes 12%? Or Itch that let you chose your contribution? Or Humble that takes 25% but give half of that to charity?
BTW steam is not a publisher...The infrastructure argument is just BS in 2025. Just admit you're an official gamer, meaning you will do anything to protect a soulless capitalist business that make millions everyday but employ like 83 people. Ubisoft bad, Steam good, I know lol.
It's a testament to how much worse every other company is.
Steam ils not cool. Steam is a monopoly position. This egemony need to end. We need many actors not just one.
Both things are currently true, they are a monopoly which is not good, but they are also acting nicely for the most part and not fucking people over despite their position
Pretty much.
I wish more companies took the approach like steam where it seems to be they are content with the amount of money they make and limitless profits are not the end goal
While I have deleted Amazon, Meta accounts along with restricting what Google gets in terms of data. Steam will be the last and by far the most hardest thing I have to give up (if I ever do tbh)
I'm using Steam cause of the SteamDeck. If Gabe dies and they start fucking things up I'll install bazite and sail the Seven seas once again.
Why do you have to call me out like that man
Honest question but why is a monopoly that takes a massive cut out of others labour cool?
Those other people don't have to use Steam's service if they don't want to pay Steam a cut.
The entitlement among developers on Steam is atrocious. I think a lot of useful idiots were pushing alternative storefronts years ago in no small part because they've been conditioned to accept a worse experience so someone else can take more of their money.
They're not a monopoly, and they provide good and valuable services to their customers. That's for both gamers and developers. There's a reason why EA Play, Origin, uPlay, Epic Games Store etc... fail to take off compared to Steam, and it's not just the availability of games.
They're also very friendly to indie developers, any dev can make and publish a game on Steam for a fairly small fee compared to what you get.
They also heavily promote and contribute to open source software and Linux in general.
But fuck them for needing to make a profit too I guess?
Just because Steam is not an evil corporation doesn't mean we can't criticize them too. Both statements can be true, there is no way for an individual person to ethically own a billion dollars and Steam is for the most part an example of a business treating it's customers, workers, and suppliers with respect and dignity. Those statements are not mutually exclusive.
You forgot to mention that they get children addicted to unregulated gambling, but that would ruin the gaben wankfest you've got going on in your head for some reason.
In what way is Steam a monopoly?
Fuck corporations! Fuck any shady business, I can't think of any non shady businesses though.
Which company is the cool one?
Valve, they make Steam. A popular gaming store that brought modern gaming to Linux
The one running an illegal online casino for minors.
Waiting to see what excuses people bring up to keep using steam
Do I need any other excuse than liking it?
I reduce US stuff and buy more local, but I'm not dealing in absolutes here. Maybe some day I'll stop using steam but I'm going one step at a time.
I'm not using it since I'm not gaming, but I absolutely love how much they're doing for Linux. With Proton they broke windows' pseudo-monopoly on gaming and are now working on making Linux gaming mainstream with the steam deck.
What are some good alternatives to steam? Because as it stands currently i've had technical difficulties with gog (should probably try and see if they are still present) and don't know about any other non-american site which would fill that role
I'm pirating. If a game I want isn't available on fitgirl repacks, I don't want it anymore. Before streaming services and always online garbage became a thing I'd buy physical releases, but the more intrusive DRM became, the less I got interested in modern game delivery services.
For steam I only use their proton compatibility layer for my "DRM free games", I only bought Terraria on their store and I rarely play it these day I'll play it again when 1.4.5 come out
Valve are irresponsible. Either it should moderate its forums or there shouldn't be any. All the time we see fascist rhetoric about 'DEI' and 'Woke'. We've reported some but they functionally are useless, so why have them?
Can you people stop trying to browbeat others into supporting your agendas?
Not everyone has to agree with you on every online forum.
Not defending valve but are the forums even necessary?
I've been an avid player for 4 years (my son even more so) and I didn't even know they had forums
Yeah, sometimes they help to communicate with other players or the developers, seek out hints or bug reports, share cool things from the game or that you did in them, or talk to valve about features/bugs.
They would be a lot more useful if they were actually moderated but most game developers seem unable or unwilling to do it, and valve is the same, so what ends up happening is that it just becomes a breeding ground for fascism.
Feels like it needs another meme for this "You guys have forums?"
Gaben is still just another billionaire with a yacht collection. The reason games aren't cheaper is because of people like him, just like anything else we're buying everyday.
Down voted because people can't accept the fact that they're getting ripped off even by the companies they like?
talking about downvotes is a great way to get downvotes out of spite, which i'm sure you're not using to make yourself appear more legitimate
