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> Is there a technical reason why Steam is a such a force in the space? \ I'm not much of a gamer - but my five kids are, and I can see the difference. It sta

> Is there a technical reason why Steam is a such a force in the space? \ I'm not much of a gamer - but my five kids are, and I can see the difference. It starts with being multiplatform. Buy once, run on PC, Mac, Linux. Steam's promise isn't cheap subscriptions, or trendy titles. I can buy games with confidence and know they will run - even if school requires a Mac next year or the only machine around is Dad's Linux laptop. Steam also does a much better job of exposing new titles and player feedback. Shopping Steam is a better experience - even if it isn't as pretty. You know what you are getting when you buy, and the return policy seems fair enough. It ends with simply working better. For example, last night I loaded up Steam and some PC games from a XBox Live Ultimate subscription. The Steam games worked. None of XBox games would even launch... on a brand new Lenovo gaming machine on Windows 11. Eventually the Xbox app volunteered to fix the messed up installation and ended up leaving 130GB of disk filled with old, inaccessible downloads. Epic's store shows some promise, but there's a lot of rough edges where it installs some other studio's installer which installs the game. But, the free game thing is pretty nice.

paulryanrogers 5y ago
> I can buy games with confidence and know they will run - even if school requires a Mac next year or the only machine around is Dad's Linux laptop. This hasn't been my experience. Plenty of Steam games have fallen by the wayside as operating systems evolve. GOG is slipping in this regard as well, but began as a way to buy and run older games. It also provides some nice pressure for Steam and its publishers to compete and reduce DRM. Then there is Mac dropping 32 bit support, to which Steam seems to have thrown up their hands.
- philistine 5y ago
  > Then there is Mac dropping 32 bit support, to which Steam seems to have thrown up their hands. Steam's copy on a 32-bit title is much better than GOG. It's big, it's in red, it's clear that this title is limited because its 32-bit. On GOG, you have a small line of text at the bottom of the Mac system requirements. That's way too small a warning (try to find it on this page: https://www.gog.com/game/darwinia https://www.gog.com/game/darwinia)!
  - ziml77 5y ago
    It's not just small, it's actually contradictory! It says minimum macOS version is 10.15 but then says that the game is 32-bit so it won't run on macOS 10.15 or higher.

paulryanrogers 5y ago

> I can buy games with confidence and know they will run - even if school requires a Mac next year or the only machine around is Dad's Linux laptop. This hasn't been my experience. Plenty of Steam games have fallen by the wayside as operating systems evolve. GOG is slipping in this regard as well, but began as a way to buy and run older games. It also provides some nice pressure for Steam and its publishers to compete and reduce DRM. Then there is Mac dropping 32 bit support, to which Steam seems to have thrown up their hands.

philistine 5y ago
> Then there is Mac dropping 32 bit support, to which Steam seems to have thrown up their hands. Steam's copy on a 32-bit title is much better than GOG. It's big, it's in red, it's clear that this title is limited because its 32-bit. On GOG, you have a small line of text at the bottom of the Mac system requirements. That's way too small a warning (try to find it on this page: https://www.gog.com/game/darwinia https://www.gog.com/game/darwinia)!
- ziml77 5y ago
  It's not just small, it's actually contradictory! It says minimum macOS version is 10.15 but then says that the game is 32-bit so it won't run on macOS 10.15 or higher.