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I feel like at this point Valve have proven themselves to be good stewards of the Steam platform in this regard. Games aren't retracted and they're very reasona

I feel like at this point Valve have proven themselves to be good stewards of the Steam platform in this regard. Games aren't retracted and they're very reasonable with refunds. I assume their contracts for listing on Steam are quite different in order to support this. I'd be interested to hear more about the inside of these sorts of things.

mcpackieh 3y ago
Suppose I trust Valve to be well run for as long as Gabe Newell is around to control the company... how long is that? He's 61 years old, and even if he isn't inclined to ever sell the company he could still kick the bucket with no warning. The man is not exactly a paragon of physical fitness. I know there is this meme among gamers that if anything ever happens to Valve they will release all the games they distribute from DRM but this doesn't make any sense because, except for Valve's own games, they don't have the legal right to do that; whoever comes into legal possession of Valve wouldn't allow it. The fact that Steam DRM is weak and easy to crack, presently, is a bit more comforting but even so I'm not interested in paying for a product that is even nominally under DRM. So I buy games without DRM, from GOG/etc, or not at all (I don't pirate software, simply because that's too sketchy for me.)
jonhohle 3y ago
20 years later and accounts can’t even be merged when they have the same owner.
- yardstick 3y ago
  How common is this and why would you do it? I guess that’s a way to resell games? Buy cheap in a low cost region, sell the entire account to someone in a high cost region for a lot less than they would have paid originally?
  - gambiting 3y ago
    That happens all the time, except 99% of the time the accounts are actually stolen.
    - yardstick 3y ago
      Good point! Great thing then that merging isn’t supported.
      - jonhohle 3y ago
        Unless you have two accounts for reasons (like I do) and now want them to be one. Then it’s an unfixable mistake that makes steam an annoyance.
simion314 3y ago
>I feel like at this point Valve have proven themselves to be good stewards of the Steam platform in this regard. Games aren't retracted and they're very reasonable with refunds. This is not true, I still apreciate Steam for theyir work on Linux stuff so I am not hating on them, but facts are fact. 1 You need to start Steam to play most games 2 The Steam client dropped support for older oeprating systems In my case I had an old laptop with a few games, Steam updated itself to a version that was not compatible with the OS so my son could not use the laptop, I was using this old laptop only when traveling so the issue was sudden to me, I had no time to fix this crap. The fair thing to do is for Vale to create just a SteamLauncher that allows you top run your games, no Store/News/Social/Workshop, it could run in offline mode. Maybe this was a stupid bug that the client fck itself, but it sucks to turn off your laptop working fine, turn it on in a few months and now you need to do research and debugging and fixing.
- a1o 3y ago
  > You need to start Steam to play most games Tou don't, the default shortcuts it creates uses an url like format and steam to track down what exact binary you want to run, but if you double click the exe in the directory it works with steam closed. Lots of games (specifically indie games) have no DRM at all, you can freely copy to some other storage and play it later.
  - simion314 3y ago
    >Lots of games (specifically indie games) have no DRM at all, you can freely copy to some other storage and play it later. I doubt your "lots" claim, it is ambiguous, do you maybe mean a very few ? I found this >Total number of DRM-free games: 1,075 out of 41,147 games in total. This is my source, if it is wrong let me know https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_... At least Valve games seem to be DRM free
- bogwog 3y ago
  Steam DRM is actually optional for devs, and even if it isn't, it's (allegedly) very easy to get around. If you download your games onto a new PC, you may be able to just copy the files over to the old one and launch them directly. Even if you have to crack the DRM, it's at the very least morally OK. It's more work, but that's life when using old hardware. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a software provider to support old hardware/OSes forever.
isk517 3y ago
I hated Steam at first, but purchasing Half-Life 2 on launch day and then being unable to play the single player game you physically had in your hands because the servers you need to login to were overload will do that to you. Overtime they slowly won me over, but I'd like not not have to rely on a company being a good steward of anything.
gjsman-1000 3y ago
Until Gabe Newell gets hit by a bus one morning, his children decide to take the company public to make tens of billions, and Disney buys the company to expand into video games to make up for declining theater revenue. Don't laugh. It's completely possible.
- bogwog 3y ago
  It's pretty much inevitable. I am a big fan of Valve, but fully support anything that reduces their stranglehold on PC gaming. If Epic supported Linux with their store, I'd go to it first when buying games. But even if I buy a game on EGS today, I can still probably play it on Linux through Steam for free thanks to Valve, so... I'm very conflicted to say the least.
cardanome 3y ago
The Steam monopoly[0] is problematic for indie game devs. You absolutely have to list your games there because many people will refuse to buy your game anywhere else even if you are listed on more player-friendly DRM-free platforms like GOG or itch.io. Yes, I get that players want to use one launcher for everything but with DRM-free, you know what? You don't need launcher! Just download and play! For the hefty 30 percent cut they take from devs, I would at least expect them to do some basic curation. They allow so many asset flips and general trash games to flood their listing making it very hard for players to find good indie games. Plus, censorship is a bit of a hit or miss. You see some very sexually explicit titles on steam but then again even relatively harmless stuff can get you flagged. This creates an insecure situation for devs in certain niches and not just erotic. For example Visual Novels can be easily flagged for having a certain art style. Artistic freedom and monopolies never mix well. [0] (Please no "Actually, it is not a monopoly...". Yes, I am using a broader definition of monopoly on purpose. )
- slothtrop 3y ago
  It's not a monopoly, there is no broader definition that would make it so. People just generally prefer using that platform.
  - cardanome 3y ago
    If I as a game dev have to list my games on steam due to their overwhelming market dominance, they have a monopoly. Whether people like to use a platform or not is not even relevant for the question of monopolies. I use the term monopolistic to describe companies that have such a overwhelming market dominance that free market effects barely apply anymore. That is not the legal definition but a more useful definition that is popular in more progressive circles as it can be used to actually describe actual real world companies in the 21st century.
    - slothtrop 3y ago
      > If I as a game dev have to list my games on steam due to their overwhelming market dominance, they have a monopoly. You don't have to, and no.
maximus-decimus 3y ago
Well, except when they updated all versions of GTA IV where they changed all the songs because the licensing expired.
meroes 3y ago
Except they do retract paid for games from libraries without refunds (steal). It’s on smallish scales so the wider public doesn’t know. A specific example is removing Legends of Aranna from people who bought it as part of a bundle with the base game Dungeon Siege.

mcpackieh 3y ago

Suppose I trust Valve to be well run for as long as Gabe Newell is around to control the company... how long is that? He's 61 years old, and even if he isn't inclined to ever sell the company he could still kick the bucket with no warning. The man is not exactly a paragon of physical fitness. I know there is this meme among gamers that if anything ever happens to Valve they will release all the games they distribute from DRM but this doesn't make any sense because, except for Valve's own games, they don't have the legal right to do that; whoever comes into legal possession of Valve wouldn't allow it. The fact that Steam DRM is weak and easy to crack, presently, is a bit more comforting but even so I'm not interested in paying for a product that is even nominally under DRM. So I buy games without DRM, from GOG/etc, or not at all (I don't pirate software, simply because that's too sketchy for me.)

jonhohle 3y ago

20 years later and accounts can’t even be merged when they have the same owner.

yardstick 3y ago
How common is this and why would you do it? I guess that’s a way to resell games? Buy cheap in a low cost region, sell the entire account to someone in a high cost region for a lot less than they would have paid originally?
- gambiting 3y ago
  That happens all the time, except 99% of the time the accounts are actually stolen.
  - yardstick 3y ago
    Good point! Great thing then that merging isn’t supported.
    - jonhohle 3y ago
      Unless you have two accounts for reasons (like I do) and now want them to be one. Then it’s an unfixable mistake that makes steam an annoyance.

simion314 3y ago

>I feel like at this point Valve have proven themselves to be good stewards of the Steam platform in this regard. Games aren't retracted and they're very reasonable with refunds. This is not true, I still apreciate Steam for theyir work on Linux stuff so I am not hating on them, but facts are fact. 1 You need to start Steam to play most games 2 The Steam client dropped support for older oeprating systems In my case I had an old laptop with a few games, Steam updated itself to a version that was not compatible with the OS so my son could not use the laptop, I was using this old laptop only when traveling so the issue was sudden to me, I had no time to fix this crap. The fair thing to do is for Vale to create just a SteamLauncher that allows you top run your games, no Store/News/Social/Workshop, it could run in offline mode. Maybe this was a stupid bug that the client fck itself, but it sucks to turn off your laptop working fine, turn it on in a few months and now you need to do research and debugging and fixing.

a1o 3y ago
> You need to start Steam to play most games Tou don't, the default shortcuts it creates uses an url like format and steam to track down what exact binary you want to run, but if you double click the exe in the directory it works with steam closed. Lots of games (specifically indie games) have no DRM at all, you can freely copy to some other storage and play it later.
- simion314 3y ago
  >Lots of games (specifically indie games) have no DRM at all, you can freely copy to some other storage and play it later. I doubt your "lots" claim, it is ambiguous, do you maybe mean a very few ? I found this >Total number of DRM-free games: 1,075 out of 41,147 games in total. This is my source, if it is wrong let me know https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_... At least Valve games seem to be DRM free
bogwog 3y ago
Steam DRM is actually optional for devs, and even if it isn't, it's (allegedly) very easy to get around. If you download your games onto a new PC, you may be able to just copy the files over to the old one and launch them directly. Even if you have to crack the DRM, it's at the very least morally OK. It's more work, but that's life when using old hardware. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a software provider to support old hardware/OSes forever.

isk517 3y ago

I hated Steam at first, but purchasing Half-Life 2 on launch day and then being unable to play the single player game you physically had in your hands because the servers you need to login to were overload will do that to you. Overtime they slowly won me over, but I'd like not not have to rely on a company being a good steward of anything.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

Until Gabe Newell gets hit by a bus one morning, his children decide to take the company public to make tens of billions, and Disney buys the company to expand into video games to make up for declining theater revenue. Don't laugh. It's completely possible.

bogwog 3y ago
It's pretty much inevitable. I am a big fan of Valve, but fully support anything that reduces their stranglehold on PC gaming. If Epic supported Linux with their store, I'd go to it first when buying games. But even if I buy a game on EGS today, I can still probably play it on Linux through Steam for free thanks to Valve, so... I'm very conflicted to say the least.

cardanome 3y ago

The Steam monopoly[0] is problematic for indie game devs. You absolutely have to list your games there because many people will refuse to buy your game anywhere else even if you are listed on more player-friendly DRM-free platforms like GOG or itch.io. Yes, I get that players want to use one launcher for everything but with DRM-free, you know what? You don't need launcher! Just download and play! For the hefty 30 percent cut they take from devs, I would at least expect them to do some basic curation. They allow so many asset flips and general trash games to flood their listing making it very hard for players to find good indie games. Plus, censorship is a bit of a hit or miss. You see some very sexually explicit titles on steam but then again even relatively harmless stuff can get you flagged. This creates an insecure situation for devs in certain niches and not just erotic. For example Visual Novels can be easily flagged for having a certain art style. Artistic freedom and monopolies never mix well. [0] (Please no "Actually, it is not a monopoly...". Yes, I am using a broader definition of monopoly on purpose. )

slothtrop 3y ago
It's not a monopoly, there is no broader definition that would make it so. People just generally prefer using that platform.
- cardanome 3y ago
  If I as a game dev have to list my games on steam due to their overwhelming market dominance, they have a monopoly. Whether people like to use a platform or not is not even relevant for the question of monopolies. I use the term monopolistic to describe companies that have such a overwhelming market dominance that free market effects barely apply anymore. That is not the legal definition but a more useful definition that is popular in more progressive circles as it can be used to actually describe actual real world companies in the 21st century.
  - slothtrop 3y ago
    > If I as a game dev have to list my games on steam due to their overwhelming market dominance, they have a monopoly. You don't have to, and no.

maximus-decimus 3y ago

Well, except when they updated all versions of GTA IV where they changed all the songs because the licensing expired.

meroes 3y ago

Except they do retract paid for games from libraries without refunds (steal). It’s on smallish scales so the wider public doesn’t know. A specific example is removing Legends of Aranna from people who bought it as part of a bundle with the base game Dungeon Siege.