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Valve respects its customers. It is so insane that this isn't a norm; what a world we would be in if all companies did so.
by lazyfanatic42 11mo ago
Valve respects its customers. It is so insane that this isn't a norm; what a world we would be in if all companies did so.
- godzillabrennus 11mo agoDon't sugarcoat it. Valve has to make sure this is advertised as a PC to keep the licensing good on the games you've bought and that they are allowed to sell. Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have closed ecosystems with their consoles. Well, Microsoft seems to be throwing in the towel on consoles.
- ehnto 11mo agoBut it is also a PC, so I don't see the issue even if this were true. It's just a box running an Arch Linux flavour.
- justin66 11mo ago> keep the licensing good That’s an imaginary issue.
- jmkni 11mo ago> Well, Microsoft seems to be throwing in the towel on consoles. Can you expand on this? I'm not a massive gamer, I thought xbox was doing well?
- mlacks 11mo agoHalo was announced for PS5 recently
- LollipopYakuza 11mo agoAlso they state that the console will remain the centerpiece, they want to make Xbox a "platform" to reuse their own term. It becomes an ecosystem rather than a hardware product. They idea is that as long as you have a gamepass, you can play on whatever you want - except macOS and Linux...
- tekchip 11mo agoI think they think that's converted by streaming unfortunately.
- littlestymaar 11mo ago> They idea is that as long as you have a gamepass Didn't they just blow the remaining goodwill they had by increasing the gamepads price by 50% overnight?
- KeplerBoy 11mo agoYou can play gamepass on mac and linux via cloud streaming.
- thoroughburro 11mo ago> I thought xbox was doing well? It very much isn’t.
- kattagarian 11mo ago>I thought xbox was doing well? Microsoft lost the console wars. Their new generation (Series S & X) sold almost 1/4 of what PS5 did because they basically don't have any exclusive game that you can only play in their hardware. Microsoft invested heavily in their Gamepass subscription (that has more than 35 million users) and they believe that the future is on PC. The newest xbox hardware, a handheld made by Asus, is a PC running windows. The next generation of xbox hardware that will compete with the PS6 will also very likely be a PC. The xbox console is dead.
- xeonmc 11mo ago“I already have an Xbox One from 2013, why would I buy an extra X or S version?” “Oh, there’s a PlayStation 5 now? Man I gotta upgrade from my PS4!” Microsoft evidently did not learn from the Wii U.
- nkrisc 11mo agoMicrosoft’s naming scheme has to be one of the biggest self-goals in console gaming. Number go up.
- PaulHoule 11mo agoBack in the 1980s you got your Mom to buy you a game console and you would have needed a logical naming scheme so she would know an PS 3 was better than a PS 2. XBOX cultivates a "gamer" who is heavily invested in the identity and is well educated in the various versions of XBOX and how the naming scheme works and since they are an adult buying the console for themselves they don't need to explain it to outsiders.
- _carbyau_ 11mo agoThere are always first timers. How you treat your newbies says a lot about your respect for your customer. If your marketing makes it hard to figure out what is what, well a Playstation $int[max] it is...
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- georgeecollins 11mo agoIf only they had a game company like Bethesda or Actision. /S
- marricks 11mo agoDidn't Xbox pivot to be an entertainment system a couple generations ago and flop compared to PlayStation?
- fullstop 11mo agoIt probably didn't help that they removed all of those features over time.
- BlueTemplar 11mo agoYou mean compared to the PS3, one of the strong points of which was also having a Blu-Ray drive ?
- philwelch 11mo agoThis was the Xbone/PS4 generation. The Blu-Ray drive is basically no added cost since the games were already distributed on optical disks, it’s like how the PS2 was one of the most popular DVD players. The problem with the Xbone was that, at least judging on their marketing at the time, Microsoft was far more focused on broadening the scope of the device beyond games while Sony stayed focused on gaming. That’s why I bought a PS4 despite previously using an Xbox 360.
- ErroneousBosh 11mo ago> it’s like how the PS2 was one of the most popular DVD players I worked for a Sony dealer when the PS2 launched, and they wouldn't give us one :-/ What I thought at the time was insane was that they were still selling a 200-disc carousel CD changer, and DVD version of the same thing (same box, different shade of silver grey, different drive mechanism, two chips different on the PCB) - but they had no plans to sell a 200-disc carousel PS2. Imagine if you could have had all your movies, audio CDs, PSX, and shiny new PS2 games in one big box, tucked away out of sight, with your spiffy new 576p projector and 5.1 speakers hooked up to it!
- hannasanarion 11mo agoXbox One/PS4 is when both sides standardized on BluRay. When Xbox360 and PS3 came out, the format war was only just starting, and the consoles were on either side of it. PS3 came with a BluRay drive and the games were delivered on BluRay. Xbox360 came with software support for HDDVD, but the actual disk reader hardware was a DVD reader (famously, a large off-the-shelf part selected at the last minute that required a redesign of the cooling system to accomodate its size), and the HDDVD drive was an optional add-on that nobody bought. The fact that every PS3 could read BluRay, but you needed a special extra to play HDDVD on Xbox 360 is arguably the main reason BluRay won the format war.
- wat10000 11mo agoThis could be restated as: open systems mean you don't need a tangled web of partnerships to provide content, and Valve is taking advantage of this.
- marricks 11mo agoBecause they're not owned by private equity/publicly traded. If that ever happens the "let's squeeze this for every dime it's worth" will happen. That's really the saddest thing about capitalism, if everything around us wasn't getting enshittified in the exact same way at least the future would be more alluring.
- ehnto 11mo agoIt is nice to see people bucking the trend getting rewarded, I see a bright future for an open ecosystem for gaming (even ignoring the Steam announcements). DRM is the publishers choice, worth noting.
- neya 11mo agoGamers are a passionate bunch. Screwing around with them is a losing game that no one has historically ever won. And also because a lot of their competitors fucked up to pave the road for them (Think Sony's PS fiasco, Microsoft's X-Box clusterfuck from which they're yet to recover from, a decade later). Valve has gotten alot of billion dollar lessons in here that Valve got for free.
- 0x457 11mo ago> Screwing around with them is a losing game that no one has historically ever won. What universe do you live in? - Broken games still pre-ordered - marginal updates sold at full price - double/triple-dipping with microtransactions and battle passes - DRM still [predominant and still hurts performance - every publisher with more than one game has their own launcher (usually shitty and brings no value) - rootkit as anti-cheat - offline game that require online connectivety - online services get shutdown - LAN multiplayer is a thing of a past What did games exactly won? - Paid skyrim mods? It's back. - MS game sharing thing that rendered GameStop business model useless? IMO a mistake, MS was onto something there.
- ascagnel_ 11mo ago> every publisher with more than one game has their own launcher (usually shitty and brings no value) I view this as a positive -- it's not feasible to maintain a build for every game and storefront's DRM/auth (unless you go DRM-free, which is the ideal but not something publishers and developers do on release). A launcher is the layer that sits between -- the games are written to auth against a launcher, and the launcher has builds for each storefront. Otherwise you're just further entrenching Steam as the de facto monopoly on sales.
- 0x457 11mo agoMy problem with launchers other than steam and galaxy from GOG: usually shitty and brings no value. Paradox launcher is alright for example, it adds value in form of mod preset managment and ability to launch straight into saved game. What ever is in dune: awakening" exists just to tell me about their other games and as a result make game launching longer than it needs to be. Not only that it adds A LOT of friction when I launch it via Remote Play with a controller. Point is: if you make a launcher make sure it adds any value and not just an advertisementr billboard. As for store fronts: steam by far has the most functionality among PC storefronts.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- Powdering7082 11mo agoExcept that you don't own the things you buy on steam
- _carbyau_ 11mo agoThis is true. But it doesn't matter to me. Most media for me is a one and done. A book, a movie, a computer game. Granted a computer games version of "done" might mean "played on and off for a year". There are exceptions to this - books I read again, shows I'd watch again, but games seem to age poorly by comparison. Original Syndicate or Deus Ex - while playable - is not what I remember it to be and I'd rather keep the nostalgic memories than shatter them with a replay. This rarity of exceptions means that I wouldn't lose much if my Steam account disappeared - mainly just "whatever I'm playing now". Create a new account and go again, or buy off GOG or something. However in return for using Steam I get a lot of convenience - updates, propogated save files, easy chat and "Right click -> Join Game" with friends. That "Right click -> Join Game" is almost worth it on it's own for ease of social gaming.
- jamespo 11mo agoMost people consume like this, but some like the warm fuzzies that hoarding gives them.
- ehnto 11mo agoI would like to see change there for sure. That said, DRM is optional for publishers on Steam. Once you've downloaded a game without DRM (steam's or otherwise) you can back it up and play it without Steam.
- eloisant 11mo agoThis is true for all digital purchases, video games or otherwise. There is no such thing as "owning" a game unless you're the company that developed the game (or bought the company that did).
- hannasanarion 11mo agoThat is true for all media purchases since the invention of copyright in 1662. You think you own the Silmarillion because you have a paper copy? Hah! No, you have a transferrable license to read it. Every hard copy movie you have starts with a big green FBI warning reminding you that having that disc does not means you own the movie, it means you have a transferrable license to play it for yourself and small groups on small screens. Digital media with DRM allow content distributors to remove the "transferrable" part of the license if they want, which often allows them to sell for cheaper since they know that each sale represents only one person recieving the experience. The license comes with less rights (no transferrance), so it can be priced lower.
- 3acctforcom 11mo agoGabe is literally practising Noblesse Oblige, which is really funny but really shows that our billionare society is really just a reduction to old aristocracy. He's just the good Duke, whereas most Dukes are horrible, horrible people.
- bigyabai 11mo agoNoblesse oblige exists because of a moral economy. You can be a horrible Duke, because there's no real reward for being the good one. This is not that - Steam has to compete on the free market, there is a reward for making the product everyone else refuses to make. In a post-Deck world, it's hard to believe that moral obligation plays a bigger role than the overall hatred of Windows for seamless gaming experiences.
- B1FF_PSUVM 11mo ago> Noblesse oblige exists because ... the plebs know what is good for them. Horrible Dukes get horses wanting nails.
- m463 11mo agoWell the complements of steam are the OS and hardware. So commoditizing them increases sales. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ "A complement is a product that you usually buy together with another product. Gas and cars are complements. Computer hardware is a classic complement of computer operating systems. And babysitters are a complement of dinner at fine restaurants."
- faidit 11mo ago>He's just the good Duke The Gaben house is building a secret army, using a technique unknown to us; a technique involving steam.
- YeGoblynQueenne 11mo ago>> Valve respects its customers. That's the same Valve that doesn't let me play the games I paid it for unless they are running on its platform? That's how it "respects" me?
- ozten 11mo agoName a game distribution platform that doesn't do this. It will be a toy example like a zip file purchased off of itch.io or something.
- fph 11mo agoHumble Bundle
- ozten 11mo agoThe most common activation keys in a bundle are ... Steam keys.
- iN7h33nD 11mo agohttps://www.gog.com/ https://www.gog.com/ Is the largest one
- monkeywork 11mo agoGOG is hardly a toy and is the platform I look to purchase tons of games on instead of Steam (which I really like) and definitely over Epic (which I've never even installed)