Read the article, and you can tell they wanted to eventually become a powerhouse in PC gaming.
Now they are, but they're getting the pros & cons that go with it.
I'm not sure if they will ever realize that PC gamers are a force to be reckoned with.
Steam is merely a distribution platform, you can stick it to Valve by buying from anyone else so long as you get a key.
I personally recommend Humble Bundle as you can support the devs, charity, and Humble at your own discretion.
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GOG all the way! Boxed copies, too (Steam keys always included). Humble Bundle is awesome. Spend your money elsewhere, even if you're forced to use Steam afterwards!
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I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or merely annoying.
There is no charge for devs to generate Steam Keys (I bet Valve will change this eventually).
Which means Devs can give out / sell Steam Keys to whomever they wish and Valve will have to activate them.
Steam is merely a distribution platform. You literally don't have to spend a penny on Steam if you don't want to.
Valve will see zero profits. You'd be sending them a message by spending your money elsewhere.
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I was actually agreeing with you. Every since SGMA, I have used Steam without generating profit for Valve. I got my keys in boxed copies and on Humble or GMG.
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Valve will see zero profits. You'd be sending them a message by spending your money elsewhere.
Can't if you have regional pricing on Steam. Valve's offerings are cheaper, therefore people will still buy from them.
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You forgot the "if you don't want to" but I knew there would still be people buying from Steam.
Not everyone can use PayPal or a Credit Card. Some people can only get Steam Wallet cards.
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Yeah, the former two are not even available widely for Steam users in my country - as they usually are still students.
Steam Wallet codes (not cards here) are available through retail stores which accept bank transfers - so there's that. =\
Then again at this point it's just an advantage, people can actually buy and the money go to the game developers instead of none and for pirates.
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Bullshit. Steam is by far the most expensive platform in my country. Most platforms in my country top out at 35€, Steam tops out at 60€, for the same product.
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For a while I keep thinking of switching to GOG.
My only big fear is that I will invest a lot in another game distribution platform just to get fucked over again later. I can't trust anyone because I know I am only as loved as my money.
Same with Humble Bundle. They seem nice now, but how do I know they won't strangle me to death in my sleep?
Boxed copies seem the only safe bet, but they don't have all the benefits of an online platform. What to do, what to do...?
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Boxed copies almost exclusively contain Steam keys. The safest bet is GOG - if something hits the fan, nobody will take your games from you - as long as you store installers somewhere on your HDD (which I do, HDD space is cheaaaaap these days).
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Going further, I will tell OP some news: no company is your friend. coughbythewaywebsiteslikeSGarenotyourfriendseithercough
You are expected to do something for them, so they do something for you. It's a trade, not solidarity. There are ways of doing business which are more honest than others. Though nothing will change what they are: business. That's what capitalism is about.
The very nature of capitalism brings a lot of advantages and disadvantages for products, services and even humanity development: some things are improved, some things are worsened and some things stand still at all costs. All that in order to keep making profit.
Those are the rules of the game. I'm not telling you that's not wrong, but I'm not telling you are obliged to make part of it either.
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"I'm not telling you that's not wrong" - seeing your won/made GAs :-D
Jokes asides, you're perfectly right.
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I don't agree that PC gamers are a force to be reckoned with at all.
If they were, Valve would not have been able to get away with even a fraction of the anti-consumer actions that have characterised the evolution of Steam, and its near monopoly of a marketplace.
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And you mean that their counterpart the console games are smart ??
Also is steam better than EA/origin Ubi/uplay ??
I don\t give a dam rat about the companies :D
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This article is vile. It's sarcastic. It's an angry rant. Worst of all, it's correct.
People brainwashed themselves into thinking Valve is the good guy. All because a few exciting sales a few years ago. Steam is a virtual monopoly. When was the last time a monopoly was beneficial to us, consumers? Never. And with Valve doing crazy decisions, trampling all over consumer rights, we're given a front-row seat in a demonstration how monopolies are bad.
The worst part is that people absolutely love it and will defend it, because at the moment, it's mildly convenient for them.
Whoever wrote this article deserves a "I broke through brainwashing" medal. Good on them for pointing out the hypocrisy when Origin launched. Yes, at the start, Origin was buggy and inconvenient. Just like Steam after it launched. Years passed, Origin improved into a reliable platform that treats consumers with, at the very least, SOME respect, while Steam still treats consumers as slaves.
PS: In b4 mindless Steam drones defending Steam and attacking the author of this article
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If I had a literal monopoly over any one thing in the United States, every employee would make comfortable wages (in my area 50k a year is comfortable), and prices would reflect that. They'd be low as hell across the board.
Monopolies could be a good thing if we didn't have greedy bastards in charge of them.
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That never happens, though. Monopolies ALWAYS make things worse.
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As I said, if we didn't have greedy bastards running them they could be a good thing.
115 million households in the US. My monthly internet (as an example) is $30 (and that's on the extremely low price side)
We could realistically charge everyone in the US the same low price, and still make enjoyable wages plus pay for fiber optic infrastructure and FttH / FttP.
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You know, there was a time in which those companies were public, controlled by the goverment. Then privatisation started with promises of better prices and a more colourful world for customers. Now we have what we deserved (a shit on a stick) and the politicians who sold those public companies to private owners are rich.
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There are still thing like that around. I can't remember where it was in the U.S. but the town wanted Fiber Optic internet. Google & Verizon both told them no, so they raised the money themselves and made a Municipal Broadband Network made purely of Fiber to the Home / Premises. Since they raised the money and did the infrastructure work themselves the cost is extremely cheap.
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Happened in Spain too, Telefónica (now Movistar) was a public company, they spent public money to wire all the country and then get "sold" for like nothing (because it was sold to a friend of the ex-president José María Aznar)
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Eh... if nobody killed anyone, anti-murder laws would be not necessary...
What I'm trying to say is: everything could be good if all people had good sense. But people just don't have.
A wonderful world based on people's good sense would be beautiful, though utopic. We can't trust them to have unlimited power/freedom.
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try telling that to all the valve fanboys who yell I DONT WANT CHOICE. I DONT WANT DIFFERENT PLATFORMS. I WANT A SINGLE PLATFORM THAT CAN CHARGE ME WHATEVER IT WANTS, YAY!!
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And here is one of the biggest flaws with people arguing against Steam, nobody seems to quite realize that Steam doesn't set prices on most of the stuff on Steam, they price stuff made by Valve, duh, but most of the stuff is priced by either the publisher that put the game up, or by automatic price conversion from a country that has a listed price to one that does not, Steam isn't quite a monopoly yet either, GOG is still going strong, and Origin and the like are slowly experiencing gains, biggest issue for them is that they had to go through the same growing pains Steam did early on, while Steam gathers more well.... Steam(pun half intended), they're playing a hard game of catch up
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I think most people just like monopolies in general for some reason. Think Google and Facebook, for instance. 😐
Valve isn't that much compared to those... That's actually why I started using Steam more: I've refused to use them for a long time because I think they have too big a share in the gaming industry, but after all we've got many much bigger problems... (I still spend barely anything on Steam though, I buy keys elsewhere, like many of us here I suppose ^^)
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I think that you have to be a greedy bastard to successfully create a monopoly in the first place, though.
And, while it's about leadership in general rather than CEOs, this video applies as well. If you achieved complete dominance of a market, you didn't do it alone - you had investors, other companies working with you, agreements and "donations" to people in the government, and so on. Even if you're a benevolent dictator, none of those people are supporting you out of the goodness of their hearts - and even if they wanted to, they have people supporting them, in turn, who they need to pay off.
The basic way power (whether it's financial or political) is accumulated makes it nearly impossible to use it benevolently, whether you're a dictator or a CEO or a president. That doesn't mean that some people aren't worse than others, of course, but generally speaking the difference between 'benevolent' leaders and bad ones isn't whether they're good people or not but who they owe their power to. If you tried to run a monopoly for the common good, your stockholders would force you out, or the politicians propping you up would switch sides to someone who can pay them off better, or the other companies whose policies force people into your monopoly would send them somewhere else instead.
This is why monopolies are inherently bad - a monopolist owes their power to a small number of people who they have to pay off, which leads to corruption, decisions that are shitty for customers, etc. Whereas (at least in theory) if you have more competition, then the CEO who wants to stay on top has to devote at least some of their resources to pleasing the customers (and the stockholders or whoever can't demand too much, because they know that money spent on improving the product is legitimately necessary for them to get their take as well.)
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"Stockholders will force you out" Never take the company public, then you will never answer to anyone.
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Where is the money coming from than? Private Investors? Why would they be any different
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Considering the amount of group funded websites we have now, you never know who is on the other side of the screen giving you money.
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Google isn't a just website though, it's a company with a website. The website doesn't have the monopoly, it IS the monopoly. :P
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To tell truth, I'm not sure Valve wanted to create a monopoly. They just stick to PC when especially MS done all they could to destroy the PC Gaming.
And then they invited some small companies to also sell their games through Steam. And then suddenly everyone wanted to sell through Steam and, well, power corrupts...
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People whine about some of the prices on Steam and yell at Valve over it, but they should just yell at the publishers who put it on Steam, Valve doesn't price 98% of the shit on Steam, they only price the stuff they put up, and Steam just auto-converts prices for places that don't have a listed price already, from a place that does have a price
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a) Valve prices things on Steam. Games from publisher X cost very differently on Steam and in a boxed copy directly from that publisher
b) publishers are still afraid of the 2012's "we won't buy the game if it's not on Steam"
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A is wrong, the boxed copy costs more because, BIG FUCKIN SHOCKER, it costs more money to fucking make then just distributing a digital copy, Valve does not do the pricing, on their whole thing about the new gifting change, its mentioned that if a dev wants to make a game giftable to anywhere, THEY have to specify regional prices that are very similar, Steam's only job in pricing games they didn't make is auto converting prices for regions that don't have one specified
B... at this point I don't think they fear that, so much as know that, Steam's gotten strong enough that its actually fact not fiction now, people aren't gonna get games if they aren't on Steam, either due to lack of convenience, or due to not seeing it, or any other number of possibilities, Steam has become a juggernaut that as a Triple A Dev/Publisher, you can't just ignore if you are going on PC
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Uh.... nope. Not where I live.
It's odd.
Examples: Homeworld, Deserts of Kharak:
Boxed copy - game, season pass, full soundtrack, poster, oldschool guide, and a beautiful artbook. Cost me 20€ on release day. Got a bonus T-shirt, too, with games' vehicles and logo.
Steam copy - 50€. Base game, nothing else.
Darkest Dungeon - boxed copy - cheap artbook, nice box. 15€.
Steam copy - base game - 20€.
Witcher 3 - boxed copy, some bonuses (papercraft characters, a map, etc), and a necklace with Wolf's head - 35€.
Steam copy - 60€.
Tyranny, limited edition - boxed copy, artbook, oldschool guide, and a walkthrough, neat box - 27€.
Steam - 45€.
DOOM 2016 - Boxed copy, with a poster, stickers, guide, and things you sew into clothes - 25€.
Steam? 60€
For fucks' sake, Dark Souls 3 COLLECTOR'S EDITION, the one with badass figurine, a cloth map and a beautiful A4 artbook cost me roughly 90€.
Steam copy, base game? 60€.
There is the same for every single game in existance in my country. Boxed copies are always at LEAST 45% cheaper than Steam keys.
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Wooo, your country is speshial, most of those boxed copies were like 50% more expensive then on Steam during release for most people, for fucksakes I saw copies of Witcher 3 going for 75$ around release date, not even fancy collectors edition or shit
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Where do you live? Because I've looked at German prices and USA prices and they are never higher than Steam prices. Often equal, but never higher.
Base prices, of course, not when on sale.
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That sounds a lot like communism, for better or worse. In our world, monopolies are always about selling the worst (cheapest) product at the highest possible price. One might argue all business works like that, but in a monopoly that's basically the only concern.
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True communism is a good thing. The shit they had in Russia was Communism in name only (the top people were simply skimming off of everyone else)
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good for some, not good for others
same goes for capitalism - good for some, not good for others
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Communism is good on paper. So is Capitalism. In practice, neither one directly addresses greed and/or lust for power and IMO that is the biggest problem. I agree with a lot of your points.. but in the US things aren't really a true capitalist society. We have monopolies (or technically we have a lot of "oligopolies"... don't get me started on the telecom industry here) which shouldn't even exist in a true free trade society because they are or were at some point in time sanctioned by the government and now are so big they buy off people in the government.
Not too go too political... was an independent myself but if Trump wanted to turn me into a supporter, I would be behind him 100% if he busted up Comcast, Time Warner, Disney, Verizon, AT&T. And yeah, I'll say it... probably even Alphabet aka Google too (although they are my favorite of the bunch but fair's fair).
//Edit: Not that I'm disillusioned enough to think he'd actually even consider it.
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No, we're actually an Oligarchy considering the Senators listen to the Lobbyists (and the Lobbyists get paid by the Companies)
instead of the people who voted them into office.
Also, if you follow the money almost every company is owned by another company.
It's just one giant shell game of "follow the tax loopholes"
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The stated intentions of communism are a good thing. I'll leave it at that.
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Russia had socialism.
No country in existance ever achieved communism
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You know, not everything has to be in favor of capitalism or socialism.
It's not as if you are against something, you have to be for the other something else. World is too complex to be classified in dualities or simple Manichaeism.
I don't think any of those systems prioritize humanity progress.
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Globalism prioritizes humanity's progress, but so many people are wrapped up in Religion or Conspiracy Theory to actually understand why we need it.
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People like feeling powerless over big questions about world and life, which they believe are far beyond their control, so they can rely on something that offers a minimum explanation for their insecurities or lack of information. Anchoring and negativity bias explain it.
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And who grts to define what progeess is? Are you anlightened enough? A clique of people will be enough? You just did a tirade against monopolies but you fail to understand that globalism will lead to the absolute monopoly.
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I didn't do a tirade against monopolies. I did a tirade for monopolies but only if the CEO or stockholders aren't greedy bastards.
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In any hyper-competitive environment, without a system of checks and balances, the ones who float at the tops are always the biggest turds, that should be apparent to anyone. How you can believe that magic globalism will resolve this with is beyond me. You can't change human nature, you can just be vigilant and put the turds in the waste pit from time to time, but be careful because they are slippery and the first thing they learned when they came out of the anus is to escape quickly.
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A system of checks and balances can also be extremely flawed.
The U.S. government is the clearest case of this I can think of.
Each branch no longer really does their job against the other branches.
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Then it's time for the citizens to get their shit together and promote reforms in the most petulant and uncompromising way, but with a pragmatist mindset. They have to learn how their own house works, gradually, trying to find where the bugs are and what are the best ways to remove them. Every politician and bureaucrat must be disposable, no entrenched power groups or cabals must be spared. It will be not easy to remove decades of rust and dirt but it's what has to be done to preserve the rights of the citizens.
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I agree with everything you said but the last line. But I found the comparison relevant in this case, because a lot of the discussion is about the role, purpose and ethics of coprorations and communism is - at least in its intentions - a radically alternative economic system where the role of corporations is taken by different entities with different roles and purposes. Mine was not a pledge of allegiance, though.
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SG quote system is really confusing, so I don't really know what comment you were answering to when you first talked about communism.
As you said, in communism corporations are controlled by different individual entities, belonging to everyone and to no one at the same time. A rather vague concept and really difficult to imagine how it would work, since it never really happened. In socialism, otherwise, corporations were/are actually monopolized by government, what's not so different from some capitalism monopolies.
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True, it's hard to have a proper discussion with this layout. Socialism is a very broad concept and I think what you described is the type of socialism which blends with what is usually called communism, without a faith in a specific thinker or leader.
I know it's not necessarily an accepted analysis, but I mostly consider communism as a teleological, quasi-religious take on socialism.
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I have no idea about politics, but what about worker cooperatives?
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You know we have tried total monopoly in Eastern Europe.... it didn't work out very well...
See history....
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I'm going to assume you're talking about dictators and not a benevolent monopoly that would benefit everyone involved (including the consumer)
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Nope, I am talking about communism.
"Benevolent monopoly"??? Such thing doesn't exist...sadly...
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My entire point is that it could, and it should. It would simply take a lot of like minded people to do it.
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Sorry for being pessimistic, but that is a utopia....history seems to have proved that a monopoly-based system can't work...as benevolance is not exactly part of human nature.
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I understand your pessimism entirely. The world as it is today is rather sickening.
And the last time (that I know of anyways) someone attempted to make a Utopia, the U.S. Government (Crooked bastards that they are)
killed off as many of them as they could (Waco Texas).
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Adventists aren't exactly aiming for world changing order. What were they proposing?
There were a bunch of utopias recently, like - the already flawed - Venus Project
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The thing about Valve employees is that Valve employs very few people, doesn't it? Like, it could afford to employ a lot more, get a lot more work done, have good customer service and quality control, but no, they're a "small company" in terms of employees, an argument people sometimes raise. Well, I'm sure it's a very profitable company, so it could afford to make improvements if it wanted to. Isn't this the case? Please point out if I'm wrong; I haven't looked into this in-depth. But, yes, googling shows it has 360 employees.
All I need to know Steam isn't good for gaming is that it doesn't support drm-free (ie. full) ownership of the purchased product... so, if it ever goes down, or gets some kind of user fee attached to it, whether because it's sold or the current owners change their minds... you don't outright own your product. Otherwise, it's a pretty convenient and useful service. I like it for a lot of reasons, to be honest. It works as a gaming social network, the user reviews are incredibly useful and are a way of keeping publishers honest (CoD: Infinite Warfare has something like 18% positive reviews right now lol), and a one-stop hub for a lot of things.
Also, the fact that Valve has stopped making actual games, despite so much demand for Half Life 3, for instance (they'd make a ton on it) and is content to sit and rake in the profits from its store also rubs me the wrong way. They're going into VR now, but that's not much.
And yeah, I honestly have no problem with Origin and Uplay. They're not much different from Steam, and you can see the influence of this Good Guy Steam reputation in how much people don't like Uplay and Origin. If they want to give me free games, or restrict the games they offer for cheap in Humble Bundles to their own platforms, I don't really have a problem clicking on a different icon on my desktop.
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The only reason I hate Steam, Uplay, & Origin has to do with DRM. I really prefer GOG over anything but lots of publishers and indie devs completely forget about GOG.
I'd love to see Humble Bundle and others make deals with GOG so we can finally get GOG some more influence.
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People confuse developers selling (and discounting) their games on Steam with Valve being great. My personal problem is that Origin and Uplay are okay-ish, but their selection is so, so small and almost nothing interests me from their usual franchises :\
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The problem is systemic, with the way companies are organized. They are run by an elected board, but the rules for voting are that for every share in the company you get one vote. So it's literally whoever has this most capital, IE money, gets the most votes. This is a completely undemocratic system. Board members are forced to do whatever the shareholders want in order to keep their positions. Shareholders want more money so they can keep control over the company and keep making more money. It's an endless cycle that only leads to companies being organized in a way that funnels money upwards to the top 1%. Then these top 1% end up having the most influence over politics because they have such an exponentially greater amount of resources than everyone else. For real democracy to work corporations should be democratic as well, with every worker in the company getting an equal vote in how the company is run. This has been demonized by corporate propaganda over time as evil communism, but it's actually a much more democratic system if the workplace (the way society organizes people to do the work society needs to be done) is also democratic.
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I know what you mean. Companies are also trying to demonize Unions as well.
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As much as I like it (which is getting less and less) Steam is a cult
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i'm only halfway thru it so far... reserving this for future comment...
however, so far it reads like someone is really super upset about this latest change and wants to rant about their entire history up until this latest change-point.
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That's Polygon for you. Only website that's worse is Kotaku.
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yeah i don't think i need to even edit my prior post, i pretty much nailed it. it's not a completely unjustified rant, but it's still a rant nonetheless. ^^
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Kotaku vs Polygon? That is tough. They are so horribly bad, it's hard to choose the worse evil.
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Can you recommend me some good game journalism websites, please? :)
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Oh yes, it's definitely a rant. It's written with a sarcastic, vile language. However, the author of this article is not wrong on any of his points. Besides angry comments he offers a lot of objective, and real information.
To me it sounds like the author loved Valve like we all did... and then woke up. Realised the truth about this Stockholm syndrome and realised that we're screwed, and any improvements are gonig to be painful and long-term only.
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yeah, that's what i meant on my reply with "not a completely unjustified rant", cause it's still accurate as best as i can tell too. we did a lot of it to ourselves though sadly, just like the article says pretty much.
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"... the author of this article is not wrong on any of his points"
Free labor? What, you want Valve to pay you as a marketer because you get excited over holiday sales and make posts about it of your own free will? Also, confusing net worth with net income? ($3M fines for operating in one country (knowing others may follow in other countries) are supposedly painless because the company is worth $3B globally.) Being on the losing side of a court case that is treading new ground about digital distribution is supposedly proof of evil intents. Why is it a shock any company doesn't want to pay more in taxes than necessary, up until the courts say it is?
I'm undecided about Steam, and while I didn't (and still don't, I'd have to read a lot of those links, and I'm not getting paid to do that, so...) know all the details about these refund policies, developer profit rates, and other controversies, this article is begging the question most of the time, and really, really reaching at its worst moments.
And besides, as others have pointed out, there are a lot of alternatives now that don't feed Valve money. It's better than ever before.
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I have a feeling you only skimmed the article.
Also, in the future, please don't use your own ignorance as an argument against something. It's... embarassing (second paragraph).
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On your first point, you're dead wrong.
On your second point, you misunderstand. I'm not using my "ignorance as an argument." I took the writer's objective statements as fact (I didn't dive into the links to try to refute his portrayal of the controversies), and still rolled my eyes at the subjective interpretations. Maybe he's right, maybe not, but he is certainly using unstated and unargued assumptions and opinions I don't share to bridge the gap from facts to interpretation,.
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Yes, the article is written in a vile way. Doesn't make those hard facts go away, though. Even EA treats people better. EA!
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Surprisingly, it's a good article. A vile rant, sure, but 100% correct.
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I get HuffPo news in my android phone (spanish version, I don't know the quality of the US one). I hate the idea of blocking news sites, but I am getting very close when half the news are comments politicians made in twitter.
Polygon I would block it in a heartbeat, however.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Please judge the message, not the messenger.
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Do you know what an unreliable narrator is? When you can't trust the messenger, the message loses traction.
The concept of not shooting the messenger doesn't apply when the messenger is actually the one writing the message.
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"Not shooting the messenger" is a different concept. Clicking links is not dangerous (well, sometimes it is, like when they leads you to some page with malware, but that is not the case here, you can click and read and stay safe)
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Well, there are a bucketload of links and raw information in there, so no, this isn't an unreliable narrator. For every claim, there is a link provided.
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This is how I've felt about Steam from the very start, it's merely a necessary evil I have to live with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Use GOG, those are the good guys...
... or UPLAY DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
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GOG & Valve both take the same cut of profits, 30%.
Humble Bundle are the good guys.
GOG is only good because people are truly tired of DRM and GOG (currently) doesn't sell games with DRM in them.
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Honestly, I find the 30% profit cut is the weakest argument in this article. If you compare it to brick & mortar, if you buy a $60 game the store is probably getting at least $30 out of that. That's just business, 100% markup is usually the minimum at retail. Then, after that, a chunk goes to the printers, manufacturers of the discs and cases, delivery, etc. That's a pretty far cry from the 70% they'd get to have from selling on Steam or GOG. Of course, in the process the consumer is getting less out of the equation in some ways than they would with a physical product. But I'm willing to bet that the publishers and developers have been pleased as can be to get their 70%, compared to what came before.
So, yeah. Valve's done some pretty reprehensible stuff, and has a great talent for doing as little actual work as possible in order to rake in the cash. But I am not at all concerned about them taking 30% from each purchase.
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The 30% might not bother the AAA Devs / Publishers, but it bothers the indies who are just getting started.
They don't have a big budget to begin with and many are in debt just trying to get off the ground.
So a 30% cut of their blood, sweat, & tears is a pretty big deal.
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The fact that they can sell a game on a major platform digitally by giving that platform "just" 30% is the only thing that enables indies to thrive at all. How many independently-published games did you see for sale before digital distribution was a thing? They could have the highest cut possible by doing almost everything themselves and selling through their website, which a sizable number of them do. And yet, almost none of them sell that way exclusively. Most still seek to put their games onto as many platforms as possible despite having to accept less money from each copy sold, because they make more money that way (often, MUCH more money). The ones who complain about this have so little knowledge of how business is done that they have trouble accepting it. The fact that someone so out of the loop on the realities of selling a product can even try to make a living doing so while remaining ignorant probably says a lot about just how good they have it.
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Not forgetting the new kid ,Denuvo
Extra drm on top of steam and also pushes up the cost of a game.
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That's true, DRM software does add to the cost of the making games. But unlike doing things like paying wages for the team or finding a way to sell the product, that cost is completely optional. And according to whatever math or myths they're using to decide on using DRM, they think it's worth it. I would imagine, or at least hope, that no dev/publisher is going to bitch about the cost of something they didn't even have to do (and arguably shouldn't be doing at all) like adding DRM.
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shame internet privacy is getting so bad or i'ed go back to pirating everything.
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I'm pretty sure this is sarcasm, but in the U.S. no one can stop you from pirating except a Federal Agency.
Any letters can be safely ignored as the Watchdog Groups are violating Federal Wiretapping Laws.
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give it time dumbold trump wants to pass net laws luckily he is fixated on kicking everyone off healthcare so he can cut 15% for the ritch in his tax plan. he already let net providers sell our info.
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It is not about the 30% cut. Both physical distribution and console distribution has much higher fees. Valve's 30% is actually still a pretty fair one, considering they have to upkeep the entire server park.
It is more about the approach and how they handle things. Like the part in the article about how they even go as far as breaking laws just to keep their real profit numbers secret. Or how they pretend to be upfront and honest, yet refuse to tell any actual specifics about anything.
Compared to that, GOG is somewhat of a fumbling team that still tries to involve the user base and keep them informed, even if they have the tendency to silently drop topics or pretty much forget about stuff.
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B-but... Half-Life... and sales... Valve did that for us no?
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Steam do plenty of shitty things, but they aren't forcing people to buy games on Steam at gunpoint. It's up to other platforms to provide a decent alternative. If there was some gaming nirvana we would all be using it - supply and demand and all that.
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lol, yeah. while reading it i kept thinking to myself "we did that to ourselves", and yep "did that to ourselves as well" throughout most of it.
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We buy into Steam for the convenience and for the entertainment and we keep turning a blind eye to the shit like it's some kind of abusive spouse that we are afraid to leave. And it isn't because we are afraid of what kind of life we would have without Steam - it's because we know what kind of life of life we would have with uPlay and Origin. Why somebody couldn't have claimed Steams market share by now is beyond me...
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While uPlay is kind of crap, Origin has been great for years now. And it has the best customer support out of these three platforms.
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I'm not opposed to Origin as a platform - but in plenty of other ways EA do keep shooting themselves in the foot...
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uPlay is kind of crap
client is fine by now, I like the colors more than origin
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Do they still force you to have a stupid "bot like" nickname and a pre rendered profile avatar?
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"bot like" nickname
what's that?
pre rendered profile avatar
predefined choices are available, but also own upload
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the last time I entered to uplay to activate a bunch of assassins creed games I bought, I wasn't able to change my name and the name I had was a pregenerated nickname with a bunch of numbers on it, it was something like "guest1234354" or "gamer43434" something like that. I haven't logged in since then. My assassin creed games are accumulating digital dust.
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I was amazed recently when I logged in and was able to actually change my nick. After years of them saying they couldn't do anything about the rather embarrassing choice of usernames I made when I purchased AC2 I finally have something I can comfortablly use in multiplayer games.
Unfortunately it still requires you to update the client with sometimes long downloads almost every time you start it before you can access your games.
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Only if you use it rarely. Origin, Steam, and Galaxy have periodic updates also.
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Aside from GOG, Origin and uPlay, pretty much every game on PC has to be activated on a Steam account to play.
And it's our fault. Fault of people who screamed "if it's not on Steam I will not buy it" when SPAZ and Baldur's Gate Enhanced were coming out. Fuck those people. I take pride in the fact that by that time I already realised what's going on.
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And it's our fault. Fault of people who screamed "if it's not on Steam I will not buy it" when SPAZ and Baldur's Gate Enhanced were coming out
You lost me. Both of those are on GOG.
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They are now, but when they were coming out (2011 and 2012 respectively) SPAZ people nearly went bankrupt because Valve didn't let them publish their game on Steam for a few months, and a year later Baldur's Gate EE people were bullied into making a deal with Steam. Some morons were literally saying "will not buy if it's not on Steam".
That was 5 years ago, so many people don't remember. 5 years ago GOG was a cute novelty, not serious competition to Steam. Hell, back then it was still called "Good Old Games".
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Other platforms aren't beating steam in prices to get their share in the market. Myself and i'm sure a lot of others will buy wherever they find the cheapest price.
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Technically, they do, because Steam has exclusivity on many games. It is not even the "console exclusive" argument, because what Steam does would be the equivalent of certain PlayStation games being only purchasable at certain store chains and nowhere else.
And this is a catch-22, because they have a lot of exclusives because they are the biggest store, and they are the biggest store because they have a lot of exclusives.
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I don't need Valve to be my friend, I just want to play video games.
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Who needs friends when you have videogames? That's the question.
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+1
My video games never stabbed me in the back or had sex with my best friend.
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"The Enrichment Center reminds you that --the Weighted Companion Cube-- Steam will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak. In the event that --the weighted companion cube-- Steam does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice."
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Due to bad consumer policies initiated by steam, a lot of people are moving onto the gog.com.
Thats a pretty good anti-drm distribution software.
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I suggest buying your Steamworks games on Amazon, GMG or Humble. Or boxed copies (they always have Steam keys). That way you get to play, you don't generate revenue for Steam (sending a message), and often it'll cost you less.
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since you recommend Amazon, can you tell me where to check does the pc version of the game sale on Amazon is have Steam key or not ?
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Holy crap, scratch that. I can't seem to find any anymore. They must've purged their stock after launching games on Twitch.
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Whatever are you talking about? Anyone who wants can sell on Amazon. They aren't going to kick game publishers off there.
One random example:
https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Souls-Prepare-Online-Game/dp/B00917DBUE/
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ohhhhhhhhh, so it there, it not list back then... when i discover steam for the first time around 2011-2012 i think . Haven't check amazon a single time since that time
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Any company of this size will always have bad parts as well, any company we would have got instead of Valve would have done things mostly the same (with a bit of luck slightly better or of course much worse) but I don't think a perfect one could ever exist because we are humans after all, we are not perfect and thus anything we achieve will never be perfect. Greed is one of our core characteristics so of course any huge company will only mirror ourselves.
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checks and balances. if a company gets bad the people need to keep it in line. its our money they are making so we can control what they do to a point. if a company is bad its cause the people let it get that way.
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If we as a society would possess collective consciousness then yea we could control things like this but we act as a mob and a mob isn't very smart nor easily informed or taught. Yea a portion of the mob can get mobilized and do things differently but it would be such a small portion that it wouldn't matter. As individuals all we can do is go with the flow, we can definitely try not to and ask for a change but if the rest of the mob won't take example from those individuals then it's all in vain and most of the time they won't .
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This is the first good Polygon article I've ever read.
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Were they ever? Well I guess a lot of ignorant people forget that the bottom line for every corporation is $$$.
Edit:Did not read article, don't care what some so-called video games journalists have to say about something I already knew 7 years ago I was forced to install Steam to play DOW 2.
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So what is the news here? Valve is a company, a company that wants to make profit. Wow I am in shock, how could they?
More seriously I like my Steam account, I like to have all my games at one place, I like all the possibilities and I like the big sales in which I never pay more than 25% of my most wanted games. The rest I wait for them to get bundled in a bundle with? Right Steam keys. Why Steam keys. Because Steam is that popular. Would I like it better to pay a 100% for every game so that a good guy who also just wants to make profit gets it? NO.
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I like all the possibilities
Do you really? Isn't enclosing yourself in just one platform limiting your possibilities?
Aren't Valve making recent changes that actually took away possibilities from the users ?
I am not antagonizing you, but I don't really understood what you mean with that phrase.
Personally, I think that putting all your money in one place(speaking in general not only about this topic) is not logical since we are merely humans and cannot control all the variables that will undoubtedly occur bringing change with them.
For example, lately I have been trying to buy some games I already own on Steam at GOG, so if I ever lose my Steam account, for whatever reason out of my control, I will still have those games on other platforms. It is not a cheap thing to make obviously but if I can help it, I will diversify my money investment in many places in order to reduce the risks.
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You are completely right. Having everything in one place gives restrictions and makes everything very vulnerable. That's why when I just started I preferred drm free games like GOG. Thinking what is mine should stay mine :). Even when Gabe decides he wants to sell or just lay back with a cocktail. Than I had a look at Steam and got addicted. Believe it or not up till 2 years ago I never heard of Steam.
By now I have bought several games I already own at gog or xbox on Steam as well. There is absolutely no logical explanation for that except that I like it to have everything in one place. See them all there, not forgetting any. By now there is no way back as I've spent all my spare money on Steam games, put a lot of effort in leveling up, groups, trading and ofc SG. The only thing you can accuse Steam of imo is that they are very good in what they do. If you like games you can not ignore them and once you are in you can't nor want to get out. Chapeau! And this is getting worse and worse. The more money and time you've spend on Steam the more you want to stay there not willing to give up all of that.
I can live with that. No-one ever forced me to make a Steam account or buy there. I do have some brains but decided not to use them for the pleasure, comfort and good things I get out of it now. Is that wise? No. Do I like it. Yes. Will I go crazy if Steam pulls the plug some day? Ohh yes! So let's hope they stay greedy and keep it up.
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Yeah, even after all I also like Steam just because of the push they made to the PC gaming market. I also have most of my games there so I don't want to see it disappear. Ideologically, I will still support GOG more than Steam though.
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If you wanted to pay less, you would get the games from whatever site was actually cheaper. e.g. GMG, GG, Amazon, WinGameStore, etc.
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And I do. Not the grey market sellers but whenever I see a game I really want I buy it from any of these stores.
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What the hell did you guys expect from a company? Are you aware of the recent Microsoft updates which will eventually force every single piece of software to go through the Windows Store? Companies exist to make money. Consumers spend money. Steam is a great platform where you can organize all your games and download whatever you want, whenever you want. Would you rather have a closet full of CDs? Or just have an HDD filled with 500 games? This is a stupid complaint. In stores, games stay at 60 bucks for a year, maybe more... On steam, 6 months after release you can probably buy the game for half price! You don't feel good about consuming, well maybe get a life and stop playing computer games, but let me enjoy my games all in one place! I wish there was a steam for music, where I could have all my albums stored, instead of having a bunch of cds or having to use shitty old iTunes.
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As Far as I can tell, though I've only had a weird cursory look at an article Windows 10S is a seperate OS, for educational/business uses. I personally don't have a problem with that. If Windows decides to force the issue and make it the base choice, then there will be backlash.
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Since the release of Windows 10 that Microsoft has been slowly increasing the need for Universal Windows Protocol. They know there would be backlash, but if they slowly make it obligatory, most users won't even notice, until it's everywhere...
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I know what you mean. I bought Fallout 4 in a mall for 25€ when it's sold on steam for 60€. However, both Fallout and GTA are over a year old. Which means stores eventually had to lower the price. Steam works in a different way. You can buy those games on a Steam sale merely half a year after release for -50%, but they then return to their original price and keep switching between original and sale price until sales start to drop (i assume). In most physical stores, the price doesn't move for a whole year, but when the price drops, it's permanent.
In other words, buying games on steam only compensates when it's on sale or right after release, since the price is the same everywhere.
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It's 2017 on Earth and someone just get knowing that corporates aren't your friends and, mostly, evil money-suckers. Damn.
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This is different. Aside from Apple, there isn't another corporation that has a fanatical cult following. If Gaben started demanding virgin sacrifice with all purchases, or implemented a 15$ Steam account access monthly fee, there would be thousands of people swarming to defend Valve.
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Really? And Musk? Uber? Microsoft? Sony? Big N? Of cource people would defend something that gives 'em good emotions in this given world. Be it gaming platform, evil corporation or some actor, commited a crime etc. Its people's nature. And guess what "good" about people nature? It can be monetized! And that's what all capitalism stands on.
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Uber doesn't have a cult following. It's quite controversial. Musk is likeable, but there is no cult. Microsoft is universally disliked as acompany, and Sony is avearage. What is "Big N??
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Some (many) gamers do have "teams" (= fan cults) when it comes to consoles/gaming platforms. They also have nicknames (boxists, sonysts and nintendists and, of course, there are even the so-called PCists, which call themselves the "master race")
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All that companies has its own core of fans, who protects them whatever happens. Some of them e.g. Musk has a number of cultists. I personally speak with a man, who seriously called Musk "a tech god". And you cant imagine what cult has Uber in Western Europe, Russia and CIS. People in earnest called it "miracle" and "next technological way" And all Internet knows about holywar between sonyboys, xboxers, N's and PC Master Race. It can be absolutly religious sometimes,
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Maybe, but Valve is the only company in gaming with a cult following of that size. Even Nintendo is behind, and Nintendo only makes some products and games... rarely. Meanwhile, Valve BECAME PC Gaming.
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Nope, the numbers tell a different story. There was 125 mil. registred Steam accounts at the end of 2015 and 12.5 mil active users. Now it's about the same. And there was 101+ mil sold Wii consoles by the March of 2016. You can see the difference between 125 mil free accounts and 101 mil sold devices. And the motivation to defend something you paid for, is significantly higher. More of it, Steam Store has only 192th place in Alexa Internet rating. How it can ever possible that one company becomes "PC gaming"? If it would be real, then it might be Microsoft. Because without Windows PC gaming cannot exist (and without Steam - can)
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You're comparing apples to oranges here, two different markets (PC games and consoles).
Your stats only prove that the number of PC gamers on Steam didn't grow - which is not surprising, given that by 2015 "Steam" has been synonymous with PC gaming for a few years now (my money is on 2012, when people were most crazy about it, campaigning to boycott games that didn't go onto Steam, bullying Baldur's Gate into signing a shit deal with Valve)
Also, there is PC gaming on Linux. Takes some tinkering, but works.
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You tell me that, quote "Valve is the only company in gaming with a cult following of that size" I get the numbers, that Nintdendo has the same gamers base and they are better motivated because they spend their money to join the club. And Sony-Microsoft got non the less, I can bet on it. So no, Valve is not the only company in gaming with its own cult.
Linux has some games. But theres no PC gaming on Linux. Because gaming is not only about technical possibility, its wide phenomenon, including community, market, even own culture. It all formed on Windows.
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Nintendo fans are just fans. Not a cult following. You don't see people saying every day how Nintendo is second coming of gaming Christ. As opposed to Steam.
"But theres no PC gaming on Linux."
I beg to differ. Most Windows titles are easly playable on Linux.
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implemented a 15$ Steam account access monthly fee
Ignoring your previous example, this one you're just making ridiculous example. That isn't going to happen, and we all know it. Honestly at this point I see you as Volvo hater.
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Ahhh yes, the classic "they would never do it" argument.
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"Remember that even the retail version of Half-Life 2 required the installation of Steam, which means any store that sold PC software was selling you their doom with every copy of the game."
Ouch.
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Shut up. I can quit any moment. It's just I prefer to stick with steam.
Jokes aside, does any other "retailer" has region price adjustments?
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GOG gives you back the difference between currencies.
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And that works how exactly? "If a product on GOG.com costs more in your country than the price in the US, we will make up the difference in value" doesn't explain much.
Let's take Dead Space (2008 game) for example. Steam price 5.27$, GOG USD price 17.19$, GOG RUB->USD 17.56$.
Dex: Steam 7.36$, GOG USD 7.19$ , GOG RUB->USD 7.36$. Ok, this one's fine.
UnderRail: same picture as Dex.
Fallout (the first one). Steam 4.37$, GOG USD 9.99$, GOG RUB->USD 10.35$.
I'm getting the difference between GOG USD and GOG RUB->USD I presume.
So yeah, some games have regional pricing and steam price=gog price, why change one to another then? Also steam has other features, like workshop and such.
So apparently i can't quit anytime and I'm steamoholic.
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Yeah, you simply get the difference between the USD amount and your local currency. For Europeans it's, well, it's something, since we end up paying 60 euros for 60-dollar games when that isn't equal.
Still, don't see why they wouldn't just convert the price and be done with it instead of making you have a pile of cents gained from the difference.
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Yeah, checked some titles on steamdb and it's +11% for EU region, so that's kind of good for EU, but if you check other regions prices they're mostly -%%. They don't "just convert the price" because, well, I suppose they do. The difference might appear because every country sets own currency exchange rate for it's citizens.
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Polygon lol
Talking about monopoly. Ubi and especially EA are big corporations, they could invest and offer users something better, create a competition,
add some new features, but instead they do nothing because they're too greedy. The funny thing is GOG is the smallest and offers better service than those two.
Every company EVERY! Cares about profit only. GOG is no different than steam their aim is profits. We are just numbers in their book which generates income.
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Ironicly enough, I believe Origin is better than Steam now. It had a really rough long start, but now? I'd take Origin over Steam any day. Same with GOG Galaxy. Much better.
But people won't use Origin or GOG Galaxy, because muh evil EA, muh slight convenience
PS: uPlay get your head in the game already, you truly suck
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Origin is better than Steam
What exactly? Client-wise, solely looking at game dl&play all 4, yes also uPlay, are working alright. Feature-wise lacking a lot though, GOG Galaxy even the closest with some unique stuff.
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Origin has much less bloatware, it's lightweight, it works. It had some important features that Steam didn't (installing games elsewhere, for example), and has by far the best customer support. Had 4 issues with EA games, all solved within 20 minutes, and I got to talk to a REAL PERSON each time.
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I can't see how origin is better. I see origin as a launcher only. Even uplay is better.
Would've bought some EA games if they were on steam instead of origin.
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Origin has much less bloatware, it's lightweight, it works faster. It had some important features that Steam didn't (installing games elsewhere, for example), and has by far the best customer support. Had 4 issues with EA games, all solved within 20 minutes, and I got to talk to a REAL PERSON each time.
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Lightweight? Who even cares about this these days? IT works faster because there's nothing to work, you launch origin and launch the game, that's all origin does.
What do you mean "elsewhere"?
Costumer support is really better, i agree with that. But it's because only few people use it and it has no features so it's easy to have a good support.
So how origin is better again? Community hub? Activity feed? Screenshots? Market? Profiles? What origin can offer except for launching games which is absolutely useless.
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" you launch origin and launch the game, that's all origin does. " - and that's amazing. Most people don't use all the bloatware Steam has. Basic community hub, no activity feed, no videos, no music, no 1000 apps nobody uses, it runs games and has a friends list. But that's highly subjective.
"What do you mean "elsewhere"?" - for over a decade Steam allowed you to install games in only it's installation folder. The option to install them in another place on your HDD is very recent, actually. Origin, on the other hand, had that from launch.
"Lightweight? Who even cares about this these days? " - people who play while they render/compile/work.
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Are you a Volvo hater?
I find your comments only about bashing Valve and not other coporates and before you call me a fanboy I buy most of my games from Gog,Gmg and Humble bundle
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I am not bashing Valve, I am criticizing it. And I mostly do that because I don't have a lot of positive things to say about them.
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Than why are you not criticizing other companies I see them as no better than Vlve.
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I am. Elsewhere.
This thread is about PC gaming. There is no other company that is even close to halfway to Valve's market share. Steam is essentially a monopoly. Aside from EA, there are no off-Steam exclusives anymore.
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That's not bloatware, that's features. I'm not buying origin games because origin doesn't have these. It's only a launcher. Can't even remember when i played on origin. Probably when inquisition came out and i got it very cheap, that was the first and the only game i bought on origin.
Don't know about that installation options, i'm installing where i want.
Steam is same lightweight as others, no one notices the difference, it doesn't make any difference these days. What you have pentium 3 with 1GB of ram or something? Maybe you close browser too when gaming? lol
In fact when i played inquisition on origin i had fps drops to 15, it stopped only after i disabled origin overlay and stayed locked at 60fps.
You hate steam without any reason. You hate it because id does almost everything better and offers much more.
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Being an old school gamer, and pirate back in the day, I hated steam when it came out, had a few accounts here and there that i woud eventually forget the logins for, I didnt really start using steam until about 5 years ago when I made this account. By then it was painfully obvious that it had become everything I thought it would be when it launched. But they dominated the market for pc gaming by then, and it was either go along, or go back to pirating. So why this is a talking point now, confuses me.
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Everyone here saying "Well companies have to make money" like that's some revelation we'd never heard before. The point is there are ethical and unethical ways to make money. People need to make money too but if I bake a cake and sell it to someone that's one thing, and if I murder someone and take their cash that's another. Yes in both cases my ultimate goal was to make myself money but there are certain ways of going about it...
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But Gaben told me he was my bff ;_;
PS4 Master Race!
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God I loved my PS1. PS2 & 3 were sexy as hell too. PS4 finally has a decent library. Only took them 3 1/2 years -.-.
P.S. Can't wait for the Jak & Daxter PS4 port. Loved that game on the PS2.
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I am trying my hard for the nostalgia to not intervene but I cant really compare the PS1 and PS2 library against the 3 and 4, those seem mediocre even today, but hey! different people, different perspectives!
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https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/16/15622366/valve-gabe-newell-sales-origin-destructive
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