Why Steam's Monopoly is Actually a Good Thing?

[@vextakes]

U mad about Steam or nah? (obv it's not actually a monopoly, we talk abt this later in the video)

[@miniforareason3992]

nah i love gaben

[@shakkaka12435924]

Nah, I had steam when it was called valve then it changed to steam. I miss the old PC game boxes and disks. Steam is great, no issues.

[@SirBrucie]

F em. They remove negative reviews and allow certain companies to manipulate reviews on their store page (cyberjunk and conan exiles )

[@moonknightish]

Steam "monopoly" is a positive thing. For now. If Valve will go public after Gaben's death, then it will be problematic

[@vextakes]

@@moonknightishI agree, it’s great they’re private

[@WolfiiDog13]

I'm on Linux, so I either use Steam, or I use Steam. Like, what Valve has done for Linux gaming is incredible. A few years ago, not many Windows games were playable, now most Windows games just work, I never have to do anything complicated, just download and play.

[@wolfwoof2000]

Thiis. I use Fedora and just Steam is the backbone for gaming. I go big picture, turn my ps5 controller on, and there we go, my laptop is a console. It's incredible and I love what they did, seamless

[@ImGeo_o]

as a fellow Linux user I agree completely, if it weren't for all the efforts valve made to make most steam games run on linux I'd probably have a lot harder of a time switching to Linux.

[@NomminOnRam3n]

Serious question. Why use Linux over widows?

[@Heisenberg355]

​@@NomminOnRam3n you cannot possibly be serious. I refuse to believe that.

[@laurii0512]

@@NomminOnRam3n There could be a lot of answers to that question. I prefer linux for performance, infinite customizability and control over my system and I feel better programming on Linux than on Windows. I like that if I don't like something, i can just change it or turn it off.

[@SnowghostX]

My only fear about steam is when Gabe steps down as CEO

[@guilhermeodai]

I'll add a second one: if Valve becomes a publicly traded company

[@Kuson2]

The chances of that happening so long as Gabe is in charge are almost zero, however, as soon as he steps down or passes away and someone else takes over, we are fucked. I have zero faith in anyone else lol

[@SnowghostX]

@@Kuson2 He will step down at some point lol, he is 61 years old

[@starc.]

@@Kuson2 by then we will be much older not so attached to games. Fear not brother enjoy the good times now

[@starc.]

@@SnowghostX only 61 thats another two decades he can do, thats enough gaming for a lifetime

[@Kimtron142]

As long as valve never goes public and gaben lives forever, we are in good hands.

[@sumomaster5585]

goes public...guess that says when all is said and done, we the public are the problem

[@agentj3627]

@@sumomaster5585 No, rich people are

[@JuanRamirez-xw3gc]

Public. When companies go public they have to start listening to rich investors who will drive down the company from its former glory. Thats why the best companies have not gone public bc greed is a problem. Investors are just focused in them getting rich while fcking the customers. God forbid chick fil a, in n out, and steam ever go public. They'll lose what has made them great. @@sumomaster5585

[@ryuno2097]

@@sumomaster5585 if Valve goes public, it's mostly the rich who will have most of the stocks in the company, not the average joe.

[@arcane1012]

​@@sumomaster5585yeah going public basically means becoming a corporation which means the only ones who can make the big changes only care about profit and will take the most god awful, counterproductive, stupid decisions to get it. So becoming publicly traded means losing any humanity you have

[@renardstudios]

Indie game developer here, Steam also really follow you when publishing your game, they help you handle the community on Steam, moderate your forums, give you advices, and are genuinely helping you reach better numbers, they take 30%, but they also invest a lot of time and effort for your success, Steam knows what a game lunch is and use their experience to really help you as a newcomer.

[@xomvoid_akaluchiru_987]

I think that private companies are great for non necessities! The model really does work well for these kinds of things. As we're so often reminded, shareholders aren't always the same group of people as the company's consumers. It allows the company so much more freedom to be consumer friendly! It's so great for every part of the community, from the developers to the end users. It's great to hear how well Steam treats their devs!

[@Kaiserboo1871]

@@xomvoid_akaluchiru_987 I’ve come to believe that when it comes to creative entertainment (or at least video games). Private companies are almost always better then public ones. I believe it’s because of mindsets. Every single public company seeks to do one thing and one thing only: make the investors happy. They make investors happy by making as much money as cheaply as possible by focusing obsessively on growth at all costs. It is public companies that want to release low-risk, unfinished, trendy games using established IPs that are jammed packed with predatory micro-transactions. Some private companies at least understand that if you want to make a lot of money, you have to make a good game first. The private gaming companies that don't understand this typically don't last very long. I also think it has to do with leadership. Public gaming companies are run by rich investors and businessmen. These people have likely neither developed nor played a single video game in their entire lives. Private gaming companies on the other hand are almost always owned by fellow gamers or game developers. They understand what it means to make a good game.

[@Gabriel-qn6ls]

"They take 30% but..." hahahahahahahahahahahahaha a joke.

[@seba.4926]

@@Gabriel-qn6ls? 30% is the industry standard, and they provide servers with those funds

[@Gabriel-qn6ls]

​@@seba.492630% is normal for explorers, Playstation, Nintendo and Xbox. A PC game store shouldn't steal this from producers. Do you know how much Epic takes?

[@9tailedyokai]

The only thing I am worried about is that Gaben chooses the right successor that will carry on the legacy Valve built, but overall, I love the fact they actually are doing a lot of legwork to show the average gamer that Linux is a viable gaming OS, so I'm happy Steam is the way it is

[@robw3610]

Agreed. I am very happy with Valve as a company, and Steam as a service. Valve is the reason I was able to completely ditch Windows, and have been a happy Linux user for years. But yeah, I do genuinely worry about what happens to the company once Gaben is gone. I think there are very few that can successfully follow in his footsteps.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

Honestly at this moment I have very little concern about Gray Newell.

[@nahuelgareis8927]

​@@dojelnotmyrealname4018he is the guy behind the very basic idea of steam success which basically is: 1- We are a gaming platform our main earnings must come from selling games and game's trading 2- If the above is meet successfullly, improve the service for the consumer 3- don't change the recipe 4- Meanwhile let the most talented developers on the market cook whatever they like and release it whenever they say is ready. So I am concerned too that valve might choose a bad successor that might get greedy or would like to change the recipe for worse. I don't belive that gaben is doing much nowadays on the company but one thing for sure is that he says no to whatever change the board proposes that changes the formula

[@PongLenis-zw8kv]

@@nahuelgareis8927gray is gaben son, did you confuse or did I confuse?

[@Kaiserboo1871]

The day we lose Gaben (through either death or retirement) will be the darkest day in gaming history since the Video Game Crash of 1983. It’s best we all prepare for it, as gaming will never be the same when he leaves.

[@Vaz_G]

Its not valves fault that everyone else sucks

[@Lodorn]

I do like GOG as well, but like Vex mentioned, I am already so invested with games in steam, I'd rather keep things in one place. Some things I own on GOG, but it's mostly old/indie games.

[@zomforshort]

its easier to keep everything in one place, I do use Epic for some games like PC Building Sim 2, dead island 2

[@LuckyTiger-hk1pw]

​@@LodornSame here most of the things i have in GOG are old games & indies. 😅

[@sophieedel6324]

On GoG you actually own games.

[@64fanatic]

I'd use GOG more if GOG Galaxy at least met feature parity of Steam. But they haven't. That's the main problem with Valve's competition with web stores in general, and I don't think shareholder corps can compete with Valve, a privately owned business. Corpos only care about money, so they disrespect social/community features. @@Lodorn

[@felipefmavelar]

as a linux user, steam is the only one that actually cares about us, i love valve :D

[@ryansullivan9217]

Yea, epic is really hard to get working on linux

[@felipefmavelar]

@@ryansullivan9217 for epic games, i use heroic games launcher, it works, but it's not even close to be as good as steam

[@ikcikor3670]

​@@ryansullivan9217plus not that I care about Fortnite but they purposefully disable Linux support in their game despite them themselves having develop their own anticheat that does support Linux

[@HebuTheLoneWolf]

i just wish anti cheats and nvidia would be more Linux friendly. those two kind of keeps me from migrating to Linux atm and other reason is just my laziness to move on new OS

[@Muhubi]

WINE and other options were good, but thank god for Valve's proton

[@iamgooning]

And number 4. The competition keeps shooting themselves in the lag

[@thefiresworddragon927]

Definitely intention you said "lag", cause the competition intentionally makes them games run worse so they can sue the inevitable pirates they create for more money than the games they make.

[@Orincaby]

@@thefiresworddragon927yeah cause they lag behind the progression of steam

[@elliotnemeth]

I see what you did there

[@solgerWhyIsThereAnAtItLooksBad]

Steam is the only company I’ve seen that updated their UI and actually made it better.

[@ngkn2008able]

??? It actively eat more RAM. As a DRM running in background, how is that good?

[@solgerWhyIsThereAnAtItLooksBad]

@@ngkn2008able I don’t notice any differences with RAM, and will most people. Steam games can forego the DRM if they wish. They just don’t. Also it was a thing before the new ui

[@ngkn2008able]

@@solgerWhyIsThereAnAtItLooksBad my old pc is a verified potato, and when Steam update its UI, I got hit hard. Well, I have better PC now, but I still dislike that UI update.

[@solgerWhyIsThereAnAtItLooksBad]

@@ngkn2008able i had a potato until yesterday and it was fine with the ui

[@Excon111]

also if try mod game on ea launcher some how if lose connection with one of your hard drive too ea they ask try verified game then crashes because modded files

[@Simkets]

I have a 12yo badge on Steam. And honestly, at this point we're trapped too. If Steam stops existing, we lose hundreds of games and thousands of dollars. It's all digital. Nobody wants to lose them. Steam has to be here forever.... Or at least until the day I die

[@lidge1994]

Didn' t they guarantee in an agreement that if Valve or Steam shuts down, you'll be given the option to backup all your games? OR am I going nuts?

[@Vanity0666]

Digital backups exist outside of steam's servers and you are within your full legal rights to download them, given you own a legal copy of the game. It's not illegal to torrent or crack games.

[@Xyler94]

Steam has said they have a contingency if they fold. They have a means to unlock all the DRM, and the CDN nature of Steam to download games can be ran without Valve. So really, Digital is easier to preserve as long as someone has the files.

[@Xyler94]

@@Vanity0666 no, you do not have any legal rights to download something outside of official means. And it is especially illegal to crack and distribute games via torrent. You may live in a country where they won't do a darn thing, but many places, if a company wants to, and they got proof, they can make you pay a hefty fine.

[@Vanity0666]

@@Xyler94 you are wrong

[@unheard-ofgamer1510]

They're also VERY generous with their cloud saves. They seem to limit the storage depending on the game, but there's always enough and with all my games combined it's probably more storage space than a free Google Drive account. Pretty dope.

[@vadnegru]

True, there are like 10 or 15 Gigabytes for saves for only The Witcher 3. ONE GAME. google drive is like 15 gigs, MEGA that i use for saves is 50 gig(i use it for sync between my phone and PC)

[@admiralkaede]

yea and the thing that is amazing with it is its a PER GAME thing meaning as u buy more games your storage is growing on PlayStation even though U PAY to get the cloud features its a certain amount of space u never get more so one day u can fill it up from buying to many games that PlayStation also gets a 30% cut from as well on top of the PS+ sub but yet cant even give u more space what a joke

[@SuperHolyWater_]

its probably been said, but ill say it myself in regards to "What does GOG really offer?" In this day and age where games are disappearing from store pages, thats what GOG offers. Because if you buy a game on GOG, that game is yours. First thing I do after I buy a GOG game is I download the offline installer. Granted I have the means of backing up these installers as where others may not, but THAT is what sets GOG apart from Epic and Steam. When game publishers remove a game from digital sale, thats across all platforms. Some will not even give you the option to download the files anymore. If GOG is ever forced to remove a game, as long as you downloaded the offline installer, you are playing that game anytime you want.

[@weareoutbreak89]

touche, i do the same. GoG is great for preserving offline-Installers for the Future. Just make sure the Drive doesn't break :D

[@dannnnn496]

Did you know there’s a steam function that backs up your games so you can reinstall offline

[@twrecks6279]

GoG is the platform I'd switch to if I didn't love steam so much.

[@joeywin42]

weird a game i bought that was taken down on steam i could re-download

[@SuperHolyWater_]

@@joeywin42 taken down/delisted, and removed from accounts are two seperate things.

[@GuilhermeBorgesCunha]

One Steam controversy I can remember was when they allowed mod developers to charge players for their developers. This didn't mean that all the mods would be paid, but some could be paid. Just a few days after that was launched Valve did remove that from the platform.

[@hanro50]

The thing to remember is that a lot of Valve employees started out as modders themselves. So that move was probably not born out of greed, but a genuine push to help modders make a living modding games.

[@BorealBlizzard]

Damn that was a long time ago I forgot about that

[@BorealBlizzard]

@@hello7431 some mods have the quality of standalone games, there are plenty of examples on steam. I'm sure the original plan was to promote mod making because so much of what valve and steam is based on came from mods.

[@self-proclaimedanimator]

I think the only bad thing steam did is Steam Green and the Gamblin other than that they are lean

[@blacklight683]

​@@BorealBlizzardI think he is asking why did they remove it

[@theoassaly3092]

For me one of the biggest things was the amazing customer support team, my pc was recently hacked and my accounts were all stolen. Literally took steam support 1 hour to recover my account which is amazing, especially considering Microsoft didn’t even try to help with my Xbox account

[@Crystal_Moon248]

Similar thing happened to me. My Steam account was hacked and I sent a request during the night, and in the next day, I got it back. I changed my email and password just in case.

[@sourlesscream1272]

recently the same thing happened with me, somehow managed to get both my steam account and my rockstar account within 24 hours(they got in through my rockstar account)

[@horcraft3069]

My friend’s mc account got hacked, instead of helping him retrieve it, microsoft deactivated his account permanently

[@zehbush7468]

My friend was an idiot, and got his accout stolen by a fake steam keys site. He got his account back by using a used gift card as proof of ownership. Took about a day or so, but the thiefs damage was limited to getting him vac banned from arma 3

[@mariustan9275]

I must have done something wrong because my account was scammed away from me and I just ended up creating a new one because my parents didn't want to put their credit card information back in to something that could be scammed. I mean, it makes sense.

[@telkota1247]

I trust Valve and Gaben a heck of a lot more than Epic and sweeney. Valve is still privately owned afaik, which seems to be a positive nowadays for the consumer

[@Artician]

Epic is privately owned, too

[@TheDifferenced]

​@@Artician was. Tencent has ownership

[@Hangedman11911]

Steam is terrible spyware, and the fact you're defending a billion dollar company shows a lot about you.

[@XzaroX]

I don't trust _any_ company with my money. At least with GOG, I don't have to trust them. I get to take responsibility for my GOG library.

[@diamondhamster4320]

@@XzaroX BASED. I too support zero DRM policy!!! Both Steam and Epic have DRM API inside their game installers but GOG let`s you instal a game you bougth from the Install.Exe any time any where without the need of Internet connection!!! Based GOG!!!

[@steveleadbeater8662]

The big difference is that Steam ISN'T a monopoly as you can get keys from multiple other sources. If the only way to buy on Steam was Steam I'd start worrying. I use all three of the Major UIs, Steam, GOG & Epic. GOG is first choice because what you buy you own, Steam because of the sheer number of alternate sources you can buy keys from like Green, Humble, Fanatical etc. Epic for the Insane sales they have where they undercut steam by 30%+. As long as the PC ecosystem stays a free market it is the best place to but and play games as you don't have to rebuy games when the Next Gen comes or pay to use multiplayer or have zero choice in where you buy games.

[@MautreXvids]

Just keep in mind when using epic you are giving your info to CCP since epic is owned by Tencent

[@9tr0n]

@@MautreXvidsif the ccp wants to spy on me buying hentai shooter 3d they can for all i care

[@Mikalent]

Steam takes a bigger cut than EPIC, but Steam also offers significantly more services not just to players, but to developers. For comparison, Steam will take care of advertising for you, forums, workshop if you allow mods, bug reporting, reviews (good and bad), moderation if needed, and feedback forums. EPIC and GOG do none of those things, now, in GOG's case they don't need to, since GOG is focused primarily on games that aren't in active development or updated. But in EPIC's case, you are losing a lot of tools that allow you to communicate with your playerbase, or even just allow your playerbase to form a community, rather than spreading them to the 4 winds, and not allowing said community to form, leading to a "unalive" game quicker. Another thing STEAM does that EPIC doesn't, in relation to that 30% vs 22% (yes EPIC did raise their cut after the Fortnite money faucet started to go down) is that Steam does not take a percent from games acquired through Steam keys, if you bought a steam key directly from a developer, that Dev gets 100% of the revenue, same with other sources. Steam only takes the percent on games purchased on the Steam Store.

[@dodinoooo]

Clearly you don't know that developers CANT sell keys to other sites at prices that are lower than the steam one. When you buy a cheap key you are basically giving money to a scammer that stole a key. This is a monopoly

[@Pakistani890]

@@MautreXvids no they don't bruv..

[@daviddamasceno6063]

Steam is a very special case. What usually happens when a company becomes the market leader is that they proceed to ruin everything for everyone, make everything worse for their consumers because they know they can get away with it. They only stay in line when facing strong competition. But Valve is different, in that they're the market leaders for years, and they're still commited to make the user experience better and better. I believe the reason is that their main goal, since it's inception, was to beat piracy by offering a service that is much better than piracy. Steam understands what others don't, that PC gamers always have options, so they won't settle for a lesser platform when they can find better ways to play. They deeply understand that and they provide what people want. And it is quite funny to see that other companies try to shame Steam, blame Steam, attack Steam, but none of them apply any effort in trying to be like Steam. And this is why they fail.

[@Kryptic1046]

Well said.

[@veduci22]

"What usually happens when a company becomes the market leader" Valve didn't become the market leader - they actually created the market before other big companies even considered selling games on digital platform as a viable business option and then when they woke up it was too late...

[@TheBestFormOfHumor]

​@@veduci22that changes nothing about the main points in the comment

[@F_Around_and_find_out]

1. Support the game and the developers by buying it on Steam. 2. Realizing just how good the game actually is. 3. Pirating it. Steam did not beat piracy, and I don’t think nothing ever will. But because Steam is so easy to access, have great deals, it changed the order of priorities a little, in a good way.

[@ArtisChronicles]

​@@veduci22 Valve can still ruin the entire market. So nothing of value in this conversation was changed, it was just a correction on their position.

[@VMCKTC]

Honestly if it wasn't for steam GOG would be the next place I'm going

[@Not_Astrocat]

Same Tbh GOG & Steam are always my go to stores and launchers for games And mostly GOG I use for some more old games and retro ones, heck, I've sometimes bought the same game on both launchers

[@MalikATL]

GOG is just a boring launcher with old games i don't care about it

[@VMCKTC]

@@Not_Astrocat only reason I used epic is for the free games and to get Kingdom hearts on PC but I use GOG more than Epic all the time sadly 🤣

[@VMCKTC]

@@MalikATL granted its got a lot of old games but I personally don't use Epic games other than for Kingdom hearts and the free games

[@tobeqz7065]

​@@MalikATLPersonally when I want to buy a game I always check whether it's available on GOG, if not I just go to Steam. I prefer GOG because I get to actually OWN my games, something that used to be normal when we bought games on discs.

[@pchris]

It’s always been really interesting to me to learn about how valve works behind the scenes and what aspects of their company structure lead to this kind of smart, long term, consumer respecting decision making. From what I can tell, it seems to primarily come from their horizontal structure. Typically a ceo of a company would have a ton of influence over it and would USE that influence a lot to shape the company to their will for better or for worse, but valve doesn’t really do that. While Gabe owns valve he doesn’t micro manage it or really make many authoritative decisions at all. He lets his employees all work together on decisions instead of making them himself. It’s almost democratic if you think about it. I hope it Gabe ever retires he doesn’t just give the company to his son or anything. I hope he finds a way to further enable his employees to lead the company.

[@Tonatact]

It's kinda like Gabe's more of a figurehead rather than a CEO of steam

[@JohnSmith-sk7cg]

The long term view is because they are not a publicly traded company. Publicly traded companies are incentivised to boost for the highest possible quarterly results even if that means burning long-term revenue. Shares are a fluid thing and so incentive structures are geared towards benefitting the quickest return on investment in them.

[@pchris]

@@JohnSmith-sk7cg that definitely helps a lot. Private ownership can also have problems though. When Gabe retires who does he give the company to? Will they want it? Will they “exit” and list it for sale? This is why I mention finding a way to further enable his employees to continue to run the company into the future. If he sold valve to its employees that would be the best, most long term decision if you ask me. If I were to rank ownership structures on long term stability and consumer respect starting with the worst it would go: 3 publicly traded 2 privately owned 1 employee cooperatively owned

[@JohnSmith-sk7cg]

@@pchris I don't dispute any of that. I was simply answering: "what aspects of their company structure lead to this kind of smart, long term, consumer respecting decision making."

[@self-proclaimedanimator]

Need to put GabeN in Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System

[@shoOoterlegend]

if im remembering correctly, the only controversy steam was ever really in was with the string of either bad games or bad ports back in 2015 governmental jurisdictions were calling for them to have some form of refund policy because not having one would of made having the platform downright illegal.

[@mardy3732]

If Steam started acting up, it would probably be a matter of time before people migrate to other platforms. Valve is probably chilling, they're making absolute bank as it is. No reason to start getting more greedy or to upset their customer base in any way.

[@starc.]

thats the thing about the customer base valve cultivated, pc gamers cant be bulls**tted thats why I dont worry about my Steam acc cuz if valve ever go public corpo and start butchering their legacy we all leaving elsewhere

[@NorseGraphic]

Valve seems to try to compete with Nintendo, successfully. Their previous attempt with a gaming console wasn’t as successful, however. But at least they tried. What I really would absolutely love to see is SteamOS (a Linux distro) for personal computers, and we can ditch Microsoft.

[@starc.]

@@NorseGraphic that would be heaven to ditch windows for linux

[@doggy101]

@@NorseGraphic you can get holoiso or chimeraos

[@snil4]

@@NorseGraphic Sadly they would need more than games for people to ditch windows

[@tankfire20]

It's the fact that steam has a social circle element to it that really does it for me. Even though I rarely interact socially on steam the community are not pushed to the corner of a forum they're front and center even in the reviews. I rarely trust a review from a big company but I always trust the "1.7k people rated review as funny".

[@SimplyRobotic27]

Being able to not just easily add people you know/meet when playing games, but also see what games they recommend and play is really nice to connect further as well

[@danieltoth9742]

My concern with Steam is not so much its monopoly, but the lack of ownership of one's games, which is a trend they started. This is why I strongly prefer GOG when given a choice. And when so often you have literally _no way_ of legally _owning_ a game, I find it hard to blame pirates for not paying.

[@hey01e5]

RIP physical games on PC

[@kenshinhimura9387]

​@@hey01e5you're 15 years late on that one

[@bobbyharris2270]

@@hey01e5that won’t save it 😂😂

[@penumbrum3135]

Kind of overblown this "issue". Digital on PC have many ways of preserving games compared to physical. I still dozens of physical PC games and I can probably count on both my hands what discs even are readible to this day or has disc-DRM that is unsupported on Windows 7 or newer. Digital perservation is only an issue with games that are always online or multiplayer.

[@doublecrossedswine112]

If that ever happens all these games are already catalogued for you in the pirate realm. You already paid for them so it isn't like you'd be stealing. Hell, I paid for RDR2 but I play the pirated version because it runs better without the anti-cheat crap. I feel no guilt, I own it and I'll use it how I want. Edit - Oops. I meant anti-piracy crap, not anti-cheat.

[@guldcat1619]

The best form of governance is a benevolent dictatorship. The problem is that benevolent dictators are unfathomably rare and, when they die, the aftermath is usually a mess. Steam is a benevolent dictatorship, but you should prioritise getting DRM-free Steamlessly playable copies of all your games wherever possible.

[@cerulity32k]

Valve knows what they're doing. Portal, Half Life, TF2, and Steam are all masterpieces, I can trust them with games.

[@Dadum-bass]

"Blizzard knows what they're doing. Diablo, StarCraft, Warcraft and World of Warcraft are all masterpieces, I can trust them with games" That was me, 10 years ago. I feel bad as to what the inevitable is. Gabe retires, steam goes public, shit happens, and suddenly people realize that all the games they've been buying don't actually exist without access to steam. If Steam ever shuts down, it's going to be the ET Atari effect + steroids to the gaming industry as a whole. . . And I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

[@DudeSoWin]

L4D very good too.

[@DanksterPaws]

All good companies have their fall, and we’ll still use em.

[@Mr.Marbles]

I love how people literally forgot artifact. It never gets mentioned lmao

[@AirKangLocker]

too bad tf2 bot issues are being neglected for almost years to the point its unplayable

[@us3r158]

Another thing i like about valve is that 30% cut is seen going towards improving steam and creating things like the index or the steam deck.

[@deuswulf6193]

Imagine if you will, a charity that asks for $100. You can excuse it by saying, "well it goes to helping the kids or something". What if I then tell you only $1 out of $100 goes to helping the kids, the rest of it is pocketed or wasted. Would you still accept that? This is the problem with Valve. They have a history of wasting a lot of money on projects that will never see the light of day simply because those working it got bored and shifted to a new project, or with a literal term called "valve time", go so slow as to use way more money than is necessary for that development. You see, Valve's company structure is very very loose. They work on whatever they want to work on, rarely have set teams, and no real hierarchy based management structure. It's a miracle we even got the Steamdeck and Index out of them, much less Alyx. I guarantee you that they could the same thing with less than half the budget they likely spend on them. They just waste money, because they can.

[@ordinaryhuman5645]

Steam is about as benevolent as a monopoly could be. Proton especially will be a wonderful gift to gamers if/when Microsoft ever really fucks up with Windows for gaming.

[@asimramay1069]

@@deuswulf6193 you think organized structures work better ? no its never been about structure and always about people , there are many more companies that waste even more money , epic for example is still losing money on its store overall and is a worse product and ur example makes no sense , valve isnt a charity they are a business , they need to make a profit , and the cut is 30 $ for every $100 and i think its overblown by devs that its too much , we have seen company launchers come and go (oirigin) and they have always been worse and more toxic to use (worse features , worse DRM ) not to mention the fact that at least valve is spending money into things even if they fail , its not just about interest its like how the Google Oauya or w/e it was called was just a bad product but because they spent too long on it google released it anyways despite it being awful, the steam deck in comparison was amazing , so id rather they spend money fail and dont release it if it didn't workout because they are all about trying to recoup costs even at the expense of the customer (hoping the customer buys into a bad product) , Also the fact is we dont know what the cost even is to run such high quality servers like steam has , ive always been able to get full speed and have a 1 Gig connection, by comparison ive NEVER gotten full speed on Epic, Origin or companies self hosted servers , every other launcher has been worse , ever other DRM has been more intrusive , every other platform has had worse discoverability (again steam isnt perfect but its the best of the bunch by far), im not on the side of companies but every person who is like these platforms are robbing devs are out of their minds , before these platforms smaller devs basically were hard stuck with shitty publishers that asked too much (interfered in design decisions , have sometimes even worse splits while having lower reach than steam) . 'also people that go 'oh they do nothing but take their pound of flesh' has clearly never worked in Networking or Infrastructure design -> uk how much a single local backhaul costs , close to the tune of $200,000 (we are talking high speed backhaul Fibre connections where each cabin had potential upto 800MBPS even at peak load) and that was a local company with just 100 sites because their was no Telstra(ISP provider) MDF , here we are just talking infrastructure costs, when u get into datacenter it only gets more expensive , because u also have to lease the space , pay for the bandwidth , access to the internet with Full SLA and Uptime and lets not forget redundancy etc , this doesn't even get into the programming side of things , the reason why no one has beat steam , isn't just because steam was first , but its cause they did it well on all fronts and were way ahead of their time in their thinking -> as a Dev if i can get more money ofc ill want that , so OFC ill want steam to take a lower cut , but this may not be what's beneficial for the end consumer, because it means the platform also has to make compromises somewhere or get completely funded by Fortnite in the case of the Epics Games Store , who in 5 years has NEVER turned a profit

[@ElementVoidX]

@@deuswulf6193 still better then giving 100 dollars to Tim Sweeney, so he can stuff it in his pocket while he farts in your mouth.

[@deuswulf6193]

@@ElementVoidX Its cute that you think that it goes right to Tim's pocket. Its clear you don't understand what's being discussed here. Regardless, I hope you stay true to your convictions then and don't purchase, much less play any game made using the Unreal Engine, lest you put money into Tim's pocket. Remember includes the upcoming Witcher and Mass Effect games, among many others. Don't be a hypocrite now.

[@HarakiriRock]

Epic Games Store has been around for almost 5 years now and hasn't really changed or improved at all. The only changes I've noticed are extremely minor things like additional library sorting options... things that should have been there since day 1. At this point I have nearly 300 games on there and every single one of them was free. I've only played 2 or 3 of those games and totaled maybe 10-15 hours of playtime at most during those 5 years it has existed. That's why Steam is still #1 by a longshot.

[@Mr.DISRESPECT]

no lifer

[@einkar4219]

I wouldn't say epic hasn't improved through last few years but most of them was adding basic function that steams had at least 5 years ago if not from the beginning I own significant amount of free games on epic and I agree that most of them are mid but there are quite a few very good titles like Arkham series, The messenger, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, even GTA5 when thier servers where burrning like wildfire

[@deuswulf6193]

That's not really true, and one could say the same about Steam's first 5 years. I suggest you go look up the timeline for Steam over the years. Very very minor changes. Valve shifted to focusing almost entirely on being a distributor of games, rather than a developer, while Epic has from day one been a game engine company + game developer and stuck with it. Their priority is more for developers, and the game consumers second.

[@HarakiriRock]

​@@deuswulf6193 That may be true but it's not my point. Steam has been around since 2003 and was a pioneer. Of course it was more primitive and slow to develop. EGS launched 15 years later in an entirely different landscape amidst several matured competitors. They have no real need to be competitive since they already have crazy money and plenty of other revenue sources, but still, they could at least try to improve EGS.

[@deuswulf6193]

@@HarakiriRock I don't disagree that the EGS could be better, but what's the message Epic has been getting? I have seen too many people say they will only use steam and nothing else. It tells Epic that no matter what they do, the consumers won't rush to use their platform. Since they recognize many are not even giving them a shot, the incentives to radically change are not there. Developers are even attacked if they chose to use EGS over steam. Some companies wait till they get a return on their investment, before investing further. That said, EGS is clearly based off the Game Engine launcher and market place, thus the forums and community side are tied up with game development. The game launcher is more of a tacked on feature, which is likely the problem. It would be better to separate the two and build a game store from scratch. All of that actually takes a lot of time and planning.

[@MyStickWorld]

Steam's primary model has been consistent throughout the years and they have a longevity in that consistency. They've continued to build upon their storefront layout, expand options for user customization, accessibility features, big screen mode, and so much more. When I think on and consider many gaming storefronts for the PC, I never see this amount of polish and insight into community features, communication, information, and ways to engage in any other platform outside Steam. Beyond the monopolistic buy-in to a large library, I also think on what is going to keep bringing me and others back not only to play but to explore additional titles and expand my library. What is going to make me want this over the others if it's not about price? It's ease of use, forums, news updates from developers and Valve itself. It's a very alive store front while many others are just....sterile, bare bones, and not as intuitive for browsing. Say what you will about monopolies, it's up to competitors to win us over with something stronger than what Steam offers, and trust me it's not going to be game sales alone.

[@liamer88]

I'd like to mention that GOG Galaxy exists, and you didn't really go into detail about what it does. It's not just the GOG launcher, you can actually use it to log into your other services such as Steam or Epic, and play games from those libraries through GOG without needing to continually open and close launchers you don't want open all the time. It's honestly a life saver when I don't wanna spend time thinking about what account has which games when I can just check GOG to see what they all have and if it's installed.

[@deuswulf6193]

Epic actually worked with GOG to help them have maximum compatibility with the EGS, something I don't think Valve did at all. I think the rise of platform agnostic front ends, that combine all games into one manageable library, is where things need to go. See applications like Playnite for example.

[@liamer88]

GOG galaxy has offical integration support with Epic games and Xbox live, but Steam already had the integration information available so it wasn't as hard for them to add it as a community integration like Uplay or EA Origin Edit: Forgot to mention I've been using GOG galaxy 2.0 since it was in beta, steam integration was always a focus, and since Valve already made most of the backend data that was necessary to make it work available to the people who needed to use it so it was a simple matter of just using what was already available without actually needing to root around in code.

[@QJ89]

No doubt, GOG and Galaxy are but a shadow to Steam. A quarter of my digital PC game collection is on there, for one of three reasons: 1. They're older games, pre-2000, which are generally not on Steam, 2. They're at a discount or a price lower than on Steam (which is rare, since discounts are usually on both platforms at the same time), 3. Most games will have extras and goodies (desktops, soundtracks, manuals and other documentation) bundled, whereas Steam's does not, or they're in separate DLC packs (or sometimes, the soundtracks are unadvertised freebies there). That said, I agree that GOG have a lot to catch up on.

[@avantdoodle]

I believe a major part of why steam is so consumer friendly and focused (at the very least it gives the impression that it is) is because its still a private company which leads to having way less "corporate" driven decision which say compared to lets say epic has a history of having that exact "corporate" feel whether it be the decisions it make or the way epic communicates with the masses and how that is perceived. Also epic has, over the years, garnered a bad reputation of hosting games on its launcher and then either breaking its service or changing what the game offers not taking in account what the people want. Those changes have been mostly profit driven or some vague idea of an ecosystem which I have never seen to come to fruition.

[@vilian9185]

btw Epic also is a private company, but epic is just stupid lol

[@nottoday7801]

I do wish Epic make changes to these things they lack - better launcher and marketplace layouts, community and mods. I think it would be a good thing for Steam to have competition

[@TJ-hg6op]

Roblox really went downhill once they went public

[@JmKrokY]

Precisely this.

[@JmKrokY]

​@@vilian9185But, unlike Valve, Epic is largely owned by a greedy company (40% of Epic Games is owned by Tencent) which is known to use bad consumer practices. Tencent is the reason as to why Fortnite became pay to win grinding game in the first place.

[@chtm]

Steam isn't a monopoly, its an industry leader. Much different things.

[@GX-105D]

or platform, i literally have a guild wars 2 card on steam outside of buying from steam

[@akpade]

Steam does have a monopoly on the market.

[@GX-105D]

@@akpade a platform is not a monopoly, devs can leave steam anytime they choose

[@Espikay]

@@akpade in that sense, KZbin is a monopoly on the video sharing platform market.

[@akpade]

@@Espikay yes

[@junkdubious]

I'm old enough to remember if you wanted a PC game library YOU had to maintain it! Remember those giant DVD binders? Remember NoCD hacks? Remember going to some janky website to get some crappy update? Steam solved all those problems, and gave us mods!

[@MexicanWolf-lf3bn]

I do miss the nice binder collection tho. I had a huge case with 2x2 every page on soft fabric. Nice to skim through, like a photo album

[@vic.oso105]

Steam has some of the craziest sales, I love that they also give you the option to use keys from sites like humble bundle

[@angeleyes2c]

Good steam sales ended in 2015. I've moved on and so should you.

[@MastaGambit]

@@angeleyes2c Explain?

[@DB-jj8qn]

Epic games is way cheaper, same deals as on steam+additional 30% discount on top+10% cash back. I do not juy games on steam anymore.

[@g3rdus508]

@@MastaGambitthe discounts during events like the steam summer sale were much higher. My PC gaming experience started in 2014 and therefore I had the fortune of experiencing two summer sales with exceptionally high discounts. I remember putting a hundred bucks aside for the steam summer sale of 2016. It was so disappointing compared to the prior years, that I ended up spending the hundred bucks on key a website instead. Just like angeleyes said the glory day of steam sales are sadly over. Sure you’ll find good deals on steam but it’s just not on the same scale anymore.

[@GX-105D]

stolen keys you mean

[@tato-chip7612]

Honestly, I am a Linux user and Steam has done a fantastic job supporting our platform, more than we deserve. I know they did it for the steam deck but it is IDEAL. That and: no censorship of games comes from steam.

[@xAnonymousComedia]

"More than we deserve lmao"

[@leos.4723]

Sadly due to german law, steam has to censor some games here, they could avoid this by digitally checking the ID of german users, but sadly they dont (at least yet)

[@laurii0512]

"more than we deserve"???

[@gogoftw]

@@laurii0512 there was a statistic somewhere (before steam deck was even announced), that shows that majority of game breaking bugs and glitches are on linux , yet the linux users base is like below 5% for those games, something like the 80/20 paragodox but on steroids , yet they made a console that runs the most problematic and least profitable OS for game devs , and it somehow gained enough traction, to make linux a valuable option for any user. personally not a linux user but as a bonus if the steam deck becomes successful enough it might actually bring us to the the year of the the linux desktop , where stuff is optimised for linux and not for mac or windows

[@ainzer2903]

Yeah the only censorship is from the country user based on.

[@LankyBastid_]

I think the only negative experience I had with Steam was when I first got it (pre-hl2), but that was because I was on dial-up and some games started requiring and online connection to launch (that didn't previously). Thankfully they remedied that pretty quickly with offline mode and it's been all positive experiences for the ~20 years since.

[@jakeabcabc1184]

I didn't think anyone owned anything but HL/counterstrike on steam back then so the lack of offline mode could be ignored sense you just don't use steam. Counterstrike was an online game too anyways.

[@LankyBastid_]

@@jakeabcabc1184 I played some HL mods like Sven Coop back in the day that you could initially do either online or offline with friends, but once Steam forced online mode, it made playing LAN games a PITA when the game would shut down because Steam lost it's online connection.

[@DiamondOrPoor78]

Steam is good because Gabe owns Valve, once he's gone the entire gaming industry will go up in flames

[@markosverdhi]

The fact that valve decided to make the steam deck run linux, created and actively maintains proton, and has essentially been the backbone of linux gaming for years is what makes me appreciate them most. All their games are linux native. They've tried to get every single game to work on the deck (and therefore on linux) and now are even trying to get dual boot to work so that the users can play borked AAA games

[@alexforce9]

Steam monopoly is based on choice. There are alternatives - people just like Steam.

[@bobbyharris2270]

Welcome to world where you don’t own your games 😂😂😂

[@alexforce9]

@@bobbyharris2270 I personally don't care. Its like money - its good to have some in cash - but overall I doubt that you have all your money in the house at all time do you? The only real downside is not being able to sell your games after you have played them. And Thats the only reason I would buy physical PC games if they still made them.

[@bobbyharris2270]

@@alexforce9 it’s not like that if they made it where you can back them up without an internet connection and be able to lunch it without having a connection for months kinda like gog I wouldn’t have a problem. The physical disc ain’t the answer too

[@alexforce9]

@@bobbyharris2270 Honest question - why the need for internet is so big deal for you? We are all online 24/7.

[@bobbyharris2270]

@@alexforce9 that’s a stupid question because when servers are down how are you going to be able to play plus not everyone wants to keep on paying for internet especially when isp are charging stupid prices with data caps

[@Boredealis]

its because they actually care about their customers lmaoo

[@SirBrucie]

Bad joke

[@zerobalance4027]

Do they really?

[@Chasm9]

*They care about their customers' money. Let's not kid ourselves. Edit: Oh boy, I must've struck a nerve with some people... sure, keep calling me names.. speaks volumes about your corporate loyalty. :)

[@J0ttaD]

People just don't like changes

[@RogueSkull]

​@@Chasm9caring about customers is literal equivalent to their money you absolute dingus. No corp is going solving their heart rates

[@frujey]

My biggest feat is if Valve becomes a public company. I've seen so many companies go puclic and then after only a few months, they destroy their entire identity and become so coporate. Doing things that only benefit the shareholders and not the consumers.

[@meszigabor]

My biggest reason is the family share function. It is so valuable that my brother can try and play the single player games that I have bought when I am not playing, and vice versa.

[@alephkasai9384]

Family share is great. I love it a lot.

[@Ryhon]

The Steam profile level is not gained by playing games and completing achievements, you gain XP by crafting badges out of a full set of trading cards for a specific game. Crafting a badge also rewards you with random emoticons and backgrounds. When you play a paid game for the first 2 hours, you will get card drops. The amount of drops you get is equal to half of the amount of cards in the set.

[@hey01e5]

all of that steam profile crap is worthless to me

[@kenshinhimura9387]

Nobody cares about that stuff

[@bobbyharris2270]

That shit is stupid af I don’t want that crap I want to be able to own my games

[@UWG3]

@@kenshinhimura9387 There is a dedicated fanbase for the backgrounds and especially the cards plus Steam items. I myself have come to decide as time went on whether I buy a game or not by if it has trading cards or not. No trading cards no buy for me unless it's a game I really like or was heavily hyped for. I know to most users it's silly and not worth spending time on but I get such a rush and feel fulfilled when completing card sets.

[@jaronmarles941]

@@kenshinhimura9387 You would if you sold em If you have hundreds of games, all you have to do is get $1 per game set

[@coldwares]

Steam is one of the rare examples of a good monopoly, they are a private company, which means their values can be aligned to one person, the loving and caring people who run it. When you're a public company, you have every incentive to suck up and maximize the profit delivery to your shareholders, lest you get replaced. I hope valve has the tenacity and problem solving to keep this business model far after Gabe and his team are gone. I fear the day Valve is no longer run by him, even more so should it ever become a public company. That's the day it dies.

[@Trezker]

I like being able to own shares in good companies. But I sure don't like institutional investors being able to own shares in them.

[@Sillimant_]

It's not a monopoly. Valve hasn't done anything funky to make everyone else so shit. There could be a steam rival at any point, game companies _choose_ not to

[@coldwares]

@@Sillimant_ A monopoly doesn't require it to have shady or manipulative business practices, they usually do, but Valve is a rare example of a marketplace that owns a large majority of a market without doing so. Not all of it of course, but a vast majority

[@deuswulf6193]

Good for who? Not game developers.

[@deuswulf6193]

@@Sillimant_ You only need to have market power to be a monopoly as far as the legal system is concerned. Valve is what many would argue a market power or monopolist. If the claims in their most recent lawsuit ring true, that Valve threatens developers not to lower their prices on competing platforms below that of Steam's, or dangles steam removal over their heads to control pricing in general, then they have gone well past the point of being a monopoly.

[@HeRmiiSs]

7:47 That is what made me install apex legends. Apex was the popular game I had heard about that now was about 3 clicks away from being installed on my PC.

[@AkaraVortex]

Steam has such a handy console, you can download *any* older version of a any game and easily manage advanced account/library things, and I didn't even digged into this. No other store have anything even close to this.

[@r3n846]

One of the main things I like about GOG is that you can actually get/use an older version of a game without hacky bs. Steam will try to force upgrade you, and you have to keep swapping in older game files if you want to use an older version. Also as far as I know you can't download older game versions anymore with the console.

[@Slav4o911]

Yes also you can transfer your games on a new PC without the need to redownload everything. You just take the old hard drive put it in the new PC tell steam this is your library and all your games are there. The other platforms usually do not allow that. Microsoft doesn't allow that with installed programs and with Windows, but Steam allows it and it's really easy to do, no reinstall needed. They are the only company which does not force you to go through hoops or pay for some service.

[@AkaraVortex]

@@r3n846 Actually I've checked and download_depot function runs as normal, you can download and run pretty much any version of a game (including non-public ones) uploaded to Steam.

[@AkaraVortex]

@@Slav4o911 It surprises me how MS Store and Xbox is lacking almost any basic features, and it even worse compared to Steam, not to say steam operates both on Windows and Linux. But Xbox actually allows to quickly reinstall w/o redownload files for a game from another / older drive.

[@r3n846]

@@Slav4o911 I've done that with GOG, uPlay, and Origin. I'm not sure if Epic can do it by itself, but Legendary can.

[@snowythecolaaddict]

Steam doesn't have a monopoly. It's competition isnt as good of an option. ( except for gog but i don't think it's as well known as the rest )

[@jaronmarles941]

It just doesn't have the selection Steam does.

[@frozello14]

If someone has control of 83% of the market (just using the number shows in thumbnail) it's monopoly no matter, how you look at it though.

[@jaronmarles941]

@@frozello14 False, there has to be no competition for it to be a monopoly.

[@frozello14]

@@jaronmarles941That's, what it ends up to be, when people start living in denial and act like kids "no steam, no play". With your logic, if someone has 99,9% market share and some poor guy is selling one game elsewhere means there's no monopoly. There's difference in illegal and "legal" monopolies. Not that neither one of them are good in a long run. If you think about it you don't really have a choice not to use Steam, if you want to play certain games.

[@jaronmarles941]

@frozello14 There has to be an absence of competition for there to be one. You can play mental gymnastics all you want, it still doesn't change the fact that Valve, by definition, doesn't have a monopoly.

[@Petrichorus-]

Having everything organized on one platform is refreshing in a time when streaming services are diving everything. It’s like a free library card vs 10 bookstores selling unique books but you need to have a membership to just enter + manually keep track of all the separate book return dates and policies.

[@leserb9228]

When (if) i have kids, one of them will inherit my steam account when i die. Their kids will inherit it from them, and so on. As long as steam exists that is....

[@spikederailed]

Valve supports linux openly, I use linux everywhere. My support of valve is easy in this instance, if Epic wanted to support the penguin like they did back in the mid early 2000s I would give them money.

[@MRZ_20]

I have a thought I want to share about gog in regards to you mentioning that the appeal of it is that you can play games offline and people prefer having all of their games in one place. I personally haven't used gog before but I think more specifically, the appeal of gog is that you get to own the games you buy, supposedly, and on their "about" section, that seems to be the main pitch. I think the idea of owning the games you buy is part of the bare minimum, and makes sense. If they are being honest and it's true that you actually own the games you buy on gog, that's huge considering that right now, gaming companies deprive you of ownership of your games with things like DRM and locking the games to their launcher. This leads me to my next point on their "about" section, something they mention is that their launcher is not required which is really cool because it gives you ownership of the games you buy. While it probably is true that people prefer their pc game library to all be in one place (myself included), I think part of the appeal of gog is that a launcher is not required. I will try gog one day as I have recently started buying hard copy games again and on a slightly unrelated note, I have recently bought a 4k ultra hd blu ray player so that I can own movies and shows that I like, and watch them whenever I want.

[@sonic-bb]

on top of all that, GOG gives out more extra freebies with there games. Like digital prints of gaming booklets that were packaged with the games release. Free soundtracks and even official guidebooks

[@davidmccormick7419]

GOG is also big on making sure the games they sell work on modern PCs. For example, windows 10 wont play warcraft 1 or 2 from the disk without external aid but both play perfectly from GOG.

[@TheSilverShadow17]

The fact that GoG is also flexible with working with other browsers is also a win for a gamer like myself.

[@A1stardan]

Only thing that is stopping me from buying from gog is they lack regional pricing and payment methods

[@TheSilverShadow17]

@@A1stardan That's understandable and fair.

[@aboutsoundandvision]

I've used Steam for over 12 years now and it is one of the only programs I have used that has consistently improved in ways that actually make the experience better. There have been some things that have caused a stir but Valve has always responded and listened to feedback. That is why I believe Steam is seen as the main PC platform

[@HedgehogY2K]

I hope GOG grows in the single player campaign space. That needs to happen.

[@sebastianpalacios2679]

One interesting fact about Steam is that they don't take money from investors as they are a private company and therefore don't need infinite growth. However I do use Epic because their games are cheaper than Steam and they give you back some money if you buy games on their store. I don't live in the USA so that is why in my region games are cheaper. In the end I think competition will always be good for consumers.

[@hey01e5]

yeah, i usually go for the storefront that has the cheaper deals i got the crew motorfest on ubisoft instead of steam precisely because it was on sale on ubisoft, but not steam

[@DaWolfetrax]

​@@hey01e5 The Crew Motorfest isn't even sold on Steam directly, only on EGS or through Ubisoft themselves. It may come in the future, but for now it's only those two.

[@jaronmarles941]

It's not competition when they buy exclusive rights instead of fixing the damn platform

[@CDeez29]

Steam is the goat. It’s not just a game store and launcher. You build a very personalized profile with achievements and the community is really strong. It was the pioneer and is so well established. I definitely agree with you on the in too deep. Even if the other launchers did catch up with having their own achievements and that same level of profile customization it wouldnt be enough for me/people to leave their steam profile and achievements behind and basically throw all that in the garbage. Great video 🤟🏼

[@sonic-bb]

only way i would ever leave my steam profile behind for another launcher is not only do they need to allow me to bring games i already own into the new library. But also transfer over my achievements as well. So friends and people still know that i put a lot of time into those games. sure it's just bragging rights. But lets not act like people dont like having the right to brag or show off lol.

[@choieunmi9303]

One thing Valve is doing wrong in my opinion is using (more importantly, relying on) Chrome code, instead of creating a native optimized solution. I see that "steamwebhelper" crashes too frequently, also the whole Steam resource consumption became a serious problem even with my 32 GB RAM on pc. It performs the same on Linux (which includes SteamOS and Steam Deck), so it actually removes some value from Steam Deck when you have 1.5 GB RAM occupied and few %% of CPU used permanently. I tnink Chrome/CEF is a cancer of software, and web developers should not replace software developers to that extent. There are also literally optimized solutions that can replace CEF for applications like Steam, but Valve continues using it.

[@aln447]

Yeah, but it's either that, or having to write dedicated apps for the platforms and the web. For a slight performance bump that only a few people complain about it doesn't seem like an endeavour worth the price

[@knightwolf3511]

@@aln447 honestly because of google they need to drop Chrome code

[@computernerd8157]

Web is an invading tech, most coding boot camps only train web devd and it took over mobile for the most part with react. If you hate web, the only thing you can do is become a game dev or embedded. Even with embedded Internet of things force you to know web.

[@gtifighter]

what you have to understand is that if RAM is available, your system and all the programs will automatically use more RAM. That's the whole point of having more RAM, so more data and more programs can more quickly access the files they need, etc. it ultimately speeds up all the programs that are utilizing the RAM. If you have less RAM, the same programs and softwares automatically use less ram, but they have to do more steps like fetching more of their files from the HDD or SSD continuously, which are orders of magnitude slower than the RAM. my 6 year old PC here is running with 16GB of RAM still, and the Steamwebhelper only takes up 500MB so a third of what it takes on your system. Again, that's completely normal and that's the whole purpose of having more RAM because on your system, the steamwebhelper certainly loads faster than on mine, and that's not just due to my older CPU but mainly due to the smaller RAM capacity

[@MsHojat]

Yes it's a massive bloat, and they've forced everyone to use it now. In the past it was possible to get around a lot of the bloat but they removed those options. It makes some games literally unplayable for some people on lower-end systems.

[@lucaroth4137]

Btw if you are an developer and dont like the 30 percent cut you can just start selling steam keys. The 30 percent cut is only for games sold in the steam store so for the keys steam takes a 0 percent cut

[@GloriousKev]

The funny thing about Valve's 30% cut is that it actually is industry standard. The consoles have always taken 30%, app stores take 30%, all of the other launchers besides epic that host other people's games take 30%, even sites like Humble Bundle take 30%. Epic complaining about it is just them being weird.

[@MLWJ1993]

Honestly, the 30% you lose also gains your customers a heck of a lot of added convenience you don't really need to think of as a developer. I could imagine a lot worse of a paid for benefit, or in the case of Epic, you just losing 12% & everyone being annoyed at having a launcher that doesn't really do anything for you except wasting space & time.

[@colin3ds1]

In this case though I think steam actually provides enough to justify the 30% They have user reviews communities, workshop, VR support and great controller support which is something a dev might want to consider when picking a platform to release their games on

[@colin3ds1]

​@@MLWJ1993workshop alone can keep games relevant for a long time

[@plzletmebefrank]

Yeah, and this extends outside of games, for most media distribution, 30% is either the standard or better.

[@WhatWillYouFind]

​@@MLWJ1993steamworks, cloud, community features, friend chat, workshop, extensive store features. Steam points swag " profile customization was so 90s but it's been kept alive." Steam backend for devs allows easy, nearly drag and drop updates with almost no delays. Natural monopolies can be good, if the leader does so in good faith. Gaben didn't allow NFT or coin scams. Gaben has said time and time again that users and long term viability is their focus. If steam goes public or gabben leaves, that's when sirens are blaring.

[@De_kaid]

On important thing to mention is that SteamDRM also isn't necessary to sell a game on Steam, for sure GOG is the better option when it comes to this, but there are also games on Steam that have 0 DRM, that you can launch without needing to open Steam.

[@Ussurin]

Steam does an awful job advertising this feature of the games that do not use DRM tho. While on GOG you just have confidence in it without needing to check.

[@traestephen7276]

you can check by closing steam and launching the game exe like kingdom new lands doesn't have anything@@Ussurin

[@klementineQt]

SteamDRM is also barely there. It's trivial to bypass and also fairly easy to remove the stubs from game executables. Anyone worried about game preservation needs to worry about online-only games and stuff like Denuvo. There's a whole library of clean files from Steam that are only a tiny little effortless crack away from being enjoyed and even those using Steamworks for multiplayer can have that online functionality emulated through LAN. Combine that with Radmin/Himachi etc. or better yet a dedicated revival project and you realize that a lot of Steam games are actually safer for preservation when they rely on Steam rather than using their own multiplayer APIs or DRMs

[@Sandact6]

The only reason I don't use GoG more often is because I need to go into desktop mode to manually set up games on my steam deck, nevermind the hassle of updating the damn things.

[@r.k6326]

Steam having a monopoly in the market is still isnt a huge issue for me IMO. Valve has done interesting things with projects that attempt to shape the gaming industry and even making some of it attempts such as Steam Deck and their attempt with VR work as decent breakthroughs in the hardware market. Reviews, Mods, and Profile Customizations are done well in Steam. However, the closest competitor we have to Steam is Epic, which keeps fumbling with Crypto, a slow app, as well as their methods of paying for direct exclusivity makes the competitor (In this case, Epic), look horrible compared to Steam. Steam just feels so refined to me, as it has a simple but great community system, and even the ability to list games that you already played on othe platforms is still neat. Epic lacks a lot of these aspects.

[@wakazimaru]

Steam is a matured service that has grown its customer base for 20 years and has worked out it kinks and problems out. It has many great features, mod workshop support, great refunds and customer service. Meanwhile Epic literally tries to buy its way into the market and cry tantrums about Steam having monopoly, it didn't even have a fucking shopping cart for god sake when it was released until a year later. My only fear is what happens to Valve when Gabe passes away.

[@ArtisChronicles]

The steam deck feels like a more mature version of their steam machines running steam os. I like that they figured out how to actually give a more console like experience in a neat package. Seems they were still thinking about it even though it didn't do that well the first time around.

[@ArtisChronicles]

​@@wakazimaru true... Once Gabe is gone things could easily go way downhill. Hopefully someone that values the same ideas takes over, but I doubt that'll happen given the track record of many companies.

[@m3nguele]

Epic is so lacking that they don`t even have a feature to localize a already downloaded game, Heroic has it (a third party open source Epic and GOG launcher) but it has trouble when it comes to Fortnite

[@FTW23-qq8nb]

Steam also has control over the steamworks drm and api therefore sometimes requiring it for games on other launchers.

[@sagnikchakravarty]

Steam is huge in the international market, I don’t know about other countries but in India people are stigmatized on using credit cards and steam being the only company providing multiple payment options like debit card net banking and supporting apps like google pay and paytm makes it only the sole feasible option to buy games from

[@Bone_Incidents]

I’m only scared of Gabe leaving. I don’t know where else I will go for games if Steam ever collapses and that fact is a little disturbing to me, but I’m content as I am so I choose to ignore the future in hopes of enjoying life as it is.

[@celestialsylveon6453]

It's crazy how in the last 10 years the only drama on Steam I've heard is how much of a cut they take from developers, and I think they even lowered it. Do you know how many drama threads are posted on other stuff? This is just wild to me Oh also Steam games *can* be DRM free-ish, as a lot of them can be launched without Steam even running Also I am so happy they are promoting Linux, because if Linux just had a bigger userbase it'd probably be a definitive upgrade over Windows! (Because I'd assume we'd have even better "just works" distros and more games will "just work" because software will account for Linux instead of just Windows)

[@GX-105D]

steam doesn't deal with DRM, it's a platform, not a developer

[@celestialsylveon6453]

@@GX-105D The DRM is the store purchase verification that games use to check if Steam is open and you own the game. DRM is to make sure you own the rights to use the software/game.

[@GX-105D]

@@celestialsylveon6453 lol no it's nor DRM is on the game maker side, not the steam side, it only verifies legit copies on the correct platform, why you think capcom is having issues? they're using a different DRM system

[@mondodimotori]

@@GX-105DSTEAM offers their own DRM to developers. It's an account based DRM. You can play the game only if you are loggend into steam with the right account.

[@sharku8417]

It's crazy how steam killed game resell market on PC and none of you kids are aware of that.

[@Chocapic_13]

One of the first reasons that caused the EGS to fail is that they did not sell games for cheaper even if they take a smaller cut They did raise some interest for game developpers but not from players

[@Kittysune12]

actually if you live outside US and EU EGS gave more fair dollars convertion rate than steam

[@NatrajChaturvedi]

Some games are in fact cheaper on EGS but not enough. EGS also needs to realize that some of things that they and many others dismiss as just small "launcher features" are hugely useful customer friendly initiatives from Steam like Family Sharing, Remote Play and even user reviews. People won't give those up so easily now that they are used to those.

[@Xyler94]

@@Kittysune12 Prices are set by the publishers (on Steam anyways). Including currency converted ones. If the publisher doesn't specify it, Steam uses the currency conversion rate. Sonic Frontiers is 79.99 in Canada. Whether you go on EGS or Steam, it's the same price. Some games are cheaper, but most games are the same.

[@ThePsychoghost]

Valve is a company that knows pc players well and if the ship sinks they have a backup plan for the games that ppl own. Gabe said it in an interview that there's a backup plan for people to access their games and accounts after the ship sinks.. There's companies out here with no game plan whatsoever. I do tend to worry because gabes health though and if he steps down as ceo who will take over and in that take over will they have the same philosophy as Gabe does

[@Mysticbladegod]

I have like 4 games on Steam and nearly 100 on GOG. Ownership is everything.

[@xenoliferttv9803]

Literally no other company i can think of is like Valve. I love em and they seem to care about us. That never changed and i hope it might never will.

[@venataciamoon2789]

Exactly. Steam is like your local caring store/shop who look after their customers. But once they turn on their customers over greed, that's when it all falls apart. Perfect example would be Nvidia. Gone greedy and we all see it, they have turned on their customers.

[@starc.]

@@venataciamoon2789 valve has gone into greed mode with the 30% cut and microtransactions from their games they just aint turned on customers cuz they private and no shareholders are sweating

[@tilofuder5182]

the way I see it, playing games outside of steam is like eating a meal without a plate. The meal is the same, but you don't have the comfort of the plate. In that case, the comfort being the steam overlay, the discussion tab, the community tab, the guides tab, the steam workshop, remote play together, steam controller support and various other quality of life that barely exist on other platforms.

[@AmericanLoner]

Your point about the Steam Deck is incredibly accurate. I used to buy games on other launchers from time to time but I ONLY buy from Steam now that I have the Deck

[@krazycharlie]

My favorite Steam feature is their ease of payment methods. You can pretty much use any method you want to buy your games. This is especially useful for people like me, who can't or don't want to use credit cards at every opportunity they're mandatory for paying anything you're interested in. Almost all of the other storefronts require you to swipe your credit card and very few have local regional pricing, so it's a lot harder to buy stuff from them. My only criticism about Steam is that the games there are not DRM-free, unlike GOG. This is particularly bad because Steam will kill support for operating systems older than Win 10 starting next year. I know it's not that big of an issue for most of their customers but it still affects a portion of the gamers out there and some games are better played on the OS they were intended for rather than newer ones. Other than that, Steam has been great for me. Valve and Gabe Newell have been really talking the talk and walking the walk. If Valve ever decides to make the vast majority of their games DRM-free, then all of their competitors will be in a really big trouble.

[@NorseGraphic]

The DRM are decided by the publishers, not Valve. 🤷

[@speed3414]

There are tons of DRM free games on Steam, and those who require the Steam Client to launch can be easily bypassed by a client emulator, the problem comes with Denuvo games

[@dustojnikhummer]

I think in some asian countries you can even mail cash to Valve.

[@Sandact6]

The OS thing may be annoying, but how long does Valve need to support an OS that's probably in the single digits by now? Unless you have some sort of legacy program you must have it'd be easier to swap to Linux.

[@assetaden6662]

They are killing support for older OS's not because they want to, but because they have to. Steam doesn't magically have infinite amount of developers to make them support legacy products. Steam is evolving, it's using up-to-date products for development, which are NOT SUPPORTED on older platforms.

[@Talguy21]

I think that a commitment to quality and UX is keeping Steam the market leader, and they have the foresight to maintain the paradigm because it works. They haven't yet stooped to optimizing the platform for income, they know that long-term success hinges on keeping the masses complacent. Honestly, in this paradigm, everyone wins. Valve might not be making the most money they can week by week this way, but it's keeping them securely in this pseudo-monopoly lead point that's keeping that bottom line secure. Hopefully once Gabe retires his successor will understand how unique this symbiotic relationship with the consumer is, and the opportunity it presents Valve as a company to be an infinite money machine.

[@SakaiDylanH]

The best part of steam is that you can include games from other platforms and launchers into their service/UI. Hell, you can put the Microsoft office and music making programs start from their launcher

[@FarikoUnited1]

Unless I missed it I think another thing you didnt mention was games keys, which was an option on that one poll in the video. Many of those who use keys are for Steam(not all but many) and end up as Steam users and as a service Valve provide keys for free to publishers as long as they dont abuse it and cant just be like endless. However if people are concerned about like the 30% cut they have that option to use keys and Valve supports servers and such for the players using keys even though they didnt get that users money for the sale of that game. Which is also why I am totally fine with their higher(used to be a pretty industry strandard percentage) cut because of them not locking down their systems or requiring you buy directly from them and give consumers options and arent paying for exclusives that take away that choice if the publisher releases on multiple launchers.

[@wolfwoof2000]

I remember when steam gave away free copies of Portal 2 on Steam when you bought a copy on ps3. Made an account and since then, it was only but positive. Great improvement over the years, especially Linux support, mods, steamdeck. I hope they continue this way

[@Jerry_quesoso]

I installed Epic once for a game, but my god if their launcher felt so barebones. What I enjoy about Steam is the profile customization, full controller support (it can change the LED color and luminosity of my PS4 controller and add macros for various needs) and easy access to modding with the workshop, not to mention about the insanity of the reviews which are always nice to read for a laugh.

[@EnderBoy9217]

Correct me if I’m mistaken but I don’t believe that Steam offers server hosting. They host the game file for downloads, the store page, and other info but you have to go to another service to set up your servers, which you used to justify their above-average cut however the devs will have to take more of that cut and put it into actual servers for multiplayer games.

[@wy477x]

They host p2p games at least I'm pretty sure. They also have stuff to help you host your own servers using steamcmd.

[@lenzibauer]

The biggest advantage of Steam is that it just works. I’ve been playing games via the Microsoft Store or the EA store and I had big issues with both of them. Games not starting, having to log in over and over again or other bugs constantly occur on other websites - but not on steam.

[@ninjaredfirehot]

I wish there was a system for games like "Movies anywhere," so that if steam ever falls off or does something really bad idk if that would ever happen but then you would know that your games are safe on all platforms such as Steam, Microsoft Store for Windows, Epic Games, and whatever other Window games app.

[@XMYeks]

so let me tell you about these things called discs

[@gravtycat9741]

​@@XMYekshow do you backup mldern pc games onto discs? How do you get Pc game discs still?

[@DanksterPaws]

If u pirate your games you essentially get this effect

[@gmdking]

@@XMYeksman discs never had these issues, buy a disk, and it’s all good for almost forever

[@asimramay1069]

you can make Steam Backups to Hard Drives with the Version of Steam also saved (as steam allows you to save full installs of the launcher so u can install even if u dont have internet -> but ur account has to be verified at the time and cached) and just crack them (legal in most countries if you own the game ) also apparently they have a DRM unlock in case steam ever shuts down with a offline launcher or something so if u have games backed up you will be able to use the launcher to play offline without steam servers

[@SparklingTwinky]

I love Steam a lot and will always use it as my main platform. In fact, Games that I got for free on the Epic Games store, I later on bought them on Steam anyway, just to play them without using the Epic Games Launcher. Profile Customization is something you barely mentioned in this video, because you didn't really do it with your own profile, but it's such a major thing actually. Being able to customize your profile with skins, animated background wallpapers, animated profile frames, showing off your favorite games, showing off your screenshots and artworks and being able to comment under other peoples profiles, it's such a huge and important thing for Steams ecosystem. It's a community platform, even a social media platform if you want to. Something that no other company can reproduce that easily. Steam is great.

[@geat]

You can add games from epic games to steam lmao, steam isn't your friend

[@tux_the_astronaut]

@@geatpeople dont care is steam cares about them or not they just offer the better experience as long as they keep doing this ill keep using it All the other platforms are just bare bones compared to steam or dont care about Linux

[@geat]

@@tux_the_astronaut I'd argue gog is a great platform too. Steam's dominance won't last forever, epic games or gog will eventually catch up.

[@Memecube]

@@geat you still have to wait for the launcher to open and hog another gigabyte of ram, hope you don't get unexpectedly signed out, and lose out on playtime, community tabs and other features on steam

[@carljoaquinasis4252]

Their refund system is also really good. you don't even need to give a valid reason as long as you haven't played the game for over two hours.

[@ILLTURI]

I've been PC gaming since I was 4, started with Nintendo and Arcade emulators, then at 10 years old (2012) I got internet on my house, so I discovered Minecraft, then the next year I discovered Steam. I've been a Steam user for 10 years, and there is something about it that makes you just fall in love. I always loved to see how much time I played a game, back then that wasn't common, I always loved the ability to customize your profile, having badges of your favorite games, posting in game pics for your friends to see, the Steam market, the Steam workshop, all the content you can add to your games that are made by the community, and the list continues... It has so many features that can make you fall in love with it. Also, back then, Steam was kinda the only place where you could get really cheap games, I remember in 2015 I had like $70 for the christmas sales, and I bought so many games that I didn't even know what else to buy, so I started gifting a lot of games to friends and even random people lmao. Getting a big Steam library is kinda easy because of what I just said, and it's so comfortable having most of your games in the same place, nowadays I don't care if the game I want to play is cheaper in another site, I'll buy it in Steam because it is just more comfortable to me, having all my games and all my progress at the same place. And the only real competition of Steam is Epic Games (I've been PC Gaming for so long, and I had never heard of GOG.com, lol, sorry.) but it will never be successful if they keep doing the same thing, that launcher is just atrocious, it runs really slow, making it a pain to navigate between your library, store, etc. While Steam's launcher is just so smooth, you get anywhere you want really fast. Epic Games launcher is just a Fortnite launcher. Honestly I wish all games were available on Steam, I don't know if it's going to happen, but any game gets benefited by being on Steam, it benefits both parties, it's a win win situation, nobody wants to launch Origin or Battle.net to play a game, we want to launch Steam and call it a day.

[@DipDopper]

Tru

[@ThatDiabeticChemist]

Your comment about most people using the steam deck for stems games regardless of its capability of being one of the best emulation devices is so spot on. I bought the steam deck almost exclusively planning to emulate. I spent a day learning about emulation, finding ROMS I want, and getting them up and running….and then I ended up buying and playing Stray instead lol. I’ve spent maybe 10 hours emulating and several hundred hours on my backlog and a couple new games from steam

[@nahuelcarrizo308]

Like you said in the video, steam is focused on being a good thing for gamers and not a service. Moving away from getting you to buy the same game 11 times by being able to share your games with friends, customizing your profile picture / nickname and not wait 30 days to do it again, having a clean, intuitive and sorted UI is what makes valve so great for us

[@DEMANATI]

steam is the go to choice because it does everything well and has many great features. its only issue is lack of support for offline achievements, offline playtime and the piss poor mods that have a huge bias when banning

[@haydenlee8332]

Valve is interesting because for a for-profit private company, it sure as hell operates much more like a non-profit or a public company (not the same as “publicly-traded company”). That’s what made steam’s monopoly not problematic I sure hope they keep this up

[@NatrajChaturvedi]

Coz Gaben is able to make bank without even needing to be a dick.

[@15likdoner12]

As a Turkish gamer, I enjoy every aspect of steam but because the people from different regions started buying games from Turkey with vpn, steam decided to change the currency to US dollar. They didn't even bother finding a solution for this but instead fucked us up. It wasn't easy to afford games thanks to our economy, and now we probably won't be able to buy games at all.

[@iihamed711]

Damn

[@prroagil1233]

Same for Argentina. But a new president was elected yesterday and will start managing the country in december 10, so really hoping he betters the economy. Not just for steam, for everything.

[@TheMasterOfSafari]

Let's be honest, they didn't bother with finding a solution? They absolutely did. But this was the last option they had... Anyways we don't know how it is yet, let's see how it goes.

[@prroagil1233]

@@TheMasterOfSafari Ye cant blame them, but now 90 percent of people from these regions will stop buying, so its kinda the same as not receiving any money from purchases. Or it isnt gonna be this way because majority who bought there was not from there, so it will not change anything at all. Could be either.

[@lord-chips8848]

I personally love have secured your library is on steam as well. If a game gets removed of steam but you’ve already bought it, you still own the game and can freely download or delete after its been removed. Also steam allows you to add none steam games to steam at the bottom left on the library. Adding even more customisation

[@Chrischi3TutorialLPs]

The main thing i use GOG for is their library. Steam's library is unmatched, but especially for the pre-2010 era, chances are you're gonna find it on GOG even if Steam doesn't have it.

[@1ofakind247]

One of the issues I have with EGS (and Epic Games as a developer company) is the complete abandon of the Unreal franchise: is hillarious that over the course of these recent years the only ways to buy these titles is via Steam (you cant buy them there anymore) and GoG, but still not EGS to this day. They cancelled UT4 wich was literally carried by volunteer developers who where diehard fans and wanted the game to make a return, and that didnt happened bc of Fortnite. Even with an already built legacy and niche but strong community since the early 2000s, Epic Games decided to put the nails in the coffin at a franchise that deserved more and now is held hostage by people who just don't care and thats frustrating. You dont see this happening with Valve even with very old games like TF2 (wich has been updated from time to time), some of the Valve videogames are always at top 10 daily users on Steam with more than 100k players.

[@XenonG]

Wow, I was so excited for the new UT and was enjoying Paragon. They removed both and then a few years later erased their legacy. Meanwhile, Valve just updated and bugfix Half-Life. Epic Games is dead to me, started playing since JJR, skipped UT99 and was one of those weird people that liked UT2k3.

[@linkfreeman1998]

Lol, Unreal was only good for graphics. Never was story. U play Half-Life for that.

[@1ofakind247]

@@linkfreeman1998 weird comparison

[@linkfreeman1998]

@@1ofakind247 I never heard people praising Unreal for its story, so... I do know that the visuals are great, but thats about it.

[@arcane1012]

@@linkfreeman1998 that's like comparing Monkey Island and Resident evil man. Sure they both deal with puzzles and adventure gamey goodness but one is a fun chill time and the other is a survival horror game. Unreal may very well have had some story but it's clear it was more focused on being like Quake more than anything, just a shoot game with a loose plot to drive things forward. Half-life, while still being an FPS, was specifically crafted to be an interactive cinematic adventure with FPS gameplay used to deliver it. They simply weren't going for the same thing and that's why it's weird to compare the two like that

[@stirlinggreer]

In a world that increasingly wants to rentseek everything with subscription models... Steam actually makes me feel like I own the things I bought digitally. They respect freedom. Freedom is the virtue I care about most. I cannot express my appreciation to Valve enough for sticking with their ethos from day 1.

[@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches]

You do, legally, own the things you bought digitally. The precedent was set in the France vs. Valve court case: digitally purchased games ARE goods.

[@stirlinggreer]

@@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches This is good to know but probably only applies to french laws. I feel that the US is getting further and further away from property rights every year.

[@tociart]

steam multiplayer, remote play, and cloud saves really work well. plus browsing the steam store gives me the same feeling as window shopping. 😂 the reviews in tandem with the hours they played kinda give me an idea of the reviewer's perspective, which informs me better than the game's description sometimes. idk chief, it seems solid enough I can't see myself moving away any time soon.

[@kepler6873]

One effect I have noticed is I only want to have one game window open at a time. I have Subnautica and a few other games on Epic, but I only think to play them if I ever go look at epic or specifically want to play that one game. If I’m on epic I browse that library, and if I have steam open I browse that one

[@Huehgref]

Steam is more than just a store front, it has a whole community aspect behind it. Reviews, forums, mods, curators and communication between the customer and the developers. All other digital storefronts fall flat

[@dryerofdoom]

One of the best parts of steam for me when i was younger was family share and still is as i share my games with a lot of friends and i got to play a lot of games that i never would have with out it

[@bes12000]

Yeah a top thing to love about Steam/Valve is they are pushing Linux to be better so more people adopt it, the UI is better than other platforms, I only use Epic if the games not on Steam for come reason, or Gog if it's an old game that wont run correctly on steam or Epic. Also I been using steam since it was first implemented.

[@marc-antoinequessy5388]

Man when you said steam is only 1 year younger than you i felt so old

[@banderas1879]

I made my steam profile when I was 15. 5 years BEFORE I got my first PC, simply because I knew I would use it when I eventually got my pc and because I wanted to start building my library with games as they want on sale

[@hotpenguin607]

Big brain

[@DJackson747]

Steam smoothed out alot of the rough spots that were obstacles in the past when it comes to delivering PC gaming to a wider audience. Steam on the surface is easy to use as it would be any console on top of having 2 decades of QoL improvements. Epic wants to buy their way into the market without building up their features first.

[@frozello14]

It's funny how much some people care about launcher features more than games itself sometimes, which doesn't even mean Steam being bad or anything, but makes you wonder are they even playing anything, if they care about certain features so much?

[@noobfart]

​@@frozello14brother, thats like saying google web search and google images should be a seperate service

[@nightmarepotato5000]

​@@frozello14Would you drive a car that has no airbags, no windows, no AC, no ABS, no headlights for example ? That's basically what those "other" launcher features are, sure, you could absolutely technically just drive a metal chassis on wheels with a steering wheel and pedals at the front but would you willingly ?

[@frozello14]

@@nightmarepotato5000 That's just matter of situation, if someone would drive that kind of car :) Do I need headlights, if I am driving in the middle of nowhere without nobody else around? How many of those features really matter for your gaming experience? Let say you play Battlefield, Assassin Creed, Diablo, Rocket League (just to name few from different launchers) are you thinking of "oh now I can do trading cards, launcher (read Steam) achievements, buy crap from community market etc. or are you just playing the game, which is same experience on any launcher (given servers are being stable).

[@nightmarepotato5000]

@@frozello14 Personally, I engage with quite a few of the extra bells and whistles so my answer is significantly enough to notice when they are missing. This might almost be a personal preference, to be honest. Though I imagine the fact that I somehow have not played any of those games makes my experience kind of biased ? (Though I do remember cursing out uPlay when I tried to come back to Siege). Though I am pretty sure Steam does have a big picture mode that does do away with a lot of those extras for a "play game and nothing else" if need be.

[@Anna_Rae]

I get everything on Steam because of Steam Big Picture Mode, Steam Input, and the Steam Deck. Being able to play all my PC games from the couch, with a console like UI, and with any controller I want is amazing. And then being able to take all those games with me on a portable device is the icing on top. Everywhere else is a storefront, while Steam is a proper ecosystem that provides a ton of value

[@thomasward00]

I use GOG whenever I can, it's NEVER good to have all of your eggs in one basket.