If like you say Steam is only garbage, make a list of good alternative.
-
Epic Game (worst)
- Launcher -> horrible and worst than Steam. Actually you can use heroic games launcher (less problems)
- Store -> really bad
- DRM
- Need update to play game
- Only Windows / Mac (i don’t care about mobile for the small amount of game)
- Not version for Linux and Tim Sweeney not like Linux and say a big amount of stupidity.
- Doesn’t have all the tools and feature for dev like Steam
- No Workshop alternative
-
Gog (need more game and feature)
- Gog galaxy (latest test in 2022) -> good launcher but no Linux version
- Games for Windows, Linux, Mac
- Not all game can be found here because it’s only DRM free game
- Doesn’t have all the tools and feature for dev like Steam
- No Workshop alternative
From what i can see, Steam is not perfect but it’s better than Epic for sure, and have more feature and game than Gog. I don’t include itch because for me it’s not a gaming store.
If anyone have another store, or want to correct anything.
What about… Physical media? Like, ordering a dvd from amazon with your game on it that you then play on a machine that’s not even connected to the Internet?
I see some problem with physical media :
- Storage: ~100Go (Blu-ray), ~5Go on DVD
- For all the non opti game who take more than 100Go of space ? Multiple DVD/Blu-ray ?
- Update: actually if a game need a update how to do this ?
- Download a zip file to apply the patch ? Possibility to directly write the patch on the DVD/Blu-ray for future install ?
If we use DVD/Blu-ray we need a player to install the game (I really prefer to have one on my computer/laptop than nothing, but it’s not how things work now 😭).
I totally prefer the physical media, but it’s not perfect. To have something easy for consumer, the game industry need to do some change like : opti the game size, find a good method to update the game, and no DRM on the physical media.
For all the non opti game who take more than 100Go of space ? Multiple DVD/Blu-ray ?
Yes. That’s how it was done before, no reason to not do this now. Wing Commander 4 came on 6 CDs. As you progressed through the game, you kept advancing through them.
Update: actually if a game need a update how to do this ? Download a zip file to apply the patch ? Possibility to directly write the patch on the DVD/Blu-ray for future install ?
As Blu Rays are read only, you obviously can’t apply the patch there. The patches were always downloaded and applied to the game parts you had on your hard drive. What was wrong with that?
If we use DVD/Blu-ray we need a player to install the game
You need a device to read physical media to actually read physical media, yes.
it’s not how things work now
It’s not how things work because games that came on physical media had literally no advantage anymore at some point. With physical media just being used to speed up the first install in your always-online environment and bandwidth being no longer an issue, they just became obsolete. If I could have played half life 2 without steam using my disc, it would have been worth keeping. With the box being essentially just a bulky envelope for a product key, it turned out to be just a hassle.
At some point, steam will enshittify or shut down. That’s when we will realize that online only distribution might not have been such a great idea.
I remember the physical media PC game days. At the end, the games had horrible copy protection/DRM. I remember not having an internet connection for a while and I went to buy a game that I could play. All the games on the shelf had a notice on the box that said “internet connection required”. Single player games needed to be activated, and if you ran out of activations you either had to contact the company to reset it or you were shit outta luck. I far prefer the combination of Steam and GoG.
I remember the physical media PC game days before those days when CDs had a copy protection that barely worked and nothing else. I got a game, headed home, installed it and played the whole afternoon without being online once.