Fuck this platform.
Fuck mandatory DRM.
Fuck the garbage runtime that takes minutes to start every time I wanna play a goddamn single player game.
Fuck mandatory updates every time I want to play a goddamn single player game.
Fuck popup advertisements for events that reappear year by year no matter how many times I’ve disabled them
This platform prevents you from owning anything…
I don’t know how anyone could support this garbage.
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.
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.
Steam forces games to have DRM?
I guess i didnt notice the DRM of the games installed from steam that i was able to play without steam installed
I assume it does force DRM. I can’t play Terraria, skyrim, elder ring, etc. without it. I have not encountered one release which I can play without the runtime.
Terraria in particular shouldn’t use it unless it was forced to do so based off the fact that they’re available on gog which mandates games be drm free.
I’m not even allowed to run that game without updating it if it’s out of date. I literally can’t play a modded game because it may be rendered unplayable at any moment by the publisher. Makes the whole workshop people talk up all but useless.
As far as i know, terraria has DRM because it uses steam features(for multiplayer)
Celeste and stardew valley dont have DRM so its not forced
I love steam, but let’s get real here for a second. Valve will change some day. Enshitification is inevitable.
GabeN will not live forever. The vultures circle endlessly, and one day they will win. There is no good ending here (for now).
Consider building a tower, downloading everything youve purchased on steam, and keep it offline. Maybe have a 2nd set of hard drives as a backup. Put these priceless artifacts in your will.
Plan accordingly and enjoy the ride while it lasts.
https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/steam
Was valve ever good to begin with? Their main products is a useless proprietary software launcher and they make billions off abducting kids into gambling and selling their data.
I loathe their lootbox system but I’d say valve is better than their rivals in most places. I’d put them far above Epic, Playstation, and Xbox for their games marketplace, far above meta in the VR space and on par with the game developers I respect in basically every aspect except lootboxes.
I don’t think we should respect, like or trust any large businesses but Valve is certainly the lesser evil of many choices.
I love steam, but let’s get real here for a second. Valve will change some day. Enshitification is inevitable.
Steam is an example where I’m not sure when it would happen.
It already comes with a hefty fee of 30% per sale on the platform. I don’t think they can raise that without serious backlash. And there also isn’t really a need, Steam prints money. It prints money because it’s where users are. Users are there because they like the features. Some good features are only there because of laws (e.g. refunding); Valve can’t remove these.
So how would you make the service even more profitable?
Enshittification happens because corporations want (more) money out of a service that built a userbase. These were often running at a loss. To turn a profit, they need to change.
Steam can sell you licenses to games you don’t own already. It’s up to each publisher. Valve doesn’t care, they just deliver.
They could add a fee to re-download games, a subscription requirement to use friend invites, start throwing spam notifications on your screen/in your email inbox about “sponsored content”, upload your browser history for better ad targeting, etc. the list gets pretty long pretty quickly. Just look at what the Epic store does right now (hint, it’s almost all of those things already).
Think of it more like Netflix. Netflix was great, then the market fractured and Netflix enshitified in response.
What it would take here is for a publisher to become a real distributor in the space, but competition is weak right now. Just like it really took Disney wading in to disrupt Netflix, it would take someone equally large, like Microsoft, to disrupt Steam. Sorry Ubisoft, but you don’t cut it.
Publishers already tried this (EA, Ubisoft, etc) and it didn’t really work. They came back to Steam.
They will never go public so enshittification rules don’t necessarily apply
Never say never, but I don’t think it’s going to happen while Gabe is in charge
I doubt gabe would choose a successor that would make steam public either, though.
I don’t play many AAA games but I’m forever gutted that the fight to make them able to be pirated is a losing battle. I want to pay for my indie games but on occasion I look online at the crack status of AAA games from oecen 2-3 years ago and they’re still not playable.
It creates a weird dichotomy where people who pirate or at least don’t buy expensive games don’t take part in the mainstream gaming conversation at all, which is totally different from the rest of pirated media.
Which AAA aren’t cracked?
The only two I can think of (that I’ve ever thought of playing but haven’t been able to pirate) are the newer Dragons Dogma and the recent Black Myth Wukong game but those arent from 2-3 years ago so I’m curious which ones you are thinking about.
Wild that the video game industry is so big, and this still isn’t even 1% of people on earth.
Sure, but 38,000,000 x $60 = $2,280,000,000. And that’s if they all spend only $60/year, and only on Steam, and the average I’m sure is much higher.
This is just steam. It’s estimated that about 3 billion people regularly play video games.
Yeah but you’d think more what use steam. I wonder what the platform breakdown is .
I wonder how many millions they need to be inspired to update their platform so it doesn’t need a regular outage every Tuesday.
All of them playing that KFC dating Sim
Cant believe this actually exist xd https://store.steampowered.com/app/1121910/I_Love_You_Colonel_Sanders_A_Finger_Lickin_Good_Dating_Simulator/