What the article didn't mention is that Valve brought back region locking of games (because of regional pricing), and the forceful need to have steam for a lot of games, like those from Japan, just means that they want PC to slowly turn into just another video game console. The steambox thing doesn't help their case.
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I guess there's always a market and an audience for Valve hate.
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I'm not defending anyone, of course this community is terminally hopeless when it comes to recognizing their overlords could be a lot worse than Valve.
Maybe it's age, they don't remember the time when PC was a barren land of crippling DRM and console exclusives.
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It is a problem that Steam is so big, because IMO it's a matter of when rather than if it goes evil, OTOH anybody who thinks Valve treats their customers badly has a serious perspective issue.
The type of criticism to Steam seen on SteamGifts is very self-serving: there is no right to make money off Steam, either through trading or whatever, Steam is not Amazon.
Insisting that Valve is Utterly Bad for what boils down to getting things in order so that scammers and impersonators are no longer a problem, is at best entitlement, and at worse selfish and myopic.
Having said all that, it's hardly surprising some will reject the notion that the changes Valve have been making are actually in the interest of their userbase, no matter what.
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I'm just sitting here, suddenly realizing that some people are fucking dumb enough to think that companies like Valve is like a... a friend or something? Wait, was that really a thing? Is it a new thing to be aware that Valve, like all other companies, are not your "friend"?
Steam is shit, now more than ever. It's no news.
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Read the comments of that article. Those same flocks are still viciously defending Valve and Newell. Video games have a few really extremely bad case of fanboyism, and Valve is one of those. It is even among the worst in this regard. For example, just ever try to point out in a video game forum that Portal was not their game just a reskinned one under their name, or that Half-Life 2 actually doesn't hold up at all with its long unskippable conversation scenes and AI that somehow manages to be dumber and more predictable than in HL1.
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there are two extremes on the internet. one side is what people like to call "fanboyism". the other is the hate-side. this one basically does the exact opposite of what fanboys do. meaning there's negativity in every discussion. certain companies like ubisoft, EA and also valve get bashed, even if they do good things. i hope you know i always value your opinion, but with this comment i think you made a quick trip to the dark side. ;)
For example, just ever try to point out in a video game forum that Portal was not their game just a reskinned one under their name
as i recall it, they saw the prototype and then employed the whole team of students to develop Portal as a Valve game. how is this not a good thing? sounds fantastic to me. a group of newcomers get rewarded for their hard work and their creativity, with a job and a nice project. not sure how you can turn this into a bad thing. Valve does a lot of shitty things, no doubt. almost all of the changes they made during the last years are horrible (with the exception of refunds). but if they do something good, they should not get bashed for it. and as i understand it, Portal is the perfect example for that. not only did those guys get jobs, they also got to work on a relatively big project and therefore boost their reputation in the industry. sounds like a nice move by Valve to me. and did you ever have a look at the original "game"? Portal is not a reskin, it's a completely new game, based on the central idea of Narbacular Drop. you simply cannot look at both games and then tell me one is just a reskin of the other.
the bigger the company, the more likely it does shitty things. Valve is no exception. but if they do something good, they should get credit for that. that would just be fair - they also get a lot of gate whenever they fuck something up, after all.
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I never made a secret about not liking Valve. It started when they made online activation for HL2 mandatory in a year where internet penetration beyond the States was still low; I knew exactly one person up to 2009 who actually bought a legit copy and could activate it, everyone else had to use the pirated version even if they had money to buy the game.
I never made a secret about not liking the games associated with their name either. I did not like CS even when it was a relatively obscure Half-Life mod. It looked like a really bad attempt at trying to do something that was not UT/Q3. (I am also probably one of the handful who also remembers that CS was copied over to be an UT99 mod as well.)
Steam, I saw the good parts in it up until a few years ago, when I realised that this monopoly is shitting so blatantly on people and some masses are so happy about it, it was frightening. The concept of digital distribution was great and it worked well up until they stopped caring about any sort of control over anything that could give them a cent of additional profit.
When Valve makes good decisions, I am okay with it. The recent trading card one is a good example. But as long as they do everything in their power to be as secretive about data other companies disclose publicly and as long as they only react to bad press instead of keeping a normal service, I will keep bashing on them.
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well sure, do what you must. ^^ all i say is we should bash them if they deserve it. not for everything, no matter what. if they fuck something up - go crazy! but if they do good things (like the Portal case), we should be fair about it. :)
and yeah, i didn't like CS either. i remember we went to the internet cafe a few times to play it, and i got bored of it real quick.
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Maybe I misunderstood some facts, but overall it's just a summarize of what is Valve. We didn't learn new stuff, it emphasized the reality.
I agree on the principle, but behind Valve there is Electronic Arts which are far far worse.
Except spit on one or another, there is nothing to do.
So, in conclusion I think it's better to keep the lesser evil: Valve/Steam.
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Is it? EA bought up a lot of studios for their franchises to milk said franchises, but they continued to make games.
Valve bought up franchises to stop making games in said franchises and instead create cosmetic items they sell for more money than what the game costs.
EA ruined quite some game series and alienated the fanbase of them.
Valve ruined the industry by introducing micropayments in a scale that no facebook or mobile games can ever get close to it, Zynga or no Zynga.
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On Valve side:
I agree, it sad that Valve doesn't seem to want to invest more of his money to make his own games :/
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Valve ever bought franchises. A lot of their game are based on mods. By example, they hired the guy behind DotA 1, a mod from Warcraft III, to make DotA 2.
When they launched DotA 2 with this economic model I was sure it will fail against LoL, but apparently not ^^. I never understood why they didn't sell their game as Riot did with LoL. Maybe it's because I don't buy cosmetic stuff on DotA 2, and when I did, it was just for profit (shame on me ^^). And don't forget that DotA 2 is a F2P, and cosmetics are optional contrary to story DLCs...
BUT, Valve tried to make business with mods, and I'm sure they will try again. That's the main thing which scares me a lot.
On EA side:
They own a lot of studios, so yes, they make publish a lot of games (and sometimes they rush their development to make profit).
Like you said "EA ruined quite some game series and alienated the fanbase of them". The way they produce wagons of DLC, the way they sell it at high price and never discount or bundle them. The best example I've seen is in Dragon Age (Complete Edition not available in my country). The game itself never stop to remind you that you can't go there or there because you didn't buy the DLC...
And EA nearly never support his "old" multiplayer games. Sometimes they closed their server after only 1 year... (EA were sued for this)
And I'm sure we can find other examples which explain why EA was voted the Worst Company in America during several years...
So, if I look the game owned/published/developed by these two company : one is trying to sell his games only slice by slice and the other only produce a few games but still sell it in a better way.
I agree that virtual store sucks... when they launched Steam, I hated to be forced to install it to play Half-Life 2... But nowadays there is no more choice, publishers often impose online virtual store for us (ex: Bethesda) even for physical copies.
I don't really like Valve, but the "past" behavior of EA afraid me too much to support them.
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In Steam defense, every monopoly is greedy, corrupt and evil, this is nothing new. That being said, there's another problem with Steam that this article doesn't cover. Everyone should have the right to give their games away. Whether purchased or received as a gift, you should have the right to remove it from your library and give it to someone else under any reason. Since we can do this with physical media, it's obvious these evil corporations are trying to take another right away from us in the excuse of being digital.
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They are not your games, they are just personal licenses. They won that battle long ago. Happy cake day!
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Whatever you want to call it, license, game, Juelz Santana, doesn't matter, if we paid for it, we should have the right to give it away at any time as we would a physical game. Technically we also don't own the physical games either, that's why we aren't supposed to make copies of it, but that still doesn't prevent us from giving our copy away, just saying. Btw I have no idea why I have a cake besides my name, but thanks anyway! =D
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It is actually the date in which you first tried to join the site, not necessarily the date in which you joined (at least I have that issue), but still it is an anniversary :D
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Some valid points, but he fails to mention the positives of Steam. The main one is imho, that it put PC gaming back in business. Without Steam, low-powered consoles would still be leading hardcore AAA titles and you would only be playing pay2win indie games on mobile devices. Steam also reinvented the bedroom programmer of the 80s, indie developers (I'm one of them, nothing on Steam yet, but working on it).
Then there are all these complaints on the cut they get for their services. Of course they'll get a cut, they are a business, not a charity. 30% is the exact amount Apple, Google and Microsoft receive for any sales on their respective stores. And they don't let other stores compete with their own like Valve does. Apple will also charge you 150 Australian Dollars per year, just for the honor of being an Apple Developer (if you don't pay, they take down your labor of love that for most doesn't even break even with the subscription fee).
I think the article is very one-sided.
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That first point is a fantastic point most will simply not think about.
Turn back the clock a decade and the state of PC gaming was VERY different. And people complain about console ports nowadays...... You either weren't around back then or have forgotten.
The PC market has flourished thanks in large part to Steam.
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I don't love steam - i love digital distribution pc gaming and the games i 'own' (have license to) on steam.
When GOG launched i was all 'this is it!'. When itch.io came up 'a new one!'
Turns out neither are my go to platform
The reason is simple:
-Low income
-lives in brazil
-Steam's reasonable prices in BRL not to mention sales
Then came bundles, steamgifts, nuuvem...
The sad truth is, as it is, im stuck with Valve as long its the only company catering to lower income countries. I would have obtained an played around a fifth (or less) of games otherwise. Heck- much less.
The saddest truth is no competitors will come to that because they can't- they can't afford it while being shadowred by the big titan.
For all its evils both the pricing and the confort of the platform have turned me from a pirating teenager into a buying consumer.
Being older and more mature i now want to giver more to the devs as ever and i don't see excitement in pirating anything as before; But the only way i can keep my hobby- wich is trying novelty gameplay (means searching for different games and rarely devoting to any particular one) - is with steam. I wouldn't have played as many games with other options. Heck im a guy who was reluctant about Doom 4, Fallout 4 and even Deus Ex Mankind divided because they didn't seemed that much of 'new' to my eyes; In a parallel universe without steam, if i spent as much with games, i would be saving cash to grab a single AAA probably derived/recycled experience.
Heck steam even made me more of a indie fan.
Itch.io is my new found love for indier indie and novelty (cashgrabs fake games aren't there after all) - but i can only buy every so often in there because income brbr :P
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The saddest truth is no competitors will come
Fear Amazon. They just planted the seed.
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Ok. That is reason for fear.
Because if someone can pull it off its then.
Annd... because, of course, if they do we will miss evil steam.
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all what you say apply to me too, ....only the sad part is minus "for low income country" ,,,i still pay US price
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Damn, i can feel your pain.
Here in brazil piracy was once so endemic that everybody did it. Think of russia level, was only smaller because, well, internet was smaller as well. Some growth helped and Brazils potential as next investment heaven meant more companies finally coming here, localizing - but only really got better when this new generation of 'consumer first' and low prices caught on.
I had set my mind on entrepeurnship and game design when younger and for a time i decided to, you know, support the industry. No more piracy! - well, that was pre-steam. Some of my first digital purchases came from that time, bionic armed commando and aquaria comes to mind.
I had to pay in dollars, pre steam-sale-era-prices plus taxes.
It was short lived as you can imagine. I know your pain.
Btw its hard to 'argue' against the convenience of 'one place for your game' in face of the simple facts.
Those games i bought back then? Ive lost 2 - 3 of them. To this day i don't have aquaria on steam- can't find where my old key was and that probably wouldn't activate anyway.
Ive also bought some games on desura i lost- no steam keys, the backups i had went down with my old external drive.
My old early steam purchases (high price era) are all still 'intact'- and more then half of those were titles removed from the store completely.
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From the article:
Valve is not your friend, and Steam is not healthy for gaming
The illusion behind the “Good Guy Valve” reputation
Wait, there is such a thing as "good guy valve reputation"?
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Yes. "Gaben is our god" is not just a meme but an actual principle for millions of PC gamers. And I wish I was just joking.
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Valve tends to run their business in the pro-consumer way (at least in comparison to competition that is) and they get their share of praise for it.
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This would more properly be in "Off Topic."
(Nevermind...)
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Oh hello Khalaq, it is a pleasure to see you here.
Well, when I thought about creating the thread, I did the same I always do when creating a discussion, follow the criteria cg pointed out in this thread. As you see, it says "(...) the General category should be used for SteamGifts and Steam related discussions". As this is a Steam related discussion, I thought General was indeed the best category for it. Can you please explain me why "Off Topic" would be a more properly category? In that way, I can apply that criteria in future discussions too. Thanks :)
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I stand corrected. Apparently, my understanding of "General" was something other than what CG had in mind.
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ok don't worry, thanks for your interest and your time. I also invite you to take part in this little (and I think healthy) exercise of argumentation^^
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Oh no, a company trying their hardest to make money as their primary intensive. How scandalous ;)
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Apparently someone is very angry with the recent changes on steam gifting and cards drops...
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Maybe it's time for all of us to wake up.
It has been but alas, where do I get good games for cheap? People love their USD, we in third world country aren't.
Alas there's no Dota in other store.
And don't tell me to stop playing Dota.
Yes I'm talking seriously, not being sarcastic. If you have answers to my concerns feel free to speak up, as long as you have logical answer of course.
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There are certainly ridiculous things. E.g. those "free translations". Imagine that you are speaking e.g. Italian and English and you are on holiday in Rome, going to a restaurant, which is part of some global chain in addition to that. There you notice that they don't have a menu in English, so... do you make a free translation of it for customers to enjoy (all while the the restaurant next door perhaps paid for a translation, and the manager of the restaurant you are at perhaps has a friend to make fake invoices for translation with) ? And as if that wouldn't be already weird, now imagine there are minors out there doing work for sake as if some praise by some guy wearing a mod tag (which arguably is in some jurisdictions criminal) or adults mystically thinking that perhaps if they put even hundreds of hours of work in for free that they may eventually get paid for further work one day. All that in a context where professional translations are actually not that expensive - e.g. mentioned menu, in some countries a professional translation of it costs less than what a single customer may spend in one session - all while the restaurant chain would be probably quite mad if professional translators would be using free labor to hand out burgers for free in front of their restaurants.
But these issues aren't just about Valve. There are quite a number of commercial sites raking in plenty of money while taking "for free mods, translations and marketing". E.g. referral links offering e.g. 1% of in-game currency of every purchase some referred "friend" made, such is an example of technically free marketing labor.
Of course, many a case may not be exactly clear where the line is at between commercial and not-for-profit. E.g. SG here, apparently more a community thing than a commercial project as such, and surely understandable that probably no one expects the owner to be paying from own personal pocket for years of free enjoyment by many others (and due to that some ads running, or similarly on other sites). Yet when owner were offered e.g. $2 million for the site etc., and owner would agree, legally probably no obligation to share some of that with mods who apparently also put some free time and work in. But as is (and seeing number of users in the user stats), such site is surely way different to especially big corporations having as if labor camps in their premises they take commercial benefit from (e.g. free translation of a store page means more potential customers for the product, etc.) - all while themselves arguably as if using "open-source scene flair" for their commercial enterprises. And that I personally find quite ridiculous regardless of whether Valve (which would have barely earned money if the only games made were made for free) or whichever commercial company.
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Though there are other digital distribution platforms nowadays, one could hardly call it an oligopoly yet, and even that wasn't great from a customer's view. But Steam was the first one and established many features the others haven't added yet. Maybe these can't be adopted easily due to copyright issues. Even if GoG (Galaxy) and resellers like Humble will further improve their offers, you'd still depend on their rules.
It would be great to have several open source game library clients, which could work with all DRM types, allow patching, have a common community interface (even better across hardware platforms) and different settings of the additional fancy stuff (integrated discussions, soundtracks, artbooks, trading cards etc) for those who want it. But that will probably never happen, because exclusive licensing/publishing is their PR machine. Is there a gamer's heaven?
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To tell the truth, Origin used to be pretty damn shit. I remember when this simple digital storefron't client somehow manages to use more RAM than fucking Chrome.
On the other hand, Origin right now is a GREAT platform. The client is straightforward, the UI is nice, their support is actually among the really good ones. They even have nice sales now, finally. Part of me actually wishes they let in 3rd party games as well, but alas, I doubt EA would do that without some hidden clause in the contract that would let them buy up the developer company who posts their game there. =)
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i must admit, steam or not steam is indifferent for me, but the factor that i can buy it from RU , and SEA region trader back then, plus other addition stufff like SG, ....etc..etc all involve in Steam, is the major factor that i stop torrent and buy the game on Steam,
But now. the reason that i can play game on steam is cheaper/affordable price game is gone with the new change... i may have to consider about buy game on steam or not anymore
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The part of the article where he tried to claim that making a sale meme or saying "Hey this game is cheap go get it" means you're being deceived into giving them your free labour is fucking wild.
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Steam has done a lot wrong, and I would certainly like to see more competition between digital distribution platforms. I do wish I had purchased more on GOG instead of Steam. We're already so heavily invested in Steam; no one wants to repurchase their games elsewhere and that makes it even more difficult to leave.
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It is convenient to have your friends list and all your games in one place though. I realize you don't have to actually leave the service, but I don't care to have multiple clients running either.
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I don't really get the inconvenience argument of "I want all my games in one place", either. Steam makes things more convenient, especially since you can't have as many desktop icons as you can have PC games, but GOG is just a different version of the same tool that is just as convenient, and using both versus only one isn't such a bother. Just choose the right one to open after you decide which game you want to play. It's not like I'm playing 6 different games a day, all across GOG/Steam/Origin/Uplay and I need to switch between them every half hour.
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Bro if you didnt saw changes coming you're so mature... [sarcasm off]
just saying, nothing last forever...
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Yeah, the article is right in most of what it says. But steam is also a service that makes sense to most users, and that's why we continue to use it. Origin and GOG are good alternatives nowadays but it took them years to get there, and guess what, they're also run by companies who's main motivation is making profit.
At leat we have a market that's not run by Microsoft, so games can be made cross OS without issues, all we need to fix is that once you buy a game in one software distribution platform you get it in more than one of them so you can choose from where you want to install and run it.
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A company is not my friend? What a shocking revelation :)
Yeah, didn't trust Steam for the first 5 years of it's existence (that's why my profile is from 2009 and not 2004), and don't trust it now. I just liked that they were the only ones with sales available to me at one point in time (because of where I live stores would hold 10 year old box copies at a silly high price, and bundles were yet to be invented).
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https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/16/15622366/valve-gabe-newell-sales-origin-destructive
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