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Until any competing store releases a Linux client, I can’t really argue against Steam. They are a gatekeeper and almost a monopoly, but they’re also the most benevolent and pro-consumer gatekeeper that we have in the PC gaming distribution space. As long as all the competition continue to be Windows-only and, in some cases, actively work against Linux users, I don’t want Valve’s digital fiefdom to fall.
I’m not sure “gatekeepr” is the right term when all you do is simply being better for your customers than anyone else. Like, Ubisoft, EA, Epic, they all are garbage companies. GOG is the only store I’d mildly consider (ignoring tiny indie ones like Itch here), but they also have 0 interest in Linux support, which is where they lose me. Without Valve, Linux gaming would not be where it is today, and as a Linux user that is already like 85% of my decision making being done in favor of Valve - with the remaining 15% not all strictly being in another camp either. If someone wants to challenge that monopoly, they’d have to do something better than forcing exclusives or luring with “free” games, because that’s some shady shit that makes me just want to stay away even more.
How are they a gatekeeper? Near monopoly sure. But they don’t force companies to only publish on Steam. They don’t have restrictive rules. I’m not sure what gate they are keeping.
Valve is interesting. Enshitification is the standard for something like social media. Corporations are the real customer and users do creative labor to keep it valuable.
Valve flips the script. Developers struggle because they are only expected to labor. Studios don’t get the full value of their labor. They might be a huge corporation but they are a worker to valve
Digital fiefdoms like who, you ask, as if you don’t already know the answer? “Valve is the most egregious example,” says Gavrilović. He hopes for a future where devs, not digital feudal lords, have more power, “but I lack the imagination to envision the replacement of Valve with a community owned alternative. That ‘winter castle’ will not fall as easily, but we should at least start openly discussing alternatives.”
Make an opensource game store that’s owned by a non-profit and paid for by the game studios that want to sell on it, giving them a say on how things should run.
That could easily be abused by the big players, and would be.
How?
I feel like some journalist got high as fuck with a dev, wrote out a fucking fever dream of… drivel and then the editors were like fuck it, Tim Sweeney pays us to post some hit pieces against Valve and this is all we got this month so we’ll just run with this.
I don’t know if a spiritual successor will be as good. I mean, it wasn’t exactly the gameplay that made it so compelling; it was the writing. None of the supposed successors being made rn have the writers from the original game.
It also is a shame it wouldn’t be set within Elysium; a very well built world that is as exciting as it is mysterious.
Summer Eternal has Tuulik and Red Info has Rostov and Kurvitz
I agree and hope that what comes after it is even better at supporting gaming on GNU/Linux and contributing to various libre and opensource projects like KDE and Proton and Mesa and such.
Steam obsessed people always cry about the lack of “features” in other stores, as if a game store + launcher needs features other than being able to buy and launch games.
Hell, I don’t even want to launch games. Just let me buy and download an exe (oh yeah, GoG does that, which is why I use GoG whenever I can…)
Sucks for devs that people just won’t buy their game if it isn’t on Steam though :/ Idk how to change peoples’ behaviour, unless Steam does something egregiously bad to users
Your wants and needs are different from other people’s wants and needs, doesn’t mean other people are wrong.
One of those features is Proton. Thanks to Steam I can play every game I am interested in, without the need to install Windows.
GoG sometimes pushes out Linux installers that they immediately stop supporting, resulting in non-working games. Fuck that.
Steam was around for long enough, with it’s array of features, that I have grown accustomed to having them. Even when it first launched, Steam was more than just a store and library. It had Friends and, while not yet integrated into the app itself, they also provided the User Forums for every single individual game.
Even as just a store and ignoring all the other periphery features, it has more features for actually finding things than any other digital market for buying games. Not to mention sales, user reviews, and more.
Steam is widely regarded as the best option because they do things in the interest of their customers, instead of shareholders with a stake in the company.
Steam is fast. Epic is slow. Epic is always asking me to 2FA to access my library of free games. Epic takes minutes to load their store homepage.
- sunzu2 ( @sunzu2@thebrainbin.org ) 4•5 months ago
Dont buy your game codes on steam if you use steam!
Gamestop sells them among others.
Hard to walk away from steam services but GoG is non drm, so once they get better linux integration going start a library there.
Bottom line everyone should be disturbing their spend among various players.
While steam is great, once gabe is ded, we are cooked frogs.
Eh… I have a 500+ game library on GOG and moved back to Steam in 2020. Steam just has too many good features. I’m at the point where I don’t really care about DRM anymore. I know that’s an unpopular opinion but after 20+ years I realize it’s just a boogeyman.
- sunzu2 ( @sunzu2@thebrainbin.org ) 1•5 months ago
I would not call it a booegyman… it is a non burger for avg gamer tho.
But for people who think bigger, it is a valid concern IMHO. Also, if it is not for people who think bigger, we would never big here tech wise.
If we keep accepting current trends, everything will get shittier…
Steam is an exception to this maxim, but for how long?
I’d really like it if Valve waits for until after I get a pile of external hard drives before they go under.