I only buy games on Steam, GOG and ItchIO. The main reason I don’t give a cent to stores from EA, Ubisoft or Epic Games anymore is their services and terms are horrible. I’m all in for supporting competition when it’s good competition.
I would buy from GOG too, if they provided Linux support in form of an official launcher. And if available also official Linux builds. Back in the days GOG did that, but they stopped doing it. And before someone comes after me, I know there are alternative launchers on Linux. But I don’t want to give GOG money for work others doing it for free. I don’t want support a company who only cares about Windows.
In the past, before Proton, if a game was available at comparable prices on GOG and on Steam, I’d buy it on GOG, also because no DRM meant better compatibility. After Proton, my purchases from GOG went way down.
You can run GOG games via Proton these days btw!
You always could, but they don’t get to take credit for that
I bought Resident Evil 0 on GOG yesterday but Heroic wouldn’t download the game for some reason (stuck at 0%). Refunded, got it on Steam for cheaper and it launched right away.
Sometimes I purchase on GOG out of principle and for some reason they always punish me for it.
I used to be the same.
I have changed to prioritizing GOG though since I try to limit purchases from US companies and I despise how Steam knowingly profits from making children addicted to gambling.
If you login to the Lutris client with your GOG account it skips GOG Galaxy and install the game for you in proton.
Yeah they were ahead of Steam there for a while.
They started supporting and cooperating with heroic launcher.
Thus heroic is the defacto official GOG launcher on linux.
What type of support and cooperation? And where it is documented, so I can read about it?
Weird. I can fibd no source on it. However I seem to distinctly remember that GOG announced to help heroic implement more cloud features.
That does not mean it never happened, we just can’t find the source. I had this with my own statements in the past too, sometimes it was true sometimes I was wrong. Therefore I cannot trust everyone in the internet. What I can imagine is, that GOG worked on the GOG API (the programming interface for other tools) to add access to the Cloud features in example. It might came out of a request from the Heroic Launcher project. So in a sense GOG would cooperate. But this is just speculation on my part here.
Still the Heroic Launcher is a separate project doing all the work on their own.
You can just add it to Steam as a non-Steam game and launch it from there
This does not address the issue I brought up in my reply. Besides the brought up point, it would not solve all other issues I would have. I know the functionality to add non-Steam games since I am on Steam over 12 years ago.
Oh cool then just be a prick about it for no reason. Go fuck yourself, I was just trying to help you.
I told you that it does not address my issue. No need to be mad, I have no bad intentions. I expressed what issue I have and adding the game as a non-Steam game does not solve the issues I have.
It came off as hostile but maybe I misread.
How does it not fix the problem? You can buy a gog game, add it to Steam and launch it with Proton. You’d just be using Steam instead of the gog launcher you want.
I could understand this sentiment for any pc-platform but GOG. After all, they are the only ones (afaik) that make their launcher optional. And while i do ocassionally use launcher-functionalities from for example steam, i would much rather not have to bother with it if i didnt have to.
I bought Anno 1800 through uPlay and, to be fair, the app is not too bad, but now that I’m on Linux idk if I’d be able to get it working again. Not that I necessarily have interest to play again.
stores from EA, Ubisoft or Epic
Better yet, games
And it will last til Gabe dies. Then I guarantee it enshittifes so fast it will make your head spin.
As long Valve doesn’t become publicly traded they will be fine. The problems start when companies optimize for shareholder value rather than customer value.
Private equity buyout would be the same problem but even faster.
You think there aren’t a bunch of greedy finance whores biding their time until Gabe dies in order to take over and enshitify everything so they can squeeze as much money out of Steam as possible?
So tencent or a saudi prince buys them and it will be fine guyyyyssss haha
Nothing ever bad happens under private ownership either right?
Well yeah, that will be the potential first sign to look out for. If that happens no need to think it won’t get worse like everything else.
You’re right that going public would virtually guarantee they enshittify, but staying private does not guarantee they remain customer focused. It’s still a business, and right now the only thing making it so good for customers, IMHO, is an ideological vision that favours long term stability, and steady profits. That is not the norm in the business world (of tech platforms).
Maybe. I’ve heard Gabe’s son is set to take over when the time comes, hopefully he’s been raised right.
Hmm. The founder’s son usually just squeezes the company for profit.
But you don’t have to do anything at all to get rich off of steam
Really!? Gives me hope!
Devs are still free to sell their game outside of Steam and charge whatever price they want for that version
I think you’re not allowed to “sell” it for free with the same version and features. Which should be unsurprising.
You can, and plenty do
Krita is open source but paid on Steam
Same with Aseprite. You can buy it from their store or Steam. If you’re cool enough you can compile it yourself and get the full program for free.
People feel good about Valve because they don’t rely on anti consumer behavior. It does what I want and doesn’t enforce me on other crap.
I’m a fan of Valve and Steam too. But you cannot deny that Valve does shitty stuff too. In example Valve is the company who either invented or popularized Loot Boxes. And they don’t do anything about the Black Market for the item trading and selling, such as Counter Strike skins and so on. And there are other little things that could be done, but nothing else upsets me as this.
But besides that, for the most part I love Valve. The commitment to support on Linux is unmatched in the gaming world. As a private company, Valve can do whatever they want. I genuinely think that PC gaming wouldn’t be this good without Valve. If anything, Microsoft would have the power… which in an alternate universe people have to suffer.
The skins and loot boxes is the only negative thing I ever see brought up about steam, and it is a completely voluntary system that applies to a few of their own games. In fact, I keep forgetting they even have them unless someone brings it up and despite being a terrible thing people apparently love them and would be mad if they went away.
So I’ll forgive them for one stupid thing they do and appreciate the other 99% of things they do.
i think personally Steam’s/Valve’s dominance is really good here’s why:
- Improving Linux gaming,improving Wine and DXVK for gaming,so you dont rely on Microsoft for your OS.
- Great client(i like the: inbuilt Chromium based browser,Community features)
- Not so awful and maybe simple DRM methods(eg, needing the Steam client doesnt tank the performance that much,compared to something like denuvo which i think makes modding impossible,needs consistent internet connection,and tanks the game’s fps alot )
- I can buy with cash giftcard to buy games(I wish GOG had that)
- Workshop for modding on supported games.(ik some games have workshop and dont let you mod everything)
- Makes/has good games(Half-life 2 is the best game i ever played)
but the bad things:
- Steam Client is still 32 bit and Steam doesnt target ARM(E,G. For like M1+ macs,those need rosetta )
- third party clients arent a option
- You dont own anything you buy on Steam.
- Having the Steam client open at all times(ik not all games have this, but i assume CEF based Steam will lower the performance like slightly)
- TF2 neglect
- lootboxes/battle pass in some games(i am aware Valve was the first company to have a battle pass and fortnite popularized it)
alright thats what i think of the Good and bad of Valve/Steam
Edit: Fixed Paragraph break.
I think you switched to cons without saying.
I admit I haven’t tried very many, but I think you can launch any steam app “normally” without steam running. If you can find the executable or startup script, you can just point a shortcut to it. Some games will need Steam Services to run, but it’s not blocked or anything.
I admit I haven’t tried very many, but I think you can launch any steam app “normally” without steam running. If you can find the executable or startup script, you can just point a shortcut to it. Some games will need Steam Services to run, but it’s not blocked or anything.
I think i mentioned this,? but there are Steam games that dont let you use it without having the client open, but yeah there are Steam games that work without the client.
I think you switched to cons without saying.
Its there but i didnt have a line break.
I think valve has the absolute worst skins market out there but their store is really good.
I will say they were less weirdly invasive than whatever it was EA had me running just to play sims 2 in 2017ish. Why tf do you really need to protect you IP that hard for a game that old with newer sequels for???
How to explain Steam’s success on PC for console players: “Think of it like the X1 vs PS4 era. Steam is the PS4 and every competitor was the Xbox One”
