Pitchford's prediction that Steam could be "a dying store" have not come to pass.
  • Telorand@reddthat.comEnglish
    6·
    27 days ago

    I have some personal qualms about supporting “the biggest fish” in the pond, since that tends to lead to the Apples, the Googles, and the Microsofts.

    However, Steam hasn’t particularly abused its market power, and has even used it to create a very successful Linux handheld that has both helped propel Linux desktop adoption and added upstream improvements to Linux in general.

    I’ll revise my opinion when Valve changes to a more overtly predatory model of capitalism, but for now, I’ll enjoy only needing to keep a partial eye open.

    • magic_lobster_party@fedia.io
      3·
      27 days ago

      I’ll revise my opinion when Valve changes to a more overtly predatory model of capitalism

      I believe as long they’re not publicly traded )and Gabe is in charge), that’s not a concern.

      Being public (or owned by a publicly traded company) tend to bring out these nasty traits. It’s more about finding ways to bring value to shareholders than the customers.

      • cobysev@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        27 days ago

        I’m terrified of Gabe retiring or passing away. He’s been amazing for the company and I don’t trust anyone else to not want to use Valve for their own greedy purposes. The next president of Valve will likely ruin all the good things about it, thanks to late-stage capitalism.

        I firmly believe in voting with your wallet; I normally don’t invest much long-term interest into businesses because you never know how they’ll change over time, but I’ve been so happy with Valve that I’ve gladly given them thousands of dollars over the decades for Steam games. My library is sitting at just over 3,500 games right now. I don’t know what I’m gonna do when Valve crumbles one day. I really hope they give me an option to download and play offline all the games I’ve bought, because that’s a massive library to lose.

        I’ve never given a penny to Epic Games, and unless they get on-par with Steam’s functionality, I won’t ever buy or play any of their games. The one thing that might make Epic Games competitive (and could convince me to use their platform) is letting Steam users copy their libraries over, so we’re not just starting over from scratch with a new service.

        That’s what got me on Steam in the first place. Back around 2010 or so, I discovered that if you had a physical PC game that was also in Steam’s store, you could type in the serial number on the game box and it would register and add it to your Steam library. That’s how I got my collection of early Call of Duty titles on Steam, as well as Half-Life and some others. I moved my physical game library over to Steam and I’ve been a Steam loyalist ever since.

      • Shiggles@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        27 days ago

        Private companies can be dicks. Public companies can and will be sued by their shareholders if they aren’t big enough dicks.

    • big_slap@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      27 days ago

      I’ll revise my opinion when Valve changes to a more overtly predatory model of capitalism, but for now, I’ll enjoy only needing to keep a partial eye open.

      this is the correct approach towards how a society should support big buisnesses. the companies that don’t fuck us over will continue to get my public support and money

      • Telorand@reddthat.comEnglish
        1·
        27 days ago

        GOG is great, but they need to make a Linux launcher, already. Or if they can’t, they should make it so the community can.

          • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            26 days ago

            The heroic launcher supports GOG.

            True but paying customers can expect that CD Project to that by themselves from the cut they take from games on GOG and the insane amounts of Cyberpunk money they earned. Randy Pitchford claims that “Steam does very little to earn the massive cut they take and continues its effective monopoly” and that “very little” includes making clients for three operating systems, a VR platform, a handheld, and a whole operating system.

            • Toribor@corndog.socialEnglish
              1·
              26 days ago

              It’s clear that Valve’s competitors undervalue the user experience that Steam provides and don’t understand why it’s so sticky.

  • sylver_dragon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    27 days ago

    One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue. The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates. – Gabe Newell, 2011

    Time and again, digital distribution platforms have proved this. Apple Music became a dominant music distribution platform at the height of Napster, LimeWire and other peer to peer sharing apps. They did it, because it was easier to just buy the tracks/albums you wanted than to dig through trackers and websites which may or may not actually have what you want. Netflix became the de-facto source for streaming movies at a time when BitTorrent was common and well known. Again, they made it easy and convenient, while not charging an arm and a leg. Steam also faced competition from BitTorrent piracy. But again, Steam made buying, downloading and running games easier than the pirates. And people are willing to pay for that convenience and not dealing with the crap which floats around the high seas.

    And, so long as Steam continues to treat it’s customers right, those customers will keep coming back. And that’s the problem with Pitchford’s whole premise. Developers will go where the customers are. Sure, you’ll get the odd case of a publisher/developer doing an exclusivity deal. But even then, it’s probably limited, because the customers are on Steam. If another storefront wants to draw customers, they need to start with treating customers well. They will still face headwinds, as Steam has a large “first mover” advantage. But, success is going to start with making customers want to come back.

  • Asafum@feddit.nlEnglish
    1·
    27 days ago

    The one thing I like about them is they recognized why people really wanted to stick with steam: they have a large established library and don’t want to bounce back and forth.

    They took that and said “ok we’ll give you free games every week until you have a large library here and won’t want to leave!”

    Jokes on them, I now have a large library of completely free games on epic and still use steam for the games I want to buy because I refuse to support their exclusivity bullshit.

    • AeroLemming@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      27 days ago

      I resolved to never give Epic a dime when I got a popup forcing me to agree to a binding arbitration agreement in order to launch games I already have installed and in my library. It tells me that they think people will have good reasons to sue them in the future.

  • 58008@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    27 days ago

    Lose the ‘infinite growth’ promise to shareholders (in fact, lose the whole shareholder thing entirely). That’s the root of all evil right there. It’s the cause of all woes suffered by gamers, devs and even the very sociopathic CEOs who think Epic exclusivity is a sound financial strategy. We all suffer for it, and all to benefit shareholders who, in 2024, still believe the lie that next year’s profits will exceed this year’s. It’s delusional, and even if it weren’t, it would quite literally be cancerous. Cancer is just a board of shareholders in a biological system.

  • cley_faye@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    26 days ago

    Any decent person who would have been “overly optimistic” at the time would have supported epic, and just that. There was no need to go out of his way to trashtalk others like a whiny bitch, especially when at the time said “others” where the place they had a chance to make money before.

  • Psymonkee@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    26 days ago

    Huh, that was what 5 years ago now? I will remember telling randy he was wrong (in perhaps an alcohol fuelled rant 🤭) only to get swiftly blocked.

    Brick voice ‘Ahhh good times!’

  • NeryK@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    27 days ago

    The Epic Games Launcher is so far behind on features compared to Steam it’s not even funny. Epic chose not to try and compete with Steam on that front and to try and force users onto the platform with exclusivity deals and sweeten the deal with free games.

    The one user-centric killer feature Epic has in their stack IMHO is the built-in multiplayer crossplay. Except it’s not even exclusive to their store ironically (you do need an Epic account for it though).

  • Etterra@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    26 days ago

    Don’t feel too bad. GOG sucks too, it just never had Epic’s enormous pool of Chinese hype money.

  • greenskye@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    27 days ago

    Things I need a storefront/launcher to provide me:

    • Reviews
    • Wish list
    • Beta/Alternate build installations
    • Friend list, chat, game invite functions
    • Mod browser
    • Refund policy
    • Excellent search and discovery tools

    Nice to have:

    • Forum for guides/support
    • Game sharing
    • Ability to move game files
    • druidjaidan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      27 days ago

      As a family…I need the family sharing provided by steam. Especially the recent beta version. It’s fantastic.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.todayEnglish
      0·
      26 days ago

      Two things that would be nice to have is:

      • If Steam’s mod directory didn’t REQUIRE you to buy the game on Steam

      • Shared Games could be played simultaneously

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        26 days ago

        Their store, their policy, their framework, their infrastructure, their rules. Deal wirh it and install mods like any other user does. Manually