Steam is just another profit business. I don’t get why people think they’re about anything else. They take a huge part of the sells and don’t even let you own the games. Owning means you can sell, give or do whatever you want with your games. Oh and “likely to die before 75”, lol, says fucking who, the 4chan doctor?
There is regular, for-profit business, and then there is EA/Microsoft/Amazon level for-profit.
The complete disregard for their employees, massive firings for “AI powered optimization”, the use and abuse of dark pattern methods(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern), are some of the things that I haven’t yet head of from Steam.
Sure, ultimately Steam is a capitalist business, but it could be much, much worse.
Their entire platform is built on goodwill. After he passes, someone is gonna cash that goodwill in for profit. Seems to be happening to Nintendo. Disney has been doing it for many years.
That is the McKinsey formula, abuse consumer trust to have them over pay expecting the previous quality of goods while you slowly slash all your costs and bottom out the quality of your product. The lag time between your actions to destroy the product and the consumer realizing that your doing is all profit.
I mean, there is your regular serial killers, and then there’s ___ Insert most dangerous killers here____ . Sure ultimately I’ve killed a few people, but it could be so much worse. See what I mean? Steam is an ok platform but in the end they only cares about profit. But since 90% of the gamers get wet when you mentioned the company name, there’s no need for them to change anything right now. Why in the world is it considered normal that a business that basically only provide server space gets to take 30% of sale price, while the devs who spent thousand of hours on a project only get 70%. Maybe it made sens 15 years ago, but not in 2024.
On the one hand, yeah it’s absolutely important not to idolize any company, because they have no sense of loyalty or generosity. Telling yourself otherwise is a guaranteed path to disappointment.
On the other hand, of all the shit sandwiches we’ve been served, Steam is one of the fresher ones. Though they developed Proton for their own benefit, it’s pretty undeniable that it has made gaming on Linux way more viable than it has ever been, and it’s open source. I mean no shade to FOSS solutions like Lutris, but having paid developers work on a project full-time certainly has its advantages.
I do think that the concerns about Steam’s pricing rules are valid, as are gripes with its DRM for first party games. But, overall, they’ve brought a lot of convenience to PC gaming that is hard to find elsewhere in the gaming world.
I get that steam is a pretty nice platform to browse, and being a linux user, Proton is amazing. But steam is business, they build Proton to sell the steam deck, not for Linux users. And aren’t they in trial right now for overcharging millions of dollars? We now have eveything in place to replace steam with a fair, user controlled alternative. I will gladly pay a 5% or 10% fee, on top of the game’s price, to finance a user controlled infrastructure and dev team for projects such has proton.
I think we generally agree, but I worry that a new platform couldn’t do more than GoG+Lutris already do. Perhaps, though, it could be done with a reputable foundation.
And the lawsuit is more or less what I was radio referring to with Steam’s price rules. I would definitely be on board with striking the requirement for publishers to offer the same price on all platforms at the same time.
On that note, though, I wouldn’t take the whole case at face value, as I think parts of it are pretty frivolous (unless they prove that Steam is actually actively stifling competition and, you know, not just a decent platform that entered the space first.) I also think it’s silly to point out Epic’s lower commission rate since they’ve been giving out free games like candy and actually making third party games exclusive to their platform in a very clear attempt to compete with Stream. There’s absolutely no guarantee that they won’t raise their commission once they have a foothold in the market (though I do concede that their licensing terms for Unreal Engine have remained fairly reasonable).
I think they were just going off US averages. Our average lifespan has been declining past few years but it’s pretty close to 75 if you’re poor.
Gabe hasn’t always taken care of his body, but he’s rich, he’d be likely to hit around 88 in the US. The average lifespan in New Zealand is also a bit higher, so if he stays there then it may add a few years.
Unless you’re a doctor, I think you shouldn’t get into medical diagnostic. My grandpa smoked 2 packs a day and lived up to 95., my other grandpa was walking 10 km a day and never smoked, he died at 72.
Yeah, anecdotes are a thing, one of my grandpas smoked a pack a day too and he beat yours and made it over 100. Our personal experiences don’t trump collected data though, we’re not the average experience and we can expect most to trend towards that.
Extreme Obesity is defined as being 100 pounds or more over your ideal weight. It is known to decrease life expectancy up to 14 years.
It’s just one factor but it’s a big one. Living past your 80s is really tough… and working into your 70s is really hard as it is. The reins will go from his hands likely before we die.
I think people should go easy on medical diagnostic. Do we have access to this guy’s personal medical records? Are we all doctors now cause we have access to wikipedia?
It’s not because none of the current platform let you do it that it’s a bad point. People have traded games for decades before digital platforms, it wouldn’t even be innovation lol. You can suck on Steam all you want, it’s just your usual capitalist business, they dont care about you and will fuck you up the very second they evaluate they can make more money by doing so. But in the current state of things, they basically make tons of money by doing almost nothing (providing server space, wow) and “gamers” will rip their shirts off at the slightest criticism of that company.
But then again, people have now known the beauty of steam. If this does happen as you say it could, it does open up the possibility for someone to make a Steam_v2.
I have faith that there are enough people who are passionate about Linux that it’s possible for Windows to lose some of its dominance in the future. Maybe the enshittification of steam is needed to make that a possibility.
I used to go on 4chan, on a variety of boards, every day for 10 years (06-16) some boards are better than others, and /b/ is definitely the worst by a lot, but they’re all terrible.
Aside from valve probably having a hit by bus plan, I’m pretty sure ownership of valve is actually split pretty evenly so it will likely fall to another senior dev who understands what to do.
I’ve heard they’ve hidden three immeasurably invaluable CS:Go Knife skins throughout the platform, and the first person to find all three will unlock Half-Life 3 and annoint the winner as Gaben 2, God Emperor of Valve and owner of Steam. Also, they get a chocolate factory.
Oompa loompa, doompadee doo, We’ve got a perfect riddle for you, Oompa loompa, doompadee dee, If you are wise, you’ll listen to me.
Three precious knives, in Counter-Strike they hide, Find them all to claim your prize worldwide, The first to collect, in triumph shall stand, To unlock Half-Life 3, the game so grand.
Oompa loompa, doompadee doo, Follow the clues and you’ll be through, Oompa loompa, doompadee dee, Just one more knife, and then you’ll see.
A crown awaits, a throne so high, Steam’s vast empire, you’ll rule the sky, With Half-Life 3, your reign begins, All hail the gamer who truly wins.
Oompa loompa, doompadee doo, The ultimate prize belongs to you, Oompa loompa, doompadee dee, Gaben 2, you shall always be.
It would be beautiful if he just handed the keys over to a true believer when it’s time. Just a quality, stand up person who already has a pocket full of cash and just wants to help gamers get games and indie devs distribute them without squeezing every drop of profit they can at every step.
edit: it’d be even beautifuler if he turned it over to a trust managed by a panel of elected employee representatives
But if steam becomes enshittified I’ll move onto something else and use torrent sites to download the older games I care about that I’ve bought on steam. It wouldn’t really be pirating them, since I’ve bought them already.
For now steam is fine, and I appreciate the work they’ve done on supporting Linux, so I’ll keep on using it to buy games.
Obviously his death will trigger a worldwide AR Easter egg hunt, where the Steam user worthy enough to find the three keys first will become the new Gaben and Master Of Steam.
I looked at the movie as a fun romp that’s a bit inspired by the book and that makes it bearable. The movie took the nerdiness down in a way that was very unrealistic, but understandable to the general public. Anyone actually in the nerd community knows that people find shortcuts and glitches, and do speedrun records competitively; but they removed the entire part about the first key being in the school area (where it would be attainable by all for free) and instead make it “Oh, I was supposed to drive backwards in this race that I need a very expensive car/weapons for”
It’s a very pretty movie with a lot of fun Easter Eggs, but you’ve gotta separate and realize it wasn’t made for them to enjoy it.
For sure, valid to fear the enshittification of steam. But they aren’t killing proton. Maybe ignoring proton at worst. But Steam has profit motivations for not being reliant on Windows, which has actively been trying to supplant them with the Windows Store for years.
As another separate, profit-motivated company, with a gaming division and a lot to gain from eating Steam’s lunch, Microsoft is not Steam’s friend. Proton is a critical bargaining tool for them, and not having to include windows licenses for devices like the Steam Deck helps their costs too.
My fear is them going public or selling. If that happens, it’ll probably be Microsoft willing to spend any amount, and the government hasn’t really been in a “preventing monopolies” mood for a while now.
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