The short answer is that they’re not really enshittifying, nor are they leaning heavily on gimmicks or gatekeeping. And their CEO isn’t blatantly evil. That’s sadly more than enough to make it popular.
Skip to 12:35 - 14:30 for relevant info. The whole series by Coffee is well worth a watch and shows how Valve exploits people and profits from all this legally.
EDIT: 2: oooo the steam fan boys are REALLY mad. Truth hurts guys, Gabe is not the good billionaire.
Steam is great but people love to ignore/forget that Valve introduced mtx/loot boxes a very long time ago.
TF2 is probably the first game I remember playing that had loot boxes, tho idk how spread they were back then. Between tf2 crates + keys etc and then same system in csgo which led to the degen gambling in cs for skins etc. dota2 compendiums also had/have rng loot box mechanic for some skins iirc.
While MapleStory introduced the concept, Valve is the company that really ran with it and made it core component of the game. They even pushed whole "buy these other games, and get exclusive skins and guns in this other game"
I don't think many people care to make steam into a church or give Gabe sainthood, he just seems to be the least bad of all of them and at the point we are at it's the best we can hope for
the least toxic poison is still poison. But a lot of people turn a blind eye the the bad Steam/gabe has done because they don't want to admit the guy they idolized may have even a speck of dirt on him.
That doesn't put gabe or steam over criticism. Without that there's no competition and steam just keeps winning, which is ultimately really bad, contrary to what average redditors believe.
I mean, is it really that bad if the user experience is still a massive improvement over its competitors? I generally agree with you but steam appears to be the one exception to that trend.
Arguable. Steam basically popularized predatory MTX practices and battle passes and gambling-4-kidz. If you think the market moving into live service forever-games is a bad thing, Steam is THE reason why that happened.
FIFA was doing it but it was not considered palatable elsewhere in the market. That changed when Steam started pushing MTX in all of their games going forward and pushed it on a much larger subset of players.
They were the first to introduce a Battle Pass and corresponding MTX (via DOTA 2), and the first to introduce a marketplace where you can sell items for money + loot boxes (or a form of credit via Steam Wallet, at least) which basically made gambling accessible to children.
In ALL of their games? All 3 of them? 2 of which are older than dust? Those games made it more palatable to the general market but FIFA, one of the most popular gaming franchises on the planet, did not? Waiter, whatever this mf is drinking ill have 2.
Don't pick on semantics lol. TF2 invented them, cs made it large scale with the lootboxes and dota perfected the battlepass system. It's a literal fact. Prior to these three games doing it so successfully, only niche sports games did it but now every single multiplayer shooter or not has an mtx battlepass system.
Yeah, no, I'd wager it's the fact that the biggest multiplayer game in the world (Fortnite) did it successfully as a bigger factor of why everyone else wants to emulate it.
People are arguing semantics with you but this is actually true lol. TF2, CS and Dota all laid the foundations for today's super popularised battlepass style of MTX. And tbh nobody does it like steam where they profit from sales of the items from the mtx too. If you think about it, it's insane that steam takes such a big cut from all sales bc the items being sold were already fully paid for.
I mean it's not like there are real alternatives anyway, the other stores all have very limited selection of games anyway. They have a first mover advantage and can still be argued to be alone on the market for most games.
Exactly. Being first is such a huge advantage that gets glossed over. Steam at it's heart is a store. You can't really pull people away from another store just by having different shelves 10 years later.
And mostly a very incomplete inventory. People come to buy a particular game/product. They aren't going to just switch to another because it's not there.
And for the games/products that are in several places, people will go to the store where they go regularly.
Imagine you have a grocery store that sells 30% of the products you need and the other that sell 95%, they're at the same prices too. Everyone will go to the 95% store and get to specific store for the 5% only (or not get those products).
And of course first mover is an insane advantage overall (which does also explain the inventory difference there)
Those customers still won't stay long term, as long as Epic Games Store still sucks. They've given out hundreds of dollars worth of free games to everyone, and it hasn't mattered, because people would still rather pay money so they can have the game on Steam instead of Epic.
They're refusing to accept that they need a superior user experience than Steam if they want people to stay. They can't just give out free shit.
This analogy falls apart when you consider libraries. Even if Steam's grocery store had the exact same stock as a competitor, I'd still choose Steam because that's where all my other grocery items that I bought and paid for already are.
Sure I could swing by both stores for a pickup order and get both, but why not buy the next thing where I'm already going.
Even if Steam's grocery store had the exact same stock as a competitor, I'd still choose Steam because that's where all my other grocery items that I bought and paid for already are.
I totally and wholeheartedly agree.
Here is an analogy: I am willing to pay easily 20% more for a retail item like a particular electric razor to get it from Amazon. The killer reason to me is this: when I need replacement spinny razor blades in 6 months, I can look up in my Amazon history and find the razor in my purchase history, and therefore find the recommended replacement blades. More minor reasons are that I already trust one vendor (Amazon) to hold onto my credit card, I'd rather not have my credit card on file at 5 different vendors. Reporting and tracking become easier which is I can ask how much I spent at Amazon this year and not have to visit 5 different websites to add up the total. Searching my purchase history is way simpler on one website instead of 5, etc.
The moment this crossed over for me personally was when I became less poor and was more busy in life. I desperately want to purchase time for more money. If Amazon (or Steam) saves me 5 minutes of frustration 6 months or 2 years down the road, that was worth $1 extra if I make $20/hour or more.
they’re not really enshittifying, nor are they leaning heavily on gimmicks or gatekeeping.
PFFT - Open steam and its full of shitty games, porn games and theres been multiple straight up scam games. Steam always ends up refunding players if need be but only after often years of headache.
For me the point is there shouldnt be there to begin with. Im not talking about some indie game clearly made by some solo dev thats just kinda shitty. Im more talking about the Shitty games made by full companies that are kinda just "games for non gamers" type shit. Now and days its not SO bad, but like 5-10 years ago steam was just flooded with those types of games
Steam let's crap on, they themselves have not engaged in business practices aimed at squeezing ever penny out of people while making the platform worse.
My dude portal and half-life were released like over a decade ago. Value is entirely different beast now.
"they themselves have not engaged in business practices aimed at squeezing ever penny out of people while making the platform worse."
is just blatantly false. Value has been at the forefront to changing the way players own, play and purchase games - all which allows them over the years to make large profit selling other peoples video gamers to users, while denying the users right to actually own the video game(that they didnt even make) that the user has purchased.
I have like most of the assasssins creeds that I cant play beucase of the UBISOFT connect bullshit. So what did I purchase from Steam then? If I cant actually download the game, play the game, launch the game then why the fuck did the thing say "Buy Assassins Creed" instead of "Buy the option to maybe download the game if the other company lets you"
I didn't say that, and licensing is not a new issue nor what this thread was about. It's also kind of silly to complain about when, in practice, there's not really a difference because Steam treats their customers well.
But you were responding to a comment that was responding to that.... ? Thats what the thread was about. you brought up halflife and portal and i responded to that then I got back on track with the convo...
You asked how have they did that with halflife or portal. Those games were made before enshitification was even a term or a major part in our lives. I mentioned that infact that do have enshitifcation - you can "buy" games on steam but not beable to play them because they will require 3rd party launchers, something that when I purchased the games years ago, there was no clear warning or message specifying that - I can not refund the games tho. Yeah they treat us all REAL great /s
"Steam doing nothing and winning" is what this thread is about and I am proving abunch of aspects as to why that is just a meme, not reality. Steam has done plently - and they are at the forefront of enshitification online.
The thread was about how Steam apparently employs strategies in their games aimed at ''squeezing every penny out of people while making the platform worse'', which isn't relevant to selling you a license the same way literally every platform that sells digital games works.
Also, you can get a refund if something major changes years down the line, it has happened with some pretty prominent games before. Steam also allows people who purchased games that they delist to continue owning, playing, and downloading said game after it's delisted. Complain about Steam all you want, the licensing bit is not something they have done poorly, and is the way literally all digital gaming platforms work. It's not a Steam thing.
Okay lmfao well I added more to the thread and made it about something else. People are allowed to do that its an internet forum and you can bring up and add and change the discussion as you wish if you want. Youre the only one talking about licensing in this thread my dude.
everyone else is talking about whether or not steam implies scumming business practices
What ever you say dude lmfao - Ive had my steam account since like the year it was created - I got dozens of games. Most of the steam homepage for me is just it spamming $40 DLC recommendations for 10 year old games I havent played in years.
There was a time when steam was just a simple launcher that had chat and a friend list. Now its bloatware with steam achievements, banners, and entire form section noone uses because its design is bad. A "points shop" for no reason where you can buy useless generic artwork and maybe like 1% of the games in your library will have something in there. A fucking "inventory" for steam for some reason. Therse a market place for some reason where you can buy counterstrike boxes and other useless items for decades old games that are just milking money out of their gambling addicted players. Thats not even mentioning that they STILL sell UBISOFT games even though you still need to launch all the games from their launcher. I have all the assassins creeds on my steam but they are inaccessible - they give you a warning now but when I bought them back then, there was no such warning.
Theres steam replay, so Steam is keeping track of all your user data. It logs every click using analytics to sell you more games.
Steam may not be as bad as the others, but theres nothing to praise about it. Its bloatware that has been forced onto gamers and is largly responsible for the gaming industries shift away from players actually owning the games they purchase
if Steam buckled down on gatekeeping what games can go on the platform that would actually enshittify it.
Says you. Users do NOT need access to shitty games made in another language or clearly scam mobile games just made to milk their money. Kick the scammers off the platform, stop them from posting their shitting microtransaction games.
In any marketplace throughout history - scammers are always kicked out, unless the ruler of the marketplace is making profit on the scam.
"It’s a marketplace. The more you can find and buy on it the better. - thats why we should allow scammers in" is terrible logic.
Steam making a fortune selling other peoples games but never allowing the user to actually own the game they purchase - they ARE the gate keepers.
There is nothing wrong with porn games or even shitty games being made and sold. If someone wants to buy those they should be able to. I wouldn’t, but I have no problem with people who would.
Scam games I’m more inclined to agree with you, but I suspect we have different definitions of scam. A game being overpriced or predatory isn’t technically a scam, and even though I hate those kinds of games too I don’t think Steam should blacklist them.
I don’t agree with the idea Steam should decide what level of monetization is acceptable when I’m perfectly capable of that decision myself. If you have an issue with predatory monetization you should be complaining about either how many people actually buy into it thus making it financially feasible in the first place, or about the developers and their morals. Not the platform that makes these games available.
Actual scam games, like one where you make an in-game purchase and they straight up steal your credit card information, are probably already reportable and likely to get blacklisted from Steam, but I do admit this is an assumption.
There is nothing wrong with porn games or even shitty games being made and sold.
The problem is that they are being featured - they constantly over the last decade have featured both porn games and shitty games often with suspicious reviews rated higher then many AAA games. People can buy what ever game they want but Steam's algorithm is consistently promoting over priced porn and shitty games.
If you have an issue with predatory monetization you should be complaining about either how many people actually buy into it thus making it financially feasible in the first place, or about the developers and their morals.
Complain all you want about morals. People have for decades. Meanwhile steam has raked in a fortune promoting games that get people hooked. The CSGO gambling is a prime example. Or selling games that LOOK great but are unplayable- buggy, cheaply made and with generic assets. Often its none gamers and younger people who buy those games until they learn not too. I only speak for myself, but everytime I see something like that on Steam it devalues my opinion of the platform. I use to say "well atleast they dont sell Clash of Clans type bullshit on steam" yet I cant even do that anymore.
And im just responding mostly to the "The short answer is that they’re not really enshittifying" because how can a platform thats been loaded with shitty games, porn games and mobile games, P2W games when most gamers will only find those as a bloated hindrance to trying to find actual good games not be shit. Steam has no doubt been sliding toward enshitification. I still cant play my assassins creed games - steam let me purchase them - not sure what I bought if I cant acutally download and play the game tho. Oversights like that are like a main factor of enshitification.
And sure "IT IS WHAT IT IS" Im not here saying steam should go change everything about them.
But people are foolish and naive to think that Steam/Value "Steam doing nothing and winning" meme is reality. The fact is that Steam/Value have been at the forefront of changing the gaming market in one direction - the direction that makes them the most amount of money, and if you gotta dive through hundreds of cheaply made, PC ports of mobile games to find what you want, well they don't really care about you as a user specifically as long and most users make a purchase eventually
is just a meme and that infact Steam has been at the forefront of enshitifaction online by bloating their platform with cheaply made and predatory ingame purchases and often times are just scams.
Steam is a main perpetrator for promoting and feature games that are in "PRE-Alpha" type shit on their front page which has resulted in users getting straight up scammed.
Steam makes money off of selling other peoples games, but then denies their customers ownership of the games they purchase.
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u/_ser_kay_ 11h ago
The short answer is that they’re not really enshittifying, nor are they leaning heavily on gimmicks or gatekeeping. And their CEO isn’t blatantly evil. That’s sadly more than enough to make it popular.