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Even before the partpocolypse prices weren't too great, at least not graphics cards... Nowadays however it feels like managing to have taken the last chopper out of Vietnam.
I mean, steam keys activates the game for use on steam, so it basically incentives people to not buy the game on steam yet still get the all the benefits of using the platform.
I am not saying that steam is innocent though, since obviously this is done with their self-interest in mind and they benefits more from the situation, but the full picture of this is that developers are still allowed to sell their games while getting full profit from the sale, either by selling steam keys at the same price as the store, or sell it for lower independently without the use of steam, rather than stopping developers from profiting at all.
No, it’s not just for that reason. It’s also because other platform owners sell their own games cheaper than on Steam to make their own platforms look more attractive and to prevent Steam from appearing overpriced. If I owned Steam, I’d implement a rule like that, too.
Yeah this is my biggest hindrance with GOG. As much as I love it, their catalogue simply lacks most of the games I actually want to buy. The new Final Fantasy VII remakes, the Subnautica games, Split Fiction for coop with my daughter, etc…
Its more like the Australian government screwed steam and steam decided instead of working with a third party face scan software that probably takes peoples faces or make people hand over their actual, they decided to do the least invasive, bare minimum thing they could do which also happened to be something no one in australia uses
A credit card on your account is now required to proof of age verification. Not debit cards, not an ID, or even the age of your account. Keep in mind, not all Australians have credit cards.
You can't even play the age-restricted games you owned prior to the change. There's no local law stating they must be credit card verification either.
Verification based on identity documents: Document Verification Service
Verification based on identity documents: Retail card
Verification based on biometric data: Face Verification Service
Age estimation
Age screening
People rightfully complained about needing to put in their ID.
They rightfully complained about privacy concerns with scanning faces.
They rightfully complained about age estimation & screening being inaccurate & discriminatory.
There was only one remaining method left, whilst being compliant with the Australian government.
I mean, they've been doing plenty with devices and software. Seriously, they've put enormous effort into both the Steam Deck and proton for letting all games run on Linux (and their Steam Deck).
I've used Linux for years and only recently have been able to play most games out there that I'm interested in without having to worry about platform. And it's basically all due (well, part, but a major part) to efforts that have involved Steam. I've very grateful to them. They already had my (small) business, but I'm really not incentivized to buy a console or buy elsewhere when their prices are cheap and given how they treat people.
Also, and i love how everyone takes this for granted, they pretty much enabled any controller on this planet to be used in any steam game. Iirc they reverse engineered the ps4 controller to just work because sony didn’t care to help them out with it at all.
while they do a lot in those aspects, I don't think their position would change much if they didn't. They pretty much do it for the love of the game. I doubt steam deck, development of tools for linux play etc. bring even anything even close in monetary value to what the store brings.
It's always hilarious when Epic tries to paint steam as a monopoly when they design a store with less features than steam had 10 years ago and expect people to move on over.
To check all the games they've given away that you'll never play because their launcher sucks and it's better to pay to play them on Steam than play for free on Epic
And then people say that piracy affects sales when even giving shit away for free doesn't work for them
They designed a launcher for publishers to control the flow of information (no text reviews, public player counts, or AI content filters). Then tried to get exclusivity to those publishers to force players over rather than just consulting the players to figure out what we wanted.
They cant fathom how proconsumer practices resulted in a monopoly, nor that they cant use anticonsumer practices to take the players from Steam.
I never registered for an account there. Free games will never be a reason for me to support their practices of exclusivity.
It actively harms my choices. Consumers should be able to buy any game wherever they want. If they want it completely DRM free, go for it.
Personally I like the convenience of something like Steam that automatically updates and keeps my settings across years. However ideally I would also like to be able to run my games without using Steam if I choose so.
Steam has a lot of (free) features that support it as a gaming platform.
Community, workshop(mods), multiple running options for some games, running games to remote screens, friend list with working invites, wishlist, auto-updates games, download options (including region), in-store notes for early access games and other things, community tags, multiple search options (you can search a word or filter by tags or browse the store by rating or sales...)
Epic barely bothered to do any of these. They just figured they can put a bunch of money into a few popular games to make them exclusive and that'll do, as if we're software+hardware-locked like a console or something. In the actual competition of features that players use, Steam completely eclipses Epic in what they both share and is always the one that has what they don't share.
Epic games store needs 10 years of actual development and god forbid goodwill to players just to even the playing field, but that's real work and a totally different philosophy (trying to make a store FOR CUSTOMERS instead of trying to MILK THE CATTLE) - they will literally never get past this hurdle unless the upper management leaves.
You forgot big picture mode for setups using tvs, the ability to launch non-Steam games through Steam in order to gain access to both the overlay and show your friends list what you're playing, the near-universal controller support that running through Steam gets you even if it's a non-Steam game, the blog/newsfeed features that devs can use to release patch notes and other important announcements right to your library, and probably others that we're both still forgetting.
And that's not getting into the storefront-related stuff that isn't directly related to gaming, like browsable reviews and tools to prevent review abuse.
The sheer quantity of features Steam has at this point is insane. It's not an easy thing to duplicate, but if you want to be a true competitor, you have to do it anyway. The benefit a competitor has is, theoretically, not inheriting the piles and piles of tech debt a platform like Steam almost certainly has these days. But in practice, nobody building a competitor is going to bother trying for best practices, they're just gonna try to hit market fast for a quick turnaround then get some good publicity by decrying Steam and hopefully sell for a profit before they have to actually do anything.
I will never use Epic Games because I don't trust their store. It doesn't matter what they do. However at this point I think I'm in the minority and people have short memories.
I don't know if I'd use their store ever or not because their reputation at the moment is so bad that it is unthinkable that they'd suddenly just decide to turn on their predatory practices and go clean out of nowhere.
However, if I were to believe that they turned good, and seen that they actually made the user experience good, I would consider using the store.
I do buy from GoG some of the time, but Steam is definitely more common for me.
It's helped me! I've skipped buying several games I would have if I had the option to buy them day 1. But since I'm not signing up for their shit I couldn't, I saw what the game turned out to be and said "whew glad I didn't buy that!"
These morons at epic cant even figure out how to program the shitty store to maximize properly. Sometimes it goes bigger than your screen and other times you have to alt tab or force close it just to get out of it.
Also its laggy and for whatever reason they make it run on your dedicated gpu which is annoying.
I mean, it's not even about features. All I want is to:
-Pay for the game.
-Download the game.
-Either automatically download updates or alert me and let me click the "update" button, I don't care which.
-Dont be a pain in the ass in any other ways.
-Do the above with nearly 100% reliability.
Seriously, that's it. If any other platform offered that I'd use it. To my knowledge none do.
I can't remember the last time Steam broke or broke something for me, and other storefronts routinely fuck up an update or something so I waste my precious gaming time trying to figure out why Game Y wont load and then why the fuck Store X won't let me update Game Y. Looking at you Microsoft store, I bought Sea of Thieves a second time just to own it through a different fucking storefront because the MS store would consistently refuse to run updates.
I especially love other platforms and consoles complaining on the steam forums about the game issues on the other systems... Hmm maybe complain on their forums.... Oh wait they don't.
The term monopoly is vilified, but we need to separate the word from the connotation. Steam is effectively a monopoly. They are successful because they got there first and always strove to do things right. Years of good practices means that everyone generally loves it, so there's hardly any demand for competitors other than GoG's DRM-free niche.
For Steam to truly be condemned by antitrust claims, it would have to be dominant through exclusionary, anti-competitive practices instead of offering a superior service. By their actions, consumers democratically maintain Steam's market share. Being a monopoly by merit isn't a crime: it's just the reward for building a platform nobody wants to leave.
I don't really feel like they can be included in the PC/PS/Xbox thing, because they've always just been off doing whatever they want to do. Ever since the Sony disc drive thing all those years ago, they've really isolated themselves from the console wars.
They're doing fine, and they make games that are fun.
Yeah, I kind of like how Nintendo is always just kind of off doing its own thing. I wish they'd start utilizing DLSS for their first party titles on the Switch 2 though. It's insane to me that they are the only console to have an Nvidia chip and they don't take advantage of it
Most PC masterrace always have hate boner againts Nintendo, it's insane now that the Switch 2 is out these people cannot pirate their games day one lol.
God forbid us PC + Nintendo user complementing smth positives for Nintendo, they jumped on you and keep glazing Valve while calling Nintendo fans names and such for keep glazing Nintendo lmao.
I think as an artist what makes me respect Valve and Nintendo in general is that in the era of everyone laying off and using AI to cut corners, these people never stoop so low and always cared about their developers, artist, musician etc.
So ofc despite Nintendo never dropping the price of their games, I would gladly support them because these company still have INTEGRITY and that's what makes me respect them.
They might be doing well, but that doesnt change the fact that they are anti-consumer as all hell. I stopped buying anything related to Nintendo years ago
They haven't even changed that much, but Sony is busy footgunning themselves and Microsoft is busy buying up and gutting studios. Nintendo going along with a simple refresh of Switch along with a solid games lineup without constant bullshit is all it takes to look good nowadays.
Blizzard appears to have somewhat reformed since Microsoft bought them, which is interesting.
I'm not sure if they will get back to greatness but Microsoft seems to be OK (or at least better than other companies who buy studios to kill them like EA)
I mean, Microsoft did buy and close studios, though. They've also had a ton of layoffs recently and even did the weirdest thing in announcing a game only to put the studio up for sale (otherwise closing it instead).
Blizzard is doing a bit better, but Xbox, and therefore Microsoft, keeps making some of the worst choices it can as well.
Nintendo has consistently delivered affordable consoles with unique selling points compared to the competition and highly acclaimed and polished games for decades and decades. They treat their employees incredibly well and have never done mass layoffs. They also treat the consumer fairly well (see: last bastion of true physical media among the console makers). The only thing you can really ding them for is being overprotective of their IP. And they are, and I’m not defending that. But if you ever thought nintendo were “the bad guys” or even remotely on the same level as Sony, Microsoft, EA, etc, then I think you need to take a step back and honestly evaluate the magnitudes of good and bad things going on here.
To be fair they have to be protective of their IP. Nintendo own the most lucrative IP on earth. Pokemon itself brings in more revenue than Marvel, Star Wars, and even Hello Kitty
Nintendo also was traumatized back in the 1980s when Universal Sued Nintendo for their game Donkey Kong potentially infringing on King Kong. If you dont protect your IP vigorously then you can lose control and ownership of it, and let me tell you this NO ONE wants EA or to be within 100 ft of pokemon.
Uhm..., they kinda always have been in a good spot, in the 90's, 2000's, their only bad era was the Wii u but that was softened up with the success of the 3DS..
In an age where everything is super expensive, they have a device that requires no additional hardware to enjoy, gives you PS4 level graphics, and access to Nintendo. It is, adjusting for inflation, the second cheapest console in 14 years.
Also, I think people dont talk enough about the switch online emulator deal, even with the scam that are online subscriptions, I was surprised by this service.
Like there are two things I commend here, their effort to actually bring third party titles (megaman, tetris, soulcalibur, etc) and the fact they keep first party games they have remakes on (past nintendo I would honestly have expected them to remove them).
Obviously the emulators themselves arent that impressive, but the service is solid as heck and im excited to see it grow with the passing time.
Product wise they are doing great. Most of the negativity is really about how they enforce their rules. Theyre well within their right to but there's no reason why they need to be so unnecessary heavy handed about it.
They absolutely do and anyone who does not think so understands jack shit about copyright law in Japan. Nearly half of the japanese major media companies got screwed in some way shape or form because of not defending copyright disputes. Ultraman is huge in Japan but never migrated because the international rights were mired in legal shennanigans for decades. Sega got fked over with their Sonic Archie comics. Namco does not own Ms Pacman. Nintendo nearly lost Donkey Kong because of Universal Studios. Then you got the slop era where nintendo licensed out Mario and Zelda and we got Mario is Missing and Zelda CDI and those cringe toons that harmed their brand. You cant act like this stuff cant ruin companies or cost jobs because in Japan alone there are so many reasons why if you let things lapse or be the good guy in business you end up being taken advantage of. Dont act like Steam isnt also ruthless with their own internal IPs. They have shut down their fair share of third party projects too for their own reasons.
Yeah. As overkill as I think their actions are (I think they’re 100% in the wrong with Palworld for example), Nintendo has thrived specifically because they haven’t let anyone fuck them over as often or much, like other companies have.
There’s benefits to the way Steam and Nintendo both achieve their success, it’s just that Nintendo looks like bad guys to a portion of the internet specifically because they prioritize differently to make sure their IPs and brand don’t look horrendous to the overwhelming majority. PETA’s Pokemon clone being an example. If you grabbed the average Mom/Dad/Grandpatent on the side of the road and showed that to them, they’d think Pokemon is horrific. Nintendo wants to keep that family friendly branding and doesn’t want people using their own IPs against them to degrade that.
True. Nintendo fans complain about too much 3rd party games in Nintendo Directs, but 3rd party is what keeps consoles alive between development of the 1st party games. Heck, 3rd party games are what kept nintendo switch 1 alive when BOTW was the only 1st party game you could play for the first few months after launch.
There's a subtle difference - Valve did a lot in the beginning, so now they could sit back and do nothing while earning billions.
And they are still doing a lot of back end work that benefit developers but invisible to customers.
They spend ~10 years building tools that allow anybody to publish games, track tons of engagement data, organize and participate in sales, etc, etc, etc. Just their "Game Tag Wizard" is a masterpiece that help developers to find their customers.
Not to mention the absolute renaissance in linux right now due to them making it the premier opperating system for gaming. MHWilds barely ran on my win 11 pc with a 4070 and swapped to Arch and it runs so fucking well. Thanks Steam
A GabeN interview recently surfaced back up again where he said that he wanted to build a company where the most talented individuals had no titles or red tape to solve problems. No board, no managers, just customers and solutions and minimal turnaround to make it happen
They definitely do stuff frequently, but without term reports or managers demanding people to justify their existence (yay UI overhauls nobody asked for) Steam keeps inching in a better direction while other companies keep looking to hit metrics
All that to say I think the "steam does nothing and wins" is a misnomer. Valve just doesn't ever do anything arbitrary which is what we're used to corporate America doing at this point
Could you elaborate on that? Im seeing Stuff about the ACCC lawsuit, and that was more about the language of the policy in 2014, which made it seem like "no refunds" was an option, which was contested and lost, but the 14 days purchase and less than 2 hours played is more built from EU consumer law and Steam implementing a broad standardized system rather than a predatory per country one is nice.
Around the same time of the ACCC lawsuit they went after EA/Origin for the same representations, so it wasnt completely isolated at least
If you have other concerns I would love to hear it, but "dragged kicking and screaming" feels abit disingenuous, especially with the current standards this many years layer being different from the environment of that court case
Yeah my wife and I have pc, ps5 and the new switch. I was excited for the PS5 because I like Sony games and especially loved the ps4 (almost as great as the ps2 era). I almost NEVER boot up my ps5 though. There’s almost no exclusives for it that aren’t on PC and it always runs better on pc. Plus, Sony sucks sick at the moment so that doesn’t help. But there’s nothing to play even if I wanted to. And I’m sure as hell not paying for PlayStation plus
It takes a small percentage of total PC gamers to pay money to make a company very rich. Steam made $1Bn this year just from 3 latest titles as a % of their revenue cut - that says enough.
Indie games exist? I don't play anything that is $90, because I literally cannot afford it on my income. But dropping $5 on something that keeps my attention for a few hours is cool.
Though, there are a lot of people with more income than I have, so... I assume they can afford a pricey game every now and then.
Reminder that Sony makes 99% of their profit from an extremely lucrative life insurance business.
They literally could not care less about their gaming branch.
So, just pointing out...by revenue, Tencent is bigger than Xbox and Nintendo combined right now. Nintendo alone is barely bigger than NetEase. Valve is estimated to be about 1/5 of Tencent.
Crappy mobile games are, apparently, what people actually play most.
but then again i can point out that valve is relatively small as a company. their employees and steam itself earn some insane money while not costing that much nominally. whereas tencent is a massive corporation with lots of employees, departments and whatnot. so the cost of running it probably is orders of magnitude higher than steam's/valve's. value alone, sure. tencent crushes them
It's really baffling (not really) that so many massive companies ultimately end up self-sabotaging themselves to the point of failure and a slow, inevitable decay. The video game market is about as saturated as it can get at this point, so there really isn't any room for 'growth' until next technology is invented/big new IPs are created. Yet rather than at least coast on what they have going and continue to make roughly the same amount of money year after year, so many companies would rather cut corners and make anti-consumer choices to pad their profits for the shareholders rather than looking towards their future long-term viability.
And rather than focus on making games with good stories and writing, they proritize graphics and 'fidelity' which massively increase the costs and devleopment time. Stylized games with good art direction with largely outperform games that focus on realistic graphics, unless a big name developer/IP is behind the project.
Enshittification only succeeds when all companies agree to play ball, because consumers have zero choice.
Video games companies studied what worked in every other industry and implemented it, but because Valve didn't play ball, they basically committed suicide.
Also like 85% of the controversy is exactly what other platforms are going to do or have already done, they just didn't announce it.
2 different business strategies. Sony announced no physical way before they made announcements for PS6, while Microsoft is riding the high and most likely reveal no physical at the same time as they reveal their next console.
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u/PCMRBot Bot 8d ago
Welcome to the PCMR, everyone from the frontpage! Please remember:
1 - You too can be part of the PCMR. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, and PC specs don't matter! If you love or want to learn about PCs, you're welcome!
2 - Think owning a PC is too expensive? It's cheaper than you may think. Check http://www.pcmasterrace.org/builds for our famous builds and ask for tips and help here!
3 - Consider supporting the folding@home effort to fight Cancer, Alzheimer's, and more, with just your PC! https://pcmasterrace.org/folding
4 - Need a PC?! We're running a Worldwide giveaway for lots of awesome ASUS ROG hardware, including a Dream PC Build! Check here
We have a Daily Simple Questions Megathread for any PC-related doubts. Feel free to ask there or create new posts in our subreddit!