• Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    What’s funny is that Valve didn’t do some backdoor anti-trust shit that Google, Microsoft, or Apple has a history of doing.

    All Valve did was focus on the end user so hard that the competition looked extremely bad.

    • vivadanang@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      It was telling being at the first Steam Dev Days and hearing again and again how Valve distinctly, publicly, never wanted any exclusivity on anything coming to steam, they’d never ask for it and it wasn’t something they were interested in. Same on VR, they never wanted to ‘own’ it or it’s ecosystem, they just wanted to see the medium grow. Valve doesn’t do everything perfect, no one does, but these points earned a tremendous amount of respect from me.

  • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    Steam is a good product, though. As a user it’s absolutely convenient. Games not on Steam won’t be purchased by a majority of gamers.

    • probablyaCat@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      And it will be probably remain a good company while Gabe us around. But no one lasts forever. And that could be troublesome in the future. Don’t get me wrong. I love steam. Have a steam deck. Buy about half of my games on their (a few on gog and rest on console). But it could be a problem in the future.

        • Restaldt@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Dont worry you can keep access to your library for just $10 per month*

          *to increase by an indescernable amount whenever we feel like it

      • Torvum@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Far as I’m aware there are a ton of safety measures in place to keep Valve a private company

        • probablyaCat@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          I hope so. And I hope whoever eventually replaces Gabe and other behind the scenes higher ups are hand picked because they share the same love for gaming that the current people do.

          Watching Gabe talk about playing Dota on the steam deck and making sure it was viable, you could just tell he loves games. He cares about the experience.

          Sometimes that hinders things. Probably why we won’t be getting a portal or half life 3. Because he doesn’t see something matching the quality that those games achieved. And they also have done some stuff that I’m less fond of. I believe it was CS and TF2 that really started some of the loot crate random reward gambling type stuff. But all in all, the people at steam do currently seem to care about giving gamers a good experience.

          I just hope that doesn’t change.

        • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          I hate their monopoly, but every competitor sucks absolute ass. Epic Game Store gives me one or two free games per week, and I STILL don’t use the platform because the platform is aweful.

            • Cypher@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              GOG is superior at everything other than social features and server integration. Stuff like joining servers from your friends list etc.

              DRM free games are worth that minor trade off so if it’s available on GOG I buy it there.

              • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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                9 months ago

                Another issue is the lack of linux support. Didn’t matter much until the steam deck came out. Hope that drives additional Linux support.

                • asexualchangeling@lemmy.ml
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                  9 months ago

                  So just add it as a none steam game and use proton, it’s how I’ve been playing the Cyberpunk 2077 DLC on my SteamDeck

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            I install the games and run them from the shortcut on my desktop, multiplayer works… Honestly, it does what it needs to do as a launcher and there’s extra crap, just not as much as there is on Steam 🤷 The best launcher would be no launcher but here we are…

        • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          The “monopoly” makes linux gaming next to flawless and push it forward ever year. Excuse me as I give them more money.

    • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      Yup, one of the few products that has actually grown more user friendly and value-laden over time

  • Reddit_Is_Trash
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    9 months ago

    It’s almost like putting your customers first is a viable business practice.

      • Reddit_Is_Trash
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        9 months ago

        I’ve never had a bad refund experience, personally. They do set out their terms and conditions for refunds quite clearly, I’ve even been able to successfully refund a game I played a little over 2 hours