PC Gaming

I hated Steam for a long time because of Half-life 2.

Someone would've picked up the model. The execution? Doubt it.

My colleague (late 40s) is still like that. Buys only GoG or I guess physical, although it's mostly codes nowadays anyway? I mean good for him but he misses out on like 80% of games.

I don't think Steam will ever die but I hope it won't fall into enshittification at some point.

As a patient gamer, I only buy older games on sale under ten bucks. I don’t replay games too often, so if I lose access it’s a big whatever.

I was finally convinced when steam sales were incredibly favorable.

I could either go to Gamespot and buy a used game for $20 + tax and have to deal with some sweat giving me shit about my gaming choices. Or buy that same game digitally for $10.

Around 2011, I remember not buying consoles anymore and continuing to grow my PC collection.

Around 2017, my pirating dropped significantly. I think I had like 1000+ steam games from buying so many bundles.

By 2020, I didn't pirate a single PC game, the games I bought 10 years ago still work, and I bought a game from the Microsoft Store, only to rebuy it on Steam.

If you read this article you would know that these are quotes from the Half Life 20 year anniversary documentary released a few weeks ago.

I used the old Stardock/Impulse/GameStop game platform as well! I'd mostly switched to GoG (and Steam) by the time it shut down, but there are certainly some games that were lost to the platform shutting down.

I don't think I even signed up for Steam until 2010 or so. Certainly it was pretty clear that Steam had "won" by the time I made an account

I think most ppl agree that it's a monopoly, it's just that they are a monopoly not because of anticompetitive practices but because everyone else sucks. steam does give a lot of value to small game devs cause it makes it easy for ppl to find your game (but I'm not sure if that's worth the 30% revenue cut). if there was a better platform that took less revenue then devs would simply use that instead.

Steam is a monopoly, it’s just not cartoonishly evil and the bar for a good company is super low these days.

Steam is a monopoly surely, but it's a rare case, or maybe the only case, where it became a monopoly both because it is actually a good service that is not enshittified, and because the competitors kept shooting themselves in the foot.

I guess that's what you get when you don't have any obligation to shareholders.

You might not have know, but Steam game can be without DRM, meaning there's no need for the client to be running for it to be able to run. I'm not sure how up to date this is, but here's a list for some of the game. The client are required only when the dev use the overlay or any steam function. You can even find a list of patchable game to make it drm free.

Nope, DRM is optional. You can install some games (Rayman Origins, for instance), copy the directory to a new computer with no Steam and run the exe. Steam also has Steam Input, but no one says it's just a gamepad driver.

It's only a little bit more DRM than GOG. It doesn't automatically adds a DRM layer to all games. There are tons of games that you can backup by simply copying their folders. Even if the DRM layer is added, it's very light, can be cracked easily and does not add any measurable overhead.

Steamworks is probably a major thing that makes the games rely on Steam client (and it's not technically a DRM). But that's up to developers to make the game work without client if they want, and the functionality often adds a lot of value. This makes the client a part of the product you get, and its value will degrade if you break the client. Some examples of such valuable functionality are overlay and steam input.

Its not that steam is good, its just that everyone else so extremly dumb and incompetent. And GOG only has a very limited catalogue

You think Valve is what it is because of luck?

That’s the dumbest thing I’ve read on here for a while.