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Und: Linux. Ende der Diskussion.
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User friendly I would agree. Definitely has the best UX. Not sure I would agree that it’s the cheapest though.
I will say it’s the cheapest for value when considering the services offered. Coming from consoles, I have found for years I can almost always get a game on PC for Steam either through Steam or countless other sites ridiculously cheaper than any console, including sales. That alone is nice, and slightly cheaper on lesser launchers does nothing for me.
I’ve even done the math in the last few years comparing prices on PC to sale prices on Playstation and my PC build has essentially been paid for in savings difference. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve bought a game on Steam or maybe Fanatical for like $2.99 when on Playstation it was on SALE for $29.99 and it’s nuts.
As for Steam versus others on PC like Epic, it then becomes about the service. Initially it was nice to have a central launcher, then the free cloud saves. Over the years, the Steam custom controller profiles have become a pricelessly useful feature, and sharing/borrowing others control profiles, and then the Steam Link (physical box) to play across my house and later the Steam Deck have added immense amounts of quality to my gaming experience.
Also on rare occasion Steam Workshop has been nice, and saving my own Notes attached to games, Proton to make old games work, the first Steam game I ever bought was delisted from the store a decade ago and is still in my account and downloadable, central source for news for a game (the updates), the community content for games, ability to refund games, ability to gift games, ability to ignore games in the store, and on and on.
Finally, we’re on the third console gen since I first started my Steam account, and I can still see and play all of my Steam games since the beginning on a PC that is NOT my original PC I started with. Whereas on Playstation I absolutely cannot play my PS3 games on my PS5, and for sure Nintendo wants us to rebuy the same games for another console gen.
All of it adds up and just makes Steam (currently) better for me than all the alternatives and it’s why I have not bought anything on my Playstation for years now and will likely not be buying the next console.
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What’s cheaper?
Depends on the day. All these damn platforms are always having some sort of sale. I’m not saying it’s not the cheapest sometimes, but sometimes it’s not.
More user friendly than itch and Game Jolt?
Unless you’re going to tell me that Itch has a dynamic library filtering setting, family-sharing, the ability to have local machines on the network speed up my downloads, and the ability to dynamically remap controller profiles per-game, then yeah, steam is more user-friendly.
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How so?
First off, what does Game Jolt even have? Indie games are fun but if the roster is only indie games I’m not gonna find much to play with my friends.
IMO itch.io is not a steam competitor, they are an indie game and game asset hosting platform and seem to be aimed at developers more than players. The search function is alright. But downloading an exe is definitely less user friendly than having a GUI with a play button.
User friendly would be keeping store and library/launcher separate
Like Epic/GOG/Amazon and Heroic (though I would like another company to come along and add a forum/review module to it)
Way more
How is Itch user friendly? It literally just gives you a download and lets you figure the rest out yourself. If you have a big library, like if you bought one of those big charity bundles, you can’t even filter or search it in any way.
Definitely more user friendly than Itch. Search filters are downright frustrating on Itch.
Never even heard of Game Jolt, so it can’t be that good or useful.
Huh. And here I’ve been a satisfied Steam user for 20 years. Weird.
Yet another dumbass that doesn’t understand the agreement and how it only pertains to selling keys for games that unlock on Steam at other stores; it has fuck all to do with limiting a developer from releasing games on other stores. Only if you’re selling a Steam key on another store.
I can’t deny that Steam has a large marketshare over the digital video game distribution market, and that it could abuse its position, and that the 30% distributor cut is steep. All true. Is it currently abusing its position? Arguably yes and no.
Looking through the evidence document provided in the video, the alleged link between decreased % of multihoming indicating the enforcement of a PMFN is weak IMO. Steam’s support for Linux, its own Steam Deck, good customer service, return policy, family sharing and remote play are major reasons to be a Valve patron, not always about price.
The evidence at 9:05 in the video that suggests Valve says they “stop selling them altogether” was in response to a Steam Key inquiry. The other quotes were related to removing it from the front page and sales feature pages (not delisting but not there unless you search for it). That’s not delisting but perhaps it is anti-competitively deranking it. I’m not sure what the rules are though, like a grocery store doesn’t have to put a product at the front of a store when a rival has a steeper sale for it, but they could ask for the same discount while offering to make it similarly visible. Overall it’s not nearly as serious as OOP makes it seem.
30% isn’t actually that steep when compared with buying physical media; big-box stores tend to run with a number around 30% for their mark-up.
Could someone (politely) explain why anyone who criticizes steam gets absolutely scorched?
I mean I’m a user, on the PC it’s probably the platform I purchase on the most. I’ve also used Epic, GOG, and a few of the others. Like most, I’m getting pretty annoyed by having to load what seems like 15 different platforms to play a variety of games.
But I’ve never understood this blind absolute cult-like following of steam. What makes them absolutely beyond any reproach or criticism? Especially when at least Epic gives away lots of free games (like I think I’ve spent about $20 bucks on that platform, yet it seems like I have just about every game known to man in my library). Or others that don’t mess around with DRM, etc. So what gives?
It’s not about Steam and Valve being beyond reproach for criticism. It’s that posts like OP are incredibly hyperbolic.
Steam is genuinely a good service, at least for now, for as long as the current people in charge stay in charge. And because they’re such a good service they have become the number one place where people look for games.
This attracts the occasional person like OP who tries really… really hard to make Valve look evil. And not just random people either, other platforms who either don’t have the resources, or don’t want to spend the resources, to make a service that can actually compete with Steam try to make Valve look like a villain too.
Claims that seems true on the surface, but are otherwise false (i.e. Valve has a monopoly), cases that are misrepresented (i.e. The case with Wolfire Games), or criticisms directed at Valve that aren’t specific to Valve or Steam (i.e. You don’t actually own your games) are often the go-to topics of posts like OP, and have been repeated hundreds of times (and debunked). At this point people are just sick of seeing it and will downvote on sight.
The ACCC in australia sued Valve for their crappy refunds policy and forced them to implement an australian-style refund system. Everyone in the rest of the world enjoys it when a business treats them like australians (which is to say, like they have actual consumer rights), and assumed Valve was just nice. Epic, EA, Ubisoft and the rest treat them like americans, which they hate. So that’s why people love Valve. Because Australia sued the pants off them.
I have never bought a single game on Steam for this exact reason. I will buy from any game store except Steam.
The service on Steam is nothing superior over others. For people that want privacy but can live with DRM, I like Heroic open source launcher for playing games on both Epic and GOG, but Heroic does have issues launching Fortnite.
Fortnite is riddled with overreaching anti-cheat. No shit it wont run on linux.
GOG doesn’t sell you anything more than a license, either. The difference is that you can download and keep the game forever.
Except you can actually do that with a lot of games on steam, too. These games don’t need steam, which means you could completely uninstall steam, and the game .exe would still work.
Why are you mentioning Linux? I did not. Keeping this all with the context of using Windows, both Epic and GOG stores provide API access which proves they only want to compete but Steam demands tyrannical control and tell gamers want they are allowed to do while Steam maintains the right to erase a user’s game library without a refund.
Steam does and has deleted ganes from people’s library without giving refunds. People have developed a blind allegience to Steam either through ignorance or lower cognitive function, but Steam is between aburden and a plaque on PC gaming.
Did you read the court documents in the video? The simple fact that Epic allows API proves that they not tracking and datamining people’s information.
I have never bought a game on Steam. I will never buy game on Steam. It was a court ruling that made Steam change their user agreement, not Steam trying to be nice.
Everything runs on an API, including steam.
The simple fact that Epic allows API proves that they not tracking and datamining people’s information
That’s not how anything works. Even literal spyware would have to make use of some APIs. The acronym literally just refers to a interactive protocol between software applications.
AFAIK, legendary, the python application which Heroic uses to interact with Epic services was created by reverse-engineering the Epic store API used by their launcher, not by implementing some public spec they freely provide. It’s essentially a workaround they haven’t bothered shutting down. For now Epic hasn’t blocked it, but that’s not the same as an endorsement.
Legendary may not have implemented the parts of the Epic launcher that collects user data, but that doesn’t mean Epic doesn’t do that.
I mention Linux, because that is the primary use-case for Heroic. I entirely forgot it works on Windows.
I’m under no illusions about how Steam works, but to claim EPIC of all companies is any better, is beyond rich.
GOG I can agree with, but even they have some games that don’t work quite right without galaxy. That may improve, as those APIs are being reverse-engineered, as well.
Steam maintains the right to erase a user’s game library without a refund
So does GOG and Epic. The only difference is that there’s a third-party downloader for their libraries.
All three storefronts sell at least some games with executables that function entirely on their own, no launcher necessary once the game files are acquired.
All three also sell some games that can be shut down by their respective developers or publishers, or rely on other services that may not stick around.
