Something I’ve noticed in this community is that whenever I criticize Steam, or point out something I don’t like about the platform, I tend to get a ton of downvotes.
And honestly, I’m just curious why.
This is a piracy-oriented community, so I find it kinda interesting that Steam seems to have such a strong positive reputation here. I’m not saying people shouldn’t like Steam, obviously everyone has their own reasons for using it. Steam is convenient, has huge sales, supports Linux, has a massive library of games, etc. I completely get why people use it.
I’m just wondering where the line is for people.
For example, do you like Steam despite the DRM because the convenience outweighs the negatives? Do you see Steam as fundamentally different from other forms of DRM? Do you consider Valve one of the “good guys” in the industry? Or do you simply see Steam as a convenient storefront and don’t really think much about the DRM side of it?
Or maybe you actually agree with some of the criticism of Steam, but just think it’s being exaggerated.
For me personally, I don’t use Steam because I don’t really like having my games tied to an account and a platform. I’d rather have the actual files, be able to back them up, move them around, mod them and know that I still have them years later. That’s basically what I was getting at in that video I made about Steam as well.
But I’m not trying to start another “Steam bad!” argument here. I’m genuinely curious because sometimes the reaction seems surprisingly pro-Steam considering the nature of this community.
So what is it about Steam that you guys actually appreciate?
It’s a convenient storefront and discovery system (too an extent). Some games I play rely on its backend services. It’s never screwed me over or antagonized me. They also have really good Linux support without having to think to hard about it. They’ve done a huge amount of work on that front that would still even fit me even if I stoped using steam and I do legitimately appreciate that. I kind of get the feeling that the hardware was an excuse to do Linux support, like it seems to me that people there want Linux to be a viable gaming platform even if the business case is pretty niche.
I don’t like that I don’t own the games, I don’t like the DRM, but there isn’t really an alternative on that front, except for GOG but they generally don’t have the games I’m interested in, which are normally smaller niche titles in categories that GOG isn’t focused on. The fact that they have a majority market share makes me nervous about them getting sold or going public and their practices changing. But them being the biggest kid on the block seems like a net positive given that the people liable to take their place are so hostile to consumers. Like the biggest critics of valve from within the industry (Tim Sweeney for instance) seem like they’re just angry that don’t get to be steam but more consumer hostile.
I’m not going to defend everything they’ve done, I’m not going to say they’re without sin, but the biggest issues with them are universal to the entire industry.
My guess after doing some self-reflection as a Steam customer… Because there aren’t really any truly comparable alternatives, so until that becomes the case people with thousands of dollars of game licenses in Steam are paranoid about the idea of needless exodus away from the platform, as they don’t know how secure their purchases would be in the long term under that scenario. Competition risks stability. So they kneejerk downvote criticisms out of that paranoia. I think it’s far more that investment self-interest emotion than say, fanboyism of Valve.
And thats the biggest objection I have with it: You don’t truly have ownership. You’re basically just “renting”. Again, thats just my opinion and how I feel about it, please don’t hate me for it.
Oh I don’t hate you at all! I actually agree with you, if the DRM-free software or license isn’t actually in your possession, you really don’t have security of ownership.
My goal is to support developers. Not to own a game. If I just wanted to play i would pirate. Download it and store the game files on my backups. I had a collection of CDs to install games from and I don’t even own a CD ROM anymore. Steam is a delivery system that allows me to sync my saves and support developers. That’s about it.
Wow thank you, I get piled any time i mention that while steam is the least evil, they’re still evil and a corporation, and the millisecond they go public or gaben kicks the bucket, they will be epic lite, ran by a Blizzard CEO. Mark my words.
Centralization is NEVER good
I agree, although I also now get the steam users perspective more. Specially regarding Linux. I’ve popped my Linux cherry today and I must say so far I’m not hating Linux. However I haven’t done any Wine attempts yet. That being said yeah no I won’t ever use Steam or any streaming type thing because I like control, I’m a data hoarder and I always feel that with Piracy I always have front row VIP seats to anything. DLC’s are included, subs are better, everything is better. And in regards to Virii or whatever just use common sense and a virus killer.
Congtats on Linux, its a far better experience. I used it lightly around 03 but only recently became a full on daily is for me a few years ago
I hope it will be the same for me. My goal is trying to see if I can just do everything I do now daily on my PC under Linux. I’m confident that I can, I just gotta learn the ropes. I feel in a few years I’d need to hop over anyway because Micro$oft keeps getting worse and worse.
You moved at a good time. Microslop is destined to make the worst os of all time it looks like.
Yeah it takes a mindset change but almost everything Linux does is miles more comprehendable than windows, for me. Once you get used to it, you wonder why it isnt the standard.
Unless you often have to update firmware on obscure peripherals, or play badly made AAA games, I doubt youll ever need windows again.
for right now i’m just basically getting a feel for it on an old laptop, but i’m also in the process of fixing another machine that needs a new motherboard and then i want to test it even more extensively on that. I’m pretty confident though that I can get Linux just the way I want it to. (I really love the terminal in Linux) truth be said I’d be surprised if by this time next year I won’t just have all my machines on Linux. You guys inspired me.
as for Windows it seems to just no longer be a priority with Micro$lop. they have all this other stuff going on and Windows comes last in their priorities. it really suits me fine at this point, since the older I get the more Cyberpunk I get (and more anti-corpo) and I’m really liking Linux more and more. I especially love the freedom it offers and to me really I compare it a lot to just flashing a rom on an Android. its all open source, you can install stuff with the terminal just like I do with conda python and so far yeah i’m all for it man. hate to steal a corpo creed here but I’m lovin’ it.
100% agree. I also love the terminal for certain things. Never got why people were scared of it. Right there with you on cyberpunk! To look to the future we must look to the past.
Thats why I’ve been getting more into the Gemini protocol as well recently.
If you like Cyberpunk stuff you might like my website haha. Whats Gemini protocol? Please enlighten me!
Valve fanboys are a loud minority. Back before Valve was forced to implement a decent refund policy many of these assholes would argue against it and defend Valve’s shitty policy. Obviously all those people went silent after Valve changed their policy but it’s a great example of how their fanboys will defend them against any criticism.
Because it too frequently props up opposing platforms who are objectively worse for customers as a comparison, and turns out to be Tim Sweeney in a mask. One monopoly’s existence doesn’t justify introducing competitors with worse business models just so their CEO can get their cut of the middleman action. I care about outcomes for end users, and most of the complaints I see about steam aren’t reflective of my lived experience with the platform, nor are they accompanied by actual ideas for improving the model.
Just because Steam offers a DRM option doesn’t mean that it’s mandatory:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_SteamGOG’s whole “thing” is having games be DRM-free.
Even Epic has a decent number of DRM-free games: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Epic_Games_Store
And PC Xbox is just in the corner eating DRM paint chips.
Thats interesting, see, I wasn’t aware of this at all. I’m so glad I joined the Fediverse. I’m basically getting a 20 year massive brain update overhaul in weeks.
steam DRM is so rare that I can copy most of my games to a different computer, drop in the 1 or 2 files needed for goldberg emu, and the game runs offline. andin the games it’s present in, its weak. I don’t know if there are newer versions with significantly stronger protection, but my last experience was that an app stripped steam DRM for a game and after that goldberg worked as usual.
there are so many companies to be hated for a reason, they have their share of bad things but it’s so minuscule. It’s not the problem that people bring up those topics, but sometimes it feels people want to hang them while just accepting what the real big tech does.
Not me, I’m against all big corpo’s. Specially Disney, crApple and MTV.
Can’t speak for others but they haven’t enshitified and I feel that their offering is fair. So while there are fair criticisms to level in my mind they are still more good than bad.
The contribution to Linux development offsets the DRM.
Lets see:
- Good prices if you are a bit patient and want to support devs
- seamless linux integration nowadays - Proton is a blessing!
- DRM is the decision of the publisher - not required by steam in any way - and the offered standard DRM is so weak that it doesn’t really exist while also respecting you as a costumer (no hardware binding, no limited activations and so on - if a game has that, it’s the publishers bad decision)
- steam workshop is the easiest way to get into modding by far
- autoupdater for all your games (and mods when using workshop)
- integrated overlay offering guides and discussion forums
- steam input is awesome and powerful, while not being overly complicated, and also works on non-steam games (the overlay does too - opening a game wiki in the overlay is pretty handy)
- switching between offered builds/betas takes 3 clicks
- steamworks making multiplayer easy - rightclick your friend and invite into the running game
- discovery queue is a pretty good feature - i tend to run one or two every month just to keep up on whats new and up my alley
- creates a news and patchnotes stream out of your library and store follows, making sure you always are informed even if a game isn’t currently installed, for example when you are waiting for some specific feature / content in a game
- easy managing of your installed games with a good overview of used space and when you last used that 80GB behemoth of a game
- Steam inhome streaming is pretty good and readily available, and also enables mixed remote/local couch gaming; i prefer moonlight/sunshine, but it’s deffo more involved than clicking on the “Stream” button.
- Family sharing makes my library availabe to 5 other people free of charge
Don’t get me wrong, i am someone who collects game repacks in large volumes, so i am completely fine with piracy as it is. but i also want to give game devs that have created something special financial security so they can continue doing their thing. That means games that i actually want to continue playing after testing them out sooner or later land in my library, at a price point that i a) can afford, since i am a small time pensioner and b) that i perceive as fair for the product in comparison to how much joy the game brought me. My wishlist is primarily a “reminder to buy because they deserve it” list. In some cases this can even result in paying the full new release price (Baldurs Gate 3 e.g, and CP2077 - this has more to do with my fandom towards the pen&paper RPG tho, and i am happy that the game has evolved to something where i can say i am proud i paid full price)
I’m one of the people that appreciates Steam, but doesn’t trust it because their good will can disappear at the drop of a cent. There’s no guarantee they can’t and won’t go evil.
They don’t want to moderate the rampant Nazis in their forum and games you “buy” are just actually loans. If steam shuts down today, every game you bought is gone. So I’m taking precautions and buying from stores that do provide games without DRM.
Steam isn’t perfect and won’t ever be. It’s pretty, but won’t always be. I can criticise the bad parts because I’m not some fanboy cuck.
If steam shuts down today, every game you bought is gone. So I’m taking precautions and buying from stores that do provide games without DRM.
Thats not quite true. Depends on the game, depends on Valve, depends on the publisher. Either way its on my harddrive with backups, so its not like I don’t have them.
How many people do you think have downloaded their entire game library? Will they be able to go to the publisher and say “I bought your game on steam, give me a copy”? How many games would continue working after stream goes down (especially online ones)? How do you install individual games you backed up to other computers and other people’s game library?
If you played it, you downloaded it…
How many games would continue working after stream goes down
Turns out there are thousands. There is a wiki about them.
How do you install individual games you backed up to other computers
Most of the time you can play direct from the exe if they dont require steam, or take offline, or since we are in a piracy forum, you apply a crack.
and other people’s game library?
Why would i put things on other peoples game library or have any interest in those?
On a different note: I wonder how long a steam client could be offline? Once you play a bunch of games, you can go into offline mode and stay that way. I wonder how long?
It would be trivial to set up a linux box with all your games running, take it into offline mode and then simply image that. The image is your backup.
So I’m taking precautions and buying from stores that do provide games without DRM.
Same, although I wish I could simply pirate it all.
I already do for some stuff, pop it in sandboxie. But I don’t trust that entirely.
If steam shuts down today, every game you bought is gone.
not actually true. few games have DRM, some of them can be broken, and all the rest uou can continue to play offline witg goldberg emu.
I have firsthand experience of a game I’d paid for on Steam being taken from me with no refund, so I’m def gonna push back on any “relax, guy” posts on this.
(EDIT: shoutout to the downvoter demonstrating OP’s point about rabid fanbois perfectly)
Your online games are going to continue working? All of them? You’ll be able to go to a publisher and say “I bought your game, can i download a copy”?
I don’t have my entire library downloaded to disk and a few things don’t even work offline. I’ve even been logged out of steam after not playing for a year and that required an internet connection. Without it, it wasn’t even possible to see my library.
If your online DRM free game store closes down do you expect to go to the publisher and say that same thing? Or do you have all your DRM free games downloaded and stored locally?
I have a steam deck and play on pc too, and steam sync it’s really convenient. And i like how after i finish a game, I can delete it to save space, then come back 2 years later and my save files will still be in the cloud, without me thinking about it too hard
Yes, I know there’s syncthing, and I use it to sync save files of 1 game, but urghh it’s complex to set up
My hypothesis is that Lemmy is very pro-Linux, and Steam has made gaming easier on Linux while also bringing Linux to more mainstream eyes.
As well, the younger crowd on Lemmy are probably on the younger side that grew up with Steam being basically infinite games available at low prices without having to resort to piracy, rather than the older crowd which first experienced Steam as software overhead needed to run a game that was already paid for.
So far I haven’t tried Linux yet. But the way its been going with Windows them even wanting to make it some sort of SaaS OS (?) I guess? Then i’m willing to take the plunge. Kinda wondering if its worth it, in example regular games like GTA, L.A. Noire, all that stuff will that still work under Linux? Sorry if thats a dumb question, its just I know next to nothing about Linux other than that its an other OS.
You need a compatibility layer to run windows games on linux. Wine is this for most people, proton is built on wine.
If it’s installed via steam it will use proton by default. If you install it elsewhere you will need to set it up yourself, however interfaces like lutris have install scripts for many non-steam pieces of software and you can always study one if you need to write your own/manually set up a wine root (pretend C drive with the game an appropriate compatibility stuff).
You can check the state of games running on wine/proton here: https://www.protondb.com/
Thank you thats very helpful. I just wish I had a machine to test Linux on some time. I’ll figure it out though, but thank you. Let me put it this way: I’m Linux-curious now.
You can dual-boot although windows can be persnickety about sharing the boot partition. Guides are around, e.g. https://docs.bazzite.gg/General/Installation_Guide/dual_boot_setup_guide/
Linux installations are very light and don’t need much space (games do but you can read the windows partition from linux and just run a compatibility tool through steam if you have steam games)
Bazzite is a bad OS for general computing (advanced concepts required to move away from stock config) but good for “it just works” gaming. Fedora is a good general OS and for playing games although some software will need installing.
What would work for what I’m doing? I like gaming pirated games, I’ll personally never use steam (no offense) and I do a lot of artsy stuff and coding, specially these days with AI.
Don’t do any nieche distros.
Use one of the top ones by user amount, that way it’s less hassle (lots of users prove that stuff works well) and easier to get help (cause larger community).
For gaming a “rolling” distro is recommended to get the most up to date software and bugfixes.
My recommendation is (in order, best to good) cachy, fedora kde or bazzite.
Do not use debian or ubuntu or similar for gaming. Those do a major release once a year and you will sit on bugs ir compatability issues that are already fixed on other distros.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed has been a great rolling distro for me, but I’m not a huge gamer, more of an occasional/casual one.
So basically I gotta sorta look at it like how Android OS’s often are, check for the best one before I flash it? (In this case install it)
All linux distros are the same OS but with a different community managing packaging. So what software is available to be installed/ or updated automatically; how and how frequently things are update, e.g. bleeding edge or only stable versions, whether the kernel (the os) is continually updated or has discrete versions; the software and configuration shipped with the installation software and; what software is used to manage the system.
It’s not a very significant choice, and if you keep user and system stuff on different partitions you can change distributions at will.
I use arch and have for a very long time. I think arch is an excellent choice if and only if you are interested in maintaining and understanding a linux system. If you just want to click buttons and have it all work, and maybe put up with some stuff that’s configured not exactly how you would like then fedora is a rolling release distribution that has many packages available kept up to date.
You will have to spend a bit of time reading documentation, and learning basic self help like looking up how to use tools via the “man toolname” command.
You’ll probably manage most of your pirated games via a piece of software called lutris, and will want to use helpful tools like proton-up to install compatibility layers.
Repack installs are sometimes hard to run properly but everything else is really straight forward. Just take the time to understand how wine/proton works so you’re not copy pasting blindly and getting frustrated.
Thank you. I think I’ll try some prolonged testing first just to use it for a while and if i’m comfortable enough with it hop on over to Linux.
Being able to actually leave behind big tech with Microsoft being one of the biggest ones with all the changes going on when it comes to things like privacy and getting your information sold is pretty huge for some people.
People have been tired of Microsoft since Windows 10 when even a clean install would have ads, and it went from a basic OS to one trying to get you to log into an account to funnel data from you.
At this point is kind of less about the games, but improvements to Linux and the attempt to make it more accessible for the average user who isn’t tech savvy that has people seeing Valve positively.
This is a very good answer.
My love for it is absolutely based on the Linux thing. I used widows and Xbox/Xbox app for years as well as some games outside the eco system. Windows pissed me off one too many times and I finally switched full time to Linux. The reason, steam made me able to play my games. It’s why I had never left before.
So yeah, I think that’s a valid point.
Steam does a lot of good stuff, and they remembered that the third world exists. It’s annoying looking at prices on other stores and seeing a game cost 10 - 20% of my country’s average monthly income.
As to your actual question - because most criticism of steam I see here appears to be rooted in wishful thinking rather than any actual logical consideration.
Piracy tends to be a solution to customer service problems. For all the issues with steam, and there are many. For the average customer the service is generally great.
Then there’s the fact of their prolific support of open source projects. Some great like KDE, proton, fex and arch. Some questionable like forking waydroid for lepton and not working with the original devs. And pushing open platforms etc with their own products.
Then there’s the largely flat corporate structure which also appeals to many on the left. As something to promote for others to emulate. Which yeah if we’re going to have corporations would be better than the extremely vertical financial vehicles of the bourgeoisie.
But there are lots of good criticisms of them too. Like enabling gambling via loot boxes etc in CsGo and TF2 etc.
Yeah see, theres a ton of stuff like that, that I don’t know. So its good that I asked here. I’m basically a fossile. (52) There was no steam on the Atari 2600 or Commodore 64.
Atari you were SoL if you couldn’t borrow the cart. C64 and other micro-computers had sneaker net piracy. Ahh, the days of going to your friends house cuz his dad just scored a bunch of software and just mass copying discs while you play on the Atari or NES is a core memory for me.
You’re in good company here 50. I used to be much more into games 25 years ago. I haven’t really launched a game on Steam in months at this point myself. Between giveaways on Epic free shit on Twitch and Amazon. And the heroic launcher. Honestly I’ve got more stuff than I’ll ever hope to play. And not enough time or interest to invest a lot or get deep into a current Triple A game. I still have all my old physical media of course. And without physical media Etc piracy is important for preservation if nothing else. On a day-to-day usage case. These services do everything that most people need outside of preservation.
Kinda wondering if people here would be interested in my “Simpulator” game I made about 4 years ago. Its a sorta sandbox type game where you gotta work odd jobs to simp a camgirl its a whole thing. I’ve been thinking of posting it here but I’m new to the Fediverse so I’m trying to learn the ropes
In my opinion, from a leftist perspective, the amount of yachts gaben owns kind of overshadows the flat corporate structure
We should definitely tax him more then.
It’s only flat below a certain level, there’s still a c-suite to which the majority of Valve employees are subordinate to.
I agree
