GiantLizard
47689
1318
14
Dec 16, 2024 12:58 PM
GiantLizard
47689
1318
14
htapoicoS
He looks like someone shrank his face with photoshop
DeveloperExtraordinaire
I'm freaking WORKING ON IT!
AgamemnonsMemes
I'm still mad at the cost disparity (just check steamdb) but thats the devs/producers themselves, they set the regional prices.
lddiaz
I used to actually feel guilty about pirating. But after some studios revoked customer's ability to watch movies "purchased" online. I only bought one ever... "The Hunter" with Steve McQueen. I am not buying physical media. So... yar...
JinxRocks
The only thing I hate about Gabe's picture.. is that he looks exactly like my asshole brother. I mean.. they could be identical twins on how similar they look.
Zeddicuszull
Steam is gonna get immediately ruined once Gabe retires to whatever volcano island lair he is building with all of his money upon retirement. It is shocking at how Steam has lasted 20 years without being ruined by capitalists.
djangojazz
Also of note that the German that stole the source code got in by a very interesting vulnerability and had a very early version of the game. That made them ultimately have to work harder on multiple fronts to make the game look better as well as securing Steam at the time. It frankly amazed me on how many fronts Valve was working simultaneously while being sued by Vivendi Games. Then winning a hail Mary on an intern that new Korean and got an email that basically caught Vivendi red handed.
TheCrimsonFurry
Used to pirate every game as a way to demo. So sometimes I just... beat the game cause it was good. Gabe gave us 2 hour refund. Now when I zone out, the dev keeps the cheddar. If it's bad, then refund knowing they won't get slapped with refund charge bullshit from cc companies. Win wins I say
KPuff
Peter Griffin, you're fooling no one with a fake name.
bspurgeon5150
Why are we quoting Peter Griffin? That really grinds my gears 🤣. Sorry, couldn’t help myself
CrystalMists
99% of the reason i buy on steam or etc anymore is cuz cloud saves due to working between two seperate systems and it being increibly easier to use thier services cloud saving vs onedrive or google drive or similar file sharing.
PlusTechSqueezeBox
Pretty much, yeah. As a frequent pirate, I've paid for computer programs plenty of times because it was just easier than trying to pirate it. Gladly plopped down $20 for a video downloader because pirating it was a pain and it was often a super outdated version. Gladly paid full price for Vegas Pro because the torrents for it are riddled with fake virus torrents and I don't feel like taking that risk again.
PunnyTiger
I've purchased bootleg DVDs because you put them in and start the movie. legal dvds are several minutes of bullshit before you get to a point where you have the option to watch the movie
GrenithTheSkald
True. When I can find the "MassEffect: Legendary Edition" with all 3 games for like $7 on sale, I don't really need to go through the lengthy process of trying to find a bootleg copy online. Or when games come out and go: "Hey, we're gonna release our game for $60 CAD instead of $90 CAD like all the other big AAA developers," then I'm more likely to buy it at launch.
Just treat your customers with some basic dignity, toss us a sale every now and again, and it's that easy.
GrenithTheSkald
Especially with the BS that games "need" to be $90 (or I guess $70 in the U.S.)
HellDivers 2 sells for like $ 32 USD, and they sold 12 million copies in the first 3 months. That's $384 million USD, not including sales since then, or the battlepasses you can buy/earn.
Meanwhile, games like StarWars: Outlaws dropped at like $90 CAD and have only sold about 1 million copies since launch. Making $90M CAD or $63M USD.
Plus, with a high entry cost, people are expecting more perfect products.
Revelant
I would gladly buy most games if they were $15, until then the high seas buckos
RevRagnarok
If you wait long enough, they often are.
Frobizzle
Steam is great and still the best digital game platform by miles without any real competition on the horizon. There are exceptions, but it's generally the game publishers at fault, and not the platform.
Valve isn't forcing the anti piracy measures on games that everyone complains about (and exaggerates TBH). Their biggest crime is no longer giving a shit about making games since they rake in steam money. Before people point out the game license issue, that's always been a thing with software.
DocTanner
Yup. This is why Steam makes oodles and oodles of money.
MarkRavingMad
Yeah if there's anything we learned from the early days of Steam and streaming, it's that you can compete with free if you offer a robust library with a superior user experience at a reasonable price...but if you stop providing that, privacy will always be there to replace you.
KomodoSaurian
I stopped pirating when Steam became a thing and allowed me to use local currency and local payment methods because it was much more convenient. Not that Steam won't let me buy anything I'm back to pirating.
mikeymikec
But since antipiracy technology also doubles up as a deathclock, game publishers love it.
Trentlane1984
vash77
IAmNotNSAsodonotbeparanoid
Too bad you can't pirate healthcare in the USA
KittenVonCatsworth
Pretty sure that's just "going to Mexico for treatment." I work in healthcare and have coworkers who've taken time off to go to Mexico City for surgeries.
flatbanana
next best thing is medical tourism, although that's not possible for medical emergencies.
bikergeek6249
there's a lot of trans people who do DIY HRT, because access to it is very much gatekept in a lot of places. that's sort of like "pirate healthcare".
djangojazz
Everyone even mildly interested in Valve, not even Half Life, should watch the Half Life 2 documentary. It was a fascinating look into the imagination that Valve had for their 'Steam engine'. Which by now is just taken for granted. But man it was like magic in 2004. And all the physics and eyes and then I did not even know they were being sued all while doing all of this. It honestly amazes me also how they were barely making money and now you think of them as a juggernaut.
eggmuffin
Years ago now, I thought to myself, "Gee. Origin has been around for over a decade now, and they got off the ground AFTER Steam had already figured out a lot of what doesn't work. So why is it still so shit? Why is it still missing half the convenient features that I'd take for granted on Steam?"
Like, WHY?! They put so much time, effort and money into forcing players to use Origin, it seems like it never even occurred to anyone involved that players might WANT to use it, if it was good.
ilmiobelcavolo
Origin strikes me as the short-sighted whim of shareholders who wanted in on the Steam Pie but couldn't pull their head out of their troughs long enough to have any thought other than 'profits'.
MightyIink
He's right, which is why I'm buying from GOG now.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Imademyselfsquirtle
Use GG.deals. Shows you lowest price for a game across all sellers. It gives you a CDkey for Steam etc. Sometimes a game that is 79.99 is only 9.99 on another site.
Targe0
Yeah, and their games are actually tested to make sure they work. Unlike steam, who only tests if the launcher runs.
Frobizzle
Digital distribution platforms on PC do literally zero testing of the games they sell. That is entirely the developer and publisher responsibility, of which even notoriously hated publishers spend a ton of money on.
The only real exception is steam deck compatibility so, by that logic, valve does more than GOG in that respect.
Targe0
GOG does often now try to do tests to get games working. It basically depends on if the source code is still available for them to make the needed improvements. But a lot of old games don't have the source code available, so it's harder to do compatibility fixes. But their policy is if they can do it, they will.
SPQAAE
I hope that Steam doesn't become evil as fuck after Gabe passes away.
goboltz
Micro$oft will then buy & kill it like they do Everything else they can't make or do correctly !
SPQAAE
Incoming posts of people saying it's already evil lol.
Redyls
yeah... thats why netflix prospered... then the stupid greedy CEOs get involved and begin the process of enshittification. until the morons kill their golden goose and the piracy begins again
Clayman8
"Begins again"
Oh Mayfly...we never stopped đź–¤
evilspock
Oh - that happened long ago.
gunnexx
I dont even blame Netflix CEOs, I blame HBO, Disney, FOX, etc CEOs. They had to get their own pie because sharing wasnt enough
whatisimgurallabout
ENSHITTIFICATION is the Australian dictionary's word of the year! https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/woty-2024/
RichardNunez
I had stopped pirating because of Netflix. Aannnd now I sail the high seas.
zenoshogun
I've said it before and i'll say it again, MBAs should never be allowed near any kind of business ever.
GasBandit
"I'd rather have 100% of nothing than 10% of something!" - every media CEO
OverwhelmingSurplusOfDiggity
Sort of - but you have to mostly blame the other companies. Netflix would love to stream everything, and you would love to use them.
But if you want “all the things” now, you have to get paramount and peacock and Hulu and hbo and prime and all those other assholes who have exclusives. Not to mention all the the “Netflix can only stream it for a year” licensing shit.
SnakuPlisskin
It wasn't even that. I was content to subscribe to a few services and kind of round robin share with family members who each subscribed to a service or two. It was the password-share blocking that started me unsubscribing and then when they started pushing ads I cancelled everything I had left, bought a new secondhand PC and a large external hdd and subscribed to a VPN
pimt665
Canceled netflix, time to sail
SpaceballsTheComment
To be fair, Netflix didn't have much of a competition for a long time, until everyone and their mom started streaming exclusive high budget content.
Mgxr44
✨capitalism✨
psugab
It's a little more complicated. The shitty C suite of other companies saw the money Netflix was making and started to put out different platforms instead of just negotiating better rates/deals, so the shitty C suite at Netflix started making things at Netflix shitty, including firing the algorithm lead because she made basically the best algorithm, but it didn't get maintained well apparently.
NotAPervert
Ok, so basically what the parent comment said but more verbose right
psugab
I was just trying to spread the blame. It sounded to me like they were blaming Netflix c level, but really it's all the network c levels.
Outlavv
Its only the netflix c levels that ruined netflix. You cant blame other companies for netflix sucking lmao
SnakuPlisskin
And at that point it's kind of a prisoner' dilemma. Netflix couldn't exactly keep going business as usual with everybody else pulling their content
whatspaulplayingtoday
So... the process of enshittification.
spiceass9000
Suits ruin literally everything because they’re disconnected from everything good in life except money. They’re not even happy cause their only interest is money. Money is only good if you have things to spend it on you love.
johnvictor
They're a dragon with a gold hoarding problem.
MySushi
More than half of what Netflix offers or even what Amazon Prime has, can be found on free ad-supported streaming services, not even pirated. These companies just take freely available content and try to make you feel like they are offering a lot, when in truth they have actually very little original content
ecoterrorpriest
They hoped that we forgot how to pirate. And sadly, they were right. Most of Gen Z doesn't know. It's a knowledge we older generations failed to pass on.
Redyls
theres still time.
pyr0max
The piracy has already began.
flicman
Did it ever stop?
pyr0max
not for me
Evillairforrent
Yoho yoho a pirate's life for thee
DippinDerps
If you want to make if better than what pirates give. . . Then let us own what we buy. Simple as that.
qtRaven
darkninja2992
Easy enough. The AAA part of the industry started going downhill mid-late seventh console generation and so many games are style over substance now. You still have some good stuff like resident evil 2 and 4, or insomniac spiderman, but for the most part, you're better off just going with indie, fangames
, and or older console games like the library of ps1 and ps2
UhSadHJ84
Best I can do is NO
sadurdaynight
Also make the content we purchase easy to find. Tried looking up a movie I know we purchased a while back. Firestick's search function said "content not available". What? We bought it! I check online, and a diff streaming service sells it now. Got pissed thinking this was their gimmick; making us pay for it on each streaming service as they pass it around. But, I opened prime videos specificially, searched, and it was there. Amazon firestick doesn't search Amazon prime videos? wtf?
Imapseudonym
Did you pull it up and play it on Prime too? Amazon will still show movies in their search that they no longer stream regardless of whether it was purchased or free to stream.
Corrodias
But no game developer sells such a thing, and they'd be fools to, as you could simply copy it and sell it to other people at a price that undercuts them. They can't fund development that way.
ThisNameUnavailable
Thats not how copyright works. You can own a piece of media wholly but have it still be illegal to resell it.
Corrodias
What does the word "own" mean to you? When I say it, it means something quite different.
nanyatenyaa
....Your definition of ownership is un-nuanced. There are many different ways to license and sell things and to gain ownership of something. You seem to be diverging from the goals most people have in owning a copy of a game and also want to own the source code and the assets in the game, which frankly, is a stupid ask. No one is asking for that. People know that's not reasonable.
Corrodias
What *do* people want, what do they mean by "own", if it's not any of that? What do they want to do that they can't do today?
evilspock
That works for standalone, but the "I bought it so it's mine" model breaks down when you get to online multiplayer.
Honestly, the best anti-piracy strategy I've ever seen has been "offer ongoing gameplay improvements and new content via a reasonable subscription model".
houghten
There was a time multiplayer servers were hosted by one of the players. Publishers only pushed for their own hosting *because* they get to charge repeatedly for that.
evilspock
Self-hosting limits scale, and doesn't account for content updates. It's great when it fits - like minecraft - but there's a whole class of games where it falls short, mostly online MMORPGs.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for self-hosting. But - there's a class of stuff where it is worthwhile to pay a sub and let someone else keep you entertained. It might even be a better model - ongoing income incentivizes the vendor to provide a compelling experience.
qtRaven
Of course that doesn't fit for MMORPGs. But for single player games this idea that people should pay full price and keep paying is absurd.
evilspock
Ok, but - where do you see that? I can't think of a single-player game with a subscription...
Kaithar
The fun thing about Steam is that games continue to be installable *after* people stop selling them. https://delistedgames.com/ tracks this stuff and Steam's track record is pretty good.
SecondSince
True. Though when Steam eventually dies your whole library will be gone.
Fairemont
That'll be a while off. And they have promised to make sure that even if they do go under as a company, the library is still available. So, that's something.
DippinDerps
I don't really see that happening. The companies can also revoke the license on the platform. If that happens, you cannot play the game period. Look at Deadpool the game. When the license was temporarily revoked by Warner brothers. Nobody was able to play the game, even with the physical copy. You weren't able to it with whatever they did to keep them from loading up.
Kaithar
The irony is that it seems publishers need to explicitly pull licences, which means they have to be actively operating as a business. KSP2 is still available for sale. Always online DRM won't help with physical copies either but at least Steam shouldn't end up another GameSpy
Fairemont
There's a difference between steam closing doors as a business and the producer pulling the license. I know what you're saying, but those are very different situations.
Nivvi
GOG to the rescue.
SavageDrums
Prime gives out a LOT of GoG titles for free if you have it...
rabidCOVIDphysician
kittyanya
Just got Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate edition from them. HAPPY.
KnuckleDeepInABook
he looks more like a flooring inspector to me
Thesaya
GUYBRUSH!?
KnuckleDeepInABook
ELAINE?!
Aeolys
WALLY!?
MathGoat
MURRAY?!?
Thesaya
HERE'S STAAAN!
MoonMoon89
Well, he's got a point. I haven't pirated a game in decades. Stopped downloading movies when RedBox was available.
martineb72
I haven't pirated games in decades either, but the reason why is that they are full of viruses and malware.
KittenVonCatsworth
Same, I pirated games relentlessly back in the golden days of the internet, before Steam was really a thing. I've been using it for like 15 years now and don't think I've pirated a single game since.
pomax
The only games I pirate at this point are games that I bought on Steam but that force me to sign into a publisher's own platform before I can even play, or turn out to be straight up broken in a way that the pirated versions aren't.
laserfork
Pirating to check something out before you buy it isn't a thing I'd condemn anyone for. Although Steam's return policy is also great. But yeah, between the mods and patching and etc. I prefer owning a game on Steam.
PlanckEraWasMyBestEra
Yep, I literally just bought games I already own during the recent Bioware sale just so I could have them on Steam. It's a very smooth platform.
Hextator
Eh...2 hours is not nearly long enough to determine if a game is any good unless the game only has about 20 hours of total replay value to begin with. Imagine trying to decide if you like the characters, classes, abilities, and story of BG3 within 2 hours. If I didn't already love D:OS2, I'd have no idea how I felt about BG3 within the first 2 hours.
MoonMoon89
There are even ways to ROLL BACK patches if it broke something like mods, and you wanted to wait for the mods to get updated.
DigiT00l
Every game should come with a free demo
zFUBARz
Steam has been pushing Demo's hard lately too, promoting games that release them as well.
DigiT00l
Which as mentioned is great as an anti piracy measure, which Gabe stated he is a fan ofg
idrinkcheapbeer
Its the sales that get me. Games like Stranded Deep, Days Gone and Hunter Call Of The Wild. I had no interest in any of those games until they were dangled in my face with a sale. And I had an absolute blast with them.
TehGrimReaper
I had never even heard of Control before it was free somewhere (Epic, probably) and had a great time playing it.
idrinkcheapbeer
Welp, on that recommendation and the fact that Control is currently on sale for 80% off, I totally just bought Control Ultimate Edition for 8 bucks. I have no clue what it its about and don't remember hearing much about it. Should be fun.
TehGrimReaper
It's an action/adventure game by the same developer that made Max Payne and Alan Wake. I'd recommend making sure to read stuff and pay attention to early cutscenes. Very easy to have no idea what the hell is going on if you don't (and you still probably won't, by design, but at least some things will start to make sense).
cousteau
I haven't paid for a videogame until Steam.
BeKindToOthers
I think also much of the first generation of pirates started when they were broke kids. Now they have a job and a bit of disposable income (and less demand to consume media due to limited time), so streaming and purchasing is just easier in small quantities
Trelis
I totally stopped pirating games because steam. But also happy that steam is getting competition. They are abusing their semi monopoly, but at least users gain from it.
nanyatenyaa
How are they abusing their monopoly? They are supportive of developers and give them a fair shake on tools to promote their games and good cut of the profits. They are taking care of users by offering them refunds, which they absolutely don't need to do. When a dev stops selling a game, they don't really even fully yank your access to the game. I have dozens of games in my library you can no longer buy on steam, still playable. Sounds like Steam just does good things.
Trelis
They take a whooping 30% of the sale of games. If you think that is a "fair share" then I hope we will one day do business.
Thranx
30% of the MSRP is a fantastic take for any product. ANY product.
ydwyrd
That's actually industry standard, all three consoles do the same thing.
PectorialMuscles
While I agree steam is orbital slingshots ahead of every other storefront, and will be for the foreseeable future, I have to tell you some bad news. Steam is currently in a new class action lawsuit suing on the grounds that Steam has been enforcing "industry" standard for its gain by dropping devs who change their prices for a better cut on other platforms. They omnipotently use this practice to force the model, and they heavily favor AAA studios with their pricing table.
ydwyrd
I haven't found anything about anyone being dropped from Steam over this. I did find a class action suit from two developers who are just mad at the 30% cut, but it's only a class action because both cases were combined in to one...after having been thrown out of court already.
There's also another one that claims Valve is "overcharging" consumers which is...just absurd, frankly, Valve doesn't charge any more than any other storefront, nor do they even set the prices.
Trelis
For PC it is not industry standard, that is Valve's false claim too. Microsoft and Epic charge 12%, Humble charges less too. Gog might take 30% though.
ydwyrd
Microsoft and Humble only take a smaller cut because Game Pass and Humble's "pay what you want" feature means publishers *make* far less per sale.
nanyatenyaa
Ubisoft's steaming pile might as well be a virus, along with Epic. EA's origin might as well labeled, "I can install Apex and Sims, good luck on anything actually working." Hell the last team I went to install a game on Steam it popped up "YOOOOO you can just download the binaries from your friend who is own your network, you don't even need to use the internet, it'll be so much faster."
ArcUlfr
Epic's store is, from everything I've seen, absolutely horrible. They released it in, what the late 2010s? It didn't have a shopping cart, for fuck's sake. They also (from what I've heard) require you to store a credit card with them, and their security on keeping those safe is...not the best, apparently.
For Ubi, I have only really played 1 of their games, but I wish they had just used Steam. Uplay is awful.
PepperoniAndFingernailPizza
Steam made gaming affordable and accessible. Its also a very solid platform, hell I have a PC attached to my TV that's primary job is just couch gaming using big picture mode.
Targe0
Yeah, but it's also true that Steam has gotten too comfortable with its position and has done a lot of very anti consumer stuff because of it. Because they know they rule PC gaming, so they sometimes abuse it.
justfillingthespace
The fact that they haven't gone full-on Disney is absolutely insane to me. I'm not condoning their actions in any way, just saying I'm shocked that they don't do more.
Targe0
It's because they aren't a public company, valve is still privately owned. Which means they have no Shareholders they have to listen to. And the store prints probably millions every day, so they never needed to go all that deep into profiteering. Their non-hierarchical management style also likely factors into it as well. Nothing happens there unless enough people want to make it happen. They are a very atypical company. For good and bad.
blcollier
How so?
This isn’t an oppositional “someone is wrong on the internet!” thing, I’m genuinely curious.
I’m aware of the current anti-trust lawsuit. Admittedly I haven’t really read into it too much, but the case is still ongoing so all we have at the moment is accusations.
Targe0
Steam has had a policy that anyone who puts their games on steam, can not sell those games cheaper on any other platform, even on the devs own site. If they did and got caught, they would be banned from releasing on steam. So Valve forced developers to not be able to sell their games on other platforms cheaper. So even if they sold at the same price, they wouldn't be able to do a sale on any other platform.
macgerdo
Iirc, they take about 50% of the games sold there.
This is especially shitty if you're a small developer, because nobody will buy a full price game from a nobody. And most people don't even know any other game.... hoster or whatever we call Steam.
So you have to go lower your price to sell any at all. And then steam takes 50% of that for being steam and hosting a file. Many pirates do this work for free.
PectorialMuscles
Yeah. It is unfortunate how they've geared the system against smaller devs. It's also unfortunate that they have fantastic grounds to defend based on hosting costs being large for so many files. Little devs definitely deserve a much fairer take, but I bet steam will argue otherwise on above grounds. It would be cool if it were based on previous sales, kind of like how YouTube pays creators after a certain breakthrough point.
PectorialMuscles
I definitely don't want to see steam collapse over the costs of this class-action suit (newly granted status). No other platform is anywhere near as convenient or well-made, and certainly is less consumer friendly than even this platform, which is largely why they're successful. People hate being grifted, and unfortunately "pro-consumer" is working backwards for Steam with their enforcement agenda.
GriffinMann41
If you think Steam is 'geared against smaller devs' i'm honestly not sure how you got there. The cut steam takes isn't anything significantly higher than you'd lose anywhere else, especially not for the size of market steam offers, as well as the *tons* of additional benefits of using steam. Like server hosting capabilities, workshop capabilities, forums and discussions pages, a VERY easy to work with shopfront. It's literally just a win, and you really don't lose much at all
PepperoniAndFingernailPizza
Its 30% plus a $100 filing fee.
DudelyVanhorn
to go further than this: they take 30% of what is SOLD ON STEAM. however, they do not stop you from selling your steam keys elsewhere for far more profit. They handle all of your distribution and server overhead for downloads and updates. The reason they are winning is because no one else is offering devs as much as they are for almost nothing. the 100 dollars is not a fee, its a bet, if you make 1000 dollars on your game, steam gives that 100 back.