Episode 222 - Remember how bad Valve actually is
Added 2024-08-31 11:06:01 +0000 UTCRemembering the history of Valve's rise to dominance.
Comments
I've made a video on car surveillance a while back. It's a lot worse than anything else, including social media and advertising surveillance.
The Hated One
2024-09-10 12:31:27 +0000 UTCSame is true now (you do not own what you have bought) with lost of hardware things too: * A cabrio car connecting to manufacturer's server when you click a button to open/close the roof (Check YT - Louis Rossmann spoke about that) * Tesla disabling quick charge feature after car informs manufacturer's service about a visit to non authorised server. * Video camera manufacturer introducing subscriptions or disabling on already sold cameras.
JB
2024-09-09 15:45:55 +0000 UTCNo. That's what Steam to dismiss the trial. Which the judge did. However, there was an appeal that brought the lawsuit back with an argument that Steam is enforcing with a provision that bars publishers from selling their titles cheaper on stores outside of Steam. This is a still ongoing trial in the US and there is a separate trial in the UK. So I don't care what "some people say". I care about the results of these lawsuits when they come out. Criticizing their record is valid when evaluating their company values and practices. That is absolutely a thing that all companies should be judged by.
The Hated One
2024-09-01 20:10:11 +0000 UTCSome people say the price parity clause only applies to generated Steam keys. You can definitely buy some Steam games on Humble Bundle at a discounted price, but that's more like a sale. I assume most delists happen because the developer pulls the plug, you cannot blame the store for this. But I found that Steam itself does not have DRM, there is even a list of DRM-free games: https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games Furthermore, I think it's unfair to criticize them for something in the past but already changed like the refund policy.
Sakii
2024-09-01 18:29:17 +0000 UTCThis is the problem that I was trying to highlight. Just because a company has done positive things doesn't negate the negative ones. The 30% Valve tax is a bad thing, it's inflating prices, fixing high prices across different stores, all the while removing the title of ownership of digital games. Gabe Newell is eventually going to retire or die and whoever inherits his company is gonna have to make decisions. I want Valve to be good but the only way they can be good and stay that way is if they become a nonprofit. This is not something I talk about in my video but it will be in the part two. Valve should be criticized for what they are doing and have done. Their future promises of fixes that haven't come shouldn't be used to justify their monopolistic ambitions.
The Hated One
2024-09-01 15:19:19 +0000 UTCThis attitude denies all good things the entire Valve company did to the tech and entertainment industry, which far outweigh the few anti-competitive and anti-consumer points of the Steam Store. What you said about fragmentation of linux is wrong, even Linus Torvalds said Valve is going to find a way to unify the deployment to linux desktops and they are doing that with containerization. Steam has ways to lend games or play with friends when you don't even own the game and tons of other services that other platforms do not even come close. You can even make money on the community market and buy games with that. Anyone thinking they are higher status because they are "steam users" sounds ridiculous Gabe selling or shutting down the company is completely irrational, this is his life's work, if he wanted to do that he would have done that a long ago. They are a VERY unusual company in a lot of ways Intrusive anti cheats is also wrong, their anti cheat solution is userspace and cross-platform. Also working on new tech right now that is server-side only. They are even contributing to the open-source world with OpenVR, Proton, and related graphics libraries No company is your friend, but Valve is one of the very few not-shit ones.
Sakii
2024-09-01 09:30:26 +0000 UTCHuh?
The Hated One
2024-08-31 19:32:28 +0000 UTCYou are making a huge mistake by confusing Valve and Steam
Sakii
2024-08-31 14:24:56 +0000 UTC
