People have wasted their time defending their platform's "honour" for decades. It used to be Sega vs Nintendo. Then it was PlayStation vs XBox. Now it's Steam vs EGS.

Anyway, what are useful features of Steam:

- their dedication to getting Windows games running on Linux (to see off the existential threat Microsoft poses to them, but nonetheless greatly appreciated)

- community forums / screenshots / artwork / guides etc. for every product. Very useful if the game vendor doesn't have its own, and most game vendors don't

- that Steam Sales encourage vendors to offer games at much more reasonable prices (e.g. a few pounds/dollars/etc.) for what is effectively a license, revocable at any time, not a real purchase. £60? Ha ha fuck off, I'm waiting for the sale when it's £5

- also, as far as I've seen, every game distributed can still be downloaded today. People may complain that publishers update a title e.g. to remove licensed music 10 years later... but you can still download the old version with some trickery. And I've never seen Steam actively remove downloads for existing customers, I've only seen games removed from the store so no future customers

- pirates have found that most games, if their only DRM is Steamworks, are incredibly easy to crack. I am very glad Steam has convinced most publishers to use that alone and nothing worse, and I curse publishers who insist on their own DRM, their own launcher, etc. If Valve goes tits-up, I have a lot of confidence most of peoples libraries will still be playable with a little bit of cracking.

There are other useful features, even if Valve is getting rich and fat off selling gambling and day-trading to teenagers.

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dannyw 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think the "fanboyism" of Steam is a bit different to platform wars like PS vs Xbox, etc.

Fundamentally Valve has built up a lot of trust with the gaming community, and other than microtransactions and gambling, I think it's very fair to say they've been a net good for both the PC gaming community; as well as the ecosystem.

Proton is a great example.

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SXX 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Valve have my trust just by being privately held company that can actually plan for decades ahead instead of try to appease major shareholders or black rock.

It took them 10 years to make Linux a competetive gaming platform.

They invested in VR early and still do a lot for this niche market.

They brought back hanfheld PC from being niche chinese devices to being mainstrean and maintain support for Steam Deck for 5 years.

As game developer I do find 30% cut abysmal, but it's not any worse than consoles and I dont like Epic as a gamer for being awfully anti-consumer. I certainly dont want PC game market to be controlled by chinese Tencent subsidiaries.

	▲	20k 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Getting involved with epic games as a game developer feels like willingly feeding yourself into the mouth of an open shark. Yeah maybe they have a better cut, but I'm still not doing it Valve rightly get a lot of flak for the gambling and high % cut, but you do get a functional useful service in return at least, that doesn't appear to be actively trying to screw you over

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ryukoposting 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Don't forget big picture mode. Nowadays Steam is a better game console than an actual game console. That's the only way I use it anymore.

...and the hardware ecosystem, too. I just got my Steam controller last week, and it's wonderful. It's so good I'm playing Civ with it. Civ! On a gamepad!

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braiamp 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> unmodderated community forums

FTFY. Steam forums are a cesspoll most often than not. No, we do not want a easy accessible place where people can spew their crap on the internet. It's either moderated and useful or it shouldn't exists.

	▲	amiga386 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Really depends on which game, and yes the forums are moderated by Steam staff, who at least understand the role correctly (internet janitor, not little personal fiefdom) To pick a random game's forum: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1623940/discussions/ we find: - bug reports, feedback to the devs, etc. - asking for help in the game - story discussion - requests for games like this one - concern troll (locked) - begging for the game to be released on GOG Seems above board to me. I've also seen plenty of trolling, incivility and unreasonable expectations from manchildren, but they tend to get locked.