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It's crazy how it's absolutely impossible to criticize steam without getting bashed to oblivion by so-called gamers. The amount of free balls sucking Steam gets is just ridiculous. They have sub 100 employees , take 30% of every god damn games sold on the platform and you don't own you games. Yeah it's a cool platform, but in the end it's just another nasty capitalist business.
As a Linux gamer, steam has done so much to make it incredibly easy. They didn't have to make proton, but they did and it's great.
The few games they've made have pretty much all been incredible.
The family sharing means my wife has access to my whole account on her steam deck.
Sure, they take a big cut of sales, I've heard not a great place to work, and probably some other reasons to not like them. But the good far outweighs the cons. It's hard to hate them compared to other huge companies.
Well I mean, proton exists pretty much solely because of the steam deck. I will agree that it's been really nice switching to Linux as a result of proton's existence but they didn't just magically do it out of the goodness of their own heart either. It's basically the nicest version of a monopolistic gaming environment that doesn't really allow you to actually own anything that you buy.
It's kind of funny to watch the news with them; they're like two different companies struggling to coexist. One is just as greedy and evil as every other corporation and the other one fights for the consumer, so you end up with a news story one day saying that they're stifling competition by forcing price cuts on only their platform, but then they also are banning all games that force players to watch advertisements. Make make up your mind Steam 😂
How do they not allow you to own anything? Steam has drm free games, and if this is about licensing that wasn't different 30 years ago.
Valve is absolutely not perfect and I buy from gog when possible, but my god do I hate that argument. Using steam's drm is the choice of the publisher.
How do they not allow you to own anything? Steam has drm free games, and if this is about licensing that wasn’t different 30 years ago.
its the perpetual license thing, every platform that doesnt directly sell you the product does the same thing, it's the industry standard.
Yes, and video games sold as physical disks did it too.
they did use DRM, you would be correct about that statement.
Well I mean, proton exists pretty much solely because of the steam deck.
proton existed many years before the steamdeck, and it's evident they intended it to be used WITH the steam deck, but it also exists outside the steamdeck, even then, it's still a huge incurred cost for a console that is actually super cost competitive for what it is. They don't even have that significant of a console market share, it seems like it's been nothing but a pet project to make gaming on linux more accessible, presumably because valve doesn't really like windows. Steam is 100% still WAY in the red on proton, and will probably continue to be for the whole lifetime of the project, it's unlikely they'll ever break even on it.
Family sharing is just replicating a feature of the disc age that valve killed of only owning 1 copy of a game and installing it one multiple people's computers. If it had DRM requiring the disc to be inserted to play (which many games did), only one person could play it at a time.
I had a couple of classmates who'd take turns buying each Sims 2 expansion because you only needed the last installed expansion disc inserted to play so that way they'd each have a fully expanded Sims 2 install at half the price. My dad would always have the latest expansion installed and I would have to wait until they got the next one before I could get that one. Certain expansions were exciting enough that I'd find times to play on my dad's computer to play the latest expansion though
take 30% of every god damn games sold on the platform and you don’t own you games.
they also provide both proton completely for free, and the entire steam marketplace, as well as any other additional functionality, steam networking for ex, with that 30% cut.
It's a large cut, but you're not really going to find a better option. Sure you could release on GOG, i think like 12 people use GOG though.
they also provide both proton completely for free
Yeah,I mean Proton is basically Wine - A free and open-source project developed by hundred of people over the years - with some extra patches. It's great, but the only reason they did it is to sell steam decks.
Steam does certain things really well, but in the end it's just a capitalist business. I don't get why gamers can be that bitchy about studios, that employ thousands of devs and artists, people who just wants to make good games but needs to deal with executives, but will rip their shirt a soon as someone criticize steam. They do no care about you, your experience, or even video games, they only care about money.
proton is not "basically wine" proton is built ON TOP of wine, yes, but the focus of the wine team is not supporting ONLY video games, it's supporting windows applications through an compatibility layer. The focus of proton is specifically enabling the support of video games through wine, via proton, and proton is open source. In fact it seems like it's BSD licensed? Which is the most permissive license out there, so the wine team could take the work of proton and upstream it tomorrow if they wanted.
It’s great, but the only reason they did it is to sell steam decks.
that's like starting a resturant franchise, by building 10000 locations in the US, just to start selling some mediocre fast food. Evidently the steamdeck must not be the intention of proton, it's goals seem to be much farther in the future, the steam deck probably a platform to test it (because its not like the steamdeck is the most successful console ever, they don't sell a live service, and the hardware isn't very expensive.)
Steam does certain things really well, but in the end it’s just a capitalist business.
yeah, we live in a capitalist society though, i guess it could be a hypothetically perfect society where money doesn't exist, but we don't live in one do we?
They do no care about you, your experience, or even video games, they only care about money.
and yet, one of the things you need to care about, is the user, because otherwise, you make no money!
Boy are you gonna be surprised as hell when you find out what sort of percentage other publishers take, especially for physical releases!
Shockingly enough, infrastructure requires money to run!
You mean like Epic who takes 12%? Or Itch that let you chose your contribution? Or Humble that takes 25% but give half of that to charity?
BTW steam is not a publisher...The infrastructure argument is just BS in 2025. Just admit you're an official gamer, meaning you will do anything to protect a soulless capitalist business that make millions everyday but employ like 83 people. Ubisoft bad, Steam good, I know lol.
Oh please, Sony, Nintendo, Apple, etc all take 30%+. Epic is flailing horribly while running EGS at a deficit held up solely by Fortnige skins and gambling (but it's ok when they do it right?)
Physical publishers take 60%+.
Humble bundle is getting discounted keys because it's for charity.
Steam is a publisher. They'll also finance your game with interest-free loans, you don't even need to publish your game on Steam.
More to the point, Steam offers massive value for that 30%- forums, hosting, security, patching services, hosting, matchmaking, dlc options, the list goes on and on... And more importantly, steam doesnt care if you use those services even while selling keys elsewhere. that means that steam doesn't even get 30% of the take from those keys.
Dude will rip his shirt to protect a billionaire lol. Kind of remind me of a certain cult...
I'll just leave this here and wait for your cognitive dissonance to explain me why it's perfectly ok:
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Steam literally invented the "you don't own you games" model. But let's just pretend Ubisoft did.
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Valve's have create an ecosystem for underage gambling. The main innovation they ever created is making kids addicted to lootbox and shit. In 2023, they made 1 billion fromthat system, it's FUCKING DISGUSTING. But let's pretend it's just Epic and Ubisoft right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13eiDhuvM6Y
I don't care for any of the business you mentioned, they are all dirty, capitalist and soulless but the fact is that steam is almost a monopoly, and the greediest one. It's literally it the most profitable company per employee in the United States, fact. So to see an army of dudes willing to do anything to suck a billionaire's dick is beyond pathetic.
No, I'm just tired of chuds parroting astroturfed bullshit from epic game's massive PR campaign against valve that they did instead of improving their service.
Valve did not invent 'you don't own your games', nor did they invent DRM. The entire reason it took off was that it was one of the first PC game DRMs that didn't suck ass.
Valve did not create the gambling systems, they created a trading system and a marketplace that third parties abused to create gambling sites. If they didn't have it, you would complain that you cant trade cards or items or hats.
Steam is hilariously far from "the greediest monopoly" lmao. It's like you've never heard of ma bell, meta, or alphabet lol.
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It's a testament to how much worse every other company is.