Not a single fucking one
GabeN has been pretty cool.
Gabe has 6 yachts worth about $1 billion dollars. Not very cool at all, imho.
Im a huge steam fan.
I am not a fan of someone who can own multiple yachts.
Sorry GabeN.
Still seems like a nice guy. 🫡
This but with GabeN
Hawk’s response 😆👌
Being a bit greedy =/= Killing millions of people through death panels
Huge difference
When did I compare those two things as being equally as bad? What the hell is with this black and white stance in my replies, absolutely wild to see people defending a man owning 1 billion dollars in yachts.
Nobody becomes a billionaire by being “a bit greedy”
One billion dollars is an insane amount of money.
Wealth is not money.
Point being?
Reminder, 1 billion dollars is:
- 1,000 millions
- 1 million thousands
- At the highest minimum wage in the world (Denmark @ USD$44,252/year), it would take just under 22,598 years to earn (11.2 Jesuses-ago)
- If a Dane earning min wage were to work 24 hrs/day non-stop, it would take them just under 4,977 years to earn (2.46 Jesuses-ago).
Billionaires have all that money even after their expenses. It’s their “savings account”, but their savings account makes much more interest than ours because they are actually invested in the market. If they need money beyond their regular pay, they use their investments as collateral for loans with interest rates lower than investment returns. They’re making money even if they are spending it.
They do in any advanced economy…
But steam don’t tax plebs like housing, health, and education does
A billion dollars is never “a bit greedy”. It is always a failure of the system to regulated exorbitant wealth through effective taxation and fair market economic policy.
Isn’t the Steam business model to charge less than everyone else though?
That seems like the exact opposite of greedy.
30%, same as apple, gog and… Well epic takes less then 15, microsoft takes even less, itch also takes less (unclear to me if 10% or set your own).
Anyway steam is only good for game makers because it is steam. Financially that is, because it is the biggest.
Edit: Itch default is 10%, but you can set it to 0% or even up to 100% if you want.
Well epic takes less then 15
But forces you to stick with the Epic platform for a year; bad for gamers, IMO.
Which is why I don’t use Epic. GoG and Steam all the way, baybee!
He didn’t kill anyone by denying them insurance or anything like that tho. Just took a commission on every game sold on Steam, a platform nobody’s forced to use.
And by running a casino that rakes in millions of dollars off kids. I can appreciate the positives he’s done with Steam, but I’m not about to ignore the negatives.
Can you explain? What cassino? Is it like a game with micro transactions or something?
Loot boxes are effectively gambling as there is no guarantee on what you’ll get. People in general can get addicted to the rush of getting that rare item the first time (which is usually what happens with a first open to get you hooked) and then either buy more loot boxes or the keys to open them.
Tbf knowing valve and looking at how their loot boxes work I don’t think they were malicious in their creation
Reminder that valves loot boxes interact with the community market, you can open a lot of boxes without spending a dime
Oh, I’m not shitting on Valve or anything. Just explaining how they could be called a casino.
Yeah this is something that everyone always seems to forget about this. If you get a lootbox in, say, Overwatch or Fortnite then you will pay out a fiver to open it or else it will never be opened. End of story, Blizz/Epic want their key money. *
You can open an infinite amount of Counter-Strike crates for free forever, by interacting with community marketplace. Unopened crates can be sold to other players. Steam Cards can be sold to other players. Good skins that you pull from your crates can be sold to other players sometimes at absurd prices that can finance another 200 crates. All without ever spending a dime of real money. Sure, Steam Cards and unopened crates may only sell for 5c apiece, but you get a steady stream of them for free just for playing the game, and that stream doesn’t dry up. It is perfectly feasible, if a little slow, to flip those into crate keys to loot your boxes.
And THAT’S the difference that makes me take notice. Sure, they still want you to shell out five bucks for crate keys, but an alternative path has been provided. And Steam makes money on marketplace transactions too, so they aren’t about to get rid of that option.
* I figure it should be noted here, that these are outdated. I went to double check myself as I remember this from Overwatch 1 and it would seem that neither OW2 nor Fortnite still use loot crates of that style. So to be honest I actually can’t think of any games that are still up and running that still use keys & crates in this way. The gamer outrage might have actually gotten us somewhere for once.
I sold all my hats and bought an Index. I’m so happy they can be resold.
Yeah, he’s getting kids to play at a virtual casino that has absolutely no chance of returning and financial winnings, but he’s not taking millions of dollars off of kids. Considering those kids have the ability to own a gaming computer, I’m assuming the vast majority of that money comes from their parents. I don’t condone the kids gambling, but he’s not taking hard-earned money from kids that are in need and leaving them broke.
He’s not a CEO any more, but Bill Gates is on a mission to die a mere millionaire, and I think has already given away more than half his net worth.
He was kind of a prick becoming a billionaire, so his is more of a redemption arc than a hero’s journey.
Possibly, but still better than most.
Bill Gates is a massive piece of shit. Don’t let all the propaganda he puts out there fool you. When you start looking closer at his so-called charity work it’s not nearly as pretty as you might think.
[citation needed]
I personally prefer all billionaires follow his path.
I’ve looked at his charities too over the last few years and didn’t see anything that was questionable.
Anything you want to call out?
Bill Gates fucked the public school systems pretty hard.
Something I think is extremely fucked up in general is that if you have millions to throw at a pet cause, you will disproportionately benefit your cause over other causes in a non-democratic manner. That means that every individual and organization involved in fields related to your pet projects are incentivized to focus on your pet projects over others. Because you have so much money, you basically individually shape public policy.
Look at the WHO (source):
…over 80 per cent of WHO’s funding relies on “voluntary contributions,” meaning any amount of money given freely by donors, whether member states, NGOs, philanthropic organisations or other private entities.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone is responsible for over 88 per cent of the total amount donated by philanthropic foundations to the WHO. Other contributors include the Bloomberg Family Foundation (3.5 per cent), the Wellcome Trust (1.1 per cent) and the Rockefeller Foundation (0.8 per cent).
So yeah, it’s great that they donate so much… but that also means they can stop donating… so they have control.
Didn’t know about the charter school thing. Charter schools are such bullshit. The idea is that we’re going to get kids from public schools in impoverished areas into better schools… by causing the public schools to get LESS money?
The number one thing hurting education since the beginning of the system is the way it is funded. It is funded from property taxes collected in the school’s district. So inevitably, poor areas get shit schools and rich areas get nice schools. It should instead all get pooled together nationwide and then handed out based on the number of students at each school.
Charter schools and private schools do nothing but hurt. Anyone feel differently? I’m usually open to having my mind changed.
Enthusiastically in agreement that funding of school districts and regional equity is a major problem. Funding is likely problem #1, but I think the problems with funding are more complex than just property taxes.
Concentrating poverty also creates poor areas and exacerbates the problem. It’s so frustrating that there are so many NIMBY assholes that don’t want affordable housing near them.
At least he helped more people than you. So where does that put YOU?
In camp “BG still has 4240000x times more money than me”.
Not to mention he executed the “trolley problem meme” by killing a million to save a million. Now, he did not literally kill people (unlike some other CEOs I’ve heard about), but he did fuck over a ton of people, all in the name of “Business” (which is PR/propaganda for “greed”).
He’s also harmed far more people than me, and the negative positive aspect is still net negative.
False equivalence
That’s some very sweet copium you have over there.
“You don’t have the means and you don’t help people, curious”
Some of that propaganda is in the form of material help to people around the world. Like sure, he’s not great, no question. But if every other CEO funded global healthcare to the extent he did to whitewash their own problems, I wouldn’t complain. Sure his charity work is by no means ideal, but even the ugly charity he does actually winds up saving lives.
The question was “are there any CEOs we should save” and the answer is still “not Bill Gates” in this context.
Which is why I responded to a sub comment and not the top question.
Yeah let’s hear it. Please elaborate on your accusations and don’t be so vague.
Could you be a little bit more specific with your criticisms of his charity?
He basically gave $54BN to the “Gates and Melinda Charity”.
Guess who controls the charity?
Guess if the “Charity” pays taxes?
It’s crazy how fast people simp for billionaires, old evil shitty hated-by-all billionaires too, just because they spend some publicities around.
Does control mean he can use the funds for personal things? Genuine question
No, it doesn’t. And I’d guess that foundation is far more efficient with it’s funds than most, given it doesn’t need to advertise or ask for money.
People here are just desperate to find some reason to hate the guy.
And you to simp for his tax avoidance schemes lol.
There are far easier ways to avoid tax than this.
I think that you don’t understand the value of billions of dollars. He can do whatever he wants “for himself” with just $0.1BN. The rest is just a mental hoarding disease IMO.
They love buying companies, patents and so on, just because. Maybe they miss thst rush when they “earned” their first billion or something and, like a junkie, wants to feel it again.
I don’t see how that’s an answer to
Paul McGann’sthe question though.So you don’t think he should give away any money or what?.
Where on earth did you read he’s giving away money?
For example, researchers don’t want “his money” because there are so many strings attached that whatever you discover, now it’s under Bill Gates ownership.
To be clear, I’m not “simping” for Bill Gates. No one becomes a billionaire ethically and I don’t feel the need to defend him as a person. But I also don’t just read a random comment on a website from some nobody without any evidence backing up their claim spouting any such nonsense they want, so I simply asked you to be more specific with your criticisms.
For what it’s worth, replying to such a request with the kind of hostility you showed doesn’t make me any more likely to take you at your word. You don’t come off as knowing what you’re talking about, so I don’t think you’re going to convince many people. Have a good day.
Lol, “I don’t want to believe you because I don’t like you”.
How grown up!
Have a nice day you too!
Watching people totally fall for Gates’s incredibly shallow face value self image propaganda bullshit is wild to me. FUCK that guy, so hard. One of the biggest reasons we have enshittification today is this one man.
incredibly shallow face value self image propaganda bullshit is wild to me.
He’s given away billions of dollars, and that’s face value to you? Besides, he hasn’t been in control at Microsoft for decades at this point.
We wouldn’t need him to make these donations if he actually paid his fucking taxes is the thing though. And it’s significantly less.
Eh? Even if he paid a 50% tax rate throughout his life, he’d still be a multi billionaire.
And taxes in the US don’t typically end up in the developing world.
“In fiscal year 2020 (October 1, 2019 - September 30, 2020), the US government allocated $51.05 billion US dollars in economic and military assistance to foreign countries. Of this total, $39.41 billion dollars was spent on economic assistance, $25.64 billion of which was dispersed by USAID.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid
To say that the US doesn’t do foreign aid is just disingenuous. Also to assume that Gates only pays taxes in the US is also disingenuous.
He paid all the taxes he had to. And they just went to America’s favourite pass times: war and proxy genocides.
“He paid all the taxes he had to” is such a ridiculous statement that I won’t be able to bring myself to take you seriously as a person anymore.
Do you know something IRS doesn’t?
Yes, that there’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire. I wonder what the computing landscape would look like if M$ hadn’t spent three decades buying and closing every up and coming competitor they had.
and that’s face value to you?
It is face value. How did he gain those billion? “Embrace, extend, and extinguish”. Never forget.
Also I don’t understand how you can defend a man who convinced a bunch of people to not give away the COVID vaccines for free. This is not the actions of a humanitarian. It’s the actions of a monster.
What is your source for that exactly?
A paywalled opinion piece. Really?
Can’t search for shit yourself, really?
https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines
Behind the bastards did a series on Bill Gates. It was a pretty big eye opener for me. All their sources are sited on their podcast. The info is out there if you want it.
My boss checks in on me occasionally with directness, and did so the other day:
“viva, how’s it going?”
“I want to fight Bill Gates.”This is understood to mean, “windows is fucked. My computer is fucked. All of this massive, utterly brutal buttfucking inconvenience could have been avoided at some point, and now isn’t, because [our company] bought so hard into Microsoft’s “business solutions” that there’s no turning back, and because of the nuances of the problems you’ve asked me to solve, I am facing said brutal buttfucking inconvenience, and I’m mad about it.”
Apologies for detailing the conversation, but I have noticed the implementation and configuration of MS products (something MS has no control over) really impacts their usability. For example, I worked at a soulless corporation that managed to set up PBI and ADO so there was no live feed of data (and they only allowed for the web version of PBI, which reduces functionality substantially). They were also so far behind on Office versions that the employees didn’t know more than one person could update a file at a time. There are all sorts of very real reasons to dislike MS, but I do wonder how many people dislike them because of a stupid configuration.
Yeah how dare he run a tax scheme by
*checks notes
Saving millions of people across all of Africa by providing free healthcare for treatable diseases and potential pandemics?
I’ve noticed that some people really don’t like Africans. I believe there’s even a word for such behaviour, don’t remember which one right now though…
“Not liking Bill Gates is racist” is such a stupid take that I don’t even know where to begin man.
Well, maybe you need to think twice next time you want to post dumb shit.
You’re an idiot.
What a comeback! Your argument skills are beyond imagination! Well done!
Bill Gates’ net worth has grown substantially despite his philanthropy, rising from $126.8 billion in early 2023 to $156 billion in December 2024.
Regarding COVID-19 vaccines, Gates actively opposed patent waivers and influenced Oxford University to privatize its vaccine through AstraZeneca rather than keep it open-source. He pushed for maintaining intellectual property rights through COVAX, despite public funding supporting vaccine development.
Not a good guy by any metric.
Thats a good criticism but the CEO he put in charge of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation went against him and supported waiving the patents anyways, which Biden and the WTO went ahead and did regardless.
His argument against the TRIPS terms was that it wouldn’t actually increase production, that every facility capable of producing vaccines was doing so regardless of the patent’s costs especially given that they only had to worry about intellectual properties when importing to countries where the patent is held.
He was wrong, I give you that, I think there is no room to be penny pinching and arguing when even 1 more vaccine could have saved lives. However, that doesn’t even come close to offsetting the number of lives he has saved or improved by handing out vaccines and medicines for free across Africa. The vast majority of Gates’ opponents are generally not fond of Dark Skinned people.
Another bait?
BofA is totally worth keeping around
Bofa deez nuts maybe, but the Bank of America can fuck all the way off
This is the best possible answer.
Terrible bank, like most that aren’t credit unions, they have over leveraged tens of billions against individual account balances and been a leaky sieve in tech security.
I have no idea why most people don’t use credit unions. I guess just ignorance. My “overdraft fee” is “keep at least $50 in your savings account and we won’t charge you one.”
Your overdraft policy is don’t overdraft or you’ll be charged a fee — so there’s an overdraft fee?
No, there is no fee (well maybe if you overdraft like $500, I don’t know). They don’t take money out. I’m not sure how that works out. I guess they figure if you have that money in there, you’re going to transfer it before you overdraw?
Convenience. I have accounts with BofA because they’re three blocks from my house. It’s them or Wells Fargo, who are a little further, and then the nearest credit union is a 10m drive. So convenience. I also have USAA, but having zero branches in my state is kind of a pain.
I hate BofA, but I opened my first credit card with them 19 years ago and I value my stupid credit score for some reason, and so I have to keep it forever.
Do you physically go to the bank that often? I can’t remember the last time I had to go into the credit union. Well over a year. Everything outgoing is on automatic payments and I can deposit any check I get with my phone.
This. When I explain I use online banks I’m always ask “how do you go to a physical branch?”
And I’m like “why would I even want to?”
I’ve had to get a medallion signature guarantee a few times, I do it at my bank in person. I’m sure there’s another way to get it though.
Ah you’re right.
I had trouble finding a notary once and used a branch from an old savings account I had
I get a lot of checks and I’ve had issues with mobile deposits here and there, and they’re a huge headache. Having a bank that I can toss checks into the ATM and say “your problem now” solves the issue. I also get things notarized once or twice a year, but that’s just extra. But yeah, twice a week, I drop the kids and hit the bank on the way to the grocery store in the morning, ezpz. It is strictly convenience and nothing more.
Nice bait?
All of them
at minimum wage
Make their pay and benefits the same as the lowest paying position in the entire company.
Simple and effective
I always forget that in America minimum wage is just a suggestion
That’s a weird take. Why don’t you explain in specifics.
Removed by mod
My companies owner/CEO can stay, gives us all sizeable profit share bonuses. During covid people didn’t get layed off, even though there was no work. Sure hours were reduced, but work was found around the shop to keep people busy as much as possible.
In other words, small business owners that care about employee and their clients.
Shane Te Pou maybe ? (from mega.nz)
Mike “My Pillow” Lindell… HEAR ME OUT… I don’t agree with his politics, but the dude is hilarious.
I would rather focus on billionaire and millionaire than CEO since both are not automatically interchangeable… .
You can be a CEO In a small business without being a millionaire of the same category as the one of United HealthCare
Management is a skill. You can collectivize property relations and keep the positions of Capital Owners. Moreover, in underdeveloped sectors, Markets are a good way to rapidly develop a framework that can then be folded into the public sector and centrally planned by the degree to which it has developed.
What’s also crazy thing that no one mentions that these money numbers are just a digital stamp. There’s no real currency or value backing it
none of them. you don’t need a CEO to keep a drink at $1 a can. I know it’s a meme but y’all libs will go too far with it and coopt it into “awww we can’t hurt Elon musk he’s too uWu smol bean” by the weekend. I saw what you did with brat summer.
Video game industry will collapse in on itself when Gabe Newell dies, and enshittification creeps into Steam.
Already moved on from Steam. Had 750 games there. Deleted the client and started GOG collection. No Galaxy client for me. No more cancer social media, achievements, friends… just Offline installers and the satisfaction that I actually own these games now.
Something I’ve been worried about for some time. I mean, I hope his death isn’t soon, but we all know whoever steps in is most likely to royally fuck it up.
I actually have hope for the company after he is gone. All they have to do is keep steam going and they win. They just print money. There is no reason to go evil and sell the company and go public. They just win.
provided the can safeguard themselves from parasites that might try creeping in and try to change things for worse
He just needs to make it an employee owned company. I believe it would make it a stable institution.
Steam is already enshitified. Every other marketplace just sucks that much.
Nows a good time to articulate a defense. Because as far as their impact on gaming as a distributor, theyve enabled more than any other company by far
You view this as me saying it’s a bad platform. I don’t think it is. I love it and use it often. GoG is probably the only one that’s not enshitified.
You’ve still yet to actually say how steam is enshittified despite several comments asking. You reply but dodge the real question.
Dodge the question
Yeah, I’m not interested in getting interrogated over my opinions today. Especially by someone literally named “AngryMob”.
Oh, I see. You’re just being a contrarian. 🙄
No, I just don’t see any point in adding nuance to my opinion when everyone is already shitting on me for it. Do you know how shitty it feels opening my inbox, excited to see folks to chat with, and it’s just people getting angry about stuff I said? Why would I want to add context? Just so everyone can shit on me more? No, I’m good.
Then don’t announce your random opinion into the void then?
If you’re going to stand on the street corner and shout about how the world is coming to an end, don’t be upset when people ask you to provide some evidence.
I’m not trying to suggest people shouldn’t be allowed to respond negatively to an opinion. But I’m also allowed to not want to engage. Any “evidence” I provide is just going to get shot down. Everyone’s mind is already made up on the topic. Steam can do no wrong, apparently. Despite the fact that I even said it’s the best and that I like it, everyone just wants to attack for me for having the gall to suggest it’s less than perfect.
It’s not like I hate it. The criticisms are minor. I just don’t want to get online and feel like I’m being interrogated. So no, I’m not going to “provide evidence.” There are hills I’m willing to actually willing to argue about, but this isn’t one. Life’s too fucking short to explain my minor criticisms with the best digital PC game store when we all know everyone is just going to respond with things Valve does that are good and act like that magically erases the bad. Everyone’s already been doing in this thread.
I experienced the same shit back with BG3 when the hype train was at critical levels. I’d talk about my frustrations that everyone said it was a “polished” game by talking about the bugs/UX difficulties I was experiencing. I’d get mocked to no end. Even then I’d always say the game is great and I’m loving it along every criticism. But people don’t care. It’s just tribalism. They see someone criticizing a thing they like and can’t handle it.
So no, I’m not going to explain why I view Steam as an enshitified platform. Because it’s pointless and I know everyone is already going to disagree and pile on even further. And it’s a minor criticism.
I swear, it’s like people are thinking I’m saying EGS is the bastion of Linux gaming or something because I said I have minor issues with Steam. It’s just exhausting.
GoG is more enshittified than Steam (which really isn’t enshittified). They spam emails now with random deals, like several emails a day with “(code for deal here) expires in 24 HOURS” and it’s always some random shitty game. Steam just send emails for when a wishlisted game goes on sale or releases, exactly what I want. But GoG has gone full unwanted spam with theirs, random games I’ve never seen before and no info about what game in the subject line so you have to open the mail to see. It’s so shitty.
I can see how you can say that about the Steam,s UI in some spots, but not Steam as a whole. They have a great business model, as far as video games are concerned.
They have some of the highest paid employees, and they keep prices low.
Just because Steam is objectively the best doesn’t mean we shouldn’t criticize them when it matters.
I agree, but I don’t think that backs the claim that it’s already enshittified.
Sure. But what exactly are you criticizing? All you’ve really said is essentially “Steam sucks too” with no reasoning.
Any examples? AFAIK they improved a lot, especially in Linux space which I am very grateful for. I wouldn’t be using Linux if it wasn’t for steam. Although there are still a lot of things to complain about but if it wasn’t better before then it isn’t enshiftification by definition.
I think you’d be hard pressed to find a marketplace that isn’t enshitified in some way. Most are going to shove ads in your face which is shitty, but most people aren’t going to recognize it as a bad thing because they’re there to shop.
Right so no actual examples then?
And you can’t say advertising because of course there’s going to be adverts up for games sold on the platform. I think most people would argue that if you go into a store, and then see a sign in that store, for something that is sold in the store, that’s not advertising, that’s just signage.
The goal of advertising is to try to convince you that you want a product or a service. But if you are already in the store you’ve already made the decision that you want that product or service, so by definition you can’t be advertised to at that point.
Why the hell would I want to engage with you when you and everyone else is already being so condescending and shitty about this towards me? No, I’m not going to explain my opinion just so you can browbeat me over it.
Lemmy is supposed to be my relaxing time to just chat and shit online with folks. Now I’ve got a whole fucking gaggle of people after me for mildly criticizing a thing they like in the most minor way possible. That I said I like and use myself. So no. I’m not going to elaborate on my opinion.
It really fucking triggers my RSD getting so much push back for something so fucking minor. “Steam isn’t perfect,” and everyone just wants to fucking crucify me. “Give us a real example so we can tell at you more for having a different opinion,” fuck off.
How is anybody supposed to be disagreeing with you you haven’t said anything yet.
No it isn’t. I have yet to pay a single cent or subscription in more than a decade.
Are you trying to imply subscription fees are necessary for something to be called enshitified?
Well you haven’t given any practical examples of how you think Steam is enshittified, so you’ve left people to draw their own conclusions and definitions.
To me it just sounds like someone who’s trying to justify pirating indie games.
I shall seize one of his yachts (probably metaphorically) and sail under the Jolly Roger when enshittification comes for Steam. Until then, it’s a pretty solid solution for buying PC games.
Steam Deck is also amazing, in that it’s as simple as a Switch to get playing but open enough through desktop mode to do so much more. As your customer, thanks for not treating me like a paste eating delinquent.
What concerns me about the future of sailing is the sea monster known as denuvo, as there haven’t been a way to reliably hunt it down
there are three people on this ocean who can reliably hunt that beast.
- one is a transphobe
- the other is a trans
- and the other only cracks football games.
Not really looking good for the scene if only three people can crack it.
Because he maintains a near monopoly.
and he maintains a near monopoly because Steam is just a great platform for gamers, as Gabe has said:
Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.
and he’s right! i almost never pirate video games because of their price, i can wait for a sale, there’s a billion other games i can play in the meantime
when shit like Epic takes years to implement a shopping basket, and still have yet to recolour their payment page so it stops flashbanging gamers across the world, Steam doesn’t even need to try very hard to be the best. The biggest changes on Steam in the recent years are what - updating the UI aged ago? adding a points system so people can get silly profile decorations as an additional reward for buying a video game? Steam has created a platform so good all they need to do is sit back relax, and think of what other sprinkles colour to add to the
cakepie?Steam has competitors, but the difference is Steam is for gamers, and most of their competitors is for money
god help us all if that ever were to change, the second Steam enshittifies the internet will implode
Steam recently the added the ability to easily record gameplay footage. They are also updating the family sharing system (that feature alone would probably never come to other platforms). They also continue to improve gaming on Linux. I don’t remember how long it has been, but they massively updated the library with a lot of really useful features such as being able to select a friend and it’ll show what games you have in common so picking a game to play with a friend is a lot easier.
Further back we see the remote play together feature added to Steam; I was hesitant to use it for a long time but as long as you and the host have a decent internet connection it works pretty flawlessly.
Their custom control settings and community sharing of the different controller schemes is incredibly helpful with some games.
Their review system is pretty good and always helpful to me when exploring for new games I haven’t previously heard of. They have also seem to try to keep the reviews more legit and less spammy/meme-y and more relevant to the actual game itself.
They also implement rules to keep game pages on the store less spammy, they had a big overhaul on the rules around thumbnails for games to keep text off of them because developers started overloading them with advertisements for other games.
They have also recently announced allowing for refunds on season passes when the developers take too long or never deliver on their promises they sold you on. This of course should have always been the case, but at let they’re coming around. I also don’t know if any of the other platforms make it as easy to get a refund as Steam does, but that’s been around for a while now.
I believe there has also been a lot of work developing server side chest detection so maybe one day we won’t have to rely on client side cheats so much. I also believe they recently made a change to their rules where if a game has a kernel/root level anti cheat that they have to flag that on the store page for the game.
Steam (Valve) actually seem to care about games and the industry in general and want to see the environment around gaming improve.
From my current view point Steam is an actual platform everyone else are just store fronts that provide no additional value to the consumer. So yeah, pricing is rarely the issue when it comes to piracy and Steam really shows how true that statement can be.
Also, most people don’t realize that Steam doesn’t force games to use DRM, that’s purely up to the developers.
What monopoly ?
Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars!
Steam has something like 75% of the PC market share based on a figure from the anti trust lawsuit.
Not a monopoly, Epic should be called out for that
Yeah but they aren’t doing anything to enforce that. They have market share because their product is good and everyone else’s equivalent product sucks nuts. That’s not a monopoly, that’s the free market at work.
No such thing as free-market buddy
He doesn’t tho. He just offers such a good service to people that they don’t want to use anything else. That’s not a monopoly.
