Whether it’s good or not is irrelevant. The fact is that it exists as the recommended way to install games, and it’s not available for my platform even years after it was released. What does that say about me and my platform? If I have an issue with a game, will they help? If they’re unwilling to support their flagship launcher, why would they help with a game?
Steam works on my platform and has for over 10 years, and they’re constantly making improvements specific to my platform. GOG has DRM free games. Is that enough reason to prefer GOG over Steam? Most of my Steam games are DRM-free, so my answer is no.
I’ve used minigalaxy in the past as well. There are solutions, sure.
I’m more rankled by GOG not even giving a nod to Linux users and going out of their way to court Windows users. I understand the economics here, but I would very much appreciate something from them. When they had a user voice (not sure if they still do? A quick search didn’t find it), the top requested feature was Galaxy support for Linux, and we’ve gotten nothing from them, except I guess a deal w/ the creator of Heroic for a referral revenue share on game sales (similar to sales through streamer links and whatnot). That’s it. That feels like a bit of a slap in the face.
Eh, when someone says “private investigator,” I subconsciously assume there could be a group involved, and not one person. If I hire a tax preparer, there are probably multiple people involved (the person preparing the tax docs, the accountants auditing those docs, people auditing their software, etc).
If someone says “private investigators,” I assume they contacted multiple agencies, perhaps on multiple occasions.
I’m more like 90/10, because GOG still refuses to port their Galaxy client to Linux. At this point I don’t even really want to use it since Heroic is good enough, but it really sucks feeling like a second-class citizen, compared to Steam, which goes out of its way to provide a top tier experience on Linux. I’d even be fine with them adopting Heroic as an officially-supported client (provide links and whatnot on the website next to Galaxy), I just need some indication that they care.
Most games I own on Steam are DRM-free anyway, so I’d be supporting GOG more out of principle than anything.
I find them really valuable. Before buying a game, I’ll skim 10 or so reviews, both positive and negative, to find what it’s good and bad at. If the negative reviews are all stuff I don’t care about and the positive reviews excite me, I’ll probably get it. But if the negative reviews consistently mention something that’ll bother me, I’ll pass.
At the end of the day, it is Valve’s house. If there is a room full of nazis then clearly they are okay with it. End of story.
Would you rather Valve, with their dominant market position, be opinionated about what games and speech they allow? Or would you rather they act more like a public market, where publishers decide what is allowed in their corner of the market? Does this preference change depending on whether they align with you?
If a publisher wants to attract Nazis, let 'em. If they want to attract leftist extremists, let 'em. If a publisher wants to discourage all forms of extremism according to their own opinion of what “acceptable” means, let 'em. But the choice should be for the publisher to make, not the platform, especially if that platform has a dominant position.
Okay, so unwritten rule that you can’t sell games about murdering actual human beings.
I assume those would be illegal, which seems to be the metric Valve uses when deciding whether to ban something. That means you could have different bans based on region, so China will have different bans than the UK, which will have different bans than Russia.
Which is what the steam forums ARE.
Which is why publishers should be able to take over moderation if they don’t like how the community is acting. I don’t know if that’s the case, because the only time I go to the forums is from an internet search looking for a fix to a specific issue. I don’t see 99% of the nonsense here, nor do I know how moderation happens (or doesn’t happen).
Libertarianism isn’t about leaving things alone, it’s about protecting rights. Valve has every right to moderate, but if was a government, it would not, outside of speech likely to directly incite violence (e.g. planning an assassination or terrorist attack) due to the right to free speech. It seems GabeN is holding Valve to theore strict standard of a government than the looser standard of a private company.
If Valve sees the platform as similar to a government, it should see a game-specific forum as a private space controlled by the publisher. If the publisher doesn’t want to take that responsibility, they can leave it up to Valve’s standard.
I think the hands off position is correct, provided the publisher can take over moderation. Players can choose with their wallet and their engagement and decide whether to buy a game or engage with the forums based on its community moderation.
Steam has a lot of value to me partly because there’s a ton of stuff there I find distasteful, which makes me feel like there’s a better chance things I like that others don’t will be allowed on the store. If a game isn’t on the store, that’s because the publisher didn’t publish it there, not because Valve blocked it. Platforms like Steam shouldn’t be opinionated, they should be as inclusive as possible, and that includes criticism of public figures the platform may like.
I have no idea how Steam’s forums work since I only go there if I can’t find a solution to an issue elsewhere, but for that use case it’s totally fine?
GabeN is a pretty established Libertarian Tech Bro and Valve only moderates to the bare minimum requirement.
Isn’t that kind of what you want from a distributor? Looking up “Gabe Newell political views,” the top results were about him refusing to ban games, partly to avoid the Streisand effect, but also because he doesn’t believe in censorship. If Valve banned things based on company views, they’d quickly be at risk of an antitrust lawsuit.
I personally agree that Valve shouldn’t be involved in the forums. But I do think the publisher should be able to take over moderation if they so choose. Maybe that’s a thing, idk, I don’t know very much about the forums.
I do a quick skim of the review scores and get it
I’m the same way. I skim the first ten or so reviews, skipping low effort (one sentence) and try-hard (massive checklists and essays) reviews, and try to find a negative review or two. I’m looking for what the game is good and bad at to see if it likely justifies the price.
Sure. My point is that AAA studios have massive marketing budgets so it’s more likely you’ll consider them than an indie that you night like more. We need a better way for good indies to get noticed.