Yeah, had Valve tried to push Linux again without trying to make it accessible for the average user it would have flopped like the Steam machine. Or at the very least users would have tossed Linux for Windows. Accessibility is very important, and technical users should not be looked to as guides on what is acceptable for the masses.
Yet, ease of access is what appeals to the average consumer which leads to preferring steam for Linux for the same reason people get hardware restricted consoles. If a company wants to appeal and expand their market making themselves more accessible is how they do it. Otherwise alternative is to be an overlooked option.
Doesn’t explain all the other games sold for cheaper than steam when you take a look at isthereanydeals. Or the bundles fanatical offers with no charity involved.
Like Walmart coming into a town to compete with the stores already there and then putting them out of business? Then moving onto the next town to compete again?
I just don’t see the level of influence as you do when it comes to DRM. DRM is something that was going to be in place and had been in the works, and if it wasn’t it would be due to the market not existing to begin with. Epic or any other company deciding to not bother to try to enter digital distribution on a massive scale rivaling consoles for decades is a reflection of how little value companies saw in the PC space despite progress in digital distribution. One even music and movies were quicker to recognize.
I was hoping hall effects could be the solution. Maybe best that can be hoped for is ones that can be popped out for easy replacement like the dualsense edge.
I’m a nba fan though, and I just stopped playing basketball games because I got tired of paying for roster updates. And now monetization is even worse so genre is dead to me. So as a former fan of 2k I don’t understand having to play the games so badly that people keep paying for it every year.
That applies to any game or franchise. If it gets bad enough that I detest it I’d just move on from it even if no option pops up. Especially one so predatory on top of being an annual release.
Tell you what, we used to have 6 games and we were happy.
I am happy with the much wider variety of titles I have available. Only area where I still liked physical was consoles, but it was only because I was only buying it for exclusives which ended up being like maybe 10 over the lifetime.
But, if it were my main I’d go for digital too, but with console releases on PC I don’t even bother with consoles anymore.
I’m with you there, but maybe the prices are going up because new physical games aren’t being released any more, so I can contort my way to blame that on digital gaming, too.
I guess you can go ask consoles why they stopped making games after each new generation, and why Nintendo limited their supply of physical games even before digital compared to Sony to keep their prices from dropping.
For me games have been the cheapest they’ve been with stuff like humble bundles and being able to buy old games through direct channels as opposed to used sellers a decade later. Being able to buy something like KOTOR or system shock is cool to me over having to buy some used copy sold by a reseller that might not even be legit.
I don’t see a situation where digital distribution of games would have led to a space where games having no DRM would have been mainstream. Even with DRM companies continue to associate PC with piracy.
There was also the whole Sony rootkit after all with music CDs, so I’m just not seeing this whole argument of this space could have been different if it weren’t for valve. Not even sure PC gaming would have been as big as it is now if it weren’t for Valve and it really would have been a situation of PC gaming being dead and for niche titles as opposed to just some clickbait headline.
Owning over a 1000 copies of physical games sounds like a nightmare in managing the space and searching for titles to me. And when I look at the market prices of old retro games and then the counterfeits I’m not too upset about the move towards digital.