Compared to other platforms, they have a lot of good features and generally act in the public interest.
In regards to their DRM system, honestly some people are going to add DRM to their games no matter what. I’d much rather they use Valve’s system than some insecure third party spyware.
People have also mentioned their 30% cut which honestly seems pretty normal for an online storefront. It’s especially fair when you consider the fact that they provide marketing, hosting and payment processing for you. Not to mention things like achievements, matchmaking and workshop support if you want it.
There’s also the fact that a lot of the anti-monopoly folks tend to be Linux and/or foss advocates, and Valve has been pumping a lot of resources into open source projects.
Honestly, in the Linux space, the only reason Valve has a monopoly is because the other players just aren’t making any effort to compete.
Tl;dr Valve uses their market position for good (in general) and Steam is a good product.
Even disregarding the native Linux port… The Steam client is actually pretty decent. Any client would have to implement things like library navigation, storage management, Steam input support, the overlay, cloud sync and so on. And honestly, I don’t think anyone can reach the amount of features that Steam has.
Its probably why most people don’t actually use things like Lutris or Gnome Games to launch Steam games.
If only steam had a way to mark games as “hey, this game is in beta, expect issues”. I don’t know, making it clear that we were accessing it early or something…
I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I’d be willing to tolerate games being a bit buggy if they up front said “we know this game has issues. You can try it now or you can wait until we fix them”.
Okay, so there’s two lines I could go down for this.
The first is to joke about the recent controversy, and say that they’re only doing this so they can sue other alarm clock manufacturers for patent infringement.
The second is a wordplay by calling it “the s-watch”. But that doesn’t really translate well to text.
I think it’s petty to not play a game just because of the engine it’s written in…
I think I may have to make an exception to that rule for this. :P
(Trans rights are human rights, btw)
Edit: … Wait, hang on. Isn’t the notion of using a game engine at all “woke” in itself? Like, isn’t that the entire thing that started this whole thing?
I played Braid ages ago, and it was okay. I can see it being influential when it first came out when there wasn’t many indie games.
Don’t think I really want to play it again though - it told it’s story and that was that. Unless it adds tons more levels or something, I’m not sure what value the remaster adds.
It’s sadly one of many “platformers with interesting mechanics but slow and clunky controls” that the industry has moved away from.
I have never wanted to play a game so hard in my life. It seems to have the atmosphere of Inscryption, the gameplay of Papers Please and a lot of buttons and knobs to mess around with.