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Author Topic: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants  (Read 3988 times)

hedgehobbit

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Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
« Reply #15 on: June 24, 2022, 10:50:36 AM »
Honestly, I don't see how Steam falls under a monopoly, and I'm not sure antitrust regulations are applicable. Valve has done very little in the way of actual game releases beyond HL:Alyx.

The highest numbers I've seen is that Steam has 70% of the PC game market. But it also has 0% of the much larger console and phone markets. So Steam is a long, long way from being a gaming monopoly.

KindaMeh

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Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
« Reply #16 on: June 24, 2022, 10:54:19 AM »
So, I guess Steam does have a pretty large market share of games sold digitally or whatever. Apparently it was facing a lawsuit not too long ago for being potentially a monopoly or at least big/potentially buying out competitors. Though I don't know how legitimate this lawsuit is. https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/judge-approves-wolfires-antitrust-lawsuit-against-valve-over-steam-monopoly/  That said, I'm kind of interested in knowing what folks here think about primarily digital/digital sales based corporations and whether some have gotten a bit too large proportionally. I kind of like and trust Steam, personally, given that it allows pretty much any game that is legal to have itself sold. Much though that means things I don't agree with will be sold, I appreciate consumers having the choice and cultural dialogue not being suppressed. But that doesn't necessarily mean regulation is amiss in that whole digital sales area, I guess, and if it had banned any games or has banned users on the basis of politics or speech, I would probably change my tune a bit as regards innate trust.

Thread necromancy, ahoy!

Honestly, I don't see how Steam falls under a monopoly, and I'm not sure antitrust regulations are applicable. Valve has done very little in the way of actual game releases beyond HL:Alyx.

If Wolfire doesn't like dealing with Steam, they can always move to Epic Games Store.

Fair enough, I guess. I had kinda forgotten about Epic Games, and I guess that shows they have at least one competitor. There are probably more out there, though I haven't really heard of them. I think the argument was less about monopoly on game production, and more control of the market on digital computer game sales, of which they get a non-negligible cut, when they could theoretically deny computer game producers access to such a big cut of digital consumers. That and their supposedly having bought similar hosting services out to prevent producers from selling through other venues. That said, I like do like them and their policy as a company, so I'm kinda uninvested. Also, as hedgehobbit has reminded us, I guess not all digital games are computer games.

Regarding thread necromancy on this site, what is normally considered the grace period after which a thread should not be disturbed, so to speak? I guess 5 months, now that I look at it, was admittedly a bit much. It was still on the front page, so I didn't really bother to check the dates. I'll admit that was my bad.

Ghostmaker

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Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
« Reply #17 on: June 24, 2022, 11:18:43 AM »
So, I guess Steam does have a pretty large market share of games sold digitally or whatever. Apparently it was facing a lawsuit not too long ago for being potentially a monopoly or at least big/potentially buying out competitors. Though I don't know how legitimate this lawsuit is. https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/judge-approves-wolfires-antitrust-lawsuit-against-valve-over-steam-monopoly/  That said, I'm kind of interested in knowing what folks here think about primarily digital/digital sales based corporations and whether some have gotten a bit too large proportionally. I kind of like and trust Steam, personally, given that it allows pretty much any game that is legal to have itself sold. Much though that means things I don't agree with will be sold, I appreciate consumers having the choice and cultural dialogue not being suppressed. But that doesn't necessarily mean regulation is amiss in that whole digital sales area, I guess, and if it had banned any games or has banned users on the basis of politics or speech, I would probably change my tune a bit as regards innate trust.
Thread necromancy, ahoy!

Honestly, I don't see how Steam falls under a monopoly, and I'm not sure antitrust regulations are applicable. Valve has done very little in the way of actual game releases beyond HL:Alyx.

If Wolfire doesn't like dealing with Steam, they can always move to Epic Games Store.

Fair enough, I guess. I had kinda forgotten about Epic Games, and I guess that shows they have at least one competitor. There are probably more out there, though I haven't really heard of them. I think the argument was less about monopoly on game production, and more control of the market on digital computer game sales, of which they get a non-negligible cut, when they could theoretically deny computer game producers access to such a big cut of digital consumers. That and their supposedly having bought similar hosting services out to prevent producers from selling through other venues. That said, I like do like them and their policy as a company, so I'm kinda uninvested. Also, as hedgehobbit has reminded us, I guess not all digital games are computer games.

Regarding thread necromancy on this site, what is normally considered the grace period after which a thread should not be disturbed, so to speak? I guess 5 months, now that I look at it, was admittedly a bit much. It was still on the front page, so I didn't really bother to check the dates. I'll admit that was my bad.
I was teasing about the thread necromancy, man. Relax.

In any case, the problems that EGS has (or at least had) included an atrocious UI, it was thought to be heavily backed by Chinese money (via Tencent) and possibly insecure, and the guys running it kept going around throwing cash at people to make their games EGS-exclusive for at least limited times (which really pissed off people who had paid for preorders).

But DeadVerySoon was so butthurt you'd think Gabe Newell personally came to his house and shit on his lawn.

KindaMeh

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Re: Steam is for Shills, Whores and Sychophants
« Reply #18 on: June 24, 2022, 11:27:04 AM »
So, I guess Steam does have a pretty large market share of games sold digitally or whatever. Apparently it was facing a lawsuit not too long ago for being potentially a monopoly or at least big/potentially buying out competitors. Though I don't know how legitimate this lawsuit is. https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/judge-approves-wolfires-antitrust-lawsuit-against-valve-over-steam-monopoly/  That said, I'm kind of interested in knowing what folks here think about primarily digital/digital sales based corporations and whether some have gotten a bit too large proportionally. I kind of like and trust Steam, personally, given that it allows pretty much any game that is legal to have itself sold. Much though that means things I don't agree with will be sold, I appreciate consumers having the choice and cultural dialogue not being suppressed. But that doesn't necessarily mean regulation is amiss in that whole digital sales area, I guess, and if it had banned any games or has banned users on the basis of politics or speech, I would probably change my tune a bit as regards innate trust.
Thread necromancy, ahoy!

Honestly, I don't see how Steam falls under a monopoly, and I'm not sure antitrust regulations are applicable. Valve has done very little in the way of actual game releases beyond HL:Alyx.

If Wolfire doesn't like dealing with Steam, they can always move to Epic Games Store.

Fair enough, I guess. I had kinda forgotten about Epic Games, and I guess that shows they have at least one competitor. There are probably more out there, though I haven't really heard of them. I think the argument was less about monopoly on game production, and more control of the market on digital computer game sales, of which they get a non-negligible cut, when they could theoretically deny computer game producers access to such a big cut of digital consumers. That and their supposedly having bought similar hosting services out to prevent producers from selling through other venues. That said, I like do like them and their policy as a company, so I'm kinda uninvested. Also, as hedgehobbit has reminded us, I guess not all digital games are computer games.

Regarding thread necromancy on this site, what is normally considered the grace period after which a thread should not be disturbed, so to speak? I guess 5 months, now that I look at it, was admittedly a bit much. It was still on the front page, so I didn't really bother to check the dates. I'll admit that was my bad.
I was teasing about the thread necromancy, man. Relax.

In any case, the problems that EGS has (or at least had) included an atrocious UI, it was thought to be heavily backed by Chinese money (via Tencent) and possibly insecure, and the guys running it kept going around throwing cash at people to make their games EGS-exclusive for at least limited times (which really pissed off people who had paid for preorders).

But DeadVerySoon was so butthurt you'd think Gabe Newell personally came to his house and shit on his lawn.

Ah. Sorry, have been on sites where that's actually an offense. Spooked me there.

Not that I would approve of lapdogs to the CCP, outright scams or attempts to weaken a consumer's cybersecurity, but failing something actually illegal or secretly super hazardous to a consumer's health in a manner they wouldn't reasonably predict, I kinda feel caveat emptor. Steam is probably doing the right thing letting companies publish things that sometimes rip people off, because to some extent a ripoff is subjective. I've had games that were never completed and more or less mocked me for buying them in-game, and I just considered it a risk that was worth taking and a legit positive experience. Which was weird, because they made it pretty clear in-game the game was a ripoff in later updates, but hey, different tastes and shit.