Yes to the first. Steam is a platform like any other, and it has demonstrated that it no longer cares after its users have dedicated themselves to the platform by having gigantic collections. It's a lock in like any other, and Steam benefits, they've been able to not give a single damn about anything for years. They're able to buy studios and cancel projects at will because what's going to happen? You're going to stop buying on Steam? Yeah right.

The only real exception to this are the devs working on Proton.

I think you need some examples. Valve hasn’t behaved in the way you described at all.

Buying studios and canceling their projects? What are you even talking about?

Valve’s console allows other competing game stores to run on it out of the box. It even and directly supports installing Windows. Any other console manufacturers doing that?

I would argue that anyone who wants to stop buying on Steam has almost no friction to doing so compared to other platforms. All you have to do is buy all your games from somewhere else from now on. You don’t have to replace any Valve hardware you own because their hardware is the most open and well-supported on the market.

I’m just struggling to figure out how Valve “no longer cares.”

yeah, this is a weird thread

I actually hate Steam. I despise Steam. But I have to go to bat for them here and say that they don't seem any worse today than they ever have been, and every time I get dragged into opening their shitty app to buy a game that isn't available elsewhere, the app is at least a little better than it was last time I used it.

The only things about them that are particularly user-hostile and make me hate them are:

1. DRM - The DRM isn't particularly onerous but it is there. All your dozens or hundreds of games get locked together into one account, and even if you own two or three computers, you can only play a game on one of them at a time. This made it very difficult for me to maintain a VR gaming station at my house, since my nephews playing VR upstairs meant that I couldn't play DotA 2 downstairs unless I started a second account.

2. Customer Service - Their customer service isn't as nonexistent as some companies', but it's pretty thin on the ground

So far as I can tell, they seem to go out of their way not to enshittify anything in any way ever.

Steam DRM has not had its security measures updated since 2010. It's trivial to crack. Although, I agree that it should not exist.

Ironically this is probably also because of their effective monopoly on games distribution. If they had to compete with other distributors, they would probably try to implement toothier default DRM to attract publishers.

I think they said publicly that they were able to show with data that SteamWorks' mild DRM by itself was enough to severely curtail piracy, and that's why other companies have been chilling out on the highly invasive DRM on Steam

What studios/projects have they cancelled? The only two I can think of are that they stopped making Steam Controllers and Steam Link became a software solution in the form of "Remote Play" and "Remote Play Together".

Over the last few years they've released the Steam Deck and Valve Index, supporting them with pretty decent software.

The Steam Deck UI improvements have made their way over to "Big Picture Mode" and similar UI changes for the PC client are currently available in the public beta.

> You're going to stop buying on Steam? Yeah right.

Frankly, It's annoying when I can't buy on Steam. Epic spent tens of millions on exclusivity deals to force me to choose between their shitty client or hoping it gets released on Steam in a year or two. The only result is that I have less regard for both Epic and those developers.

Isn't Valve privately held? If Gabe doesn't give a shit about "maximizing his shareholder value by enshittification" it won't occur.

We are very lucky that Valve is privately owned and that GabeN retains majority control (at least he did last I checked). He is famously "pro gamer" and IMO one of the main reasons Valve hasn't gone through enshittification (yet).

My fear is that once he goes, the bulwark goes with him.

Aye, it is. GabeN and a few others.

Also means they don't have to grind or worry about specific quarterly performance.

It shows -- the platform is generally pretty good. I've had grumbles, but compared to most of the other paid software I use, Steam still delivers -- even on Fedora Linux.

Proton in Linux is great, btw. Been able to run Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon ZD, and other major games with little to no issue. Shout out to the ProtonDB and WineDB -- if anything doesn't work they usually have the answers on how to fix.

Personally I think the author doesn’t realize that Steam is an exception to this theory. It’s a private company that’s majority owned by a relatively idealistic founder. It’s also not really a social media company in the traditional sense, and it doesn’t really live and die on advertisements.

I also think that the lack of gatekeeping on low quality games is actually more of a benefit than a drawback considering Steam’s robust review system and lenient return policy. Customers on steam want to play unfinished games so long as the early access disclaimer is there, and the indie PC scene that has low barrier to entry has launched some of the gaming infustry’s biggest hits (like Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Terraria, etc).

The old school console system where developers have to sign contracts and shell out thousands of dollars for SDKs led to less innovative software.

I don't think a lot of people are wading through the endless sea of indieshit games.

As per your example: how did we learn about Vampire Survivors? From neogaf or kotaku or some eceleb video. Someone is doing the curation for us.

I found Vampire Survivors in Steam's "Discovery Queue".

I didn't buy it at first but it was recommended in one of the "Since you like X" carousels and it was so cheap that I didn't really care if it was bad.

I've found a fair few games through the Steam store that I've really enjoyed. Two off the top of my head:

- "Gunfire reborn" is a fun rogue-like shooter from a chinese developer.

- "Risk of Rain 2", another roguelike. I'd played the original 2d version and didn't particularly enjoy it. The 3D sequel was great.