Steam Deck has been a modder's dream since it came out. Just having "desktop mode" be a standard option has been amazing.
They were very early on in pushing “gambling for kids” with loot boxes and microtransactions.
But yeah, exposed screws are cool I guess.
Some people and legislators are arguing that unregulated digital gambling is very very evil
I'm a former gambling addict, it is very very difficult for me to lose the amount of money I have lost at craps or blackjack playing magic the gathering.
I don't think we can classify all variable reward systems as gambling. Even competitive online chess with elo and matchmaking could be classified as gambling.
There already is, you gotta have a credit card to buy lootboxes. And while I am not aware of the situation all across the globe, in most places you gotta be 18+ to get a credit card. For a debit one you might qualify a couple years earlier in the US (and probably some other countries), but an easy solution would be for Steam to just ping the bank for info on the age of the customer. However, I am not sure if that would be easily possible, especially if we are talking about API-like approaches.
The only current workaround is using gift cards, but I somehow doubt that kids resort mostly to that instead of using their parents’ credit cards. But at that point, it is on parents, because there are all sorts of ways to solve the problem on an individual level (e.g., get a card with a low limit just for steam, use a paypal account that you have to manually log into for every transaction on steam and don’t give your kid the credentials, etc).
Unfortunately, there is no way one could feasibly stop some parents from just handing their kid a credit card and mentally checking out. And any other solution to the problem that won’t massively inconvenience adult Steam customers seems to be difficult to imagine.
But at that point it comes down to parents.
I feel most of the “children gambling” people just hate the idea of loot boxes in general, which is fine, but the argument is stronger if it’s honest.
That's true. thank you for your perspective
CS cases ticks all of the boxes. I'm really curious why your definition of gambling is.
This is very much unlike slot machines and blackjack which can and do take over people's lives.
Do you really think TCGs are not gambling? Guess people open MTG and Pokemon packs just for "fun" then.
Why would holo cards, foils, and mythic rares exist? Black Lotus is just a piece of cardboard after all.
As someone who was once addicted to these games, they should absolutely be illegal. We really should not allow corporations to print money with drug dealer methods.
Also, the reason I'm against banning such games is because when you look at all the things we find fun, you will be sad to see that a lot of them just boil down to variable reward. That variable reward aspect is what makes it fun.
You would be wrong. Even chess has variance, the better player does not always win.
Then there are games that actually integrate chance as a mechanic and are still competitive.
If you have no skill or training in chess, there's basically zero chance of you winning.
technically yes. But not all gambling is illegal. because the legal definition of gambling is more precise.
I think that's the part that is forgotten in the discussions because we conflate the casual definition with the legal one.
The only way for kids to gamble in CS at all is to either steal a credit card, which is obviously not Valve's fault, or for them to have a Steam gift card. If anything is to be done about the children, I think Valve should just 1) require a users to have a credit card on file in order to buy lootboxes, and 2) require re-entering the full credit card details if the user makes several purchases in a short period of time, in order to stop kids who, for example, memorized the CVV of a card already on file in Steam.
Keep in mind that uploading a government ID would have issues, seeing as in the US a driver's license is not universal, not to mention IDs all across the globe. Maybe there's an alternative form of ID that would work that I just can't think of, but anyways, I'm against needing to upload a government ID to access anything unless it's specifically for governmental purposes.
My opinion is that it is relevant... but each to their own I guess.
Regardless, many children most certainly do play Counter Strike.
I question a 30% developer fee for using Steam. Loot boxes in CS and TF2 to get and keep kids gambling. Destroying nearly every mod and skin community. I don't think I'm willing to sweep all that under the rug because they made it easier to open a steam deck.
I like Valve believe it or not, but I question a lot of these decisions.
The 30% developer fee makes a lot more sense if you consider that steam is much more than a game store. They host forums, guides, achievements, cloud saves, multiple versions of the game at once with beta channel access, screenshots, remote play, extras like Proton support, a friends list that will show you when other people are playing a game (advertising). And the store page has all sorts of stuff like ratings, reviews... a shopping cart and ability to purchase more than 1 game at a time (didn't know that was a feature, but apparently it is). And top of all that, it's just frankly where PC gamers are, so theres a ton of built in marketing.
Not every game benefits from all these things. But it's hardly just a storefront. I would question Gamestop taking a 30% cut. I would question if EGS wanted the same 30% cut as valve gets. Gamers prefer Steam over EGS, and the reason they prefer it isn't just because "it's a nicer store front." It's a whole platform thing.
Why? Physical distribution is way more expensive and they handle the entire consumer lifecycle.
Valve has a perpetual obligation. I might buy the game and then never even download it. Or I might download the game. delete it. download the game again next week. delete it ... etc... And take 1000 screenshots that I want them to host, and upload mods for a game that they have to host and people may download. And this may happen forever (or at least until Valve ceases to be a company).
Fable III isn't even available in the Steam store anymore... but they have a repo hosting the game files. And they still take updates (the package was last updated in july 2023, even though its been off the store for years). According to SteamDB there are 14 people playing it right now. Steam has been supporting a game that they haven't even sold in the past 8 years.
I'm willing to bet that if I ask gamestop for anything regarding support for a game from 8 years ago they'd just laugh at me.
tl;dr - physical distribution has cut and dry limited obligations, but steam has to deal with stuff forever.
Imagine if you had to go to Gamestop every time you launched a game. They would kill for that opportunity. Steam has a captive audience who goes to their store every day.
you're still treating this as a software service. Remember that for a physical store:
1. you need to maintain the store. you can't have dirt bugs and grime everywhere 2. you need insurance to deal with various inevitable factors. theft, crime within store grounds, destruction of property, etc. 3. buildings break down faster than servers. you need to upkeep that. 4. security. Need to monitor the store in and outside of business hours. 5. yes, support. They manage memberships, pre-orders, process returns in or out of warranty/return period, check inventory for if older used games are around, and can route you to other locations for such product.
Its only cut and dry if you never think what is needed to maintain the norm for you.
Some of their discussion forums are incredibly toxic though, seeming to have no effective moderation.
Baldurs Gate 3 and Starfield spring to mind as clear examples, though it wouldn't surprise me if there are even worse ones around.
It was a mistake.
The Steam discussion/forums for it are here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/
I've not looked at them for ages as they were very toxic for a few weeks after launch, and I personally have no real desire to go looking again now. Maybe they've magically improved somehow, but I doubt it.
What do you mean, the game is objectively solid and is very much a continuation of the Boulders Gate series. It has flaws, but personally I think it's the best crpg i've played in years (and without nostalgia filters).
To be clear, I'm not criticizing, I just am not surprised that a certain segment of the BG1/BG2 fanbase is unhappy.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/3944650...
Steam takes 30% to make everyone slightly dumber
Particularly for a game with strong sexual representationa and inclusion, it is legitimate to discuss aspects where the inclusion is still lacking. This may be useful for the Devs future plans, or it may change nothing but be useful for other prospective players to understand about the game.
You might not find the thread useful or engaging. I don't find the threads about compatibility with hardware I don't own useful or engaging. Not every thread is for every person.
But point being, Steam is a whole platform. When THPS 1+2's "Upload a custom skate park" broke, I just hit shift+tab and clicked discussions, and bam. theres discussions about it being broken for other people. and I didn't even have to launch the game, I could just go to discussions from the game on steam to see when it was fixed. I didn't have to go googling for everything.
And the beauty of it, is that valve hasn't made all of it a walled garden. It's a nice garden, but they do a pretty good job of not keeping it completely locked down (which is the main reason why proton has been so successful).
So no, Steam won't moderate your forums for you, but they will host the forums and you don't have to have your own/none. But then again, that might be more of a benefit to the customers than to the devs who may not care.
Whether it should may be a different issue.
That, and Steam hasn't really burned many folks, ever. They even pioneered returns after you played the game...
As a user, I've never once been mad at Steam.
They were forced to do so by the Australian government, so it was hardly "pioneering".
But yeah, difference is Valve knows to be good to consumers (mostly) but make dev support a nightmare if you're not big enough.
> Valve must pay a fine of AU$3 million (about £1.6m/US$2.3m/€1.8m) for misleading Steam users in Australia by stating they were not entitled to refunds for faulty games on Steam
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/australia-fines-valve-over-...
okay, here's the EU part: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/new-valve-refund-poli...
not brought to court but that right-to-return law put another fire under their butt for sure.
I think like many new things it got off to a rocky start in 2003 and 2004 (especially with the launch of Half-Life 2). I only started using Steam on 2007 I think and I've never had an issue.
"Steam" is not just a game store. It's like if walmart built an entire industry around maintaining, supporting, and extending anything you sold through them. 30% is a lot, but Valve is the only company out of basically the entire retail industry actually providing value to sellers and buyers alike, rather than just a storefront.
The CS:GO child gambling problem is HUGE though, and unconscionable. I don't know how Gabe feels about that, but I don't care. It should be exceptionally illegal to give a child access to a "gambling like" game that ever touches real money.
That 30% cut still seems egregious. Those features are all nice but none of them can be used to make a game.
Unity is even cheaper, at 2.5%.
Is 30% fair? I don't really have an opinion, but putting your game on steam isn't required for game development.
30% does seem a bit too high, though. I’ll grant you that.
30% is the standard retail cut if I’m right. So if you sell your game at Walmart, they take 30% too.
The difference is people actually like using Steam. They actually want to be locked in. I'd rather by a game on Steam vs Gog. Consider that. DRM free, but people prefer the lock-in. That's because Valve is nailing it.
Imagine people saying the same about Microsoft, Epic, EA etc.. Nope.
But also yes. Steam has made the gaming on linux process so much easier. Using steam is the easiest way to game now and I definitely prefer all my games to be there.
>The difference is people actually like using Steam. They actually want to be locked in.
yup, and that's where the danger starts. People like being locked into Apple as well. the consoles all conditioned people to being locked in. I understand it, but don't think it's a good thing.
Microsoft does technically have a lock in with PC, but they have enough historical lawsuits on those issues that they are lax on what is hosted on Windows. The reckoning for Apple/Google is definately coming, though.
Console manufacturers charge a separate per unit royalty for every game published for their consoles, typical in the range of 10-20%.
That’s how they make most of their money before online stores - the console is sold at near break even typically but they do earn on extra accessories.
The store charges are separate and independent.
I don't. I just use Windows and Linux occasionally and that reminds me why I prefer Mac OS.
It's easy to get lock in effects when the alternatives are crap wrt usability. Even if you can get larger numbers for less money on the spec sheet.
I don't like being locked into Apple, but I can't argue with the extraordinary convenience of doing it their way. New iPhone or iPad? Just set it next to your old one and it will pull everything over. New Mac? You can clone from a backup of a different Mac. I started with an iPad, got a Mac a few years later, and finally got an iPhone after Google released the amazing (loved the fingerprint reader on the back for unlocking) but disastrous (the battery would decide to go to hell one day, no warning, and you were losing 30+% of power per hour) Nexus 6P.
What they clamped down on was developers who built $0.01 game for trading cards farming. Now Valve just have some fair usage rules so developer of game that sold 10 copies on Steam can't request 1,000,000 keys for it.
Disclosure: I am indie game studio co-fouder so Steam keys is something we deal with.
But yes they have clamped down on the fake games for trading card farming too.
AFAIK it's perfectly fine to temporary run something like lowest-ever price outside of Steam on a condition that within some timeframe (not sure about timing) there will be similar sale on Steam.
Also, both Xbox and PlayStation have more-or-less all those things you mentioned but you get subsidised hardware in the deal too.
Also nice to be able to buy some new games and run them on an old laptop, can't do that on my xbox 360 anymore. My library all runs on my latest computer too. At least xbox makes a fair amount of the catalog backwards compatible.
edit: plus I can give friends access to my entire library, providing I'm not using it at the time.
Or is that only PS?
Free-to-play games can be played online without a subscription, but paid games require a subscription - I imagine as a holdover from pre-Fortnite days and cross-platform play.
I'm a subscriber for the game catalogue and only really play online multiplayers that are F2P anyway, but yeah it doesn't seem at all justifiable. It's a strange decision too - I can't imagine the subset of people who are NOT subscribers for the monthly games and/or catalogue AND are playing games online that are NOT f2p is big enough to be a significant impact to their bottom line. If anything it would be a deterrent from choosing the platform.
If developers don’t like it, they can chose other options to distribute their game.
When I care about supporting a developer or publisher and they offer their product on their own storefront DRM-free, I will often go there to buy. Or I buy from GoG which takes a smaller cut. Playnite lets me launch my Steam and non-Steam games in a seamless fashion. Steam still does a great job as a game installer/patch manager, and helps me discover new games. But I'm not locked into paying them a 30% fee, which is pretty brutal for some smaller publishers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/playnite/comments/15q2x16/i_install...
I have only used it on my Windows install, so I can't recommend this.
Let me know when I can do install fdroid on iOS.
They back off when they find out my line of work, but you hear about bullying and peer pressure in school over bubbles. That does not end when you leave high school.
One VC said that people that buy Android don't have taste and wouldn't work with them. Now they say Android is for poor people. Freedom to sideload or install a custom os be damned.
It's not a high school thing, it's just amplified during that point in life; there is always pressure to conform.
I don't care about whether or not some VC thinks I have class either professionally or personally. Avoid people that jump to conclusions and you'll be better off, regardless of how fancy their personal titles are.
I'm one of them. We are not all the same!
But yeah, ideally one shouldn’t tie self worth to perishables.
I find dealing with Android users from iMessage tiring but everyone I know who uses Android also uses WhatsApp and that works just fine cross platform.
They even did deep, dirty tricks like this: https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-.... Not only that but Apple just love to lean heavily on their own custom functionality rather than coming up with open/reusable technologies. Apple are happy to use Wifi & Bluetooth standards to compete in the market, but not so much standards for chats/group chats (where Android users find things don't mesh as well/they don't have the same functionality as iOS users).
I can't for the life of me find it now, but I remember reading an article a while back on how Google found a way to trick iPhones into accepting Android messages as "blue bubble"/iOS messages by dumping some string onto the end or something. I'm sure it was a HN post but I can't find it, which sucks cause it was pretty funny reading.
...?
It's Steam or bust for the vast majority.
If the market is not being artificially suppressed (I don't believe it is), and developer still think it's financially advantageous to pay Steam's fees, doesn't that indicate the fee is "correct"?
yeah, that's my issue. but it's all or nothing because the only thing that really matters is presence. So you just suck it up or use another store (or distribute independently).
>Gamers prefer Steam over EGS, and the reason they prefer it isn't just because "it's a nicer store front." It's a whole platform thing.
It's really just network effects at the end of the day. We've seen enough instances in other places in tech where the de facto is shit and even actively ruining its product, but people stay.
Sad thing isn't how big it is, it's how hard it is to fail.
I'd love to see a "what has Steam ever done for us?" sketch produced :)
https://www.pcgamer.com/lawsuit-claims-valve-is-abusing-its-... https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/
I would argue they still aren't evil (and Apple is, though I am a shareholder) because Steam, the Windows store and Epic can all live together on my PC as competing store / DRM. If a developer doesn't want to give up 30%, they have viable alternatives.
Is it a great way to get publicity? No. Is it a perfectly reasonable way to sell a game? Yes.
Also, what small-time indie game is >100gb?
This is a thread about steam charging a 30% cut and people asking about what costs they could possibly have?
If Steam didn’t take a cut then they would not be able to pay for bandwidth. And even a 100 mb indie game downloaded a million times is still a lot of bandwidth times that by tens of thousands of games and it’s more than just games, screenshots, saves, mods, forum posts, video trailers, patches, etc.
A one time sale of a 4 dollar game that could support 100 gb worth of mods with being able to delete, download, and reinstall dozens of times has ongoing costs.
Selling on your own website, yes, you should be able to cover sending your own exe 100gb or not with each sale.
I think the point was that if you were hosting independently, your video game isn't going to be 100+ GB. You will handle the costs or build it into the price of the game.
Dunno how thin margins Valve operates on, but I think they can survive on less than 30%, especially since they offer lower rates to AAA studios.
Let me tell you about the Counter-Strike 1.6 Beta update in 2002...
https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/Steam
(Geez, 21 years ago!)
But yes, you are otherwise correct. That said, I argue that Valve has done an overall good job providing value to their users and even developers.
It's apples and oranges.
It's worth pointing out that this is for cosmetics. The largescale lootbox outcries have been exclusively about gameplay advantages. Games that only provide cosmetics are usually praised for being fair. For example, Overwatch also has lootboxes - but for cosmetics only - and nobody gives a damn.
And then there's cards, which you earn for free, and can sell for a wallet balance in order to buy games.
> keep kids gambling
I don't believe this is their goal, even though they certainly aren't doing enough to prevent it.
It was such a neutral system and I literally never felt any type of FOMO or pressure to buy lootboxes, which can't be said for other games with similar systems.
I am OK with the 30%, because it's not a monopoly. You can use any other store, "sideload", whatever, without restrictions. I think, but I am not sure, that you could actually offer your game cheaper on other channels in parallel. But because people like the convenience of steam (which is probably one if not the best implementation of a software store) that many would pay the premium to have the game on steam.
At one time[1] Valve even tried to ban community servers that offer custom models/skins. Though they doesn't seem to enforce it anymore.
[1]: https://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/server_guidelines/
I can't say if it's truly worth the 30%, but I sure don't want to be handling all those services myself or through others.
I also remember reading an article from way back when that said that brick and mortar revenue cuts were at _least_ twice what Steam was taking. Perhaps this memory is totally wrong... with today's Google I'll certainly never be able to find the source of the memory.
As a casual gamer I am not willing to dig around the internet to look for games.
But if I stumble upon something random on Steam there is a chance I will buy it.
That stuff isn't easy but fortunately Valve isn't the only one offering that, and pretty much every other storefront offers lower rates if that's important.
I assume such dev can and should also use all other available promotion options of course.
So from my pov 30% is fine to pay. Especially that after initial effort of putting game in.
If valve wants to earn those 3 dollars, they need to ensure my game can be discovered to begin with. "becsuse there's a lot of people on steam" doesn't cut it these days. That was valuable at one point but I'd say aroind 2014 or so it ceased to be so.
30% was more reasonable in 2005-2006 when steam was getting it's first third party games on the platform (and games were cheaper as well, a selling point for digital distribution at the time, which has no longer existed for many years due to greed) and when compute and bandwidth was massively more expensive than it is today. These days the cut should be closer to 5-10% at most.
> Destroying nearly every mod and skin community.
I miss those days so much. When I was a teenager there was always new maps and mods for hl1/hl2 to try out. Now modding in pretty much every game and it's community doesn't compare, most developers won't ever release tooling for their engines and will sue people who reverse engineer their games to make third party tooling. Even 'mod friendly' developers like paradox and bethesda don't like people making changes that affect core gameplay too much and will strip out functionality to prevent people from doing it because they would rather pump out shovelware DLCs to make money.
Valve lucked out by doing all the enshittification in the late 2000s/early 2010s when their reputation was at it's highest. If they had cultivated this same following today and then rug pulled in the way they did in the past they would have killed their business entirely. Imagine if CDPR/A ctiblizzard/EA announced they would never make a game again and would only sell third party games through GOG/Battlenet/Origin, their distribution platform. Their business would be gone in a matter of months.
It's interesting to see this randomly thrown out, I'm curious if there's any basis for this? Epic Games currently takes 12% and five years later they're still unable to turn a profit. That's for a store that wrote a brand new launcher that's worse than Steam's and they don't have nearly half the features Steam does.
I believe Humble takes 5% and they're also not doing that well.
5% would hardly even cover the CC fees. Not to mention refunds.
What does Valve actually make with all this money? That rake on billions for basically doing nothing and like since HL2 the amount of games they actually developed was very low. Alyx was a niche game for VR only. Maintaining and improving CS and calling it 2.0 is hardly anything considering what they could do. Dota 2 they just bought it. Steam machines failed and it was never that they actually sell hardware with a loss. So seriously where is all this money going?
I can only assume straight into Gabens and other high level execs pockets at Valve.
The also did not start from scratch and just used Wine and build upon this and payed the guy who did DXVK ... its hardly eating up billions to come up with something like the Steam Deck and Proton. Steam OS is basically just Arch Linux now so its hardly anything revolutionary from scratch.
Do not get me wrong I like all these things but I stand by what I said. I fail to see where all the money is going. Take a SINGLE AAA game where Valve rakes in 30% of the profits for a few distribution servers and a few forum mods. They have invented a money printing machine and for like 20 years the have been printing money and there is nothing visible for anyone to actually see. They do not even make games. Other game devs do not have billions at their disposal and develop games with high budgets and at a 100x faster pace. I stand by what I said, the money goes straight into Gabens and other exec pockets, the have nothing to show for it. The Index is expensive AF its not that they made a loss with it. They make profits with everything they do, especially the Steam Deck.
Steam controller also failed but its not that they wasted billions on that failed product either. I never tried it, I think the idea was great but the layout was wrong, buttons should not be on the bottom.
You tell me where all the money is going. Like do you really think they spend even more the a tiny tiny fraction of that they made on paying open source devs and deving the Steam Deck? The already had their money printing machine loooooong b4 the Steam Deck was even an idea. WTF did they do with it?
> You tell me where all the money is going
> Other game devs ... develop games ... at a 100x faster pace
> Steam controller
> The Index
Steam Controller gave us Steam Input, which works with:
- Steam Controllers
- Xbox 360 controllers
- Xbox One controllers
- Xbox One S controllers
- PS3 Controllers
- PS4 Controllers
- PS5 Controllers
- WiiU Pro Controllers
- Switch Joycons
- Switch Pro controllers
- A bevy of other third party controllers
All with shareable layouts, hosted by Valve.
The Index gave us Steam VR, which supports:
- Valve Index
- Oculus Rift
- Oculus Rift S
- HTC Vive
- HTC Vive Pro
- HTC Vive Cosmos
- Razer OSVR
- Pimax 4K, 5K, 5K Plus, 8K, and 8K Plus
- Dell Visor
- Samsung Odyssey and Odyssey+
- Acer AH101
- HP WMR
- Lenovo Explorer
- HP Reverb
- Varjo VR-1 and VR-2
Along with their support for OpenXR.
Not to mention Remote Play, and the variety of platforms they support with that. Or the hosting for cloud saves.
I'm not saying this costs billions, but I do think you're missing quite a bit of what Valve do when they launch something. There's quite a lot visible for people to actually see and use.
Good video on it: https://youtu.be/eMmNy11Mn7g?si=dwotdKXKu5mHLZWg
Valve charges 30% because customers want all the stuff that comes with steam. They work for that 30% unlike smartphone ecosystems that offer a closed ecosystem and can lock competitors out of their platform.
you're free to. I will offer Itch.io as a modern alternative: https://itch.io/
almost zero restrictions on games you can upload, and they let you set your own share, even down to 0% if you so please. I think the default is 10%, which seems reasonable.
>Valve charges 30% because customers want all the stuff that comes with steam
not really. they charge 30% because they can leverage their 90% market share on small devs. In fact, they already relented and offer a lower share if you sell more than like, 25m copies. That suggests that they do need to work to keep AAA stUDIOS from making their own stores (again).
It's all about market dynamics. And I bet many steam users just use it for network effects.
What on earth is this referring to? Steam doesn't inhibit moding at all. Heck, it has built in mod support that's used by games like Oxygen Not Included and Rimworld and it's huge ( https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/ ).
Steam also doesn't bat an eye at mods from outside of the client and there's no shortage of mod managers that work with steam - Vortex, CKAN, r2modman, etc...
I think he's talking about cs, but last I checked it had a massive modding community.
Unless he meant custom skins on official servers, but that's how you can cheat so.
They do know what they are doing to the environment themselves, though, despite the public’s blind eye they are making at least some effort to research more biodegradable materials.
Devs are free to move to Epic Store/Microsoft Store if it bothers you that much. That's the beauty of PC, your computer is not tied to a single store.
They don't because they know those stores don't have the market share Steam has. The people have spoken.
"PC gamer" correlates with "hardware tinkerer" much more strongly than "telephone user" does.
They can always rely on the gambling money. Takes 0 effort (all digital), unregulated, and it's enormously popular on Steam.
Valve could shutdown the whole thing with one button but they don't. Do you know why because it's profit for them too. Every case and every key sold.
They pay these streamers millions of dollars, up to and including one of the streamers moving to a different country with more lax gambling laws so they could continue to gamble on the companies dime (because they are a degenerate gambler) in order to hook children on gambling.
The skins work exactly like crypto in this case, except the on-ramp is a game that millions of children play (I don't care "it's not aimed at kids", you don't need to be 18 to buy a steam gift card at the store for the skins, and the game itself is free, which is a huge lure for children without an allowance) and it is entirely unregulated.
This entire system is being used to purposely trap gambling addicts at a very young age to milk them for as long as possible in the gambling industry, for every dime they are worth, and until they have used up all possible credit they can find just to keep pressing that addiction button. Twitch is in on it too.
A person could reasonably argue can be exchanged vs primarily intended as a stand in for cash is important. If the items are intended as actual items people value then that's more defensible than say chips that only exist to be cashed out. (And I'm not familiar enough to know whether that's the case here)
Nope. They are exactly the same thing. Same effect on the brain.
https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/add...
Do you think the iphone 15 being USB-C was Apple's idea too?
My last macbook needed to have a battery replaced during Apple Care (after only 2 years) and they just gave me a new body (no dents, same specs, same keyboard layout, transplanted the ssd - or transferred the data, not sure) and plugged it to the old screen.
If they don't bother swapping a battery...
Your repair was probably done by moving your laptop's motherboard into a new lower case (with a corresponding new battery glued in).
It's not as if there's any space for them to slide around, they're a fairly tight fit in a compact device, and there's got to be plenty of other options to keep them in place if there is a little bit of looseness to deal with.
(I guess they'll use safety as an excuse, to reduce the risk of the damage to cells. But it's not the real reason, is it?)
When the battery is at its most contracted state it can move if it's not fixed to the case by some means. Movement of the battery puts stress on the connectors and can lead to a short (or worse).
Gluing the battery in the case is a safe way of fixing it in place inside the case. Screw tabs would give the opportunity during assembly of puncturing the battery casing with a tool or screw. They could also work themselves loose with the thermal expansion cycles.
But people like the thought-terminating "Apple bad" narratives.
Replacing the cells inside one of those packs would have been similarly difficult to ungluing and replacing the batteries in more recent Apple laptops, but there was a lot less reason to rebuild those battery packs.
Its crazy stuff. You are telling me they cant think of a secure way to use a mechanical, screwed system that is able to cope with the thermal expansion. I find that hard to believe. I believe it is mostly cost and profit incentive, MAYBE safety, but I also doubt that last one.
Lisa Jackson has probably the hardest job at the whole company, to drum up the stats and relativism to make it look like they are trying at all in any meaningful way, and not just lying about their portfolio of dystopian horrors and banal inconveniences.
All electronics are the result of dystopian horors, and they generally don't have a very good shelf life. Are you aware of how many SuperFund sites are in Silicon Valley?
Apple's the worst, except for all the rest? I should lay off Apple because they're doing better than their competitors?
You're not opening any eyes by saying everyone is doing terribly, you're just responding to dissent with tired whataboutism and false claims of futility.
The market and regulators and device builders and customers could do better and should.
Apple wants to claim be leader in this space, they should do so with substance.
Until we find a way of mineral extraction and purification that isn't terrible, electronics are going to be bad. Could Apple work to improve that? Yes, and they should too. My point, which I'd argue is pragmatic, is that Apple makes the longest lived devices you can currently buy, and not by a little but by a lot.
Demonizing the current front runner in a competition you care about? ...well lets just say you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar
The latter is such a poor environmental choice, that it negates the former, but you don't see it yet.
Disagree. Glue isn't really that hard to deal with and likely makes the phone substantially more waterproof. It's really not hard, at all, to deal with glue, it's typically dissolves in acetone and only requires mild heat to overcome.
Nonetheless, you're selling "typically dissolves in acetone" as a user friendly, easy to repair, best in the industry experience? Should we give them a special award with text that is flanked by sprigs of wheat?
You don't realize how low you are setting the bar here.
Buddy, you just said, and I quote: "lying about their portfolio of dystopian horrors and banal inconveniences."
Get a grip.
How about you get a dictionary and encyclopedia and learn what dystopian horrors and banal inconveniences are?
Then look at Apple's factories, mining operations, glued together, locked down, borderline unrepairable products, and a big old pile of lightning cables and see that is an apt, fair and even charitable description of their activities.
Or you can just take yours and grip them to your chest and cry, whatever works for you.
* always had the longest software support lifecycle in the industry. Only recently has Google tried to match them. My six year old iPhone only just stopped getting support for the current iOS release; it will still get security updates for a few more years.
* can be repaired quickly from parts likely stocked in repair shops almost anywhere in the world thanks to the relatively small number of models, whereas a local repair shop is unlikely to have parts for an Android phone, unless you happen to have a phone that was sold in large numbers in that locale
* can have its battery replaced with legitimate OEM parts, retaining waterproofing and whatnot, by Apple or third party shops who have been certified to do the repair correctly. No Android manufacturer does anything close to any of this.
* was one of the first phones to throttle CPU speed when it detects rising internal resistance from battery aging, thus prolonging the device's lifespan (which everyone shit on them for, claiming it was designed to 'force' people to upgrade, when it was exactly the opposite - it kept people's phones working longer than they otherwise would)
* has a charge/data connector much more durable than standard USB connectors, and it's still not placed on the motherboard like nearly every Android phone does; it's on an easily replaced board. The whole EU USB-C debacle about consumer rights. It was about other companies eliminating Apple's competitive advantage with the Lightning port, denying consumers the right to choose a different connector other than the planned obsolescence USB connectors. And you know what else? Nobody's iPhone has ever been fried by a Lightning cable, but there was a huge debacle over USB-C cables that would fry anything they were plugged into.
There's a reason iPhones retaining their value in the used market for years - and Android phones depreciate like a lead balloon.
> lying about their portfolio of dystopian horrors and banal inconveniences.
Ooooookay then.
I use these products and am deeply invested in them. They are good, but much farther from perfect than you think. All of these stats are hollow relativism.
If two companies were detonating atom bombs in your neighborhood, but one provided you and your family with super solid umbrellas to catch the ash, you'd probably be swollen with praise for them as well.
There I go demonizing again... I really shouldn't be comparing a corporation with greater market value than the GDP of some countries to a nation state with the power to instigate generational environmental disasters. Totally different, not worthy of comparison at all.
If you're advocating that the average user, or differently abled users get comfortable with the tweezers and pentalobe screws in order to extend the lives of their devices, I'm afraid you've lost the plot.
For a few gens now "simple" to swap out iPhone parts like screens need to be purchased directly from Apple and authorized to go into the device that's being repaired via IMEI. This kills off tons of third party market options. Imagine if vehicle manufacturers required that you buy all replacement parts from them. In the case of vehicles, there are tons of used, reconditioned, and third party parts available that work just fine as replacements.
This kind of behavior is why I'll never "buy" an Apple device; you never truly own it and can do what you want to do with it, from both hardware and software perspectives.
https://screenrant.com/apple-self-service-program-requires-s...
It's very easy to be user friendly when your business model is relying on piracy, they even showed an emulator in a now deleted trailer
Valve didn't sell hardware for half its lifetime, and the hardware it sold were on small margins. Steam Deck is a success selling a few million, the vita was a bomb selling 10m (very conservative estimate. you'll see 15m when googling). Economies of scale
>It's actually weird that there aren't many alternative implementations of consoles in current times
where's the allure anymore? the PC and mobile hardware can do that just fine. those alt knockoff consoles came at a time where owning a PC was a huge premium.
That said, there are a few modern alt consoles to consider as a hobbyist:
https://www.analogue.co/pocket
but they very intentionally aren't trying to compete with modern games.
These things are "illegal" because these corporations can afford to turn the justice system into a legal bullying mechanism. They don't like what you do? They threaten to set your money on fire if you don't stop. Most people just obey because they don't really want to impoverish themselves fighting them.
There's no telling what would actually happen if it actually went to court though. I've read too many court cases where these game companies lost to just believe them when they say it's "illegal". The problem is always the fact they win in the end simply by having deeper pockets: the other party often gets bankrupted despite the victory. Bleem and Virtual Game Station come to mind. True justice would have been these alternative implementations of the consoles competing with the real thing on equal footing on day one.
> where's the allure anymore?
There weren't clones of any of the consoles of the previous generations though. Modern consoles are basically glorified PCs but a PS2 and NDS weren't. So I wonder why NES got clones but other consoles didn't.
A 40 year old with a twenty year back catalog of Steam titles gives me plenty of things to play.
Why would anyone ever want that? If you buy a device, you are supposed to be able to do anything you want with it, including running emulators or whatever.
Thankfully, even when vendors want to prevent people from doing that, they often screw it up and leave exploits that allow people to regain control. Even funnier when they then try suing random people for that to compensate for their engineering skill issue/make an example etc.
I'll give them a pass on Gamecube and later as that generation can still look pretty good.
I would probably subscribe if they got the back catalog right. But it's no bother to me really, it's trivial to emulate their games right up to the Wii U.
Why? no one expects all PS1 games on PS now, nor all OG Xbox games on gamepass.
If people still want to buy ports or subscriptions instead of figuring out emulation, that's their choice.
Knowing the majority of the NES > N64 Nintendo back catalog is coming at a reasonable pace would be a reason to subscribe to their online service, assuming it is all available at the base sub price.
The steam deck exists primarily to expand their targetable market.
It's of no benefit to them if people's devices fail - they just stop buying games (unlike Apple, where the devices are intended to slow down or stop working altogether).
I liked the direction you were going, but I don’t think you made the right comparison. iPhones, for example, are used 30-60% longer (4-10 years) than a Samsung phone (3-6 years). Apple provides software updates for all of their devices for 6+ years.
I’ve had very few devices containing lithium ion batteries that didn’t require a new battery. I have devices from the early 2000s from Sony, HP, Dell, Nikon, and countless others whose batteries have failed.
No matter what you think of them as a company Steam is a license to print money, of course basically everything they do is in service of it...
That Valve is a software distribution company.
Today, it is still one of the highest quality consumer VR headsets. It has not dropped in price yet.
Stop spreading disinformation please
Even Marques Brownlee [0] said he's going to rate gadgets' green/sustainability creds from now on, after reviewing the Fairphone.
They were consumer electronics devices, most of the expansion possibilities were via external devices connected on an expansion port of some sort, and that was about it.
Naturally this model offers better margins than selling PC components on thin razor margins, which is why even the PC world is going into that direction, leaving custom PCs for hardcore gammers and servers, where OEMs can also enjoy higher margins.
[1] https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloa...
Edited to add: the "Torx Plus" design's patent expired in 2011, which was put in place in 1990 as the original Torx patent was expiring then. Some more nuance, but there ya go.
edit: Also, you said Hex and I'm assuming you meant Torx (since GGP did). But that could very easily be a bad assumption, so I apologize if it is.
Use quality tools, there is absolutely no problem, there's even an ISO standard (10664), there is absolutely no reason for ambiguity. Just stop buying shit.
Torx has tremendous benefits which is why it is a fastener of choice for high value items on cars. They're also used in high volume construction, they wouldn't be if they "sucked".
Looks like a pain to install, though. Saw a time-lapse of the process on LTT and it looked like it involved removing just about every single screw and fastener in the entire device.
My awkward hands where DS, Switch, PS and Xbox controllers all give me cramps after around ten minutes of play time.
N64 not so. It's why I've always been a PC gamer.
pretty sure the switchdeck is just a dbrand skin?
Oh and that sexy support of Linux. It won a loyal customer for life (or until they get acquired and get enshitified to death).
> Moved bumper switch to joystick board for easier repair
These are such a big deal, and such a design flaw in the first deck.
The most breakable part(eg. From any drop) requires valve to do the repairs because the same board houses the most complicated parts
I do not know if they are going this route with the Index, that thing is notoriously bad build, and it breaks for people after a very short lifespan all the time. Basically almost every serious reviewer complained how their Index broke after X months. I do not think its easy to repair at all and does Valve sell spare parts? It should life longer in the first place.
I've also spent a while in VRChat where these issues would be discussed and I've never seen anyone mention that the index in not durable.
Rear cover screws now thread into metal
Adjusted rear cover screw heads to Torx™, as well as other materials and geometry tweaks on the heads to reduce stripping risk
Lowered number of screw types throughout system
Reduced step count required for common repairs
Improved bumper switch mechanism drop reliability
Moved bumper switch to joystick board for easier repair
Improved display repair/replacement to not require taking rear cover off