this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
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"nothing"
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
-- God (In Futurama)
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS HYPOCRITICAL SHIT, LEMMY?
Sure, but at least Steam allows you to burn backups of games to a disc. Haven't seen other platforms let you do that yet
There's a whole platform whose whole shit is selling you games that you can back up and keep forever. GOG is the only one that will never take your library away from you, unlike Steam who can and has before
Ahh, I forgot about GOG, fair enough
not that I disagree with you, but what happens if GOG's server get shutdown for whatever reason? would that put us out of anything we didn't download?
Steam is platform, not game developer/distributor. CD is up to those, not to steam.
And I'm fairly certain they released plenty of discs. I have the orange box and day 1 portal 2 for my 360.
Can't find it now but I read that that drama was over the dev using steam servers, then also giving away the game for free on a separate site.
So yeah, no free infrastructure.
It's currently in the courts in multiple countries. The accusation is that Valve has an unwritten rule that Steam must have the best retail prices. For example, Ubisoft, who runs their own platform, could not sell Assassin's Creed on Steam for $60 and on Uplay for $50.
This would make some sense from Ubisoft's position, as they don't have to pay anyone a commission on their own store, and customers may be willing to come to them for a lower price than Steam. In this scenario, no Valve infrastructure is used for the Uplay sale.
So, again, the accusation (currently unproven, but alleged in court) is that Valve strong arms others into not being able to do this. Still it for cheaper on your own store or elsewhere that takes a smaller cut? We're gonna kick you off Steam.
This is believable, because Steam commands a dominating user share. So the threat of losing access to those users is very powerful. It's also believable because people don't become billionaires by being ethical.
However, naturally, Valve denies this unwritten policy exists. The cases are ongoing.
I always think this because hoard money is unethical, not because cannot earn billion without play dirty.
It's both.
Is there any proof? Or just survivorship bias?
Survivorship bias is kind of how capitalism works. The most unscrupulous ways are the easiest and fastest ways to gain money and money-adjacent things. Its not always good for long-term earning, but by that point the capitalists have moves on to something else leaving the workers to shoulder the loss. The less capable capitalists end up sharing that burden with the workers sometimes, meaning they end up not surviving to billionaire-hood.
Basically, to become a billionaire you have to survive all the other people trying to get there as well. Being more ruthless and more conniving, and more willing to throw others under the bus.
We can say there are exceptions, and Gabe and Valve certainly seem like ones... but as others have pointed out, they've resorted to less than savory methods on occasion to make sure they come out ahead. Its unlikely that its to an extreme reached by other industries (diamonds and chocolate come to mind first), but that doesn't mean they have no guilt to bear. Just more forgivable to most in light of alternatives.
I mean, math is the proof. Everyone who has become a billionaire utilized the labor of others to do so.
That capitalism, not play dirty.
Billionaires cannot exist without exploitation.
If you want to call that something else to hide it's ugliness, that's on you. Doesn't make it false.
That is the excuse that several random valve fanboys keep making for their favorite market manipulator, but there's now like 4 separate lawsuits from different developers/producers. I don't recall any of them mentioning that.
*when selling steam keys
There must be more specifics about that too. I know games I backed on patreon needed to make the price for a key higher since steam wouldn't allow it to be gifted at a lower cost. But Humble Bundle does that, so I'm not sure where the line is.
Sale prices are not what's being discussed here. You're allowed to have brief sales, with steam keys.
It's steam threatening to drop games that are being sold on NON steam key seller store fronts, for a lower price.
Nope. There's like 4 different lawsuits going on, about trying to sell on stores that do not offer steam keys. Steam unofficially requires the lowest (nonsale) price, regardless. It they threaten to drop you from steam completely.