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Vietnam bans Valve's monopolistic game platform Steam
(www.eurogamer.net)
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this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
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This article makes it seem like more of a protectionist move than an anti-monopoly move, which I'm in favor of when China does it so why wouldn't I support Vietnam doing it
It sucks for Vietnamese gamers who will now be forced to use a VPN and change their computer's locale to play foreign titles, but if in ten or twenty years there's Vietnamese game devs who wouldn't have been able to exist otherwise it'll be worth it.
Hopefully this will help prevent the good people of Vietnam from catching the gamer mind virus.
A common reason cited by g*mers for only using Steam is that they "want to have all their games in one place". They will literally never switch to anything else, no matter how good it is, if the majority of their "owned" games can only be accessed through Steam.
I really don't think that sentiment is all that common. People like to use Steam because it's a good service, and always innovating new ways to be a good service. There's no reason for family sharing to exist, or for it to have recently been overhauled in such a way that it's even smoother and more pleasant to use. They just did it because it makes a better consumer experience. There's no reason for Proton to exist, or for Valve to push into linux gaming at all. Linux was such an insignificant, tiny market. But Valve is making it a significant market single-handedly and that's fucking awesome.
Of course Valve, just like any other company in a capitalist society, only wants money. But Valve, unlike most companies in a capitalist society, is guided by the principle that people will fork over their money if the service is good. And they're goddamn right.
If Epic made a good service, or if Ubisoft made a good service, or if EA made a good service, or if Rockstar made a good service, or if Blizzard made a good service, or if anyone else made a good service, they'd have no problems getting people to use their service and Steam. The problem is that any time somebody other than Valve makes a game store, the only selling point for it is "you can't play this game if you don't download our store." Nobody ever tries actually making something good.
Microsoft began making noises about wanting a cut of the Steam gravy train around the time development started on the failed steambox 1.0 project.
I specifically feel that way. Steam is a resource and a convenience and it makes life more difficult to interact with games in a other way. Steam should be nationalized by vietnam.
I just hate Valve and CDPR much, much less than I do Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA and Epic
Just curious, why? I'm not too into what goes on in the game world, so I don't know who has been doing what. I just remember the hatred for Microsoft for monopoly, EA for some kind of anti-consumer practice, and Ubisoft for making shitty open world games and the microtransaction lootbox bullshit. What did CDPR and Valve do?
EA (and to some extent Valve) is also well known for profiting very heavily off of getting people addicted to gambling in the form of loot boxes. Also EA's former CEO said that they should capitalize on gamers in the heat of the moment to charge in-app transactions, like pay $1 to reload your magazine mid-combat in Battlefield. They're also notable for charging tons for DLC. Overall just very money hungry and gross.
Valve is not very good at censoring profitable fascist games from their marketplace (which goes in line with Gaben and his
freedom takes). Valve also takes like 1/3 of the price of the game for themselves, which is pretty high, especially for indie game devs who don't yet have many sales, and given that they have a de-facto monopoly. They also tried really hard to break EU and Australian law and not allow for refunds on games beyond very limited circumstances. Their work culture is also notoriously sexist and transphobic.
I think Valve is probably the lesser evil of game companies but I think that their reputation is much much better than it should be given all this shit. That being said, as a
enjoyer I'm happy they are trying to get gaming on Linux working better, even if it's just for their own selfish interests.
They're not as detestable than the other guys
Oh shit! I just now realized I completely misread your comment. I thought you said you hate Valve and CDPR much more than the others.
Sorry, pls disregard.
That’s the thing. Valve hasn’t really done anything. They don’t make games anymore. They just sell you shit. They have some controversies but nothing really worth caring (wrt steam) about except that one time they allowed mods to be charged. As such, you don’t get too many reasons to hate it outside of principle, which is fine, but no one else cares enough to make an alternative.
i hate making accounts and don't buy shit that makes me make a new account
I'd say it's rather common from what I see. Making new accounts for every launcher/store becomes a pain fast just because of the sheer number of those that exist.
The family sharing thing could very well be to encourage people to remain on the platform, I doubt that it is done just to provide a better experience.
The existance of Proton and the focus on Linux is just a backup plan for them. Sure, the material reality is that it is improving gaming on Linux for everyone, but I would keep that in mind, there is monetary incentive for them to do this, specially since Microsoft can become a walled garden whenever it wants to.
Besides they are not single handedly creating a market for Linux, this ignores all the work that was being done before Valve joined in, and ignores everything else going on too. They are a very big reason why, no doubt, but they aren't the only one. If they were truly serious about it all, much more money could be invested on the Linux side and Valve could be advertising it, but they aren't, the closest you get is the Steam Deck and that isn't even available in most of the world.
Even if they did, which I doubt is gonna happen, Valve is a de facto monopoly.
No matter how much money Epic throws at the issue, they still don't really compete with Valve. Other solutions like GOG and Itch.io are also not able to compete, and these last two are actually somewhat good.
You also can't play steam games without downloading their store.
I don't think epic games is that bad as a game auto-uploader. I just wish it took less time to launch.
They also have a better revenue share for game devs, which is good because steam should be pressured to share more revenue.
We already kind of see that, albeit in reverse. Many Steam games require third party launchers, almost as a kind of desperate attempt to get them installed on users' computers.
I can definitely agree with that. EGS in particular is frankly shameful for a company that constantly rakes in obscene amounts of money.
These companies don't want to just sell games to you. They want you to interact with their apps and live in their ecosystem and I have zero interest to learn to use a shittier Steam where I have no games
If they just sold you no-frills installers like GOG does (with an optional Steam-like ecosystem I never use) I wouldn't mind, but of course they don't want to do that
I know a lot of people who refuse to use Epic because something something Tencent bad!
It’s all just vibes. As long as your government connections aren’t visible and publicly talked about, you’re one of the good ones in liberals’ eyes
Meanwhile I don't use it because they had that giant data breach years ago and I don't want to risk another vector of my credit card getting stolen.
the epic app/launcher whatever was just bad to use, all the free games in the world could never make me want to wait for their junk to load and typically fail to load. IDK if its improved, but its too late now, I don;t even care to check in for the free stuff anymore.
I argue that is the case as well. Personally, I've been so dissatisfied with every alternative I have no desire to use a different service.
Steam also appears to be the only service that tends to do right by the customer so there is no push to seek an alternative.
Every indie game developer wishes gamers would use itch.io instead.