Comment by chazeon
3 years ago
Apple themselves clearly know their bad reputation in the gaming community, and their lock down model for selling software will also not be embraced by many gamers. In this respect a $399 Steamdeck is a better device than Apple’s piece with 10x the price.
... released by Steam, a company with a lock down model for selling software. The gaming world has long embraced the App Store model. In fact, I'd argue the macOS and iOS App Stores were probably inspired by Steam.
Having an app store != locked down. AFAIK, you can run any software you want on a Steam deck without any hacking needed. Can you say the same for any non macOS apple product?
Steam and Apple models are extremely different. What you buy on Steam can’t be launched outside of Steam but Steam is happy to serve as a launcher for content coming from outside of it and will allow said content to use its extra functionalities (controller support and chat notably). Valve hardware is always notoriously open. The deck runs and allows you to access Linux.
Apple is completely different and outside of MacOS strictly controls everything.
AFAIK Steam doesn't require developers to use their DRM and there are absolutely games that you can purchase through Steam and launch independently with just the exe.
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> What you buy on Steam can’t be launched outside of Steam
Not true. Steam has a lot of DRM-free games that can be bought on Steam Store and are typically started through Steam client but do not really require Steam to be running. They're simply not integrated with Steam in any way.
You can boot most games you buy on steam from the folder. It is extremely weak DRM.
The difference being is that Valve is competing a (mostly) open market. Clearly they are offering enough value to earn their 30%?
Not really an open market when one company has as large a share of sales as steam. Valve may have a different ethos from Apple, but both agree on principle of extracting monopoly rents.
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Steam Games are a one-and-done deal, while App Store games are slimy with subscription mildew.
Yeah Valve/Steam seem relatively decent/ethical now (eg. Steam deck being a PC u can install what u want on and modify and repair), but it's just cus the average tech company has gotten so bad. When I 1st saw steam I was appalled, its a DRM system, a program running on my system that has no function and I dont want, + a bunch of online or social features I dont give a shit about.. and none of that has changed.
Unfortunately, even beyond DRM, online competitive gaming is both an extremely popular hobby AND the most direct use case for trusted computing outside of top secret work. There simply can't be a fun, popular online competitive game without strict verification of the client software to keep out cheating, so Steam offers an extremely valuable service in this alone (as do other DRM schemes).
The alternative to Steam used to be limited use CD keys. Steam's not perfect but it's better than hoping you haven't re-installed the thing you paid for one too many times.
DRM in Steam is mostly up to the developers. They provide the API for it but hardly anyone implements it. I'm fairly sure I can launch most of my library without Steam even running.
You realize the company is called Valve right?
haha, yeah, I do. My bad. It was supposed to read: "with games released on Steam, by a company with a lock down model for selling software."
Anyways, it looks like my point made it across.