I remember Steam’s launch and understand completely.
I hated Steam for a long time because of Half-life 2.
I mean yeah.
I had to install some program and connect online to PLAY A SINGLE PLAYER GAME? I have the CD already and entered my CD key. Why does it need validation?
This is surely the death of PC gaming.
- me in 2005
Same. I think Civ 5 was my gateway game.
Oh MAN. I forgot about those times, hand typing in a 36 character CD key that was spat out by a dot matrix printer with questionable typeset legibility…
And importing foreign copies because they sold for cheaper in other countries. I still have a Korean box copy of Call of Duty 2. After buying one, my household needed a second so that I could play at the same time as my sibling, and didn’t want to spend a whole $50 for the privilege. They would even send you a copy of the key in email while you waited on the physical box to show up, because the importers knew what they were doing.
I also may have had a Malaysian CD key or two in my time 😅
That’s if Steam was even able to connect so you could enter the key.
You forced it on people by demanding it for a must-have game… which came on discs. To some extent, even now, fuck you.
Other comments talk about great sale prices, which is often an anticompetitive practice called “dumping.”
I’d be less blunt if people could admit it’s a monopoly. ‘Oh I never even consider other stores.’ Uh-huh. ‘I mean there’s competitors, but they hardly matter. Even billion-dollar companies can’t make theirs relevant.’ You don’t say. ‘Valve can even afford to let devs sell keys wherever, and the customers still get their ecosystem!’ Yeah, wow. We have a word for that. ‘How dare you.’
I remember the uproar when CS 1.6 required steam. It was huge and everyone was angry. It took a lot of pull that CS didn’t die because of steam, a lot of players stayed on 1.5 for a long time. But HL2 was too big of an argument to stay off steam.
It was Garry’s mod that got me personally. I saw it somewhere and my jaw dropped, I had to have it. Steam didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time, but the thought of a physics sandbox was practically unheard of before that.
I was finally convinced when steam sales were incredibly favorable.
I could either go to Gamespot and buy a used game for $20 + tax and have to deal with some sweat giving me shit about my gaming choices. Or buy that same game digitally for $10.
Around 2011, I remember not buying consoles anymore and continuing to grow my PC collection.
Around 2017, my pirating dropped significantly. I think I had like 1000+ steam games from buying so many bundles.
By 2020, I didn’t pirate a single PC game, the games I bought 10 years ago still work, and I bought a game from the Microsoft Store, only to rebuy it on Steam.
I mean… It was a gamble. Internet was still young. Speeds weren’t keeping up with game sizes outside a few major cities. I was mailed a few large files because it was quicker than downloading them. Not to mention the desire for physical copies over a digital thing you can lose with a bad hard drive was at an all time high.
Then people realized the internet wasn’t just nerd shit, ISPs slowly ramped up their DL speeds and suddenly the thing people mocked for not being feasible is doing well because of how convenient it became.
Gabe even admits he had doubts for awhile.
I wonder where gaming would be if he had listened to the doubters. There’s no denying valve has had a major impact on modern gaming
So what? That’s called survivorship-bias. He can only say that because he got excessively lucky against all odds. Lottery-winners shouldn’t exist either 😉
I still don’t feel it’s a valid game distribution platform. It’s a DRM platform, that’s all.
Nope, DRM is optional. You can install some games (Rayman Origins, for instance), copy the directory to a new computer with no Steam and run the exe. Steam also has Steam Input, but no one says it’s just a gamepad driver.
You might not have know, but Steam game can be without DRM, meaning there’s no need for the client to be running for it to be able to run. I’m not sure how up to date this is, but here’s a list for some of the game. The client are required only when the dev use the overlay or any steam function. You can even find a list of patchable game to make it drm free.
It’s only a little bit more DRM than GOG. It doesn’t automatically adds a DRM layer to all games. There are tons of games that you can backup by simply copying their folders. Even if the DRM layer is added, it’s very light, can be cracked easily and does not add any measurable overhead.
Steamworks is probably a major thing that makes the games rely on Steam client (and it’s not technically a DRM). But that’s up to developers to make the game work without client if they want, and the functionality often adds a lot of value. This makes the client a part of the product you get, and its value will degrade if you break the client. Some examples of such valuable functionality are overlay and steam input.
Its not that steam is good, its just that everyone else so extremly dumb and incompetent. And GOG only has a very limited catalogue
Ok so all of a sudden Gabe is everywhere giving quotable quotes. Is this damage control after the bazillion dollar fleet of yachts news, is he about to retire, is it just because of the HL2 anniversary, or…?
If you read this article you would know that these are quotes from the Half Life 20 year anniversary documentary released a few weeks ago.
I hate PCGamer so nah I’m good.
Ok, but feel free to continue sharing your stupid takes
Will do, thanks.
No problem 👌
Out of curiosity, why?
On phone it is crammed full of ads, even with Pi-hole. The fact that they’re regurgitating weeks-old news for this particular article doesn’t scream quality either.
What ads?
Not only do you spout nonsense about things you don’t bother to read, but you don’t even use adblock either? LolThe top of the article has a banner ad, there is a floating footer ad that refreshes every 20 seconds, as you scroll there are text ads, image ads, auto-playing video ads (one which floats to the top of the page once you scroll past it). Those ads. Edit to reply to your edit: pi-hole is an adblocker lol
Seriously though. Firefox and uBlock origin.
Don’t live with ads.Sucks to suck
