Anyone who is old enough to remember trying to buy digital copies of games pre-Steam knows how much value Stream brings to the table.
If it’s not on Steam, I don’t even consider it.
What about GOG and its DRM-free games? What about Itch.io and its exceptionally low cut and pretty much completely open-door policy? There are other services that are good. Origin, UPlay, Epic, and other stuff sucking does not mean they’re all bad.
GOG can suck my dick. They spammed my email with newsletters after I would repeatedly turn them off. We do need a DRM free alternative but for that I’ll stick with piracy
If it’s not on Steam, I don’t even consider it.
I’m the same, but I’m dreading the day if steam stops being the savior of gaming.
Nobody can get a foot in the door. Epic tried by buying up exclusives but that just pissed everyone off. Me included.
That’s a sad take. You are just closing doors on yourself.
I use all the stores available.
As much as I like steam, I’m not putting all my digital eggs in one basket.
The day steam decides to shutdown or remove my account, I lose all those games. No thanks.
Blind faith ain’t for me.
I get your point, but a behemoth like Valve is so unlikely to be closing their doors in our lifetimes it’s hardly worth discussing.
The real point here is that after spending thousands or tens of thousands on Steam, our next of kin or beneficiary will not get them once our lifetime ends because Steam doesn’t sell games. They provide a license to access content.
Steam still suffers from the ‘illusion of ownership’ issue, and places that offer DRM free copies of titles are superior in this way. However it’s plain for all to see that not many people care about this point. All the masses want is to play their games.
In that regard, Steam is king.
Your lifetime is nearly 80 years. Companies lasting 80 years is ultra rare in history, large behemoths included. I bet you can already name several behemoth IT companies that’s already come and gone.
I wouldn’t trust even larger behemoths like google and MSFT to last another 80 yrs. It’s just too statistically unlikely.
We have piracy for if Steam fails, GoG and Itch’d probably jump at the chance to take some of Steams happy customer base as well if Steam falls from grace post GabeN
As great a take as that is who will host the online service? Piracy can get you far but not always all the way. We need an open source game hosting option. But even that is not all. We need one that has the visibility of steam and the UI to boot. There a a couple of problems that legitimately need solving before we can just say piracy is the answer.