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The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

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Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#101

Post by johnnyanmac »

zuminator wrote: post #40
forrestthewoods wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an implicit most favored nation clause which is by definition anti-competitive. Valve takes 30%. You can’t, in practice, sell your game on Steam and on another store at a lower price. That’s anticompetitive. Downvote me if you want. But I recommend reading the transcripts from the Wolfire Games antitrust lawsuit against Valve before you do! They’re not a good look for Valve to say the least.

I'm genuinely curious. If that's the case, how is it that I have bought dozens of games on the humblebundle store (for Steam) that were far cheaper than the retail price on Steam itself?

Humble bundle uses steam keys, so they are working in tandem regardless.

That said: enforcement on such things is not going to be 100%. Larger companies will either be purposefully ignores or make their own internal deals and contracts to follow. Some smaller games will slip through like everything else in life (Valve can still let Malware slip in once in a blue moon. I'm not surprised you can find some niche Japanese game sold for cheaper on DLsite or wherever).

But the point is that they can push thst in devs because of the monopoly. And that's how you get stuff like the Wolfire lawsuit when a few people do push back.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#102

Post by ziddoap »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #83
ziddoap wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're a game dev, small or big it doesn't matter, and your game isn't on Steam, it might as well not exist That's an exaggeration. World of Warcraft, COD, League of Legends, all exist just fine. For brand new games, The Bazaar is doing very well and they're using their own launcher. (Slightly off-topic, but The Bazaar is really good, for anyone who likes card-based auto-battler games! Highly recommend.)

Why is the existence of the largest games on the market's survival proof thst Steam doesn't own 90% marketshare? Do people remember what monopoly means? Do they think any small dev can be a COD competitor tomorrow? Btw, based on my friend Bazaar still has its own balance issues arising every other patch.

>Why is the existence of the largest games on the market's survival proof thst Steam doesn't own 90% marketshare?

It's proof that what the parent commenter said, the portion I explicitly quoted, is an exaggeration.

>Btw, based on my friend Bazaar still has its own balance issues arising every other patch.

I mean, sure. Can you name any competitive game that doesn't have balance issues? I can't. What matters to me is the iteration speed to address balance issues, which The Bazaar does at a really nice cadence.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#103

Post by butlike »

INTPenis wrote: post #12
paxys wrote: post #9

Does that mean it can run Steam games offline and DRM-free?

You can run steam games offline on a regular PC. But I think you're trying to make a point about Steam DRM. Someone once said; there are two DRMs that everyone loves, Apple and Steam. And I have to say it's true. I am normally not a proponent of DRM, I've been pirating since TURBO 250 tapes on c64, but I do love Steam. I love it for what Gabe has done for us gamers on Linux. In my opinion he deserves 30%.

It's not about the 30%, it's about giving you the ball for $3.30 then taking the ball away sometime later saying you can no longer play with it and no, there won't be any refunds.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#104

Post by johnnyanmac »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #2

I'm out of the gaming platform loop but assume the timing of this post is related to the Switch 2 announcement? Others have suggested the Switch 2 is one of the best endorsements for buying a Steam Deck. (Not really a gamer, despite having written games, ha ha, but I picked up a Steam Deck a couple years ago to test a game I ported to it — and was duly impressed.)

It's sticker price shock for sure. Historically speaking, this will just smooth over and people will set their sticks in the sand. If the 900 dollar PS5 pro can shrug it off, then I doubt there's much issue here.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#105

Post by butlike »

paradite wrote: post #20

I might be missing the point of the author, but what's the difference between Steam Deck and a normal Windows gaming laptop in terms of software freedom? Wouldn't you have more software freedom on Windows? Because you can run both Windows and Linux software (via WSL2). I use macOS, Windows and Linux daily. They are all pretty open to installing and running your own software. And all of them have some sort of security…

It always briefly crosses my mind for a second when I install older games that package some ancient C++ redistributable with the installer.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#106

Post by whytevuhuni »

mrighele wrote: post #99
whytevuhuni wrote: post #3

They’re not saints, especially with the games distribution platform monopoly they’re sitting on top of, but... I really think Valve have become the de-facto owners of the “don’t be evil” motto nowadays, even if they don’t advertise themselves as such.

> They’re not saints, especially with the games distribution platform monopoly they’re sitting on top of They are a monopoly, but it doesn't look to me that they are taking particular advantage of the position. I buy mostly indie games, so I may be out of the loop, but what are they doing that makes them "not saints" ? (Expecially in relation to their market share)

I believe saints would implement some sort of distributed platform that others could interoperate with, by sharing the launcher’s list of games (e.g. have Epic games automatically appear on the list), share the list of friends and achievements between platforms, and so on.

Break the network effect, and incentivise things that work against it. Implement open protocols rather than walled gardens.

Allow other platforms to truly have a chance.

Saints sadly have no place in the capitalistic world we live in though. If they exist, they are quickly outcompeted.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#107

Post by protimewaster »

lolinder wrote: post #38
whytevuhuni wrote: post #3

They’re not saints, especially with the games distribution platform monopoly they’re sitting on top of, but... I really think Valve have become the de-facto owners of the “don’t be evil” motto nowadays, even if they don’t advertise themselves as such.

> They’re not saints, especially with the games distribution platform monopoly they’re sitting on top of They got and have maintained that monopoly (I'll let others debate the merits of that wording) by being very very good to their users, which doesn't make the existence of the monopoly evidence that they aren't saints. If they were maintaining it through anticompetitive means, sure, but I've never seen anyone claim…

> If they were maintaining it through anticompetitive means, sure, but I've never seen anyone claim that they are

They did get sued for having "anticompetitive restraints on pricing" and "Federal Judge John C. Coughenour ruled that those claims were credible and that Steam gamers can claim compensation for Valve's illegal monopoly, but gamers, unlike developers, must file individual arbitrations to do so."

So, yes, it's been claimed and legally found that they have at least some anticompetitive practices, at least in the USA.

(Quoted text is from https://www.bucherlawfirm.com/steam-case-explained)

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#108

Post by saghm »

sneak wrote: post #8
whytevuhuni wrote: post #3

They’re not saints, especially with the games distribution platform monopoly they’re sitting on top of, but... I really think Valve have become the de-facto owners of the “don’t be evil” motto nowadays, even if they don’t advertise themselves as such.

Not only is Steam not a monopoly, TFA mentions how it’s possible to easily install alternative app stores on the Steam Deck. It’s not just factually wrong to call them a monopoly, it’s uncharitable given that they are not engaging in anticompetitive practices despite being in a position (and arguably having the right) to do so.

I bought a Steam Deck OLED last year, and it's honestly astounding to me how well it both provides an amazing out-of-the-box experience for both the "gaming mode" Steam interface and the "desktop mode" with a regular Linux desktop without sacrificing basically any customization. It's a glorified tablet that in my baggiest pair of jeans I can just barely fit into my pocket, and somehow probably the most realistic attempt I've seen at making something suitable for the mythical "year of the Linux desktop", which wasn't even the goal!

It's also so clear to me in retrospect how long they've been building up to something like this. Investing in Wine and developing proton to make running Windows games on Linux as frictionless as possible, dipping their toes in hardware with much less ambitious projects like the Steam link and the controller for it so that they weren't going in without any experience as a company dealing with physical products...I can't imagine that this would have been able to pull for for most companies due to how much they had to be willing to invest in long-term endeavors that couldn't be guaranteed to succeed. I don't think it's that much of an exaggeration to say that they might have single-handedly lifted up Linux gaming to the point where I'll never end up using Windows on a personal machine again, and that's because they put so much time and effort into the tooling for running the games independent of their distribution network. At this point, I probably would have been willing to forgive them for releasing the Steam Deck as a locked-down device, but instead they went ahead the made it pretty much indistinguishable from my laptop and desktop in terms of how much I can change or remove things. There have been so many discussions about whether the App Store should be considered a monopoly or not on iOS, and if there's not consensus on that, I can't even fathom how someone could make the argument that Steam is.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#109

Post by INTPenis »

butlike wrote: post #103
INTPenis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can run steam games offline on a regular PC. But I think you're trying to make a point about Steam DRM. Someone once said; there are two DRMs that everyone loves, Apple and Steam. And I have to say it's true. I am normally not a proponent of DRM, I've been pirating since TURBO 250 tapes on c64, but I do love Steam. I love it for what Gabe has done for us gamers on Linux. In my opinion he deserves 30%.

It's not about the 30%, it's about giving you the ball for $3.30 then taking the ball away sometime later saying you can no longer play with it and no, there won't be any refunds.

Playing devil's advocate here but I've had a Steam account for well over 15 years now and my library of games has only grown.

I am sure there are stories and certain situations where people have lost access to games, but I think they're fringe cases.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#110

Post by butlike »

LightHugger wrote: post #45

> Some people have criticized that their company culture of libertarianism sometimes takes precedence over other important values including equity and inclusion. To push for equity is to discriminate and dehumanize people, so it's certainly good that valve does not put this value ahead of anything else let alone allow them to take precedence over taking care of their customer base. They are perfectly inclusive as wel…

The flat structure deadlocks projects and adds downward pressure to not take on ambitious ones (Half-Life 3?) as it requires massive-scale politicking.
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