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Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

polygon.com

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Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#101

Post by pjmlp »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #59
pjmlp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never installed, nor plan to. OS specific stores, consoles, and retrogaming already have more games than I am able to play the rest of my life. If they were like Loki in the Linux gamming efforts, I would be willing to kind of sponsor it, for Proton I already have Windows at home.

> OS specific stores Other than my phone, I would never purchase software from an OS-specific store. Why would you ever choose to do that?

Why not?

It is already there, has enough choice to keep me entertained, I don't suffer from FOMO.

Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#102

Post by Maken »

bornfreddy wrote: post #88
nilslindemann wrote: post #73

Indeed, PayPal is not gone for everyone, luckily. I am from Europe and can still buy games using PayPal, just did. This makes me happy, as I am trying for over two weeks now to buy credits on Open AI, just to be able to translate texts from the FastAPI docs to German. Open AI and others do not support PayPal and not even a prepaid credit card, which my local bank sold me as "works everywhere". It is frustrating.

Maybe N26 / Revolut would work in your case?

Those banks also use Visa / Mastercard for payments.

Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#103

Post by rictic »

kasey_junk wrote: post #56
immibis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this has to be about extending credit. People are trying to buy games with money they have. Why do you say credit has to be involved? They could try cash-by-mail, like Mullvad.

If you are taking electronic payments you are extending credit. The rails (currently) require it. Cash by mail would be either the merchant extending credit to the purchaser if they allowed the game download before receipt or the purchaser extending credit if not.

You're speaking out of ignorance here. Steam has a long-term relationship with its customers. They can and will remove a title from a user's library if the payment is charged back, as well as placing restrictions on the account.

Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#104

Post by bee_rider »

mrguyorama wrote: post #82
ecshafer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love steam. A big part of my complaints 20 years ago was that I barely ran these games in the first place! Nowadays computers are a lot more powerful compared to games. Proliferation of credit cards, increased internet stability/speed, and more powerful computers have taken the warts away. Steam has also repeatedly shown to be on the side of the consumer, and also very offline friendly.

>Steam has also repeatedly shown to be on the side of the consumer Except when they only added any sort of return mechanism after violating consumer rights laws in all sorts of jurisdictions for like a decade. Though that was significantly less painful back in the day when a steam sale was actually meaningful. Steam's pro-consumer-ness is absurdly overblown, but the rest of consumer facing corporations are so fucking…

Nowadays their return policy is really generous though. And it gets me to buy more games, a couple hours is long enough to figure out if a game works on my end.

Of course, I’d never use their generous only-superficial-questions-asked-if-you-don’t-play-much return policy to, basically, get a demo of a game. Because that isn’t what it is intended for. But, I wonder if that ability has gotten them more sales…

Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#105

Post by kelseyfrog »

huhtenberg wrote: post #64
vlovich123 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonable by your standard. As others noted not necessarily reasonable by theirs, especially when you contrast it with other games that remain available. It also flies in the face of research that shows that games probably prevent those fantasies from taking place in the real world which seems preferable.

> research that shows ... Hit us with the source. Would love to see the methodology used in it.

What evidence would you accept? What would the methodology and conclusions look like for a study that would be convincing?

Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#106

Post by kulahan »

maverwa wrote: post #49
ectospheno wrote: post #2

Everyone I know personally still loves steam. We hate more than a few banks and strongly dislike the visa/mastercard duopoly but steam is great. Guessing the game drought is causing some news publications to reach for a story.

As someone who’s using steam daily for probably 50-75% of their lifetime now: I don’t love them, but it’s the lesser evil for sure. Sure, if GOG had even 20% of steams catalog and useability, it be no. 1 without question. But since we‘re sadly limited to this one reality, there is no alternative. XBOX GamePass is a trap I expect to spring every day, Uplay and EA Origin are just a splash screen I see when starting a g…

I’ll never get over the hypocrisy of people loving steam and its exclusives while hating EGS and its exclusives. I’ve never seen an almost purely tech-focused crowd pull so hard for a monopoly before.

Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#107

Post by taude »

trenchpilgrim wrote: post #8
ectospheno wrote: post #2

Everyone I know personally still loves steam. We hate more than a few banks and strongly dislike the visa/mastercard duopoly but steam is great. Guessing the game drought is causing some news publications to reach for a story.

It's more than love - I have friends who will actively refuse to buy games on other stores, even for significantly better prices. (To be fair - I think some stores like the Epic Games store actively make playing games on them worse, e.g. I played Alan Wake 2 through Epic and the achievements notifications were massively distracting, ruining many scary and dramatic moments, and they turn themselves back on every time…

Same, Steam is my gateway, and I don't have any issues with them.

Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#108

Post by kulahan »

fooqux wrote: post #7
ectospheno wrote: post #2

Everyone I know personally still loves steam. We hate more than a few banks and strongly dislike the visa/mastercard duopoly but steam is great. Guessing the game drought is causing some news publications to reach for a story.

> Guessing the game drought is causing some news publications to reach for a story. Curious. You don't think that this slippery slope we're on is worth reporting on?

I don’t. Slippery slope is always a fallacy until it affects something we want to conserve. There has been a huge push for an absolute lack of censorship in games, so it’s… pretty predictable that we’d see the pendulum swing back, I guess?

Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#109

Post by nilslindemann »

ronsor wrote: post #97
nilslindemann wrote: post #73

Indeed, PayPal is not gone for everyone, luckily. I am from Europe and can still buy games using PayPal, just did. This makes me happy, as I am trying for over two weeks now to buy credits on Open AI, just to be able to translate texts from the FastAPI docs to German. Open AI and others do not support PayPal and not even a prepaid credit card, which my local bank sold me as "works everywhere". It is frustrating.

PayPal is terrible for merchants, quite frankly, and often consumers at times. I don't understand why many people love them so much. There's a good reason many places don't accept PayPal nowadays.

I can confirm that PayPal is terrible. But that Open AI does not even accept a Prepaid Credit card from the second-largest German bank, that sucks.

Re: Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy

#110

Post by qualeed »

mrguyorama wrote: post #82
ecshafer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love steam. A big part of my complaints 20 years ago was that I barely ran these games in the first place! Nowadays computers are a lot more powerful compared to games. Proliferation of credit cards, increased internet stability/speed, and more powerful computers have taken the warts away. Steam has also repeatedly shown to be on the side of the consumer, and also very offline friendly.

>Steam has also repeatedly shown to be on the side of the consumer Except when they only added any sort of return mechanism after violating consumer rights laws in all sorts of jurisdictions for like a decade. Though that was significantly less painful back in the day when a steam sale was actually meaningful. Steam's pro-consumer-ness is absurdly overblown, but the rest of consumer facing corporations are so fucking…

>back in the day when a steam sale was actually meaningful.

Curious what you mean by this?

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