The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly • Hacker News Board

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#191

Post by Rohansi » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #177

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 profit off getting kids addicted to gambling. Is that not evil?

While I don't disagree with you I also don't think Valve is particularly bad in this area. Valve's games are not made for younger kids and Steam's parental controls are excellent.

Mobile games, especially Roblox, are a lot worse because they target much younger children with less parental control.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#192

Post by Cpoll » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

jasonjmcghee wrote: post #150

lupusreal wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steam is a great low-pressure sales environment. Eh.. It seems very common for Steam users to have libraries of thousands of purchased games, 99% unplayed, purchased at steep discounts during sales. The way Steam operates does a great job of instilling Fear Of Missing Out, and getting people to buy things they never end up using.

> very common for Steam users to have libraries of thousands of purchased games, 99% unplayed source?

Some quick googling: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/06/is-the-total-value-of...

Anecdotally, myself and most of my friends are in this boat, with very large "piles of shame." Humble Bundles tend to contribute greatly to this.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#193

Post by piyuv » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 5:41 PM UTC

whytevuhuni wrote: post #106

mrighele wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Saints wouldn’t have DRM, a-la GOG

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#194

Post by DaedPsyker » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

cheeseomlit wrote: post #50

If only gaben could live forever... It'll be a dark day for gaming when he's gone and valve gets bought out by MS or goes public.

It will be. The best case might be valve turns into some form of co-op, it might keep some of that culture going.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#195

Post by sotix » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 5:45 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #125

glenstein wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking the seal and demonstrating the capabilities, and getting it into the hands of consumers set the conditions for the Steam Deck's success. The Steam Deck exists because the Steam Machine existed, and it's in this context that the Steam Machine succeeded. You don't need overnight instant success for the program itself to succeed.

Dark souls exists because Demons Soul existed. But if you ask Sony or even FromSoft, they'd never say Demons Soul was a success. It just didn't bomb so dosasteroisly as to prematurely cancel an entire sub-genre. You can have disappointments and even failures while Also admitting they lead to successes by not giving up. That was all I was saying.

It seems you’re conflating financial success with all types of success. There can be engineering successes and artistic successes in this context.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#196

Post by Cpoll » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 5:48 PM UTC

TiredOfLife wrote: post #112

TehCorwiz wrote: post #22

No company is your friend. But Valve does a great job at being consumer friendly. Steam is a great low-pressure sales environment. It provides features that make it more enjoyable for users to play, hang out, communicate, share content, mods. It doesn't harangue you or change your settings, or the UI, or your games (mostly) without reason and warning. Things work like you expect them to in other apps, back buttons wo…

Many of the consumer friendly decisions were a direct result of lost lawsuits. Valve also has unleashed the scum that is lootboxes, paid battle passes, paid leveling, nft store (technically not nft, but 90% of one).

Crates were in TF2 (and in some MMOs before that), but I think you can more readily blame Overwatch for that one. And paid levelling was a KMMO staple long before. But I can't argue about the DotA2 battle passes, or the expensive hats/stat-track weapons.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#197

Post by garrettjoecox » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 5:55 PM UTC

jagermo wrote: post #132

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.)

For me, the switch is the only console I trust to leave my kids alone with. Nintendo builds great games for kids, but you pay for them. I mean, launch games like Mario Odysee and Breath of the Wild are still sold at full price, years later.

I have kids, and have had a Nintendo switch since launch. I cannot even let them play Mario kart alone without them being prompted to visit the store to buy levels or more characters. My 4 year old cannot go a few minutes without ending up back on the home screen, stuck in the settings menus or in the controller reconfiguration menu, asking me to get them back into the game (because they pressed the Home button)

Nintendo has lost it's way in regards to sandboxing a child in a safe environment. I looked at the new console and all I could think about is "another button I have to teach the kids to avoid"

Call me old fashioned, but I have purchased Nintendo DS lites for each of them as that is the last handheld I could find that doesn't introduce a browser or storefront with internet connectivity.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#198

Post by vel0city » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 5:58 PM UTC

SXX wrote: post #180

vel0city wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can always return games you played under 2 hours no questions asked. Within 14 days.

14 days is pretty much standard cool off window for lots of services. If you havent played game at all most likely Steam will just accept return in much wider return window especially if there some new sale has started making game much cheaper or something. Also if for some reason game was compatible with your platform (Linux, Mac) there are cases where Valve refunded money years after due to developers breaking comp…

I don't disagree it's generous compared to alternatives and nice it's written into a standard, but it's not the "always" alluded to in the above poster's comment. There are limits other than just play time.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#199

Post by vel0city » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 5:59 PM UTC

TehCorwiz wrote: post #181

vel0city wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I bought Alan Wake 2 on Epic since it's a timed exclusive. I plan on buying it again once it releases on Steam because Epic is just so terrible. Epic is so terrible, I'll pay them twice for the same game! And we wonder why the game industry is in such a shit shape...

I know that some portion of profits from the game, even on Steam, will go to them because they funded and published it. But after the exclusivity expires I'd expect Remedy Entertainment will probably have the standard 70/30 split with valve and whatever Epic see from that sale will be a smaller percentage. I love Remedy and how they practice their craft and art. Economic semantics aside, yes. I hate Epic so much I'll…

Paying them for their tactics aren't going to change their decisions, only reinforce them.

Re: The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

#200

Post by dezzadk » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 6:01 PM UTC

> The Steam Deck is a great gaming system. This isn’t because of it’s great battery life. A Nintendo Switch would probably have better battery life. It’s not because of its great performance. I don’t usually play AAA games, so I wouldn’t know.

First paragraph pretty much confirms my belief that some people who aren't hardcore gamers don't buy the Steamdeck to play games, they buy it because they are Steam/Valve fanboys.

Steam doesn't give a flying f if it runs the games on Xorg or Wayland - the Wine project made Wine run on Wayland, not Steam. What Steam does is hire Crossover developers to hack compatability to newer games, because thats all that matters from a business perspective and Valve is as corporate as any other.

Don't forget that Wine has been a a several decades long project before Steam hired some Crossover devs to fork it and take the limelight from the original project, the gamer-stupidity seems to forget this and give all credit to Valve which is ignorant and disrespectful to the work Wine has put in over several decades.

Lots of Linux ports have been cancelled since this is becoming the norm.. Rocket League and many other games simply don't see the reason to maintain their Linux ports. Linux ports are being cancelled more than ever.

Honestly, this shift towards running everything in Wine disgusts me. If you told me before the Steamdeck released that they would try to sell a handheld running wine on battery I'd be pissing myself laughing from how inefficient and terrible that sounds. Software crash can happen at any time, thats life with Wine.

Another thing is that I know people who own Steamdecks who have zero clue what games to play on it. It ends up being pirated Nintendo games or emulator games. Often they have to fiddle with control maps, settings before playing.

My idea of a handheld is that I don't want to tinker with it. I want the integrated out-of-the-box experience - maintaining another system despite my own PC is not something I prioritize my time on, same reason I don't buy an Android phone, really..

Native Linux ports matters!