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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

#41

Post by immibis »

lenerdenator wrote: post #34
nimbius wrote: post #4

If valve can escape the Microsoft store, it can handle a few payment processors. what would happen if Valve accepted Cryptocurrency? in turn, what might happen if valve decided to become a cryptocurrency exchange exclusive to the gaming community? EDIT: another solution is to use a load-wallet based system to shroud transactions from your financial nanny. money in, money out, no explicit evidence of a purchase.

Load-wallet would probably be better. Crypto is almost as bad as handing over your ID to see "adult" materials, because both require you to trust two parties (government ID stores and the general crypto community) that have shown themselves to not be trustworthy at all .

I'm not seeing how the "general crypto community" can be compared to a "government ID store".

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

#42

Post by immibis »

kasey_junk wrote: post #33
wokkel wrote: post #3

It's a stupid situation that banks and payment processors force their ethics upon while other companies take the blame (valve in this case). They should just dommoney transfers and as long as the transfer itself is legal should not have any opinion on the parties or product involved in the transaction.

There are 3 issues being commingled within this. First, the networks have brand protection stipulations for any partner that uses the network. None of them want to be known as the porn brand. Second, porn (and other similar categories) have a different risk profile than other charges. Specifically chargeback risk goes through the roof. None of the members of the network want to deal with sales of things that spike ch…

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.

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

#43

Post by bsimpson »

jjice wrote: post #25
trenchpilgrim wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I bought a game on Epic over Steam for the better price once and I'll never do it again. Steam is just too good of a platform and Epic has a lot to work out. Valve has also earned my trust way more than Epic has. Epic comes off as a company of the people sometimes when they drop a suit against Apple or something, but they're exactly the same when it suits them (like their dark patterns for in-game purchases). There h…

Epic is scummy as hell.

They try to play folk hero when it suits them, but someone who actually cared about individual well-being wouldn't lock Linux players out of their flagship games, or use dark patterns like artificial scarcity to get people to spend more time/money in their ecosystem.

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

#45

Post by rkomorn »

bsimpson wrote: post #43
jjice wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a game on Epic over Steam for the better price once and I'll never do it again. Steam is just too good of a platform and Epic has a lot to work out. Valve has also earned my trust way more than Epic has. Epic comes off as a company of the people sometimes when they drop a suit against Apple or something, but they're exactly the same when it suits them (like their dark patterns for in-game purchases). There h…

Epic is scummy as hell. They try to play folk hero when it suits them, but someone who actually cared about individual well-being wouldn't lock Linux players out of their flagship games, or use dark patterns like artificial scarcity to get people to spend more time/money in their ecosystem.

Agreed.

Epic the past couple of years has been a great example of the "a broken clock is correct twice a day" idiom, at best.

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

#46

Post by mnahkies »

immibis wrote: post #37
trenchpilgrim wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For desktop gaming, GOG should be prioritized above Steam.

+1 - I used GOG for the first time the other week to get a copy of Morrowind so I could see how https://openmw.org/ was these days, and it was a really good experience.

I did have to use some obscure tool to extract it being on Linux but it's nice to know I won't have to purchase another copy again. There's a number of games I've had to repeat purchase (mostly from disk to digital), and with modding the forced auto updates on steam can also be a pain

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

#47

Post by devnullbrain »

kasey_junk wrote: post #33
wokkel wrote: post #3

It's a stupid situation that banks and payment processors force their ethics upon while other companies take the blame (valve in this case). They should just dommoney transfers and as long as the transfer itself is legal should not have any opinion on the parties or product involved in the transaction.

There are 3 issues being commingled within this. First, the networks have brand protection stipulations for any partner that uses the network. None of them want to be known as the porn brand. Second, porn (and other similar categories) have a different risk profile than other charges. Specifically chargeback risk goes through the roof. None of the members of the network want to deal with sales of things that spike ch…

This is not true. Here's a page from Collective Shout, the group mentioned in the article:

https://www.collectiveshout.org/steam_campaign_history

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

#48

Post by babypuncher »

pjmlp wrote: post #13
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.

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.

Valve/Steam is the reason gaming on Linux is even viable today

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

#49

Post by maverwa »

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 game in steam, and I almost forgot the epic store exists, despite their “free game” Marketing campaign.

It’s not perfect, it’s anti-consumer way to often, and it’s for sure a monopoly’s, but steam is still my favorite poison And yes, if they decide to disable me account and cut me off my pile of shame I will have an impact.

But owning games does not seem to be an option generally. Exceptions exist, ofc.

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

#50

Post by ecshafer »

creaturemachine wrote: post #36
trenchpilgrim wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Funny how we got here. Anyone with a 20 year badge remembers the hatred in the community over being forced to use it.

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.

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