I only buy games on Steam, GOG and ItchIO. The main reason I don't give a cent to stores from EA, Ubisoft or Epic Games anymore is their services and terms are horrible. I'm all in for supporting competition when it's good competition.
this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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I would buy from GOG too, if they provided Linux support in form of an official launcher. And if available also official Linux builds. Back in the days GOG did that, but they stopped doing it. And before someone comes after me, I know there are alternative launchers on Linux. But I don't want to give GOG money for work others doing it for free. I don't want support a company who only cares about Windows.
I bought Resident Evil 0 on GOG yesterday but Heroic wouldn't download the game for some reason (stuck at 0%). Refunded, got it on Steam for cheaper and it launched right away.
Sometimes I purchase on GOG out of principle and for some reason they always punish me for it.
stores from EA, Ubisoft or Epic
Better yet, games
Larian isn't wrong, Steam mostly works. Stable client, refunds, workshop, Proton, massive userbase and tools that actually help developers and players. A lot of other stores still feel half-baked next to that.
But deserved != harmless. Valve has way too much power, discovery is a dumpster fire, and their communication and policy decisions can be arbitrary. Dominance like that rewards sloppiness and makes it harder for better alternatives to gain traction.
So yeah, Steam earned its place, but I do not want any one company owning PC gaming. Competition keeps them honest, and right now we need more real contenders, not just storefronts throwing money at exclusives.
Looking at how other tech areas have all consolidated into monopolies or oligopolies, valve is the best case scenario for PC gaming.
Imagine anyone else being in control. Activision? EA? Ubisoft? The gaming industry is not immune from disgusting money hungry corporations stepping on the users to squeeze out every little penny they can. Valve has never done this and has kept others in check for the longest time. The day we lose the current version of Valve will be disastrous for the industry, I'm pretty sure.
Competition keeps them honest, and right now we need more real contenders, not just storefronts throwing money at exclusives.
Then the competition should put in the work.
That's kinda his point.
The competition is at work, but too many fanboys blindly bashing on anything that isn't Steam is making it very hard for them.
Which competition are you referring to?
Is discovery a dumpster fire? I mean sure it could be better but I dont think its a dumpster fire. It seems there are constantly new small team indie games doing wild numbers on the platform. If discovery was truely bad we would be seeing the charts dominated by big studios.
The regular Next Fests have probably been the single best thing for game discovery I've found in s long time. Nothing beats an actual hands-on demo for deciding if I'll wishlist a game.
I guess he talking about the search system, which is a dumpster fire relative to other Steam features.
Are we using the same product? There's a vast array of quality tags that seem to genuinely work to find stuff?
You can't filter using more than one tag as an "and" filter, only "or". That's pretty basic for a filter feature, isn't it? It's just surprising given how well implemented other Steam features had been in my experience.
He wasnt talking about search it was about algorithmic recommendation.
But you can filter by multiple tags. When you click search select the advanced search at the bottom of the dropdown. It does all the things you mention and far more
Agreed. I’d add the predatory lootbox/gambling in stuff like counterstrike.
While many accuse Valve of monopolising the PC gaming market, others argue that Steam's dominance is simply the result of doing things right.
These assertions do not contradict. I cannot overstress that.
This whole article is 'Valve's monopoly is fine because they did things right.'
Having one good store is not, in itself, a problem. But it does mean we're one fuckup away from having no good stores.
And it will last til Gabe dies. Then I guarantee it enshittifes so fast it will make your head spin.
He should turn it into a non-profit right before he dies and put the ip under a foundation or something so it can’t be sold off in pieces.
As long Valve doesn’t become publicly traded they will be fine. The problems start when companies optimize for shareholder value rather than customer value.
You think there aren't a bunch of greedy finance whores biding their time until Gabe dies in order to take over and enshitify everything so they can squeeze as much money out of Steam as possible?
Private equity buyout would be the same problem but even faster.
Well yeah, that will be the potential first sign to look out for. If that happens no need to think it won't get worse like everything else.
Maybe. I've heard Gabe's son is set to take over when the time comes, hopefully he's been raised right.
Hmm. The founder's son usually just squeezes the company for profit.
citation needed
Really!? Gives me hope!
As soon as the business people gain control they will pivot everything to maximize profit. Enshitification is just a euphemism for business.
I feel like they've earned it because they've put in the most work. They are the best in the game because they make the user experience the best there is. EA, Ubisoft, and Microsoft have/had their own storefronts or launchers but they are clunky and unpleasant to deal with and the only benefits they had were exclusives. They've never put any effort into user experience and were mainly doing it to make themselves more money and it definitely showed. The only one that's ever been a real competitor is Epic Launcher. And while it has gotten better over the years, the user experience is still not anywhere near Steam. And even now the Epic Launcher is still unpleasant to deal with in a lot of cases unless you just use it to play Fortnite.
With Steam everything just works and is basically seamless. Not only that, before Steam the modding community for most games had an immense learning curve and most people just avoided it save for Minecraft. And as far as I can tell you can't even mod games you buy on the Microsoft Store because their file structure is atrocious.
The only storefront I wish was better/more popular was GOG. It's not bad and has a lot of benefits (Like no DRM and offline installers), but Steam just makes everything so easy it's hard not to get stuck with them once you've started.
Offline installers are the reason I only use my money on gog. I like to have control over the things I own, though it's getting harder and harder these days. But where it's still possible I use it, and gog is the only storefront that offers this service (which beats every other service I could think of).
The only storefront I wish was better/more popular was GOG. It’s not bad and has a lot of benefits (Like no DRM and offline installers), but Steam just makes everything so easy it’s hard not to get stuck with them once you’ve started.
Well the no DRM/offline installer part is the most important part. I buy a game, I download and install it. If I need more features I may be better off with Steam anyway.
As far as I know the Steam DRM is not mandatory to use for developers.
Yes, I still need to go through Steam for every install.
People feel good about Valve because they don’t rely on anti consumer behavior. It does what I want and doesn’t enforce me on other crap.
I'm a fan of Valve and Steam too. But you cannot deny that Valve does shitty stuff too. In example Valve is the company who either invented or popularized Loot Boxes. And they don't do anything about the Black Market for the item trading and selling, such as Counter Strike skins and so on. And there are other little things that could be done, but nothing else upsets me as this.
But besides that, for the most part I love Valve. The commitment to support on Linux is unmatched in the gaming world. As a private company, Valve can do whatever they want. I genuinely think that PC gaming wouldn't be this good without Valve. If anything, Microsoft would have the power... which in an alternate universe people have to suffer.
Devs are still free to sell their game outside of Steam and charge whatever price they want for that version
I think you're not allowed to "sell" it for free with the same version and features. Which should be unsurprising.
You can, and plenty do
Krita is open source but paid on Steam
Not and keep their listing in Steam they can't.
You can though
So we're acknowledging it's a monopoly? Cool. Defense is still an acknowledgement. I've had the weirdest goddamn arguments with people insisting they'd never shop anywhere else, and if games aren't on there it's their own fault they're doomed... but how dare anyone use the m-word! Obviously that can only mean one seller with absolute control, like how Standard Oil owned all 85% of the market.
The question is, is it a monopoly because they are doing something to force their way into that position, or does every other offering just suck?
And what is the solution to said monopoly? Because as far as I can tell, the only way to give the other shitty stores a chance is to deliberately make the steam experience worse.
There’s also the question of if this is even a real problem. For instance, if two people are trying to sell lemonade on their street, and one is just throwing a lukewarm cup of haphazardly crushed lemons at you for $2, and the other is charging $3 but giving you a cool glass of carefully squeezed lemons… the second one may have a monopoly, but that’s because the first isn’t competent. Should the second be punished in some way because of that?
Saying it's a monopoly doesn't mean it needs solving. Anti-competitive behavior is a problem - but being a monopoly doesn't require that abuse, and you don't need a monopoly to exercise that abuse.
Yet people get deeply fricking weird about saying it's a monopoly.
It's naked taboo. It's people feeling icky about a word, and actively refusing to engage in rational argument about meaning. When someone has dogmatically internalized that monopoly=bad and Steam=good, the text doesn't matter. Even pointing out things they just said gets dismissed as some kind of attack against The Good Store.™
We have to start from plain acknowledge that Steam's competitors do not matter. They are plentiful and irrelevant. Explaining why they are doesn't change that they are.
There should be case studies about the ineptitude of competing stores. A small handful aside who have found a niche and serve it well (itch.io and GOG come to mind) the other stores just dish out a store front that is under-cooked for what is there and lacking features beyond that and then are surprised when people prefer Steam.
For example I'm not aware of a Workshop style system in any other store, so any game that features community made content will be a better experience on Steam.
I will say they were less weirdly invasive than whatever it was EA had me running just to play sims 2 in 2017ish. Why tf do you really need to protect you IP that hard for a game that old with newer sequels for???