Why all the Steam hate?

[MaddSkillz]

So I get the angst of players that perhaps came recent to Steam (or have been here a bit) and now compare it to Epic, but frankly if not for Steam there would not be any online PC market places at all. Uplay, Origin, Battlenet, Epic - now maybe Verizon and Google - they are all riding off Steam.

Sure Steam could improve, it does all the time. But no way im going to run 6+ more? game platforms to run my games (165 on Steam alone). Simply having all my games in one location, that get updated all the time for various OS, driver or other content update, is a massive benefit. Beats the BS of having to search for updates once a upon a time.

Yes not perfect. But so much better than it used to be (piss off i know im likely older than most) but still has a lot of upside.

Peace

[AmsterdamHeavy]

引用自 Ganger：

引用自 drewbstar：

Most likely != won't ever. If Epic can provided a better service at a better price then I'd consider moving.
Also I have no idea what you mean. I don't like exclusivity, so it shouldn't matter that it is exclusive? Smh. By releasing on both platforms, it forces the companies to compete on price, quality, and customer support. Exclusivity kills all that.

There are other things to consider besides just price.

What im trying to say is that you seem to have blind loyalty to valve. What I can gather is that your willing to spend more money buying Doom on steam than shopping else elsewere.

Plus price point is the major reason people shop elsewere. If I can save £10 (uk pounds) buying e.g Doom on bethesda then I will. Then that £10 saved will be better spend on my mortgage or something else.

I can go to a key site and generally get any game cheaper than on Steam - and I get a Steam key when I buy it to add it to my library.

Steam is not the only place to buy Steam games.

Id also add that I have not seen this simple fact mentioned in any of these "Steam Sucks Epic Rulez" threads:

I own a LOT of games. That means I enjoy the convenience of all of my stufff being under one cover. I felt this way since Steam launched; I remember the days of having boxes of CD cases around because thats were the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ keys were, and if you wanted to reinstall a game, you needed discs, sometimes a LOT of them. Unreal Black Edition comes to mind, I think it was 7 discs at the time.

I own a lot of games. The free ♥♥♥♥ Epic is giving away? I own them all already. Who cares?

I own a lot of games, and I could care less about what the latest "hot release" might be. I pay full; price for maybe one game a year - because I dont need to unless I *really* want to play some new release. That almost never happens.

I own a few games over at Blizzard. I dont even think about them. Based on this, I dont need or want another store or game launcher complicating my existence.

This isnt being a Steam fanboy, though I kind of am. Not to be confused necessarily with a vALVE fanboy of course...

Its a quite practical decision for anyone that A) doesnt chase free ♥♥♥♥ like a monkey B) isnt desperate to play the new "hottest" IXth version of some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ franchise C) refuses to be manipulated by the nonsense that are "platform exclusives". Which, in this case is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ farce because the platform is PC ffs.


-A Loyal Steam Customer, who enjoys being a loyal Steam customer

[Ganger]

引用自 drewbstar：

What? My did you read my first post? I have no loyalty to Valve. It's just that the other ones are worse. I really have stopped buying games on Steam, Humble Bundle has been carrying me for about a year.
It isn't just about price or the effort in shopping elsewhere. I'm a little more willing to spend money on a game if I know I can refund it, it'll play right, and they won't leak all my info. My reasons I don't like exclusivity are listed above.

Sorry dude I didn't read your first post. Just that post seemed like you did :( Gota go now, got a meeting to go too. But I be back laters to comment some more.

[Primalbanana]

引用自 The Rock God：

引用自 Jasmo：

I agree. In my opinion, at least, Steam cutomer support is fairly well handled when compared to other online game markets in regards to timely responses and helpfulness.

I disagree.
What's the response time for Steam's "support" for an account issue?
https://store.steampowered.com/stats/support
2 hours to 2 days?

For comparison:
Origin: Has live chat. I've used it.
Uplay: Has live chat.
Blizzard: I've talked - literally talking on the phone - to their support for an account issue.

Steam is nowhere close to them for support.

Have to say that as much as I dispise EA, they've gotten pretty good at the customer support. Also I should note that the most helpful people when it comes to support are generally US based. I feel a sence of relief when i call support from the UK and here that southern twang :)

[Purple Tentacle]

引用自 drewbstar：

引用自 Purple Tentacle：

i dont understand the hate towards steam. and i really dont understand people using its 30% cut (which can go lower) as a reason to hate on it. 30% is the standard not just in gaming but across any similar online platform for any type of product(s) not just games.

also its not the consumers job to worry about companys bottom line, saying you dont like X because a company (which is making plenty of money) could make more elsewhere is stupid. especially when that platform(s) is demonstrably worse that steam in many ways and does not excel ahead of steam in more than one area (support)

i dont have blind loyalty to anyone or anything, steam included. i will always use the option that is best for me, quite simply there isn't anything out there right now that is better than steam, if a platofrm wants to compete it needs to find and grow from a niche orgap in the market like GOG. not buy games exclusivity like epic

could steam improve ? yes. however steam is still miles above anyone else right now

by taking a 30% cut developers are less likely to lower prices/have sales/etc. That leads to a direct increase in cost for consumers.
It isn't a source of "hate", it's a source of "Valve, stop being greedy so devs want to release games on your platform (for a fair price)"

I think exclusivity is terribly dumb. It's inheriently anti-consumer. However, I do recognize it as a source of competition and it's finally SOMETHING to make Valve move an inch. If something I care about like Doom Eternal gets locked out, I'll be sad. (Most likely won't even buy it.)
But if it means Valve is taken down a notch and is no longer the "eff you, pay me, where else are you going to go?" monopoly-tier platform, I'm sure I won't shed too many tears.

games have literally never been cheaper than they are today when you take inflation into account, that 30% which is not only a gaming industry standard but a standard across all online products which offer a similar type service can and will drop to upto 20%. valve also does a whole lot more for its cut than epic, i can reel off the advantages steam has over epic. also games are not currently cheaper on the epic store than steam (apart from metro purposfully being cheaper in the US which is the only case of a game being cheaper) infact in many countries the cost is significantly higher.

this lower cost thing simply isn't true, sure the publishers might get more money but thats not being passed on, and it wont be.

again i dont chose what or where to buy depending on how much money a business will make i decide based on what is best for me

[drewbstar]

引用自 Purple Tentacle：

引用自 drewbstar：

by taking a 30% cut developers are less likely to lower prices/have sales/etc. That leads to a direct increase in cost for consumers.
It isn't a source of "hate", it's a source of "Valve, stop being greedy so devs want to release games on your platform (for a fair price)"

I think exclusivity is terribly dumb. It's inheriently anti-consumer. However, I do recognize it as a source of competition and it's finally SOMETHING to make Valve move an inch. If something I care about like Doom Eternal gets locked out, I'll be sad. (Most likely won't even buy it.)
But if it means Valve is taken down a notch and is no longer the "eff you, pay me, where else are you going to go?" monopoly-tier platform, I'm sure I won't shed too many tears.

games have literally never been cheaper than they are today when you take inflation into account, that 30% which is not only a gaming industry standard but a standard across all online products which offer a similar type service can and will drop to upto 20%. valve also does a whole lot more for its cut than epic, i can reel off the advantages steam has over epic. also games are not currently cheaper on the epic store than steam (apart from metro purposfully being cheaper in the US which is the only case of a game being cheaper) infact in many countries the cost is significantly higher.

this lower cost thing simply isn't true, sure the publishers might get more money but thats not being passed on, and it wont be.

again i dont chose what or where to buy depending on how much money a business will make i decide based on what is best for me

So is the hardware and infastructure for creating games. Game devs are no longer the few hundred ultra-nerds of the 80s that spend their entire time on PCs to make a game for their few peers. The amount of people working on games has increased, with a much, much larger audience. That means that they can hire cheaper workers and sell more copies, leading to a reduced price.

Valve might do more than Epic, but the % cut is the % cut. Some executive that has never played a game before is in some boardroom going "this is the objectively best choice because... money". Like you said,
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/01/should-pc-games-cost-less-on-epics-games-store/
Metro is now Epic exclusive. However, because of that, it's only $50 there instead of $60 here. And they'd still make more money per copy until they hit $10 million. It's very likely that more games in the future will follow suit. Hopefully devs will see that lower prices means more sales, and therefore more money. I can't comment on other countries, but I believe it follows suit with how Steam is with the devs setting the price.

Look at other platforms. Apple/Google are getting pushback for their app/play store cuts. (Fortnite for example, IIRC, but I don't play that so idk.)
-
It's competition.

It's ugly and often anti-consumer, but it's still competition.

[Purple Tentacle]

its only cheaper in the US and it feels like another epic marketing move not an indication of what will happen under normal circumstances, when you add up everyone around the world people on average are paying more money for the game. not less

[drewbstar]

引用自 Purple Tentacle：

its only cheaper in the US and it feels like another epic marketing move not an indication of what will happen under normal circumstances, when you add up everyone around the world people on average are paying more money for the game. not less

Aren't people around the world paying more anyway? (i.e. the conversion cost is placed on them)
We'll have to wait and see if the reduced price tactic works/spreads.

But it's really not a hard sell. "Use our platform and go from having a third of your profits cut off to a tenth."
If Metro does well, odds are other games will appear for cheaper. Or it could be something else, like more frequent sales.

[Irx]

引用自 MaddSkillz：

So I get the angst of players that perhaps came recent to Steam (or have been here a bit) and now compare it to Epic,

Lol, what's there to compare?
EGS is worse than Steam in every way possible. At least for us, players - I don't care how good it is for publishers as those greedy bastards only care about robbing us.
Whatever Steam feature people whine about - 99% that EGS doesn't have it at all, and 1% it's worse than Steam. Let's be frank, EGS is worse than origin and uplay, and nobody likes those.

[The Rock God]

引用自 Irx：

EGS is worse than Steam in every way possible.

How so? I have basically no interest in it at this time, and don't know much about it.

Let's be frank, EGS is worse than origin and uplay, and nobody likes those.

I have no dislike of Origin, and actually like Uplay.

[Tito Shivan]

Because it's the hip thing to do.

引用自 drewbstar：

It runs in a similar vein to Microsoft or Comcast.
Eh.

It's the consequence of what I call 'The Honeymoon phase' wearing off.

There's this 'sweet phase' when engaging with a new company/service just like in any relationship when everything is rainbows and puppies. ('Steam is the best store ever', 'Apple is the best', 'Google is awesome')
But as with any relationship it's living together what makes people know each other. It's when you discover your lovely SO picks their nose, farts in bed and never does the dishes. For many people relationships with a service go through the same phase (Steam doesn't cater to every of my wishes... Apple is screwing me with another update... What's Google doing snooping on my documents???)

Some do find a balance and learn to live with their partner pros and cons.

For others anything but that first ideal is a deal breaker... However you can't really break some relationships easily... So there comes a phase of resentful coliving... That's where many people hating on Steam fall into.

People tied into a relationship with a partner they had an ideal of that didn't hold up but can't really leave or move on from it.

It's also kind of amazing how little learning people take from these (just like in human relationships anyway). Falling into the arms of the next thing... just to (inevitabily) repeat the same circle.

There's a sentence I read somewhere that summarizes what's wrong with how people engages with certain services/companies. It was said for Steam, but it works for almost anyone out there (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Origin, BNet, EGS, GOG)

"Don't forget Steam is a company, not your girlfriend"

[fragwitz]

why the hate? well, they pushed an update to steam , now FS19 crashes.. something it didnt do before the updte, it even deleted my save today b/c the game crashed while saving...100 hours into that save.. gone..

[Purple Tentacle]

引用自 drewbstar：

引用自 Purple Tentacle：

its only cheaper in the US and it feels like another epic marketing move not an indication of what will happen under normal circumstances, when you add up everyone around the world people on average are paying more money for the game. not less

Aren't people around the world paying more anyway? (i.e. the conversion cost is placed on them)
We'll have to wait and see if the reduced price tactic works/spreads.

But it's really not a hard sell. "Use our platform and go from having a third of your profits cut off to a tenth."
If Metro does well, odds are other games will appear for cheaper. Or it could be something else, like more frequent sales.

no, well they might be paying more in some cases but now they are paying even more than they were

also But it's really not a hard sell. "Use our platform and go from having a third of your profits cut off to a tenth."

you missed the bit off the end where steam has countless many more users and by pissing off your customer base you guarantee that less people will make the switch than otherwise would. also you seem to have ignored the part where epic are paying publishers to be exclusive to their store, if they really would make more money that simply wouldn't be needed. you cant cherry pick facts to suit an argument

[drewbstar]

引用自 Purple Tentacle：

引用自 drewbstar：

Aren't people around the world paying more anyway? (i.e. the conversion cost is placed on them)
We'll have to wait and see if the reduced price tactic works/spreads.

But it's really not a hard sell. "Use our platform and go from having a third of your profits cut off to a tenth."
If Metro does well, odds are other games will appear for cheaper. Or it could be something else, like more frequent sales.

no, well they might be paying more in some cases but now they are paying even more than they were

Interesting. Do you have any specific examples? I'd love to see some numbers on that (ever since I looked into OTWD's regional pricing as their blame on why they made no money).

Edit:
I'm not cherry picking. I'm understanding of how 60+ year old executives that have never played a video gamer before and have no software/game development experience run things: in a dumb way.

[Ganger]

引用自 Purple Tentacle：

引用自 drewbstar：

Aren't people around the world paying more anyway? (i.e. the conversion cost is placed on them)
We'll have to wait and see if the reduced price tactic works/spreads.

But it's really not a hard sell. "Use our platform and go from having a third of your profits cut off to a tenth."
If Metro does well, odds are other games will appear for cheaper. Or it could be something else, like more frequent sales.

no, well they might be paying more in some cases but now they are paying even more than they were

Plus in some nations, they pay alot in taxes. Not sure about the USA but in the UK we pay 20% VAT on top of the base price of a game. Its all one price in the stores but we pay 20% VAT reguardless.

[Purple Tentacle]

if you goto any gaming news article or probably steams metro forums you will find people complaining the amount they now have to pay, if they will pay it has gone up