Remember when we all loved Google?? No? How about Firefox? Or maybe some of you might remember when Elon was our real-world Tony Stark?
Yeah. So…. There are two types of tech companies:
Those that suck, and those that have yet to reveal how they suck.
well valve does the whole gambling for children shit so they aren’t exactly saints. They are just the least shitty. Also it helps that they are still private so they don’t have to answer to investors. But still, the whole skin trading, steam market stuff isn’t great
Made large contributions to Linux gaming compatibility
Also platformed independent game developers.
Monopolized a market by offer good services to both end users and buisness clients.
Lets not forget the evil though : helped set the 30% cut for apps/games that became the standard across all digital spaces, arguably started online gambling and microtranactions in gaming.
Online gambling existed well before Steam.
How did they start microtransactions?
Selling loot boxes, where you pay 2-3 currency units to “unlock” a box that definitely won’t have something of value the vast majority of the time. TF2 cosmetics, CS:GO gun/knife/glove/player model skins
To be fair those are cosmetic only items. I’ve played a ton of those games and didn’t spend s dime, because I don’t care about how cool my gun looks.
same. But to a lot of people, those pixels are valuable. So valuable an entire secondary market opened up outside of Steam. And the lootbox mechanic is literally gambling-- No different than a slot machine. When opening a box, it even gins it up with graphics and fanfare, just like a video slot machine.
Multiple billions of currency units in “value” all situated around virtual gambling. Valve created the most successful, valuable digital casino, ever.
Valve could’ve legitimately done nothing and still be winning in comparison to the big three, but instead they’ve slowly and steadily been helping the gaming community to give Windows the middle finger by making huge contributions to Linux gaming.
Honestly, its downright shameful how many companies have forgotten that a good way to make money from customers is simply to treat them nicely while they’re buying your goods.
Helping the gaming community by popularising not owning your games, lootboxes and child gambling, early access and asset flips as well as being the first to cave when visa and MasterCard started pressuring companies to stop selling certain games?
Most games on steam are drm-free or have a very weak DRM which is easily removed. Not great, but not the worst.
Lootboxes kinda suck, but at least they only use them for cosmetic items, it’s not pay2win, more like pay2lookgood.
About the child gambling… Pretty awful, but I think the ones who should bear most of the blame should be the parents. I have younger family members (not my kids) and their parents couldn’t give less of a shit about ensuring they only have access to age appropriate content. Steam has parental controls implemented, USE THEM. Starting to think that allowing kids to access these features (when parental control is available) should be considered some kind of negligence.
I think lootboxes and child gambling should be the same category if we are talking about steam.
Not so much of an actual gambling imo. All you can know is that you will pull something out of a fixed list. But that is all the gambling part. At least with cases you know for a fact that you going to get something. Actual gambling happens off-site with skins that are traded using bot accounts. These services are actual gambling sites with games and chances to win something or lose everything.
Valve probably can ban skin trading and then we’re done. Also, they probably can ban skin market while at it. But, I bet steam market brings tons of money. And, it is not like they are responsible for children gambling skins out off-site. Also, Valve did made restrictions on gambling. This month Valve has banned skin gambling logos/ads on tournament teams jerseys. And also a restriction that would render your newly purchased skins non-tradable for a week. Drop parental control in the mix - children wouldn’t be able gamble anymore.
…???
Most games on steam are drm-free or have a very weak DRM which is easily removed.
Blatantly false. Take a glance at all the novice/low budget devs who tightly couple their game to Steam’s proprietary multiplayer api.
Lootboxes kinda suck, but at least they only use them for cosmetic items
That doesn’t mean they weren’t trailblazers for one of the most parasitic features of the 21st century.
Steam has parental controls implemented
The controls don’t even work for this. Even if you scrutinize every game before white listing, the devs can patch in loot boxes (or any toxic mechanic) at any time without your knowledge.
And putting that aside, “bad parenting” is such a shit cop out when Steam’s main page is devoted to high revenue [toxic] games. This is like blaming parents when cigarette companies made ads specifically appealing to children, as if the inability to legally buy their product absolves them from the damage done.
How the hell haven’t you heard if steamless it easily removes steamdrm
