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- Polygon: Valve is not your friend, and Steam is not healthy for gaming
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https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/16/15622366/valve-gabe-newell-sales-origin-destructive
The drive to be on the bleeding edge of technology powers the PC gaming community. We want nothing more than to run our ridiculously powerful rigs on barely stable beta drivers, with our CPUs overclocked to speeds that are neither advisable nor guaranteed to be safe for our systems. This, then, is Good Guy Valve — a corporation which employs precision-engineered psychological tools to trick people into giving them money in exchange for goods they don't legally own and may never actually use while profiting from a whole lot of unpaid labor and speculative work ... but isn't “evil.” It's a surprisingly good article from Polygon. It goes into the dodgy stuff Valve has done over the years (being forced into providing refunds, taking advantage of community creations as free labour) but I disagree that they're overall bad for gaming. A lot of their initiatives are quite good for the consumer.
Kind Regards,
Darmik |
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polygon: who the f*** cares
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chill02 posted...
also, I don't treat any company like a friend or think they're doing anything beyond trying to make money, they're not running a charity Some people do treat Valve and Steam sorta differently. Especially with all of those Gaben memes lol. They overall probably cop the least amount of criticism. Hell the biggest thing people whine about them is that they aren't making Half-Life 3.
Kind Regards,
Darmik |
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this seems to be focused towards its harm to developers and publishers, not the gamer.
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I agree with you. There has been some dodgy stuff, but overall Steam has opened the door for a lot of innovative and creative game makers. Considering that they themselves are game makers and that they just as easily could have tried to muscle out the competition in favor of their games (coughEAOrigincough), it's actually quite surprising.
They revolutionized digital distribution and that has basically meant a renaissance for game makers who can't afford the costs associated with physical production. |
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E32005 posted...
this seems to be focused towards its harm to developers and publishers, not the gamer. Also this, and it's not really a secret either, many indie devs have shown their discomfort at valve's way of managing things, and how much of a cut they take of their product, or how sales outright ruin their chances of actually making money out of it. Then again chill02 posted... they're not running a charity |
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I mean, for all the s*** EA gets (some deserved, some less so), Origin does some things better than Steam at this point. Their refund policy is more generous (depending on the game, you could very well beat it with 24 hours and get a refund), their customer support works faster (mind you, they also have less users), and they give away free games from time to time (some old enough that most won't care, but sometimes you get stuff like Mass Effect 2).
But yeah, Valve has some weird cult of apologists and it's not like I can even chalk it up to investors since they're not publicly traded
Ave, true to Caesar.
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Valve is definitely bad for gaming, but gamers don't seem to give a s*** so why worry about it? Pretty sure the reason PC gaming is so dry compared to 10-20 years ago is due to a handful of companies owning everything of value in PC gaming. And yet people still happily get their WoW subscriptions and beg for half-life 3.
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E32005 posted...
this seems to be focused towards its harm to developers and publishers, not the gamer. Eh the huge section on how much they had to have their arm twisted to let you have a refund (which tends to be Steam credit anyway) says a different story. Hell even today the Steam store displays worldwide in US dollars for me. I believe they're only fixing this in the next month or so. For the most part they're pretty good yeah. A workshop creator guy put it best. Their technical department stuff is great. But as soon as money gets involved they're not exactly the most reliable.
Kind Regards,
Darmik |
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The Admiral posted...
That writer has diarrhea of the mouth in the first quoted section. Literally all over the place, no coherence at all, spewing nothing but ignorance. well it is polygon
http://i.imgur.com/5UL2v5u.gif
"Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too?" |
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The Admiral posted...
That writer has diarrhea of the mouth in the first quoted section. Literally all over the place, no coherence at all, spewing nothing but ignorance. I don't see how you're having difficulty interpreting it. It's pretty straightforward.
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P4wn4g3 posted...
The Admiral posted...That writer has diarrhea of the mouth in the first quoted section. Literally all over the place, no coherence at all, spewing nothing but ignorance. It's straightforward in terms of being simply written. Not in terms of making a point that is remotely intelligent or close to reality. It's utter nonsense.
- The Admiral
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The gaming community has been more willing to call out Valve in the last few years.
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The begging is a bit overly dramatic (I don't have an issue with those services but maybe I missed something in the news) but the points raised throughout the article are overall pretty valid.
Frolex posted... The gaming community has been more willing to call out Valve in the last few years. Have they? At most I can think of paid mods but even that was often deflected to Bethesda.
Kind Regards,
Darmik |
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DarthAragorn posted...
Valve is definitely not the company they once were, IMO They have always been the company they once were. They broke into the industry ripping off other people's s*** and got away with it. The Admiral posted... P4wn4g3 posted...The Admiral posted...That writer has diarrhea of the mouth in the first quoted section. Literally all over the place, no coherence at all, spewing nothing but ignorance. Are you disagreeing with the article or just the way they wrote it?
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Darmik posted...
Have they? At most I can think of paid mods but even that was often deflected to Bethesda. I mean, just recently valve caved pretty hard to pressure over their absolute s*** handling of greenlight |
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chill02 posted...
P4wn4g3 posted...They have always been the company they once were. They broke into the industry ripping off other people's s*** and got away with it. ID software, they won in court over a case of copyright infringements from what I remember. Half Life uses the Quake engine, which is likely why there isn't nor will there be a Half Life 3.
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The occasional no-refund horror story was dismissed as the exception, not the rule. It didn’t cause near enough to damage the Good Guy Valve golden brand, and an incredible 11 years passed before enough people were possessed of enough indignant fury to actually complain to the authorities.
vickfan-chucky they hated Jesus homie
chuckyhacks-who teh hell is "jesus homie" |
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P4wn4g3 posted...
chill02 posted...P4wn4g3 posted...They have always been the company they once were. They broke into the industry ripping off other people's s*** and got away with it. LOL no The only reason they haven't made Half Life 3 is they can't reskin Half-Life 2 and add skins
Who fears to walk upon the grass? But it is the grass that hides the viper from his enemies and shelters him until he strikes.
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P4wn4g3 posted...
chill02 posted...P4wn4g3 posted...They have always been the company they once were. They broke into the industry ripping off other people's s*** and got away with it. then how come there's still new games coming out using the Source engine (e.g. Titanfall 2)? There's reasons why Half Life 3 won't come out, but they're not related to that. also, I'm not finding any info on this court case, just info about how Valve licensed the Quake2 engine and modified it to the point they renamed it the GoldSrc engine
Ave, true to Caesar.
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iron jojo posted...
The occasional no-refund horror story was dismissed as the exception, not the rule. It didn’t cause near enough to damage the Good Guy Valve golden brand, and an incredible 11 years passed before enough people were possessed of enough indignant fury to actually complain to the authorities. The only reason Valve implemented it at all was because of European and Australian Consumer Laws. Even now the ACCC is battling Valve in court. You never hear anyone calling them out for this though. Hell some people still defended Valve.
Kind Regards,
Darmik |
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chill02 posted...
also, I'm not finding any info on this court case, just info about how Valve licensed the Quake2 engine and modified it to the point they renamed it the GoldSrc engine Yeah me either. Maybe it didn't go to court, but I used to find sources on it. Either way that's where their shady business practices began.
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The article got it spot on why we'll never see another Half-Life
Fourteen years after Half-Life 2 — a game, by the way, that will likely never see a sequel unless it can be bundled with another leverageable platform — Good Guy Valve has smiled and exploited its way to a position of astonishing power and influence.
Kind Regards,
Darmik |
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P4wn4g3 posted...
chill02 posted...also, I'm not finding any info on this court case, just info about how Valve licensed the Quake2 engine and modified it to the point they renamed it the GoldSrc engine I mean, that's no different from when Bethesda licensed Gamebryo and rewrote it to the point where they now call it the Creation engine
Ave, true to Caesar.
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I take it there aren't any reflective surfaces over at the offices of Polygon.
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Zack_Attackv1 posted...
I take it there aren't any reflective surfaces over at the offices of Polygon. Tim Colwill is a trade union officer by day, and the creator of satirical gaming site Point & Clickbait by night. He is, against his better judgement, on Twitter. He doesn't actually work in Polygon. It's a freelance article.
Kind Regards,
Darmik |
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chill02 posted...
P4wn4g3 posted...chill02 posted...also, I'm not finding any info on this court case, just info about how Valve licensed the Quake2 engine and modified it to the point they renamed it the GoldSrc engine Idk, I can't find the details other than essentially everything they made was based off something from Quake or it's community. ID and Valve didn't get along, there is a reason ID never let Valve buy them out. I could be imagining the initial lawsuit (or threat there of) stuff but it's hard for me to imagine I fabricated that. It's been a long time so it's not exactly surprising that wouldn't be at the surface these days.
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Haven't read the article but the universal 2 hour refund(IIRC) really rubs me the wrong way. It could really screw over games that take time to pick up or are a lot different from what people are used to.
Also the extremity of sales devalues games overall like smartphone games have.
I'm Mary Poppins y'all.
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/665/328/d75.gif |
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Broseph_Stalin posted...
what a f***ing terrible article it is god damn ploygon
http://i.imgtc.com/iJyp6bF.png http://i.imgtc.com/ZBw36Qh.png
Thanks for the peeps that made the pics <3 if i make typos it means i am on phone |
- Boards
- Current Events
- Polygon: Valve is not your friend, and Steam is not healthy for gaming
- Boards
- Current Events
- Polygon: Valve is not your friend, and Steam is not healthy for gaming
I don't trust Polygon, but from others on here, more unbiased, is Steam really all it's cracked up to be? Though I have put a s***load of investment to it so not like I have much wiggle room at this point.Currently Playing: Trails in the Sky SC
http://i.imgur.com/mfuN9AI.png http://i.imgur.com/ZYPfDmJ.jpgDarmik posted...
He doesn't actually work in Polygon. It's a freelance article.
That makes even more sense then.I'm not a Valve fanboy at all but that article is so melodramatic.There seems to be many points the author is trying to make.
The main point, that Steam is not a good guy n_n happy buddy company, is true and well explained.
Whether it's bad for gaming overall, I doubt. There are some negative points like those huge cuts they take and the open betas into unfinished games it allows, but overall I'd say it has been beneficial for reasons like allowing indies to publish easily, giving gamers a useful platform for library management and multiplayer (god steam saved me so much hassle in the latter dept)
If it was that bad as a whole it'd be replaced by something better or abandoned. Won't happen until for some reason cuts people's access to the games they "don't actually own". Don't see a reason for that as it is.- Boards
- Current Events
- Polygon: Valve is not your friend, and Steam is not healthy for gaming
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