Yeeeeeh Gaben!

In defense of the ‘drunken sailors’ of Steam, many of the games they’ve bought are likely to still be playable for a long time, some were bought in half-yearly sales, and some were part of ‘bundles’ that were bought for a different game. The 30% also pays for the Content Delivery Network, marketing, a forum and sometimes moderation, and a genuine customer feedback mechanism. Who wouldn’t want to be part of an un-enshittified system? Fanboy? You bet. I’m not saying they can do no wrong, but they’re doing a lot right.

When I first got a Steam account, my original plan was to buy every game released on it. But now that’s impossible.

This just sounds like sour grapes whining paid for by Epic games who actually just want that to be them rather than Steam, despite Steam having provided the same service for free, consistently, for multiple decades now. The real offense here is PC Gamer attacking its primary consumer base (try to tell me the majority of PC gamers aren't Steam users), so you KNOW Epic is paying a shit-ton for this manufactured consent and wish-casting. Counterpoint to this article: having more games that you want to play than you have time for, without breaking the bank, is GOOD actually, and other launch platforms only seek to enshittify YOUR experience for their own gain. Thanks!

Edit: grammar

Will I get around to playing my whole library? God no, but do i want to give this indie Dev my money? God yes!

I do have a lot of games but most of them came from big bundles from Humble Bundle.

You best be glad these sailors are drunk and laying about on their hoard. Before Steam, those sailors were pirates. Do not tempt them to set sail again.

So, you're saying that Steam games are the stuffed animals that're culturally acceptable for adults to display openly.

Didn't have to call out my 20+yo steam account

I wondered which studio would be bold enough to do blatantly insult an entire marketplace of potential customers, but it's just some guy.

Chris Zukowski.

I am a game marketing consultant and strategist. I have helped Games-as-a-Service companies, indie publishers, and small to single-person teams understand their audience and communicate with them in a more personal way.

Funny way to communicate with your clients audience mate, calling us all "a bunch of drunken sailors"...

I specialize in optimizing your marketing for the Steam algorithm

Ah, so you're part of the reason nothing has a soul any more. Got it.

Giving 30% for Steamworks Multiplayer servers and matchmaking, player inventory and trading, modding support w/ workshop, forums, cloud saves: 🙅

Giving 30% because players 'spend irresponsibly': ✅✅✅

Barely bought anything this year because I am still finishing Factorio. 1600 hours on steam and countless more from the non steam version of the game.

The factory must grow. My SA deathworld save is up to around 3000 SPM.

I mean, where is the lie? Gimme cheap games, I'll "buy" all of them!

The perfect south park clip to illustrate this story:

Randy explains how stupid other people are with their money.

WELL, I'll let you know that my GOG collection is larger than my Steam collection!

Guilty.

It seems like a ignorant take. It's FOMO but instead of a missing out on a loot box or a silly cosmetic for a high price. It's about missing out on the sale for a low price.

It's like gym membership or books. If everyone with gym membership would go regularly, the business won't be profitable. Or if everyone only buys a new book after they finish what they have bought, the publishing industry would be in shambles.

These businesses play the probability game. They are actually just insurance by a different name.

I have bought games on steam that I already owned and played on other platforms, just because I wanted to support the dev and have a copy on a reliable platform. But with recent developements I do wonder more and more how long it will stay reliable.

It's not any different than getting on the apple app store, they even take 30% too.

I always wait 3 years to play a game. Its less expensive, my gpu is up to date and the game is patched.

Heh as if I wasn't an idiot and bloated my own steam library with fanatical mystery bundles and all those developers didn't walk away with a completely random dollar and a chance to actually have a game get noticed and steam got zilch.

It honestly just sounds like a productive economy that's constantly moving and giving opportunities to developers even if they aren't getting nothing but ravid fans. Like how busking might work in a wealthy thriving city compared to a poor one.

Another complaint about the 30% cut on PCGamer? This reeks.

Can this business model survive a recession?

Are non-Steam gamers not also hoarders? Because if they are, that whole argument falls apart.

A bunch of drunken sailors who spend money irresponsibly?

So... pirates?

Hey....

Fuck you

He doesn't consider game bundles like e.g. humble bundle. There you can get loads of steam games which you might activate but only play a few from.

sips rum

You've got a lot of nerve being right

Funny enough, the link to Rich Shanton, the one who wrote this, throws a 404 error.

So basically "Valve discovered a gold mine by selling you so many games" and "it's your fault for spendijg money on games". Yeah wait wut? As if it's someone's fault that so many games are getting released. Also ending with "beware, not every customer is a die-hard fan". Wow.

Go crack the F2P business model next, Sherlock.

Walled gardens create digital plantations

I don’t think I can speak for everyone, but the majority of the games I have on steam that I will never play are older big name titles that I got in bundles on sale with other games I wanted to play.

I have a lot of indie/smaller studio games on steam, and I’ve played all of them a decent amount. I think the reason games from smaller or independent studios do better on steam is because they actually get put forward and highlighted by events. Like, there are mechanisms in place to promote them to people who wouldn’t have heard about them through word of mouth.

I think the larger issue is that other storefronts are just… bad about highlighting games that aren’t from huge studios and massive publishers, obvious exception for GOG who is more focused on game preservation and older niche games, but even there I rarely see new stuff from small/indie studios getting promoted.

Like, sure on epic they’ll get a 80% cut, or what ever it is, but 70% of 1000 sales is a lot more than 80% of 10.

Also, like, the comparison to Netflix is absurd. When you pay for a Netflix subscription, you are paying for literally all of the content they have, and I’m pretty sure it would be impossible to watch everything on there. It also sucks because if I want something niche or novel, there is no incentive for that to be produced because my payment is spread evenly across everything Netflix is producing.