Steam quite literally provides almost everything you could ever need too, it's so much more than a storefront. It's genuinely mind blowing just how many services steam offers, I don't think anybody, including valve employees knows about every function and service it offers tbh.

Epic you get flash banged even when grabbing free games... Their UI is over a decade old. GOG's UI is frustrating to navigate. I love the deals and free promotions on steam, and the UI.

I agree. That's not what this is about though. This is about Valve using their market dominance to force price parity, supposedly to "protect consumers" (which is bullshit and doesn't make sense). Yes, they're the better storefront. I'd be willing to pay a little more to use it.

That's one way the competition can compete though. They can't make as good of a product, but they can make a cheaper one. They should be able to charge less, and make less profit per sale. Valve has ensured no developer can do this though by threatening removal if it's cheaper anywhere else, and you can't afford to not be on Steam. This would be good for consumers as it'd drive Valve to compete, either with an even better product or by lowering prices. There's no way consumers lose, and I don't get why people rush to fight for Valve on this.

No one becomes a billionaire ethically

Agreed... but when you're a great, customer centric service in a wildly underserviced market, it's basically a license to print money. Gaben is unethical in the fact that he's hoarding wealth, and I can't speak to speculation on shady practices with circumstantial hearsay as evidence... but Valve, by virtue of not repeatedly Cobain'ing their dick on a regular basis is in a prime position to make substantial amounts of money...

All that being said, someone tell me what I'm missing.

Yup, it's why I am willing to argue for them, at least until Gabe dies. He's proven to be far more fair and I know you wouldn't get that deal anywhere else. These days it really does seem like there a coordinated push to attack valve for not being scum like the rest of the industry these last couple of months.

Gog and itch.io are decent. They're different types of stores, but very usable.

The only one that lets me keep in my library, download and install at any time games that were delisted 10 or 15 years ago by their publishers.

For that reason alone, they deserve my money over any other storefront.

Once Gaben dies, hell breaks loose.

Dude likes his yachts so much that he literally bought the company.

Fuck billionaires. Yes, even this guy.

His hobby is yachts, which tells you how well Steam is doing for him.

GOG sails past the bottom of the screen on a skateboard sipping a juicebox with a straw

There was a funnier one with GOG enjoying itself in the corner and the complaining party being Epic lol

Close, but also include the accusation coming from the ones on the left!

Accurate

Valve is one of the less evil ones. But GOG didn't need to be forced by court to have a no-questions-asked 30 days return policy.

The lawyer should just be able to give this meme to the judge and have the case closed.

The courts are going to force Valve to enshittify, because consumers arent allowed to have good options. That's unfair competition, think of all the poor megacorps. How can they sell their garbage when you offer an actually good competitor

as soon as he’s not in control, there will be fuckery

This is what I don't think a lot of people will be prepared for ...

I dread if there's gonna some useless MBA coming around afterwards and saying some shit like: "why don't we charge steam users $9.99 to play their games per month?" and start cutting projects that benefit gamers to "save money" -- who needs Proton? who needs to invest in things like couch co-op? Then give themselves a shitload of money in exchange for all the goodwill that Valve have built up over the years.