this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Valve is a massive company because they put their customers first, go figure.
It's not a monopoly, most pc gamers choose to use steam because of the significantly better user experience it offers vs the competition
I don't know why you have any downvotes. Everything you wrote is true. Steam has a very nice user experience, but if you don't want to use it, GOG, Epic, and retail still exist as a means of buying PC games. It just so happens that Steam makes the whole process painless.
The "steam is a monopoly" thing is really drilled in deep in some people. Meanwhile I just finished guardians of the Galaxy and outer worlds from the epic store freebies. Entirely on my steam deck. I also installed some other games from gog and put on my captain hat and hook and installed some repacks using bottles. You aren't forced to use steam, apart from if you want to use game mode and control customizations which will work regardless of game sources. You lose essentially nothing by using other stores, apart from your money and achievements I suppose...
I switched from mostly Playstation to mostly Steam slowly over the last decade cause I like their services. It just works. I explicitly at this point won't get a computer game that isn't on Steam. I own one of the little physical Steam Links and cant believe it's still supported by Vavle. Steam Deck was the final nail. I once didn't like a game and got a refund on it. I have made older games playable and comfortable with the controller custom configurations. My older games and game saves still work on my new PC's cause it's all mostly backwards compatible. I love the Guide, Discussions, and Community Content parts of Steam. It adds so much life, answers questions, builds camaraderie, for some games.
With Playstation, the 2011 hack was bad enough. Being a day 1 Vita adopter, I feel forgotten and taken advantage of. I've had to deal with Sony repairs before and didn't get my console back for months. Before Sony introduced 2FA far too late, my account got hacked. Sony rep's treated me like a criminal and only gave me my account back because I so happened to still have the unfunctional console (and serial number) I originally created my PSN account on like 6-8 years earlier. PS4 initially lacked basic features PS3 had. PS5 has done the same. The games hardly drop in price relative to PC games. Backwards compatibility is questionable every generation. I signed up for PS Now to stream PS3 games and a month later they changed it and stopped adding more PS3 games. The PS Portal and proprietary wireless only further shows how stupid Sony is.
I'll never buy another Playstation again.
I was REALLY into PS4 (also have a switch and PC) but the PS5 just doesn't have that je ne sais quoi for me. Nothing, other than graphics, that PS5 is doing couldn't have been done on PS4.
It's so funny when you remember what people said (or better: screamed) when Steam first came into existence... It was pretty much the opposite of what you wrote in your post.