Sure, here are my small list personal list of gripes, mostly minor except the first one.
Their continued stance on loot boxes and enabling of gambling.
They did try to do a paid mod system back in the day and got shutdown by gamers pretty quick.
Their initial discontinuation of batteries and LCD screens for their steam deck after only four years.
Their continued stance that they are selling revokable, non-transferable licenses and not games that you own.
Steam’s a great company and overall very pro-consumer company in my opinion, more so than most of the other companies in the PC gaming realm but I’ll criticize Steam when I see something I believe is anti-consumer regardless of my like for them because end of they day they’re still just a corporation that prioritizes profits over people and it’s just one death away from being enshitified like the rest of them.
Don’t forget that the current refund system wasn’t born out of the benevolence of Valve. It all came from external pressure, mainly from Australia and somewhat EU. Steam never wanted you to be able to refund a game that doesn’t work, they were forced to. And even now they’re trying to hide the ability to refund games as much as possible.
I disagree. They’re are a multi billion dollar company that is the defacto/largest distributor, they’ve got the clout to push for effective change and they’ve been vocally against the secondary market or transfers, including on death.
Also you said it yourself, they could easily do this for the games they publish and yet here we are.
I do appreciate they keep delisted games around at least.
If they tried to change the terms, the companies would definitely simply leave.
Personally, I don’t care. I find it weird people want to somehow have an account after death. I just treat it like a library that is there for me and the money saved vs any other way plus the convenience is huge. Its not any different than paying for a round of golf or 10 frames of bowling. Except I can play as many rounds as I want for the same price.
I watch all the other stores requiring some kind of payment for what valve provides for free. Even less than what valve provides for free.
I save so much money compared to anywhere else that as long as I die before valve (maybe thats the bigger issue), it is money well spent. My kids dont want my account they have their own.
The price parity is the big one for me. They have almost total market control, and they use this to prevent competition. We all know no other marketplace can compete on utility, because Steam has a massive head start. Their other option is to compete on price, and Valve has forced this to not be allowed. Somehow some people still defend them for this.
In addition to the other comment, the only reason their famous refund policy exists is because Australia made them do it. And I really cannot stress how shitty the loot box stance is. Gamers hate loot boxes by and large yet somehow largely give Valve a pass despite the fact they hugely popularized the concept in the gaming space.
My first instance of lootboxes was when Valve introduced them in TF2. I was a dumb 20 year old living with my parents so i had disposable income. I wasted at least $200 on keys.
Yeah, it’s honestly very sad to see people defend these gaming corporations blindly, yes, including Steam, when they’re doing anti-consumer things.
They’re doing also lots of pro consumer things
Whereas, I’d argue Nintendo is almost entirely anti consumer. They didn’t even fix their joycons and recall them
I’ll take the bait… What anti-consumer stuff is Valve doing?
Sure, here are my small list personal list of gripes, mostly minor except the first one.
Steam’s a great company and overall very pro-consumer company in my opinion, more so than most of the other companies in the PC gaming realm but I’ll criticize Steam when I see something I believe is anti-consumer regardless of my like for them because end of they day they’re still just a corporation that prioritizes profits over people and it’s just one death away from being enshitified like the rest of them.
Let’s not forget they’ve been emulating amazons efforts to drive prices up across the market
Don’t forget that the current refund system wasn’t born out of the benevolence of Valve. It all came from external pressure, mainly from Australia and somewhat EU. Steam never wanted you to be able to refund a game that doesn’t work, they were forced to. And even now they’re trying to hide the ability to refund games as much as possible.
That have zero choice on the licensing at least for games they dont publish.
On the other hand they have kept installers for me long after the publisher has pulled their product.
I disagree. They’re are a multi billion dollar company that is the defacto/largest distributor, they’ve got the clout to push for effective change and they’ve been vocally against the secondary market or transfers, including on death.
Also you said it yourself, they could easily do this for the games they publish and yet here we are.
I do appreciate they keep delisted games around at least.
If they tried to change the terms, the companies would definitely simply leave.
Personally, I don’t care. I find it weird people want to somehow have an account after death. I just treat it like a library that is there for me and the money saved vs any other way plus the convenience is huge. Its not any different than paying for a round of golf or 10 frames of bowling. Except I can play as many rounds as I want for the same price.
I watch all the other stores requiring some kind of payment for what valve provides for free. Even less than what valve provides for free.
I save so much money compared to anywhere else that as long as I die before valve (maybe thats the bigger issue), it is money well spent. My kids dont want my account they have their own.
Their cartel like price fixing policies raise prices across all sales platforms, regardless if they deal with steam codes or not.
Also the child gambling.
The price parity is the big one for me. They have almost total market control, and they use this to prevent competition. We all know no other marketplace can compete on utility, because Steam has a massive head start. Their other option is to compete on price, and Valve has forced this to not be allowed. Somehow some people still defend them for this.
In addition to the other comment, the only reason their famous refund policy exists is because Australia made them do it. And I really cannot stress how shitty the loot box stance is. Gamers hate loot boxes by and large yet somehow largely give Valve a pass despite the fact they hugely popularized the concept in the gaming space.
My first instance of lootboxes was when Valve introduced them in TF2. I was a dumb 20 year old living with my parents so i had disposable income. I wasted at least $200 on keys.
Gamers apparently love loot boxes, lol.
They have zero effect on the gameplay though. Ignore them if you want to, it really makes no difference.
Yeah, gambling is addictive.