there is another way, games shouldn’t be tied to the store you bought them in
like, for physical objects, you can buy a thing from one store and another thing from another store, and they’ll be in your house no problem, you won’t even have to think about which store you bought which thing from (unless you need to return it or for customer service). it’s fundamentally decentralized. why shouldn’t digital distribution work that way too? it’s entirely possible, but obviously vendors benefit from locking you to their platform (that goes for steam, but also to epic games and, to a lesser extent GOG as well)
there should be no company with power to abuse in the first place. steam refused to sell your game? alright, you can sell it in other places and it’ll be fine. but that’s not how it works right now, most people buy on steam, and ONLY on steam, because it has a dominant position. so, if you can’t sell on steam, you’re done for!
and we can analyse each ban on a case-by-case basis (there’s many steam game bans I am glad happened), but there’s also cases like VILE: Exhumed, where steam caved to pressure from payment processors (which are also very centralized, that’s another honestly bigger problem) to ban a game with progressive politics simply because it talked about stuff that makes reactionary prudes uncomfortable.
we can’t just rely on Good Guy Valve to stay good forever
there is another way, games shouldn’t be tied to the store you bought them in
like, for physical objects, you can buy a thing from one store and another thing from another store, and they’ll be in your house no problem, you won’t even have to think about which store you bought which thing from (unless you need to return it or for customer service). it’s fundamentally decentralized. why shouldn’t digital distribution work that way too? it’s entirely possible, but obviously vendors benefit from locking you to their platform (that goes for steam, but also to epic games and, to a lesser extent GOG as well)
there should be no company with power to abuse in the first place. steam refused to sell your game? alright, you can sell it in other places and it’ll be fine. but that’s not how it works right now, most people buy on steam, and ONLY on steam, because it has a dominant position. so, if you can’t sell on steam, you’re done for!
and we can analyse each ban on a case-by-case basis (there’s many steam game bans I am glad happened), but there’s also cases like VILE: Exhumed, where steam caved to pressure from payment processors (which are also very centralized, that’s another honestly bigger problem) to ban a game with progressive politics simply because it talked about stuff that makes reactionary prudes uncomfortable.
we can’t just rely on Good Guy Valve to stay good forever