Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

It is always interesting seeing the mostly blind loyalty that Valve seems to get for no real clear reason.

Don't get me wrong, I love their games (when they bother to make one) and my Steam Deck. But lets not pretend that Valve is our friend either and their main goal is anything but to make money.

While I think that going so far as to delete my Steam library is a fairly extreme situation, I do think supporting a diverse marketplace and actually using other stores is a good idea. I have games on Xbox App (on PC), GOG, Epic, EA, etc. It really isn't that big of a deal to have alternatives installed, and if you are worried about the software there are alternatives like Heroic Launcher.

The controller situation is an interesting one though that I will need to do my own reading on, I knew that Steam tried to manage controller settings itself (which just further encourages you to only use Steam...) and has caused me to have issues with buttons registering twice. I was not aware that sometimes games had different controller functionality on different stores. Is there some requirement of this on Steam?

I wouldn't call it blind loyalty.

I've used Steam almost since its inception, and by and large, it stays out of my way while playing, lets me install any game I've purchased historically without any trouble, and provides download speeds that approach my fiber's max limit when I do install a game. For me, it just works™. I've yet to have a bad experience with it.

Sure, I also use GoG semi-regularly, particularly because it's also been relatively painless to use but also because the often overlapping sales on both frequently result in games I'm interested showing up cheaper on one store than the other (but not always the same one). However, it started off pretty niche, and CD Projekt Red publishes their really big games to other stores (much to their credit), so I won't fault someone for not having used GoG yet.

I've also dipped my toes a little in the EA store, but only because there have been a few games I've wanted which required it. It struck me as an inferior experience to Steam and GoG, and I admit a particular distaste in the handful of cases where games bought on Steam/GoG still ultimately require launching the EA store before the games themselves load. If this is someone's first experience outside Steam, I totally understand retreating back to familiar territory.

I won't dispute if someone else claims having a bad experience with Steam - I just haven't shared it. However, I do find hate because "they want to make money" puzzling. Every store does.

I would say what you are describing is also not blind loyalty. But there are very much people who do have blind loyalty. I agree on not hating them just because they want to make money, but there are people that seem to act like Valve is their friend and somehow this saint for gaming as if they are a non-profit or something. I guarantee you they are not working on SteamOS out of the goodness of their hearts and it is more about their ability to retain control and fend off Microsoft more heavily pushing their store (yes I know you can run anything you want on SteamOS but that does not change that for most users the Steam store will be the easiest option for them).

We see a little bit of it on HN, but look at the comments on the Gist itself. This was also shared on /r/steam and the comments there. Or the fact that this is currently sitting at "flagged" on HN for no valid reason I can figure out.

There are a (seemingly) rather large subset of gamers that any talk of using another store is immediately scoffed at. Dare have to be critical of Valve/Steam (except for them not putting out games anymore, everyone seems to be in agreement that it sucks) and people try to pivot to all of the good things they have done as if that just makes whatever bad behavior they are doing justified.

Edit: Seriously, go look at some of the more recent comments on the gist attacking this guy and tell me there is not blind loyalty to Valve. Some of these responses are seriously unhinged.

> It is always interesting seeing the mostly blind loyalty that Valve seems to get for no real clear reason.

Trust, it's trust. Valve has continuously proven to be good-faith actors who work with the gaming community on mutual goals. See: everything they've done for gaming on Linux.

The reason it feels very out of place is because pretty much every company on Earth has eroded any modicum of trust they have. Or, um, had.

Really, all it takes is a few bad decisions for Valve to fall out of favor. They just haven't made those decisions yet and we're all praying they don't.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com