[cameronbrown]

> Valve is basically a criminal game stealing empire by infecting games with client-server code.

Uhh.. Valve release all their game server binaries for anyone to run, and sometimes even the source code (Half-Life, Half-Life 2). If you're going to rag on any games company, it shouldn't be them.

[cameronbrown]

(Replying to dead comment.)

> Valve did so because they had steam money to rely on, they were boiling the frog slowly.

Citation needed. Valve have been very good to the TF2/Dota 2 communities. Again, you _can_ run the servers for these products. Worst comes to worst, if Valve turns evil, then pirating the software is easy.

There's good points to be had that Overwatch is terrible for not releasing the server, but Valve are not.

[ptty56]

You don't seem to understand VALVE is an outlier because they have so much power, for the rest of the AAA game industry, dedicated servers largely have been under attack. Because client-server and drm ridden software allows them to put in game stores. They don't want people to have dedicated servers if it interferes with their microtransaction business model. AKA in game stores means further eroding software ownership.

You don't grasp the reason quake champions is a server locked game is because of gamers buying client-server coded software.

You're a corporate fanboy. You don't grasp the reason Doom 2016 and no level editor is specifically because of the last 15 years of the war on PC game ownerhsip that began with mmo's in the late 90's.

That all those "MMO/freetoplay" games on steam would have been boxed products with lan/server exe's in a former era, of the public had not taken them up to begin with, valve would have never come up with STEAM. Steam was a direct reaction to ultima online.

Valves long term plan was to remove ownership from his customers, and valve no longer needs to produce games because their long term agenda was making money, they want to be the middleman that skims money from every game sold.

[ptty56]

Valve did so because they had steam money to rely on, they were boiling the frog slowly.

Notice what they did to TF2 and now the are making artifact (totally microtransaction based game).

Notice how all that money from Dota 2 and TF2 were the end game, you don't get that STEAM malware client, was for valve to ultimately to get to in game stores. Valve was very careful in how they manipulated you into not owning your ow games so they could shove in game stores and mtx into them.

For other games like battlefield or modern warfare, and even overwatch... the problem remains that they can shut down the game remotely, aka Overwatch is not coded in an honest way where you own the game outright, you can't use its multiplayer as a stand alone app, aka you're using stolen software that is coded in a criminally screwed up way so that Activision maintains control.

The whole goal for the game industry was in game stores and mtx in every game and to do that they need to undermine game ownership.

Fortnite, Dota 2, and league of legends would have been fully boxed product games with LAN multiplayer/dedicated servers in a past era, aka for most AAA games we no longer get server exe's and get matchamking.

Quake champions is literally a stolen quake game where you don't get to own it, quake fans wanted a quake they owned and controlled like the first 4 quakes, with QeRadiant, dedicated servers, etc.

Quake champions can only exist in a world where companies have won and games are being coded in criminally underhanded ways to deny local application game files.

[sershe]

I think the GP means steam "ecosystem".

Over the last 10 years and 1000+ of hours of gaming, I've literally never used a single "feature" or had a single positive interaction with steam other than downloading the games (for which a zipped installer would have worked just fine), yet I had many cases where I couldn't play because steam forced update but couldn't download it due to slow connection/really wanted to go online on the plane because offline mode used to be buggy/had the update install and completely break steam/couldn't login/connect to valve servers, etc.

They were fixing these but new stuff always comes up (and is 0% justified), and some stuff is by "design" e.g. "offline" mode still installs steam updates. At this point I have steam completely firewalled out and I turn that off only when I want to get a specific game or a DLC.

Steam is malware (so are Win10 ads, forced updates, etc.)

[badRNG]

Unrelated to the "walled-garden" debate Valve has invested heavily into their Linux game compatibility tools and invested in the upstream projects that make them happen. That allows people who game on PC to break out of the pending Windows walled garden dystopia that the original commenter fears.