[gravypod]

Valve does quite a bit more than just proton.

0. They manage the most popular games store in the western world.

1. They provide a community forum for your users.

2. Host downloads of games (sometimes 100s of GBs). They distribute the content all across the world and handle region specific laws about what can be sold, etc. They host content at edge so downloads are super fast.

3. Process refund requests.

4. Have one of the better VR abstraction layers for game devs.

5. Provide networking and social integration (chat, anti-cheat, friends, etc).

6. They allow you to generate steam keys (at no cost to you) and sell them on your own website.

7. They process payments (PayPal charges ~3% for this, Stripe is 2.9%)

8. Achievements, time tracking, etc. These are useful for game devs who iterate on their formula (most use achievements to see what percent of a user base does X).

That's what I can think off the top of my head benefits the game developers. The list of things that benefits the users is also pretty big (steam sales).

I don't think any company is good or bad but Valve's offer to game devs is a pretty decent one.

> Anecdote: some one else's account of this was that it was really helpful because the Linux portion of the community (while much smaller than other segments) provided consistently high quality feedback/bug reports.

[peatmoss]

Apart from a few games purchased on GoG, everything I buy is on Steam. It’s been a very consistent experience for a long time. My first Steam “purchase” was me plugging in the CD code from a copy of Half-Life purchased ~1999. Everything I’ve purchased since then is playable in minutes—most of it playable on Linux.

The killer feature of Valve / Steam for game developers is customer trust. For me, that trust has translated into a resolute refusal to buy games on any other platform.

[jterrys]

Shoutouts to GoG. I'll buy games off of them even if they're on Steam. Making old games compatible and offering DRM free downloads deserves respect.

[RealStickman_]

I've started to migrate off of GOG again after switching to linux.

The main reason was steam's investment into linux gaming and I decided to support that.

Also, GOG have promised a linux client for years that still hasn't materialised.

[paulryanrogers]

Considering all the broken or neglected games on Steam I've lost trust in them. GOG has started slipping in quality as they've grown, but at least they strive to host playable games and without DRM.

Competition among stores and hosting is good IMO, even if a modest inconvenience.

[debaserab2]

Platform loyalty in gaming has always struck me as an odd phenomenon. You don't hear people raving about netflix or hulu being superior, but for some reason there is a huge fanbase for Steam itself.

I mean, I don't mind steam, but I'd really prefer to have software that I purchase not check with a gate keeping entity before launching itself.

[nindalf]

I bought several games in my childhood. Games that mean a lot to me personally because of how much I had to scrimp and save to be able to afford. It took me nearly a year to cobble enough money to buy Warcraft III. And I can’t play the game anymore because I’ve lost the CD. Ditto with Halo, CS, AoE and others.

Every game I’ve purchased on Steam I can play right now with one click. Obviously others offer the same thing now but Steam offered it first. They also have region specific pricing, a huge pull for me at some point.

There are other good store fronts, I’m sure. But the amount of trust they’ve built with me over the last 10+ years can’t be replicated overnight by anyone else.

[simion314]

>And I can’t play the game anymore because I’ve lost the CD. Ditto with Halo, CS, AoE and others.

The disadvantage is that your game is locked now to your account, I cant just gift my games to my son. I have to make sure to keep my Steam version in Offline mode before he tries to play from his PC using my Steam Account. I wish there was a way to create family accounts and share the game or even gift them to your children, you could add some rules like you can't re-gift same game for say n years or whatever.

[bluely]

Have you tried Steam Family Sharing? https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing

It won't support every game but it should help you in your quest to share games with your son

[ajvs]

Most people don't care about privacy much, so they don't notice that if you try to use Steam in offline mode permanently it's impossible. Valve like most other big tech companies wants all their user data too.

[revolvingocelot]

I don't think that's the reason. Valve is too small to really achieve anything with our user data, nor do they have any impetus to collect it. The Hardware Survey is technically optional, and my recommendations are so unbelievably poor that I can't seriously believe that feature ingests any individual user data.

I suspect it's more to do with the fact that without requiring a new Steam Ticket every once in a while, I could go and install much of my library on a friend's computer (or any number of friends!), rig the OS to deny Steam internet connectivity, and thereby allow them to play games with my licenses indefinitely and undetectably! The horror!

[Siira]

This is already possible if you just download a cracked version in the first place, and it is technically more demanding (of the users), and more inconvenient. So what is it achieving exactly?

[meibo]

They also have quite a bit of useful Middleware nowadays, like Steam Input and Audio, which are both great.

Their controller wrapper obsoleted all of the messy third party tools you used to need on Windows, and they have a sharing platform for controller profiles.

[quitit]

Many comments also seem to be grounded in the false notions that running a store is easy and inexpensive.

[otachack]

Mod support via Workshop is pretty sweet, too. I don't use mods much but when I do, and the game supports it, workshop makes it incredibly easy to plug an go.

[cma]

> They allow you to generate steam keys (at no cost to you) and sell them on your own website.

Only if you charge the same as Steam, i.e. you can't pass the 27% (still pay payment processing) savings on to customers, unless it is a limited time sale.

[LegitShady]

Well yes, they don't want you to generate code sand then sell for less than you sell at steam because that's a suicide level business model for them. But you can still sell the codes yourself without cost to you. I don't understand why what you're saying is relevant.

[cma]

You are bringing in new users and locking them into Steam.

Steam only allows it because they want to be one centralized hub with more and more people locked in through social features, existing libraries, recommendation traffic, etc., but it is only allowed if it isn't price competition so that consumers can't feel the weight of the 30% directly.

[LegitShady]

no one is locked in anywhere. It's the developers choice to put in DRM or not. Steam by itself doesn't force it.

No business plan makes sense if they give away their product for free without taking any form of revenue. Casting that as evil is odd and misleading. That they allow devs to generate codes that give steam no revenue at all is pretty incredible.

[bluecatswim]

I know devs who do free giveaways through steam keys once in a while so presumably there is a provision in place for that too.

[Lev1a]

> you can't pass the 27% (still pay payment processing) savings on to customers

Well yeah... whether you sell your game on Steam or via Steam codes on your website, the soft-, hardware and business infrastructure in the background handling the sale and distribution of your game is the same. So why would they let you use their infrastructure without letting them have their cut? It wouldn't make any sense.

[billfruit]

And also provide region sensitive pricing, allowing gamers in the third world to buy games often at very affordable prices in their local currencies.

[burnafter185]

They've also got a network of servers to help reduce latency in P2P games, which is actually pretty impressive to me. I don't know how effective it is, but as a GAMER any solution to latency is a great boon.

[DeathArrow]

>0. They manage the most popular games store in the western world.

I do not like the app store model. I rather buy from the developer.

[zinekeller]

> I do not like the app store model. I rather buy from the developer.

You, as a person might not like it and you as a developer might like to directly sell games, but as pointed out above, Steam/Valve does make it easier for the developer to be legally clear in terms of taxes, refunds, etc. and also makes it easier to distribute by leveraging their "warehouse" which some do prefer.

[I_Byte]

From my point of view the store model simply is more convenient for consumers and worth the extra price. I know that I stopped pirating games, music and movies when I started using Steam, Spotify and Netflix.

[bnegreve]

> I know that I stopped pirating games, music and movies when I started using Steam, Spotify and Netflix.

But is it a causal relation? You probably have a steadier income now than you had back then.

[Knufferlbert]

Don't know about I_Byte, though I could have written what he has written.

I can now actually afford games (in the quantity I consume them) now, so that question is fair. But thankfully the video landscape fractured, now you better have NowTv, Netflix, Prime and Disney+ and you still can't watch all. I've started pirating again after 10 years or so of complete abstinence. So I think it's causal (if you have money)

[pdpi]

With games, an important part of the equation is DRM. I prefer buying (DRM-free) things from GOG where possible, but steam has provided developers with a decent bit of DRM that is not too intrusive for consumers. There's plenty of older games from before Steam became dominant that I refused to buy because of their draconian DRM solutions.

I have to say that Spotify completely changed the way I listen to music, and I would really struggle to go back to buying individual albums.

I think of the three, movies are the only one where the "more disposable income" part of things is the dominant component of why I changed behaviours.

[revolvingocelot]

This makes me think of GabeN's 2011 commentary on expanding Steam into notoriously hax0r-infested Russia: the smart money scoffed at the prospect, keenly aware that the Russkies will just steal your product and why not make it that much harder for them to get their hands on it?

“Russia now outside of Germany is our largest continental European market [...] The people who are telling you that Russians pirate everything are the people who wait six months to localize their product into Russia. It doesn't take much in terms of providing a better service to make pirates a non-issue.” [0]

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable." [1]

I for one absolutely have more money than I once did, but to be honest I stopped pirating long before that in '09 or '10, once I realized that the then-ridiculous Humble Bundles and Steam sales reduced the actual expenditure required from "gotta save up" to a mere "gotta skip buying takeout tonight". Of course the sales have decreased in quality since then, but so too has the number of games I want to play, and the time I can spend doing it.

[0] https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-on-piracy-and-steams-suc...

[1] http://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Pira...

[quickthrowman]

I still pirate most movies and some TV shows because the selection on streaming services is bad, particularly for movies. I don’t pirate many new movies, it’s almost all back catalogue stuff.

I don’t pirate games and music because Steam and Spotify (or Apple/Amazon music) are a better experience than piracy.

[plussed_reader]

How do you feel about package managers?

[jhanschoo]

9. Controller support