[MrGilbert]

I remember that, in the beginning, there were some concerns:

- "I need to download a lot of data, I want discs!"

- "I will be forever bound to Valve. What if they go out of business?"

I think the first point got kind of obsolete, because broadband is readily available compared to 20 years ago. And the latter also lost importance, I guess? At least I don't read that any longer.

[birracerveza]

>And the latter also lost importance, I guess?

It's still a very valid complaint, and will forever be as long as you're tied to Steam's server being up and willing to give you the content you paid for. That may not always be the case, for example if financial embargos prevent Valve from actually providing the service in your country. It's more like you're paying Steam to use their service rather than actually buying the game. Right now people are not worried about Steam exit scamming and thanking us for all the fish, because it's a very solid service that basically has a monopoly on PC digital game sales, plus the Steam Market being a money making machine on its own, plus the Steam Deck providing further leverage on game sales.

But there's a nonzero chance they can just ... close. Which was a very real possibility when they launched. Now, not so much, but the future has always new and exciting ways to fuck it all up at a moment's notice.

[Brybry]

My concern is mainly what will happen after Gabe Newell retires or dies.

[baq]

From the precious little that has been heard about what he’s doing nowadays he’s been quite checked out already for some time.

[NikolaNovak]

That's where GoG is still an important alternative... Even though for whatever reason, I don't enjoy its launcher as much. And steam deck has completely changed my weighing between GoG and steam :-(

[NamTaf]

Lutris really helps in that regard. For very minor additional janitoring, it can recreate much of the same plug-and-play, Windows-on-Linux seamlessness that you get with Steam.

[everdrive]

And there's no launcher for Linux :(

[johnnyanmac]

> And the latter also lost importance, I guess? At least I don't read that any longer.

People got comfortable, and that comfortability is great. Until it isn't, and then it's a travesty. Then it all repeats again and people never learn not to put all their eggs in one basket.

That's just the result of the flow of time. I remember a little over a decade ago when Blizzard was considered one of the best companies out there and that they always delivered quality titles. Stuff changes (and also, sometimes people can be very fickle).

[bodge5000]

> "I will be forever bound to Valve. What if they go out of business?"

Not that this isn't a valid concern, it certainly is, but I guess what we've learnt is that you don't need to be bound to Valve for games to be bound to a big corporation.

Look at Minecraft, which was never on Steam. You could've brought that a decade ago, and now you're told you need to bind yourself to Microsoft to continue playing it.

[KallDrexx]

The concerns weren't completely unfounded. My college apartment's internet was so bad I had to return HL2 to the store because it wouldn't decrypt it (the network was swampped with college gnutella traffic and the apartment complex had no idea how to handle it).

[goalieca]

Steam shipped a version of counterstrike that glitched a lot less in windows whereas the cd version I got from ATI with my graphics card didn’t even work reliably. That was the gateway game for me.

[fomine3]

Even if Valve is alive, there are other risks. Some game may be deleted in the future due to cancelling. Your account is banned for some reason.

[Kolja]

I remember having those concerns. And Steam performance did take a few months to solidify if I remember correctly, so not everything was unfounded. Before it, only MMOs had login screens separating gamers from gaming ;-)

Nowadays, the only problems I have with Steam stem from my credit card's security mechanisms.

[hiccuphippo]

I do wonder what happens to my library once I die. Can my family inherit it? Is it gone? Is it against the ToS to give my user to my children?