[the_snooze]

They've been around a bit longer than 20 years, but Valve comes to mind as a company that completely changed PC gaming in a fairly sustainable long-term way, likely because they're not beholden to VCs or external shareholders. This matters because they've built up immense trust that the games bought 10, 15, 20 years ago will still be there today, with minimal BS. This made people feel OK buying digital-only games. I don't think we'd have all these online delivery game stores these days if Valve had jerked people around to maximize short-term earnings.

[Tanoc]

And tying back into the article and the former parent company involved with Bandcamp, that's precisely why The Epic Games Store has failed so quickly. Epic changes policies to get the most explosive expansion whenever possible, only for things to collapse because the actual users are the support structure. Epic forces exclusives, Epic very heavily try to stop games from storing data locally, Epic can revoke your purchase at any point, Epic can ban you from EGS and thus all access to your games thanks to their DRM, and Epic has no rules other than "no porn" leading to a flood of shovelware, asset flips, and NFT/crypto scams.

And the thing is, Epic are following industry norms for this. All digital storefronts are trying to enforce the same sorts of policies. Get as much "stuff" in front of as many people as possible and have them fork over money to rent that "stuff" with tenuous if any protections for their purchase. Valve really are the outliers in this, and the only others I can think of that do what they do are Itch.io and Bandcamp, one a tiny player catering to a lower market and the other essentially the only survivor in their particular niche. Gamejolt and Soundcloud aren't even really competitors for each of them respectively.

[rexpop]

You're right; if only they worked on real problems and not virtual opiates.

[compiler-guy]

The leaders of the Arab spring credit twitter for making the revolution possible.

Even though it didn’t end as the dreamers had hoped, revolution in a broad region of the world isn’t exactly an opiate.

[rexpop]

Are you responding to the right comment? I was addressing claims about Valve, not Twitter. I heartily agree regarding Twitter.

[tredre3]

You're so right. You're the only one who is allowed to define what is a "real" problem. Every widely popular thing that you dislike is just virtual opiates, after all.

Classic HN comment.

[rexpop]

There are very strong arguments to be made that video games are an extravagant waste of time and resources. There are some decent arguments to be made in their favor[0]. This isn't a question of personal preference. I personally like video games, but we're all allowed to attempt to define what is a "real" problem. That is the prerogative of citizens in a free society.

> Classic HN comment.

Try to be more constructive in the future.

0. "Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World" McGonigal, Jane

[intelVISA]

If we remove the problems solved in the 90s and/or the ones self-induced we would have barely, if any, 'real' tech problems to work on.