Okay, so after a while of taking a hiatus from keeping up with the games industry, I decided to watch all of the previously unreleased episodes of a Youtube show I watch called The Jimquision, and he made this episode about Tetris, which for the most part is fascinating, as are all of his shows, but there was one line in the video that has been bothering me.
6:38 “…and proprietary software that claim to be services, but really just get in the f***ing way between players and their games”
Now I hear things like that being said about software like Origin and Uplay, and I can assume that’s what Jim is referring to here, seeing that he’s talking about EA and Ubisoft, but what bothers me is that, Steam also fits that description perfectly, but Jim would probably include that in the list of intrusive programs. Yet when I mention stuff like that, I get a lot of hate for it, like somehow it’s okay if Valve does it, but not EA or Ubisoft. It’s like they love to suck Valves package and praise Steam to no end (With the exception of a couple of things recently, like paid workshop items), gamers like kick the balls of one greedy corporation, but suck the dick of another! All for doing the same things!
I mean don’t get me wrong, Valve do make amazing games, but it’s by no means an excuse to do what they do! As developers, Valve are amazing, but as publishers, they are corrupt! Perhaps more so than the likes of EA or Microsoft!
I mean if you looked at the file names for Steam in it’s folder, one of the exe is called “SteamService.exe”, so to me, it seems like a peice of evidence that shows that Valve are trying make Steam look like a service.
As for getting in the way? Try running a game you recently got in a store or digitally bought in a store other than GOG or Steam, and try running it without Steam running, chances are, it’ll start up Steam. If that’s not getting in the way between a player and the game, than I don’t know what is! Just because one uses a program so much, it doesn’t make it less intrusive!
Anyway, a later Jimquision episode I watched mentioned this kind of double standard way of thinking when Overwatch uses microtransactions, like people hate when EA does it, but don’t mind it when a company like Blizzard does it.
It seems like a majority of gamers sadly don’t actually care about DRM or shady business practices, I think all of the hate companies get are just because gamers want an excuse to hate those companies, regardless of whether their favourite brand does the exact same thing!
It’s very depressing, really, and I can see why I have been distancing myself from modern gaming, because you have people like that. Whether it’s a vocal minority or not, it doesn’t look like things aren’t going to change, meaning either everyone is fooled into thinking Steam is good, or the silent majority can’t be arsed to do anything about it… Huh, I guess that’s true to life in general, huh?
Cobra!'s Retro Room 