Yesh if you ignore the massive slap that is the steam machine.
Valve got so good at doing nothing for a decade they forgot how to do things again lol.
“i am angry at the company who’s killing physical distribution on console. to comfort myself i’ll glaze the company who killed physical distribution on pc”
???
Valve isn’t in charge of CD production, they’re just providing a digital storefront. Game publishers choose digital because it’s more profitable when you can ignore logistics.
There’s two main reasons why I like physical media:
- Longevity. If the maker/publisher of the game doesn’t want to support it anymore or goes broke, I still have the game.
- Used game market. I’ve got a backlog of PS4 games I got cheap because they still existed after demand went down, so prices went down.
Steam meets both of those in different ways.
- Any game I’ve purchased on Steam has remained available to install, even though some of them aren’t available for sale anymore via Steam. If a publisher folds, Steam can still serve their files to people who bought the game before it folded. This might change in the future and there might be exceptions where a publisher went to court to stop Steam from serving the files (not that I know of any cases of this, just acknowledging the possibility exists here while it doesn’t for physical games you already own), but so far so good.
- Steam sales are often better than used game sales. Sure, not all publishers participate in them, but my steam backlog dwarfs my console backlog because I can often buy multiple games for the price of one used disc game.
They are both ultimately in it for greed, but a different kind of greed. Sony wants the short term make most profits this quarter every quarter, even if this quarter’s strategy hurts next quarter, that’s a problem for next quarter.
Valve seems to at least understand that not taking its users for granted and forcing shitty options on them to make a quick buck will mean they are more willing to continue spending money on their shit.
Also, Valve didn’t come in trying to end physical media, they were a digital service from the start. Similarly, I had no problem with some games on the PS store not having physical releases and I’ve even bought a few. My issue is that the physical disc drive is one of the main reasons I even have a ps5, so saying they won’t be doing them anymore mostly just means that the ps6 won’t be as interesting to me. I’m not even really mad, just disappointed and moving on.
To be fair physical media for PC has always been a bit different than the “insert disc, play game” you get on consoles.
And to be fair, there are so many games on steam or GOG that I want to play, we can wait until they are on sale. Usually for a fraction of the original price.
Turns out if you don’t have shareholders to report to, you can focus on making things better for consumers rather than squeezing every last penny out of them.
Right? Damn. That’s why private companies are better
Whooaahhhhhhhhh there, bucko, let’s slow the fuck down there. There are PLENTY of terrible private companies out there! OpenAI, Anthropic, Pulte, and Kiewit come to mind.
That sounds like most of the terrible private companies are just companies that want to go public.
This is peak Gaben simp meme. Steam were the pioneers of “you don’t own the game, you just own a licence to play it” model which has caused massive amounts of enshittification of the gaming industry. Not to mention all the other bullshit they’ve pushed over the years.
But valve always gets a pass because dumbass games think “lord Gaben” is their best friend because he sells other peoples games for 90% off some times.
I hear this more frequently nowadays, but it really is kind of misplacing the blame for this change. Steam went for this model precisely because many of the bigger game companies to this day refuse to sell their games as anything but a heavily restricted license. And Steam as a storefront does have to cater to them in that regard, especially back then. Even physical disks as others pointed out were technically not something you owned, but rather that resale and such was not enforced or enforceable. (You would definitely get some stern letters if you started copying and selling those games at larger scale, even if you ‘owned’ the original copy).
People do still sell DRM free games on Steam that you can copy and distribute to essentially your hearts extent without Steam ever getting involved. The license you have is for Steam to provide you the download service so you can get your digital copy (and a bit more). If you care about people owning games, then it’s up to you to support and buy from the kinds of companies that don’t provide you a license or (more likely) where the license is unrestricted enough to fit your description of ownership. The middleman like Steam you buy it from shouldn’t matter if they don’t exert undue control beyond that. And at least being on PC if you really must buy something with DRM you have options to remove it.
You can’t stop selling physical copies if you never sold physical copies in the first place
No shareholders to demand unlimited growth and constant enshitification.
‘doesn’t make there products intentionally shit’ and ‘competition shoots themzelfs in the head’. I think I know why they are winning the race
you see, legally, the completion must shoot itself in the foot.
The moment you have shareholders it is the legal obligation to pursue unlimited growth, sacrificing everything to reach the quarterly quota. leading to enshitification.
We keep taking like these are individual leadership choices, but they aren’t. It is the legal duty of EA, Sonic, Microsoft… to sacrifice long term sustainability for a quick buck.
Destroy physical games on PC, and set the precedent for other platforms People don’t care and still buy games Other platforms, seeing that physical games are not profitable and digital games sell as well, begin to shrink that market People hate them and praise you Profit
