I feel like the Steam Deck is the best proof of Gabe Newell's quote that "piracy is a service issue."

They could have easily crammed the Steam Deck full of stuff to make it hard to use for piracy - locking down everything, making it usable only to play games you legitimately own, force you to go through who knows what hoops in order to play games on it. That’s what Nintendo or Apple or most other companies do.

But they didn’t, because they realized they didn’t have to. It’s 100% possible to put pirated games on the Steam Deck - in fact, it’s as easy as it could reasonably be. You copy it over, you wire it up to Steam, if it’s a non-Linux game you set it up with Proton or whatever else you want to use to run it, bam. You can now run it in Steam just as easily as a normal Steam game (usually.) If you want something similar to cloud saves you can even set up SyncThing for that.

But all of that is a lot of work, and after all that you still don’t have automatic updates, and some games won’t run this way for one reason or another even though they’ll run if you own them (usually, I assume, because of Steam Deck specific tweaks or install stuff that are only used when you’re running them on the Deck via the normal method.) Some of this you can work around but it’s even more hoops.

Whereas if you own a game it’s just push a button and play. They made legitimately owning a game more convenient than piracy, and they did it without relying on DRM or anything that restricts or annoys legitimate users at all - even if a game has a DRM-free GOG version, owning it on Steam will still make it easier to play on the Steam Deck.

PoisonedPrisonPanda,

I think steam in general is a proof that its a service issue

Adalast,

Valve is one of those companies that I genuinely believe makes a strong argument for ethical capitalism being possible. Sure, they have some shitty things, but overall they do treat developers and customers reasonably well, they provide hardware and software that is easy to use and non-abusive (not filled with spyware and data harvesters, doesn’t use advertising, is well maintained, etc.). If we could obliterate all of the other major conglomerates and replace them with people/companies that understand that you don’t have to be a massive pile of shit to make money the world would be better off.

NotMyOldRedditName,

Costco has seemingly done it as well.

At the very least they are night and day compared to the vast majority of scummy employers out there.

I always find it fascinating that almost all their profit is simply membership fees.

Morgikan,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

Valve argued in court that you do not own any title in your library and that they are a subscription based service. That’s not very ethical.

LufyCZ,

They would probably have issues with publishers if you actually owned the titles.

It’d probably make them very heavily liable if for some reason Steam shut down, they had to make something unavailable for some reason, whatever.

Morgikan,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

This is exactly what happened actually in one of Valve’s court cases. It wasn’t that Steam went down, but rather the user was permabanned. When that ban happened he lost access to his game library. However, he had purchased those games so he argued successfully that he had a right to download what he purchased. Valve attempted to argue that they were a subscription service so that they would not have to provide anything to him. In the end since he won the case, he was allowed to download what he purchased. I’m sure that created a weird situation for those publishers and I’m not sure whether or not Steam had to remove the Steam DRM prior to allowing him to download.

kumatomic, (edited )

They also forced developers to never price lower on any other platform than steam as a condition fire selling on steam. Which is not only unethical, it’s illegal. Also the secret hardware changes to steam deck which people usually try to justify, but was shady no matter what.

Jako301,

That’s not entirely true. Valve forces devs to not sell Steam keys lower on other sites without also going on sale on Steam in a reasonable close amount of time.

I know it sounds the same at first, but it’s a drastic difference. You can generate as many Steam keys as you like and sell then on other sites, Valve won’t see a single cent from these sales. They however still provide their online services and servers for free for all those keys sold on other sites. It is quite reasonable that they force you to match prices since they literally are losing money (albeit not much) if you sell on other platforms. And I don’t mean lost sales, but infrastructure cost.

And additionally is this rule pretty much never enforced. AAA studios have special deals and indi devs aren’t worth the hassle.

kumatomic,

I can’t speak to whether or not that is true, because it’s not necessarily exclusive. Both can be correct. It’s not what’s in the antitrust lawsuit. it’s not what I’m talking about either. The issue outlined in the antitrust suit is: *“Valve has for years maintained its dominance and thwarted effective competition by engaging in various anticompetitive acts. For example, Valve forces game publishers to agree to a Platform Most-Favored-Nations Clause (the “Valve PMFN”) as a requirement to access Steam. Valve explicitly requires that publishers agree that games sold elsewhere must be sold “in a similar way to how you sell your game on Steam” and publishers cannot “give Steam customers a worse deal” for games sold elsewhere,2 i.e., Valve prohibits publishers from giving consumers a better deal on other stores that compete with Steam. Valve interprets and enforces this language to encompass price parity, forcing game publishers to charge the inflated Steam Store price across the marketplace, on all game sales, even sales of games that are not enabled for Steam. Valve thus uses its PMFN to control the prices of games sold in the Steam Store and in other stores. Rather than lowering prices to Steam customers, Valve’s PMFN has the effect of reducing price competition and raising game prices.” That’s one of several complaints against Valve." * I’m really surprised so many people here of all places believe any corporation gives a shit about anything but their money. Corporations are never your friend. If they helped make piracy necessary it wasn’t done for our benefit, it was done because it is profitable for them. Here’s the complaint in case No. 2:21-cv-00563-JCC in it’s entirety: steamclaims.com/…/5210fb_80b19705e27549158fea02a1…

Jako301,

I’m really surprised so many people here of all places believe any corporation gives a shit about anything but their money. Corporations are never your friend.

I never said valve is a friend, they simply are the more trustworthy party in this lawsuit. Two things about this:

  1. I’ve never seen any proof of this MFN clause. I’ve read the Steamworks distribution agreement (which is hidden behind an NDA), I’ve read the steam TOS, I’ve looked through the steamworks documentation that is declared as legally binding in the contract, I’ve looked for screenshots or citations. There is nothing that would even suggest they are interfering with non-steamkey prices apart from what Wolfire games tells the court. (Who are, of course, coincidentally using the same Lawfirm as epic does, which makes this whole thing even more suspicious.)
  2. This is the second time this lawsuit is brought up and there are pretty much no complaints from other devs, not even anonymous. Usually when lawsuits like this happen a bandwagon full of people come out to complain, twitter descends into a shitstorm and reddit digs out their aluminium foil hats. But there is absolutely nothing at the moment.

You are free to post any links with proof you have. Maybe the lawsuit will dig up something in Valve’s basement. But as of now, everything we’ve seen is just one big accusation from Wolfire games.

kumatomic,

You did not that’s correct, that was meant more towards all of the people in the thread in general worshiping steam as a corporate savior. That was poor writing on my part. The things you mentioned are almost word for word the conjecture you find on Reddit and has not proof itself. I would love to see a copy of the MFN myself. Valve definitely admits they ask developers to offer similar prices according to their responses to other users, but won’t deny it or produce a copy themselves of any MFN. All I’m saying is they’re in a well deserved anti-trust suit that covers several topics beyond the MFN as detailed in the links I did provide. Their motions to dismissed have been slapped down because the judges feels there’s enough evidence to proceed on at least some of the claims. I guess we’ll see whether the case can prove itself or not and neither of us will really know until all of the evidence is presented. I’m not blindly believing they must be guilty, but it’s hard to say Steam isn’t a monopoly. There are plenty of other reasons to dislike Steam, but arguing that with the other people here is a bit like arguing with gun owners. People are willing to dismiss their principles about things that affect the macrocosm quickly when it could deprive them of something they personally enjoy.

Jako301,

You never owned any software, even before valve. All you ever purchased was a license key that could be revoked at any time.

That isn’t a problem made by valve, it existed far before the whole company was even founded. The underlying issue is the way digital mediums are licensed and the corresponding copyright laws.

Morgikan,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

That’s not really true. I still have physical media that I’ve purchased as a teenager. That’s not a license key that I own that’s physical media. It was independent of any licensing servers or anything like that. Digital media licensing didn’t really start taking effect until about 2010ish en masse. Prior to that most streaming services like Netflix weren’t really streaming services as internet infrastructure didn’t quite exist to that degree yet.

ryannathans,

Is that not true though? As much as we hate it, until you get given some transferrable proof of ownership of the game (like an NFT) and ability to play without being tied to one service, it’s the unfortunate reality of online game services.

It’s easy to go buy a physical game but when it’s online, you don’t own anything - yet

xep, (edited )

It's true. Pragmatically speaking if you don't have access to the server software you can't play it if the servers go down, and besides reverse engineering or the goodwill of the developers I'm not aware of any games with online components that continue to be playable after their servers are taken down.

DroneRights, (edited )

Back in 2000-2012, a good lot of mainly singleplayer games had optional multiplayer modes. Think Halo, Starcraft, TRON, Titanfall, etc. Even DOOM 2016 had it. These games function with the servers down.

Cracks_InTheWalls,
@Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works avatar

Something I haven’t thought about in a while: In the early 2000s games where you made a direct connection to the other player without an intervening, third-party server were still a thing. You still see it in things like netplay functionality in emulators.

Is this still a thing at all in 2023? Imagine it would be very niche, but this comment made me curious.

DroneRights,

It’s still in Team Fortress 2 and Factorio

JustEnoughDucks,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

Well then allow me to name a few:

  • Battlefront 2 (the original), still active when the servers have been down for years
  • Titanfall 2. Official servers aren’t technically down, but pretty much unusable and NorthStar is the alternative
  • Counter strike 1.6 is pretty much just community-run servers, same with day of defeat: source. I don’t know if they are tied with valve that if valve shut them down, they wouldn’t be searchable.
  • Supreme commander: Forged Alliance

Hell, Battle for Middle Earth II still has a small community

  • Valheim has never had official servers. I run my own via docker on debian
  • Unreal Tournament 1999
  • Minecraft (official servers aren’t down, but if they shutdown there would still be 2000 servers)
seaturtle,

Fundamentally I don’t really know how it’d be viable to truly “own” a specific copy of something, when it’s always possible to make infinitely many copies of it. Any such “ownership” is at best essentially just conceptual, aside from perhaps the legal right to annoy other people about the copies they are in possession of.

So instead my personal take is that I’d rather everything just be offered DRM-free. I don’t necessarily need transferable ownership as much as I just need proper and guaranteed access under my own control after I purchase the product.

ryannathans,

NFTs cannot have copies made (apart from by the publisher) and are ideally suited to this problem

seaturtle,

But anything that exists as digital data can be copied. The same applies to NFTs. Make an NFT image or game or whatever, and it can be copied by whoever has access to it. The only way to prevent such copying is to not release it at all.

The only stipulation is that copies made without authorization of whoever holds the rights to it would not be “official” instances of the thing, and there are potential copyright restrictions on the use of such copies…but that’s using NFTs to justify copyright law, and aside from “lol copyright”, legal of ownership of an NFT is even more of a mess than traditional legal ownership of an IP.

ryannathans,

You’re talking about media linked to by existing NFTs. You can’t copy an NFT and use it, you don’t have the cryptographic keys to mint more. There is a finite number.

seaturtle,

And what exactly is that NFT, as distinct from the media it’s linked to, useful for? Aside from simply saying that it is unique and one can have ownership of it.

ryannathans,

Cryptographic licence verification so you can play the game, say for example to use online services. Allows you to trade that licence to other people directly, no third party involvement to facilitate the trade. The game would pick it up and work. Anyone could download the game files but they only work if you own the game either by buying off someone directly or an official publisher

seaturtle,

Any such verification depends on some other party to verify it. If the game requires online services, then the verification is dependent on the online services; the verification can’t stand alone. But we already have existing systems for that without the need for NFTs.

On the other hand, if the game is a standalone game that doesn’t require connecting to online services, then if the game can be made to run on one computer it can be made to run on another computer. No matter how you choose to assign ownership, you can’t get around this. Videogames are fundamentally data, and data can be copied.

Besides…inventing a new NFT-based DRM? No matter how you do it, it’s not going to be as convenient as simply not having DRM. A DRM-free game is one that anyone can just pick up and it’ll work, too. You’re proposing a “solution” that doesn’t offer anything new, while opening up other cans of worms along the way.

Also, we already have peer to peer game trades/sales anyway, and we’ve had these, long before NFTs were a thing.

Pepsi,
@Pepsi@kbin.social avatar

sure they have done some shitty things

Here’s to throwing the baby out with the bathwater I guess

uis,
@uis@lemmy.world avatar

since the alternative is being kicked out at 18 without anywhere to go or money.

More like socialism. Valve is privately owmed company that is run like half-company half-coop.

giggling_engine,
@giggling_engine@lemmy.world avatar

This.

Their strength comes from having zero management and all projects are born and lead by the devs themselves. As close to communism as you could get in a capitalistic world. It does come with some problems but they’re totally manageable - like having a strictly homogeneous workforce (which, one could argue, isn’t a bad thing)

zouhair,

Valve is not publicly owned, I don’t think you can equate commerce to Capitalism.

CountVon, (edited )
@CountVon@sh.itjust.works avatar

Commerce conducted in a capitalist economy is inherently capitalist. Being publicly traded is not strictly required, though it might be the most common form of corporate structure under capitalism. Individuals, partnerships, privately-held and publicly-traded companies can all own capital. Valve’s assets are not owned by a government, its business decisions are made privately and it operates in a free market. Those three factors are pretty much the definition of capitalism.

negativenull, (edited )
@negativenull@startrek.website avatar

Exactly. Free Market ≠ Capitalism

…medium.com/capitalists-hate-capitalism-6406089e2…

PopOfAfrica,

Its really just because Gabe is the dude.

It would devolve of he died.

CountVon, (edited )
@CountVon@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m not convinced that Valve will go down the tubes when Gabe shuffles off this moral coil (praise gaben may he live a thousand years). It would require a strong company culture that believes as he does that piracy is a service issue and is thus willing to adhere to his vision in his absence, but that can happen in a privately held company if there’s a strong succession plan in place.

Now, if Gabe dies and Valve goes public, then it’s pretty much over. Platform monetization, proft-taking and short-term thinking would enshittify Steam in short order.

Coasting0942,

Damn I hope they become a worker collective.

“We just care about providing for our employees, keeping the servers running, and stashing away a percentage in a rainy day fund”. Employees having debate on whether to hire a translator or build a breastfeeding room this year. Some saying why not both?

ByteJunk,
@ByteJunk@lemmy.world avatar

Came looking for this.

Get rid of Gabe and put in the Unity board, and we’ll be paying extra for every Mb we download…

PoisonedPrisonPanda,

Oh boy. Dont give them ideas.

objectionist,
@objectionist@lemmy.world avatar

trust me, the people who work at valve right now know better than to make those stupid ass decisions

NotMyOldRedditName,

Some game developer - oh, our shitty update process requires the whole game to be downloaded again and not just the patch? Too bad so sad!

theangryseal,

It’s funny. I’m dirt poor and I really want to play The Last of Us again. I could easily download it and get it going through piracy. Heck, it’s crossed my mind a time or two.

But you know what I’m doing? I’m waiting for it to go on sale and I’ll grab it then if the time is right. If not I’ll wait until it is.

I have plenty to do until then.

It’s definitely a service issue. I haven’t pirated a single game on Steam Deck.

porcariasagrada,

dude just pirate the game and pay when it is on sale. gabe will aprove because he hasn’t fixed the “i have no money” issue.

PoisonedPrisonPanda,

have no money" issue.

Whos working in that by the way?

CancerMancer,

It’s not immoral to prioritize feeding and clothing yourself, send it.

Sterben,
@Sterben@lemmy.world avatar

I generally always buy games, because they are kinda cheap on PC, but I still refuse to pay streaming services to watch movies.

Steam Deck is great for consuming movies / TV series.

Whirlybird,

I can’t think of a worse mobile device to use for movie/tv watching than a steam deck 😂. Your phone would be much better.

EatYouWell,

Every game I’ve pirated I eventually purchased, but I stopped when steam had their 2h playtime return window.

ReCursing,
@ReCursing@kbin.social avatar

I buy most of my games on steam simply because it makes running them on Linux so damn easy, and I remember the bad old days when it was hell!

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

By now Steam’s most loyal userbase is probably the Linux Gaming community because they make it so easy to just play the games, not to mention the QoL improvements they contribute to upstream projects

mp3, (edited )
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

That, and the inflation making most of us broke-ass.

AphoticDev,
@AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It’s built on Linux. Specifically Arch Linux. So no, there’s nothing they could have done to lock it down to prevent piracy. Not even if they wanted to.

MetaSynapse,

Sure there is, they could have not built it on Arch Linux

Galli,

Android is built on linux yet it is increasingly locked down and many phones are extremely difficult to get root access on.

So Valve could have followed the phone ecosystem path and pushed as much of the feature set as proprietary code as possible (binary blob drivers, proton proprietary instead of bsd), replaced pacman with a valve controlled package manager & repos, setup selinux to give users no power to do anything and made the deck only able to secure boot steamOS signed by Valve. Technical users may be able to jail break such a device but the majority would not be inclined to.

Valve’s wisdom here is in realizing that the majority are going to buy their games anyway but if you don’t lock the device down then most of the technical users will also buy most of their games whereas if you have to go out of your way to jail break a device to install something fun then that device basically becomes a piracy only device from that point on.

mp3,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

And instead of doubling-down in denial, they embraced the openness.

EatYouWell,

Tell me you don’t know how to administer Linux without telling me you don’t know how to administer Linux.

AphoticDev,
@AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I don’t administer Linux, I use Linux. Unless you’re conflating being an end user with being an administrator, in which case I would say that’s a rather pretentious way to put it. Nobody walks around saying they administer Windows because they have a laptop. It sounds stupid.

EatYouWell,

Right, so you don’t know what you’re talking about and shouldn’t speak authoritatively on the subject.

I drive a car every day, but that doesn’t mean I can speak authoritatively on how its transmission works.

But, I am a senior SecOps engineer (like a systems engineer but also a cyber security expert) working mostly with Linux, and I can authoritatively say that you’re mistaken about Valve’s ability to block piracy in Linux.

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

The point is just using it gives you no experience to talk about how easy it is to lock down an OS, administering one does. EatYouWell is absolutely right in calling out that you don’t administer linux, as you say yourself: you don’t, you use it. And that difference shows in the falsehood of your comment: it is possible to lock down Linux to levels like a PS5 and anyone administering Linux would know that from their knowledge of the underlying components.

Rossel,

There’s a lot they could have done, locking down Linux isn’t that hard. Just look at Chrome OS, it’s based on Gentoo, yet it’s locked down completely. All they had.to do is lock the BIOS, enable secure boot and disable root access, and then it’s pretty much a locked system.

520,

It’s built on Linux.

So what? Orbis (the PlayStation OS) is built on FreeBSD, but there's still anti piracy on the PS5.

So no, there’s nothing they could have done to lock it down to prevent piracy.

They could have:

  • locked the machine to SteamOS only
  • allowed only the Steam UI
  • encrypted the SSD using a TPM chip to prevent messing with the OS.
  • disallow applications that expose the underlying UI
  • have an Apple esque signing policy when it comes to system binaries
  • not allow custom shortcuts.
  • much more

Believe me, if they wanted to try, they could have.

AphoticDev,
@AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

You got me there. Doing stuff like that on other platforms like the Switch totally prevented piracy, so I suppose it’s a good thing they didn’t do it on a system that thousands of devs know down to the kernel without having to reverse engineer.

Zorque,

You said prevent, not eliminate. There's tens of thousands of ways to prevent piracy. They are not infallible, but they are preventatives.

There is nothing on this earth that will eliminate piracy.

Where would you like to move the goalposts now?

AnonTwo, (edited )

That's not moving goalposts, you're just arguing semantics. People generally think of eliminate when they say prevent in this kind of conversation....

If anything if they went "prevention" and not "eliminate" like in your sense...it would be even dumber because it would just make the steamdeck a more restrictive x86-processor computer compared to the systems people were already comparing it to up until it's release

Imagine how it would've gone down if people were saying "Of course you can do that, it's a PC" if people responded with "Yeah, except it's 10x harder to do things you could normally do on PC". They wanted it to be close to how a PC is, it was part of the advertising campaign.

AphoticDev,
@AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Anytime you’re reduced to arguing semantics, it’s not even an argument worth engaging in. So I’m not going to bother responding further to you.

conciselyverbose,

Nintendo is incompetent.

PS5 and Xbox both control what runs on their systems perfectly fine.

Rossel,

Nintendo was super competent with the Switch, their kernel is actually ridiculously secure. I’m pretty sure if Nvidia hadn’t messed up, we would still be scratching our heads with the Switch.

520, (edited )

If you think that the goal of anti piracy measures is to be an impenetrable barrier, you've completely misunderstood the assignment.

The idea isn't to be literally impossible, but to be so hard to do that even the moderate tech heads won't bother.

The likes of Nintendo don't care if 12 people are pirating their games, what they want to prevent is situations line the PlayStation Portable, where almost everyone was cracking that fucker wide open and there was a shit ton of piracy.

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

actually making linux usable with the deck controls was probably more work than locking the users out of the desktop mode even

apotheotic,

They could have not built it on arch linux. They made decisions that were pro-consumer and thus they did not need to make decisions that were anti piracy

conciselyverbose,

They could have not given you root access and forced you to install your own OS for it to manage things that aren't on Steam. They could have locked the bootloader and refused to install anything they didn't sign.

Neither would violate the license provided they made the source available.

CrushKillDestroySwag, (edited )

I think you meant to say “Deck” in the second paragraph.

But yeah I totally vibe with your observation. Something a bit ironic with this situation is that a big part of why other companies simply can’t provide the kind of service Steam does is copyright issues - XBox and Playstation both give out free games, Nintendo has their online service, but no option remotely compares to “make everything available on one app on the most modern device.” Imagine if Nintendo put everything that had ever appeared on the Wii/DS/Wii U/3DS/Switch shops all on one online storefront on the Switch, and let you attach ownership to your account and play everything you owned on the most recent device - then they would have about a quarter of the functionality that Steam has on the Deck, where you have access to every game you’ve bought for PC for as long as Steam has existed (and quite a few things from before that) and the number of things that have lost compatibility is pretty low.

Lettuceeatlettuce,
@Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml avatar

I love my Steam Deck. The fact that Valve made it so easy to upgrade, mod, repair, and running a full Linux distro so I can install anything on it is just awesome.

I’ve convinced 2 friends so far to buy one, so Valve is getting hella value from me on that front lol.

It’s so nice that it just works with any controllers, any hardware, can be fully customized internally and externally.

I use it to watch TV and movies, stream my Jellyfin music, couch co-op, play my emulated GBA games, play FOSS games like Battle for Wesnoth and Super Tux Kart, and of course a bunch of my Steam games.

firecat,

Well that’s completely untrue, the operating system is not open source, steamOS should be open source and Valve refuses to do it.

Your opinion on gaming is irrelevant because Proton is another software and Valve employees don’t contribute to the code, GitHub records show zero activity from them. Some games don’t even work.

Steam Deck/ Valve don’t support piracy, the User Agreement you signed up to obtain Steam Deck says by default it doesn’t support piracy.

They didn’t make games easier to buy. You still need the Client, you still need to sign up, you can’t sue Valve, you will get banned if the key is illegal and obtaining games that’s not American or Europe is super hard.

Valve just selling a junk machine with their brand. Nothing special about it.

averyminya,

This seems pretty whack dude. Proton has been heavily contributed to via Valve, if at least only by paying people to work on it. Without Valve proton would be in a much more dire state than it is now. Seriously, just look at its progress just 6 months before the Steam Deck and after its announcement. It’s a night and day difference.

“some games don’t even work” I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. With a library of 1.2k trying to see games that don’t work when they’re “unsupported” I’ve yet to come across any. I’m sure there are but, again, what’s your point? That gaming on Linux still has some games that don’t work?

They don’t officially support piracy. What company does? And does Valve do anything to prevent your cracked Non-Steam game from running? So… Their “lack” of piracy support means nothing because you can still do whatever you want. Ok.

“Didn’t make games easier to buy because you have to create an account”. Alright, have fun redownloading things you’ve purchased with no record. Even indie stores have you make an account dude.

“You will get banned if a key is illegal” lmao, what the fuck is an illegal steam key?? You bought games from a stolen credit card or a region resell and had the key revoked? They don’t ban you. And if you’re talking about being region locked, congratulations, Valve is complying with that government. And if you’re talking about being in the U.S. trying to buy keys from other regions, that is hurting people in the region it’s priced for and you’re a jerk for that.

What the fuck are you talking about?

firecat,

This right here is an example of Steam brand loyalty. Valve employees have nothing to offer Photon, yet you defend them for being Valve. “Lack” of piracy is not an argument, Valve has a company has stolen from companys before you were ever born, their newest crime, stealing patent game controller just shows how little they changed. Risking their entire existence to support an ideal place for games to steal is just a way to get sued by every company.

Lastly, yes you can get banned for illegal keys, do basic research where people got their accounts banned because of publishers who revoked the keys.

averyminya,

Seeing and taking advantage of services and being happy with it when there is consistency is not brand loyalty. Honestly, always putting these messages behind coy insults just detracts from the actual important part of what you’re trying to say, which is to be wary of where you put your trust. That’s a very valid point of view. It’s true, I am probably trading off these services for the potential longevity of my games.

Proton development was going very slowly before it was in Valve’s interest change that for their benefit. That language make you happy? You can tell me to research all you want but that is the truth. Proton development sped up exponentially after 2020. What am I defending? I literally said if only in paying people to work on it. The reality is, Proton is where it is today because it benefits the Steam Deck. The end result is the same for Linux gamers. It’s ridiculous to say that Valve offered nothing to Proton when graphed out there is a very clear rise in development after Valve got more involved.

Stealing patent game controllers, so you side with Corsair and Scuff, notorious patent trolls hoarding designs and actively preventing small controller makers? Awesome, great showing us where you stand there, that’s extremely telling. If you’re talking about other examples - my mistake. Corsair can rot in hell, they have destroyed so many awesome concept controllers with C&Ds. Oh by the way - newest crime? That was in 2015, 8 years ago lmao.

Risking their entire existence to support an ideal place for games to steal is just a way to get sued by every company.

I’m not really sure what you are trying to say. Every company doesn’t support piracy but many go through extreme measures to prevent it. Opt-in developer Steam DRM is laughably trivial and literally is only to suggest buying it to avoid going through the hassle of cloning one git repository. Again, you are saying illegal keys but you’re not saying what that is. I did mention being banned can happen in extremely rare cases, but most examples when you actually look online are the fault of the user for working around pretty obvious things. Such as buying grey market or working around region locks to buy keys at a cheaper price.

Somebody only using Steamless to crack games and putting them in Steam via Non-Steam is at far less risk of getting their account banned than someone working around region locks and buying grey market is, since you are actively feeding into harmful business. Going around region locks hurts those players and grey market risks laundering/stolen credit card keys both of which affect the developers.

Valve isn’t perfect, I never implied they were. It’s taken a lawsuit (funnily enough, also in 2015) to make them more consumer friendly and yet one suit in Australia affected how they do business worldwide allowing refunds everywhere. Looking to Apple in the EU as an example where one country affects how it does business worldwide I am doubting they will do the same given that they’ve yet to do so for any cases so far.

Look - I don’t disagree that it’s dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket. The idea of Steam Servers going down would be devastating to many and it’s silly to trust a company at face value when they promise you’ll keep access to it if/when that happens. I have Steamless and keep the really important installers backed up for a reason, it’s smart to have just in case. It’s interesting that I’m able to do this at all on Steam, I have not been able to crack my own games for Ubisoft/EA so I can play them offline and without an account.

Who do you trust instead? Do you only pirate to make sure you’ve got the installer forever? Only GOG/itch for DRM free?

Personally I use Steam because I’m under the assumption that if Valve goes under it’s probably because the world is ending and our computers will be useless. Semi-/s

In the meantime what matters to me is being able to play remotely with friends. It has been huge for our friend group and as far as I know, there is no group remote play alternative available? Anywhere? Streaming my games to the living room or on my phone while on the bus - I know moonlight can do this but it never worked well for me. Controller input with SteamAPI also is a massive improvement and for the games I use it with, my Steam Controller is invaluable having mixed mouse and controller inputs. Cloud saves are pretty standard, but including per-game notes is unique and is now. essential. I don’t want to have to set syncthing to every single folder a game decides is a suitable location for saves, and using .txts or my phone notes was annoying. I only manage my emulation saves now.

Don’t even get me started on SteamVR compared to WMR. Great teams at working WMR, very friendly and communicative - very frustrating to actually play in. The quest is a joke.

I use these monthly at minimum, most of them daily. I’m not a fanboy so much as someone who uses a service that isn’t offered elsewhere. I’d be happy to jump ship from Valve if there was something. The main marketed competition is much more awful than Valve and actually has influence on the entire gaming market with Unreal Engine and they very quickly showed how little they care about the user. The other VR options on the market I tried, the Reverb G2 would have been okay if 1) WMR wasn’t a requirement, 2) inside-out camera tracking sucks and 3) inconsistent hardware makes them fragile. Half of what made the VR experience so good was that I was using the Index Knuckles. Got the Index a bit later and despite the lower res it was just such a better experience because I didn’t have to fiddle and tweak to make things work. I got the Steam link (because it was $5) because I was constantly annoyed with moonlight giving me issues - lo and behold the steam link just worked with no issues.

Until there’s a good alternative, I’m happy with my Steam Deck and Index. I’m content risking my library of games if it means that right now I’m able to play Overcooked with my friend in Indonesia, or end my game on PC and pick up where I left off downstairs either via Steam Link or these days the Deck. These are things that I could not do, either at all or as easily, without Steam.

Show me an alternative that has a smidge of what I use from Steam and I’ll start switching over. Playnight and GOG Galaxy aren’t it by a longshot. None from what I can tell exist except for a single self-hosted option that just came to fruition this year, and that’s solely for installers and a very barebones launcher (it was called Crack I think, hilarious, but I think the project has been renamed since then). But go on, keep saying it’s blind brand loyalty, ignore the litany of services that get used that make people see it as a worthwhile option.

AnonTwo, (edited )

...?

No they couldn't, it's fucking Linux. They'd have to tie the controller drivers hostage to "lock it down", and at that point they'd hit so many hiccups with legitimate users.

Like they'd have to pull so many things from Linux (in particular Proton) to "DRM-ify" the steamdeck.

And as I think someone else just posted, some of the stuff they'd need to lock-down aren't even things Valve has control over. Like I said Proton but Valve doesn't own proton.

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

you do realize it is absolutely possible to lock down a Linux install? Every Android device essentially is just that and their bootloaders are only unlockable because they were forced to by EU law. Steam absolutely had the option to make a Linux based DRM shitfest, in some ways it would have been easier even, they just chose not to

EatYouWell,

You probably shouldn’t talk authoritatively on a topic you clearly know nothing about.

Source: I’m a senior systems engineer.

AnonTwo,

And if you're going to flaunt your title you should probably actually...you know...say something that pertains to that knowledge you have.

This just seems like blind fanboyism. As great as the steamdeck is there's no reason to act like it's doing things it's not actually doing. It was designed the way it was because it had to be, there doesn't need to be anything whimsical about it.

EatYouWell,

Buddy, a very large part of my job is locking down Linux as much as possible while still allowing it to do it’s job. I can confidently say that not locking things down was a decision that was made, not a restraint of the system they used.

I’m not saying that they didn’t lock it down to allow piracy, which is actually a really dumb take. They probably did it to allow moding and allow it to be used as a desktop.

greybeard, (edited )

They may have done a poor job of explains thing, but they are right. Secure boot is a system that every manufactured computer in the last 5+ years has support. The only reason you can install anything but Windows on most PCs is because the manufacturer let you, but they could take it away in an instant by requiring secure boot and only allowing Microsoft’s signatures to boot an OS. Valve could have done the same thing if they chose. That’s basically how the XBox works these days, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the PlayStation is the same, since it is x64 as well.

squaresinger,

I did post an exact description a bit higher above, but you focussed on the one detail that really doesn’t matter in this equation (ARM vs x86, even though it’s exactly the same in that regard, and there are also x86 Android devices) and neither read nor understood the rest of my answer.

And you used that missing knowledge on your side to invalidate my answer without even understanding what it was about.

And you could, very big revelation, also just google before posting nonsense.

u/EatYouWell responded exactly the right way.

Eikichi,
@Eikichi@lemmy.ml avatar

Ok so you just think this is fanboyism, your Right and you are maybe right but… You don’t have to make false arguments to say this…

They could have put energy, to mitigate piracy and being in the same state as android devices, where not every user root it to put on it lineageos for example.

They designed it, soft and hardware, and they did no effort at all on this side.

You can see on this, a sign as OP, or you can don’t mind about it and think steam just didn’t put effort on it by lack of time or resources maybe.

But don’t say false things to make your point true.

squaresinger,

Tieing down a Linux installation is actually pretty easy.

  • Lock the BIOS down so that it can only boot a Valve-signed OS
  • Remove root access on the OS
  • chown root:root on anything you don’t want the users to touch

It’s pretty much the same as Android device vendors are doing.

AnonTwo,

The...arm-based systems that use a different kind of BIOS?

If even Apple isn't doing it on x86, I don't see why Valve would start.

justJanne,

Microsoft actually locked down the BIOS on several Windows 10 S devices to prevent users from installing non-MS OSes with enforced MS-only secure boot.

squaresinger, (edited )

Have you heard of Android running on x86?

I had an x86 Android tablet and that was exactly as locked-down as an ARM Android device.

But anyhow: I can lock down a x86 laptop or PC the way I was describing within a very short time.

So again:

  • Put a password on the BIOS
  • Set Secure Boot on
  • Wipe all Secure Boot keys and put your own in there
  • Encrypt the disk so that you can’t just plop the drive into another PC and modify its content
  • Set the root user to “Can only login with private key” and don’t give the key to the customers
  • Remove all users from sudoers
  • Use chown root:root and chmod 700 on anything you don’t want the user to touch

And if a company was doing this to their products (e.g. the Steam Deck), they’d replace the first 3 steps with a custom BIOS which just doesn’t let you change anything in regards to Secure Boot and Secure Boot keys. That way, removing the BIOS battery won’t help.

There are countless embedded devices using an x86 PC at their core, where they did exactly that. (E.g. ATMs or medical devices)

Also Chromebooks are exactly that.

And the Playstation 5 does the same thing, only it’s based on FreeBSD.

Rossel, (edited )

It’s not impossible or even hard to lock down Linux. Just look at Chrome OS, it’s Gentoo based, but with the bootloader locked and root access removed, it is pretty much immutable.

And Chromebooks just use off the shelf parts.

BlinkerFluid,
@BlinkerFluid@lemmy.one avatar

Here’s my piracy shtick.

I beat half of Blasphemous on a pirated copy then I bought it, moved the save file and kept playing.

Criteria: I like the game. I’ll probably play it again in ten years and I want to support the devs.

What would’ve happened if I never pirated it? I’d be saying the same thing about someone else’s game.

pgetsos,
@pgetsos@kbin.social avatar

I pretty much do the same for almost a decade whenever a game doesn't have a demo available

mateomaui,

I don’t even own a steamdeck yet but most of my actual purchases are from Steam in preparation for the next big revision. Buy Steam cheap from keyshops, pirate GOG for backup.

reverendsteveii, (edited )

The steam deck is how you prevent piracy. If you look at the huge influx of streaming services, you’ll see an example of how you encourage piracy. I recently dropped three of my services in favor of one pirate site that has almost everything. They even offer a subscription tier and I’ve considered it. I’m willing to pay for good content. What I’m not willing to do is pay dozens of middlemen across multiple companies to rip off the people who actually make my favorite shows and then memory hole the shows a few months after they premiere.

Whirlybird, (edited )

The steam deck does nothing to prevent piracy though? It’s just a portable pc. Nothing about it is making pc gaming any more enticing to make people stop pirating.

drathvedro,

It’s not the amount of services that’s the problem, the competition is aleays a good thing. It’s exclusives that are the problem. Almost noone is complaining about origin and uplay even thouhh it’s games are available via a launcher launching yet another launcher. But epic? Everyone hates epic precisely because of their exclusive deals taking content off of other platforms. And for streaming, I guess if some of the players worked out some deal to get their hands on exclusives from other platforms, people would stop complaining about it, even if they jack up the prices to ultimately end up with the same amount of revenue.

nevernevermore,

memory hole

sick turn of phrase, i'm stealing that

reverendsteveii,

Please read 1984. That’s where this term comes from. You’re living through a combination of it and Brave New World.

CancerMancer, (edited )

Amazon TVs seem like they used 1984 as a reference.

But yeah somewhere between 1984 and BNW sounds right. The government and the megacorporations are not opposed but in fact the very same party. Instead of mood-numbing or happy drugs, it’s sugar and antidepressants. Instead of government watching you it’s corporations selling every part of your identity down to your menstruation cycle. You are kept in line with debt rather than force, which is honestly worse because you put the shackles on yourself, and you do it because the alternative is worse.

Your own special hell.

reverendsteveii,

at least we get bumblepuppies and soma (tiktok and marijuana)

CancerMancer, (edited )

With respect to social media, I think Fahrenheit 451 might have nailed that best. Everyone involved in a neverending orgy of ego and drama over dumb shit, most of which isn’t real anyway.

Did anyone predict the agrostophobia?

EatYouWell,

But in this universe, people willingly pay money for Big Brother to watch them.

Lev_Astov,
@Lev_Astov@lemmy.world avatar

No, they pay money for Younger Brother, the capitalist version of Big Brother to watch them. Big Bro is always watching regardless.

EatYouWell,

I think it’s more like Big Cousin instead of little brother, since the corpos run things.

epyon22,

Recently got a switch. Digital games are same price as physical, locked to my account/switch and saves don’t move easily between devices. Steam deck, I can play on any hardware that can support it TV, PC laptop games cloud save for free. I can play online games for free. I know that games I buy today will be available in 10 years on my next PC. I only buy carts for the switch cause they give me more flexibility still not even the same as steam.

Whirlybird,

You’re just describing pc gaming though, not specifically steam deck gaming.

Moonrise2473,

I very rarely backup game saves but only the thought of being locked to a console puts me off. I can’t possibly invest 100+ hours in a Pokemon game and lose everything of the battery dies, screen breaks, console is forgotten on a bus or stolen, and so on.

EatYouWell,

Switch save files can be saved in the cloud, but the game devs have to enable it. You can also save them to an SD card.

Dudewitbow,

Saved in the cloud if youre a NSO subscriber* Aint paying for the sub? Tough luck kid.

EatYouWell,

Ah, I didn’t research that far into it, so good point. Although I can see the reasoning behind it from a business standpoint.

Pepsi,
@Pepsi@kbin.social avatar

Except for Pokémon games which are saved directly to the internal storage and unable to be moved unless you have the original save device (and it’s working) as well as the new device and transfer the save manually.

Splatoon is the same. Saves are locked to the system, even with NSO.

Animal crossing was the same until people raised hell about it.

EatYouWell,

My point was that it’s on the devs, not Nintendo. The functionality exists, devs just need to implement it.

The same was true for Steam as well, once upon a time.

Pepsi, (edited )
@Pepsi@kbin.social avatar

the comment you replied to:

I can’t possibly invest 100+ hours in a Pokemon game and lose everything of the battery dies, screen breaks, console is forgotten on a bus or stolen, and so on.

it is nintendo’s choice disable cloud saves on pokémon. splatoon and animal crossing are both made by studios under nintendo’s umbrella, and nintendo already showed they can exert that pressure if they need to with animal crossing.

saying “it’s up to the devs, not nintendo” neither answers the complaint you replied to nor has any semantic relevance to the titles above. moreover, SD cards cannot be used for these titles.

EatYouWell,

No, it’s not Nintendo’s choice. That’s like saying it’s Nvidia’s choice when a game doesn’t implement hardware accelerated ray tracing.

Pepsi, (edited )
@Pepsi@kbin.social avatar

it’s not at all like that, and i’m not sure where you’re missing the boat.

nintendo has ownership stake in the developers of all the titles we’re talking about. it would be like if valve turned off cloud saves on left 4 dead 1. you’d come in to comment how it’s turtle rock’s fault that valve turned off a feature that was implemented by valve on a platform owned by valve for a game published and developed by valve.

in this analogy you’re also playing on the steam deck, so the hardware is also built by valve.

just_another_person,

Interesting take, for sure. I agree to some point. I also think Gabe just knows the audience, and he knows how much people would have rebelled against the very idea of this device if it came from Steam (not Valve), and excluded users. This would have been a completely failed product had the initial reviews been something like “Just a Switch knockoff”.

Instead, this has garnered Steam as a platform with an entire group of adoring fans, some of whom used to be critics. I guarantee they added a ton of business to Steam as a platform just because a lot of users would buy, say, GTA5 on Steam again during a sale for $9 versus jumping through the tiny hoops to make a bootleg copy run.

They did a fantastic job in parallelism getting Proton to an easy to use product (for free, mind you), and reinventing the portable PC game. Many may not know that was an entire segment of handheld PC devices on the market for years before Deck hit, and Steam’s team hit all the right spots to completely blow them away, and not only make them irrelevant, but also lure in new adoptees to Steam as a platform. Brilliant execution and moves.

variants,

man I remember using a 8" windows tablet with a 3d printed mount to a xbox controller to be able to play steam games like hyperlight drifter, it was so cool at the time but man did it suck holding it for long and the performance was so bad for anything but the simplest game. after that I turned to steam link with my phone and a razer kishi controller, I setup a headless steam docker on my server to keep my games accessible and that worked pretty well when 5G came out but nothing really beats games running on the hardware you hold in your hand, at least not for a good while

just_another_person,

This is like…the most resistant path. Steam had Remote Play 5 years ago.

Kedly,

Autism is a hell of a drug (Saying this as an aspie)

sunflower_name,

Yeah, valve is pretty much one of the least companies, that let you own your games, not rent for a couple of years for $100

babydriver,

They still put drm in the games sold on their store though.

sunflower_name,

Yeah no for sure, but you can still download those games, which were removed after you purchased them, and play.

GOG is still the W, yet they never really compete, considering the amount of games available

filister,

At the end it’s all about convenience and how much you need to tinker with something, because your free time also matters and if the effort to pirate something is higher than the price of that something then you are more likely to choose convenience. Same with Netflix.

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