it's amazing to me how valve employees & gaben haven't become out of touch with their customers (i.e. ordinary people), despite how rich they must have gotten. it's documented phenomenon in psychology that the richer and more powerful you got, the less capacity you will have for sympathy. basically, as a company gets big and rich, they stop being able to understand what will piss their users off (think "dO yOu GuYs NoT hAvE pHoNeS?").

this hasn't seemed to have happened with valve yet, somehow. they still seem to be down to earth people. (btw, if you haven't watched any of the steam sales promotion videos, they are pretty fun, take a look).

I suppose they mean that they do "nothing" because they are not figthing their opponents in the market. Valve's opponents just keep shooting themselves in their feet.

Valve does a lot, but one of the reasons (maybe the main reason) they are so successful is that the others are all trying a speedrun to the bottom.

Its misleading to say that steam is pro consumer, they use their monopolistic position to maintain their much larger comision that their competition, besides the whole drama about them promoting online gambling. It's just that they act decently enough that allows them to continue.

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

-- God (In Futurama)

There's two main reasons why I like physical media:

1. Longevity. If the maker/publisher of the game doesn't want to support it anymore or goes broke, I still have the game.
2. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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.

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.

To be fair physical media for PC has always been a bit different than the "insert disc, play game" you get on consoles.

This is just kind of moronic. Valve didn't kill physical PC games it was the Internet....

PC is an open platform, consoles are not. If a data can be downloaded locally it can be backed up one way or another. You may need a crack to get around the DRM or reverse engineered private server to access some games but the options are there.

At some level this is also possible on many consoles but usually requires either emulation or modded console.

Right? Damn. That's why private companies are better

I hear you, but also, in capitalism everything turns into, at the very least, oligopoly. So, giving that there is no running from it in any aspect of our lives, let us at least celebrate the good things while they last. If we pre-complain, what is even the point of them being good? That idea of "no monopoly/oligopoly" doesn't exist unfortunately, like, AT ALL, specially in the business of intangible media/goods. The anti valve campaign is fueled by companies that would get all if they win, as all these movements, they claim to protect the mom and pop indie games, but is bullshit. It would be horrible from day 1, because they are already horrible without having the majority of the clients.

The big difference being that you can easily get to the game files on PC.

Of course that still doesn't give you a second hand market.

Yup, Gabe did it first. DRM is not your friend

Microsoft pioneered the "your software is licensed, not owned" in the early 80s. Even before Steam, you didn't own your games. Even if they are on physical media, you don't own the software on the media; you just own the media it came on.

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.