this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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Using OSS in your product and giving the OSS devs resources to improve their software, instead of trying to take over their project? Did Valve not get the memo that big tech companies are supposed to be evil?? Oh right, they have a monopoly on video game distribution and all of their products rely on DRM.
I haven't gamed on pc for quite some time, but I remember every gaming company adding "launchers" for their games that you had to run to install and play their games. Even Nvidia did this with their fucking drivers. :)
Valve doesn't do any of that bullshit. Maybe that's why gamers like them?
To be fair, weren't Valve the first company to do that? People were really annoyed at having to install steam just to play some Half-Life.
Of course, that was only 1 launcher, no launcher-in-launcher shenanigans back then.
Yep, Valve also normalized microtransactions significantly through TF2.
Once again, Valve started it as something reasonable: Cosmetic options, then expanded to allow shortcutting unlocking alt weapons through $1-3 charges instead of through game progression (achievements unlocked alt weapons at first). Other companies followed suite in ever increasingly predatory ways, and Valve got worse with it too over time.
I'd say it's maybe a little more honest to say they normalized the gambling exploitation in gaming with the TF2 lootboxes.
You didn't buy cosmetics, you bought a key to open a box that might get you the cosmetic you wanted.