Go check out any game dev community on the internet.

I know exactly what it means. I also know that despite the omnipresence of internet communication in our lives, there’s no such thing as the public sphere on the internet. That means that unlike our offline environment, we cannot publicly share our thoughts free of reprisal, and that’s intolerable. Doxxing is being…

I know exactly what it means. I also know that despite the omnipresence of internet communication in our lives, there’s no such thing as the public sphere on the internet. That means that unlike our offline environment, we cannot publicly share our thoughts free of reprisal, and that’s intolerable. Doxxing is being…

Who are these developers? How many units are they shipping? Seriously, nobody gives a shit if your little itch.io-ready game is buried in the heap on Steam. The service doesn’t exist to market your game for you. Maybe if people like Grayson spent more time reviewing these niche games that get overlooked, instead of…

I seriously doubt that this will impact Steam and lead to a bunch of exclusives. More than likely, publishers will put their games on BOTH store fronts to hedge their bets, if they decide to publish on Epic’s platform at all.

At least the stores aren’t subscription based, so instead of it costing too much to have access to everything, you'll just have to waste more time browsing multiple stores and possibly opening more launchers (Steam can launch any game if you add it, but there's not full integration).

So Steam, GoG, Epic Launcher, Microsoft Store, and at least two others.

The tone of this article makes it sounds like Steam is universally reviled as some necessary evil. The vast majority of users and developers are happy with it and I don’t see that changes so fast.

Yeah you're so right - getting rid of Steam will rid us of bad behavior and toxicity. That was all Steam all along, not, you know, basic problems of human nature. 

And the crucial thing is that you are the average user. These few people who think that most users give even the slightest of shits about supposed “toxicity” on Steam are delusional morons, so overflowing with self-regard that they can’t see just how fringe their concerns are.

Yea, Steam ain’t going anywhere, they have nothing to fear, because I’m not going to start using another fucking platform. I don’t use Steam for any other reason that simple convenience of having most games on there...

As it is I don’t buy games on Steam day 1 practically ever, Steam may not be as hot with the Steam…

Said a lot of people who are sick of Valve’s bullshit.

Opting out of reviews and not having forums is a huge fuck you to consumers. I know they can be toxic but they are also how numerous developers have been pressured to actually fix their games. Taking away consumer voices is not good thing,  just because someone somewhere at some point maybe had their feelings hurt.

A single platform is more convenient for the consumer.

Steam will win no matter what.  We all have a library of a thousand games on Steam.  And Epic and all the other Launchers expect us to bail on that?  lol. Fat chance.  

Won’t put a dent. You know why? Look at EA’s Origin and Ubisofts UPlay. They’ve had a tonne of time to pull people. And they don’t really. There’s two reasons.

Yay! A digital storefront for every game!

Except a lot of these games are rated Teen and a lot of them you can get cards for them at convenience stores so...

Do any trading card companies you know of prevent resale of cards? Or prevent trading of duplicate cards between players? Or have the ability to manipulate the card pack contents and odds *in real time*? Or only allow you to access the cards through their platform, rendering them worthless in any other context?…

This is good! We need closer scrutiny of these mechanics and if regulation is necessary, so be it. App store merchants such as Apple and Google have not proven they can regulate, or even want to regulate, this type of monetization.