Steam distribution policy prohibits Epic Games / Tim Sweeney from exclusivizing any Steam-marketed games

[Jito463]

4 hours ago, Crowbar said:

Learn to read.

 

None of these are client based.

 

DRM in general has been around in other forms for much longer obviously.

We get it, you don't like DRM.  No one does.  The point @leadeater and I (among others) have been attempting to convey, is that Steam was - and in many ways, still is - the best alternative to a lot of the DRM options out there.  If I could get all companies to abandon the idea of DRM, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  As it stands, too many companies still believe they need it, or they have shareholders which they are beholden to who believe DRM is necessary for game sales.

 

Personally, I like what the UT series used to do, which was release the game with DRM and then patch it out a few weeks after launch.  This allowed them to limit piracy during the first 2-3 weeks of launch sales, while not unnecessarily burdening their customer with DRM any longer than they had to.

 

You keep going back to how GoG doesn't have DRM, which is true.  I started to bring up how the GoG website technically constitutes DRM earlier, but then I realized that argument didn't matter so I deleted it before posting.  Here's the thing about GoG, though: it's tiny compared to Steam.  The primary reason it's so tiny is because they require all games to be sold without DRM.  Many companies just will not do that, for the reasons I listed before.  Because of this, a service like Steam is necessary in order to limit the types of DRM that they're tempted to foist upon us.

 

Until you've had to deal with the likes of Starforce (Denuvo's got nothing on Starforce), you can't truly appreciate what Steam did for digital distribution in particular and DRM in general.

[JZStudios]

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

The argument is going in circles because you are ignoring all the points raised.    You haven't addressed what has been said and relying on the same personal opinions as the guiding directive for your understanding.

I'm not ignoring the points, I'm saying they don't mean much and wouldn't hold up well if it actually went to court. The same point people keep bringing up is somewhat irrelevant when the publisher has to pay those "services" that apparently Valve is still paying for somehow. If Valve was concerned about hosting a single web page and having the entire system be completely automated, a $50 deal breaker fee would earn them a significant amount.

 

There is no personal opinion anywhere in that, if the publisher is paying Steam to advertise and push it's product, Steam by default is not paying for it. therefore there's nothing to claim there.

If Steam goes after a dev because they pulled off the store, they claim they have distribution rights, exclusive or not.

If they sue for "damages" for purchases not made or sold, there's no way to know how much is an appropriate number of "lost" sales.

 

But whatever, I don't know how any of that is personal opinion.

 

[Thaldor]

23 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

-snip-

If Steam goes after a dev because they pulled off the store, they claim they have distribution rights, exclusive or not.

If they sue for "damages" for purchases not made or sold, there's no way to know how much is an appropriate number of "lost" sales.

-snip-

That is the part where you're 100% off the reality. If Valve was to enforce this clause they don't need to even take out calculator to count damages, because they would be stupid to run for damages. They would go with breached contract, I can give you example of those sums: I deal a lot with B2B-contracts and one of the highest "fines" to pay for breached contract was 50k€, well like always we put 100k€ (double their amount) to our counter-contract because we can (mostly we did counter their contract because they were going to force us to bill them 6 months later which is fucking hilarious and that's why we always put that double breach amount because fuck them trying to make us wait 6 months for our moneys when it takes couple of weeks for us to deliver our part) and they agreed to it (those sums are totally pulled from our arses, the contract was really worth around 4k€), but if we wouldn't have delivered our service or they wouldn't pay on time and fulfilled their end the other party could have sued the other for 100k€ for breached contract and probably nobody would have even looked at what damages the breach would have caused. Like in our case, Valve would be 100% stupid to go for damages which would kind of open pandora's box because they would need to calculate and prove the damages, while they could even more easily go for breached contract where they just need to prove that the other side broke the contract and flip to the page where they have state the price for contract breach and the judge would only consider was the contract breached.

I'm not 100% sure does Valves Distribution Agreement have the part that basicly says "cost from breaching this agreement is [£$ XXX €]" which basicly says that if you don't honor the agreement you end up paying that [$£ XXX €] sum of money or sued for it. But that kind of part is more rule than exception in this kind of agreements/contracts and I would be really surprised if Valve didn't have one.

[mr moose]

12 hours ago, Crowbar said:

The key word here is "nearly". There is an alternative and I'll stick to that. Until it changes neither will my opinion on the matter.

 

Enjoy the <5% of games out there you can buy outside of a steam like client or without DRM.

 

12 hours ago, Crowbar said:

 

You have no evidence to suggest that epic exclusives are worse for the market then DRM as a whole. Making such a statement to indicate that I have a bias towards valve is a poorly constructed argument. I’ve already stated the opposite more then once, If you choose not to believe it then that’s your prerogative.

You clearly don't understand DRM at this point.   And your arguments as to why valve are bad are based on assumptions about DRM that are not tied to valve in any intrinsic or over representative way.

12 hours ago, Crowbar said:

DRM has historically proven to be a waste of time outside a couple week initial launch window. There was also a study not that long ago that indicated that those that pirate wouldn't purchase the product to begin. At least in my case, I am giving the devs/publisher/platform every opportunity to earn my business. If they refuse, then so do I and the stalemate will continue.

 

Your opinions on the value of DRM are irrelevant,  game dev's still use DRM heavily and the reality is that until steam came along it was in many ways a nightmare.   The ability to acquire games slightly cheaper, 24/7 download, install on any machine having multiple copies as long as it was your account. All had an effect on how DRM has changed.

 

11 hours ago, Crowbar said:

Steam did populariize the form of client based game DRM.

Now you are changing the argument from popularizing DRM to popularizing client based? Even after the above several arguments regarding Epic being the same and historical DRM claims.  I addressed  goal posts before you moved them.

 

11 hours ago, Crowbar said:

There was no one else doing this before they did in the early 2000's. Aside from that, you're either employed by valves marketing team or completely brainwashed to believe this nonsense. There is absoutely no benefits that outweight the fact that you have to install DRM on your machine. There were no launchers at all before any of this. You simply clicked an EXE and started the game. You could install or download the content directly without giving up additional resources on your system. But I'm sure you also knew this, so it makes your post even more mind numbingly cringe worthy.

Again, your understanding of DRM is rather lacking.  I see leadeater and the others have addressed downloading exe files and DRM that existed long before steam plus all the benefits of client based game libraries (steam or not).  It's easy to see why you think my posts are cringworthy when your reasoning falls short of what I have said.

 

2 hours ago, JZStudios said:

I'm not ignoring the points, I'm saying they don't mean much and wouldn't hold up well if it actually went to court.

Just inferring your beliefs/opinions on the matter doesn't mean that's actually true.  some of the reasoning people have given you is actually founded on historic court cases where arguments of lost sales etc are irrelevant, meaning your assumptions about cost and financial damage are not represented in the case the way you think they should be.  Some of the arguments are just personal opinins and I agree they are not logical, but everyone is allowed to have their own opinion. 

2 hours ago, JZStudios said:

The same point people keep bringing up is somewhat irrelevant when the publisher has to pay those "services" that apparently Valve is still paying for somehow. If Valve was concerned about hosting a single web page and having the entire system be completely automated, a $50 deal breaker fee would earn them a significant amount.

But you keep bring up this concept of a deal breaker fee like it proves something.  Sure as  a concept it might earn them money, but have you considered that they have already considered that and decided it wasn't going to earn as much building goodwill?  Goodwill in a consumer base has a much higher value than single products.

 

2 hours ago, JZStudios said:

There is no personal opinion anywhere in that, if the publisher is paying Steam to advertise and push it's product, Steam by default is not paying for it. therefore there's nothing to claim there.

And that is your opinion, that is not an observable fact, you are ignoring there is a business agreement in place and financial losses don't have to be proven in those cases. I tried illustrating that hosting games pages does have a cost to valve and providing the service comes with a reasonable expectation of profit,  even though that is not where the case may hinge it is still an important fact you are ignoring.

2 hours ago, JZStudios said:

If Steam goes after a dev because they pulled off the store, they claim they have distribution rights, exclusive or not.

If they sue for "damages" for purchases not made or sold, there's no way to know how much is an appropriate number of "lost" sales.

No one ever said that's what they'll do, they said they could sue for breaching a contract, and agreement between to businesses is not something you can argue from the perspective of a consumer.   You do not know what damages are invoked in such a clause let alone what the court system precedents as a justifiable award for breaching a contract without fair justification.

 

2 hours ago, JZStudios said:

But whatever, I don't know how any of that is personal opinion.

 

Because you are not a lawyer, do not work at valve, don't have the contract in front of you, only know what everyone else knows.  Your opinions are formed from the same information that everyone else's are so you have no more grounds to claim what you believe is a cold hard fact than what everyone else interprets (and some of them have more experience in legal matters) as a fact.

 

This whole discussion is mass of personal opinions on the matter. 

[Crowbar]

17 hours ago, leadeater said:

So basically your opinion on the down sides to Steam for me does not outweigh the positives from my viewpoint. GOG and similar just aren't as good service offerings compared to Steam so even though there are alternatives they aren't inherently better, because having to have the game hook in to Steam (which is optional) to run is not actually that bad. There has been much greater inconveniences in the past and Steam was the primary reason those ended, for a good length of time.

 

Steam has a large legacy so even if a better overall platform evolved many gamers will have significant ties to Steam, this actually is a negative thing that we are all capable of seeing. A unified purchasing systems is highly unlikely to ever happen so the more platforms that exist the more fragmentation there will be, even if a cross selection exist on multiple of them. Pick your poison, there is no perfect solution to be had, and my Steam poison happens to taste rather nice still.

Good thing your opinion means nothing to me. Like wise, (and all your excuses hidden as validations aside) steam has absolutely nothing to offer outside of being the largest platform due to age. As I've already explained to you, which you fail to acknowledge since it renders your entire argument useless, is that I don't want and never will consent to completely ridiculous installs on my machine. People whine that there isn't enough competition and then when some comes around they cry about fragmentation. You can't have it both ways.

 

There is an almost perfect solution. It's called GOG. You create a trivial online based account on a sever most likely in another country, pay for the game and then download it directly without any unnecessary nonsense. There's literally no simpler way that still guarantees the platform payment in advance.

 

What's your next excuse for valve not being able to do the same?

 

[Crowbar]

13 hours ago, TechyBen said:

Wow. You don't need a login for GOGs website? I can download their entire catalog right now if I go to gog.com?

 

Yes, "okaaaaaaaaaaay"?!

An online account doesn't install trash software on your machine.

 

"okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay"?

[Crowbar]

12 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Until you've had to deal with the likes of Starforce (Denuvo's got nothing on Starforce), you can't truly appreciate what Steam did for digital distribution in particular and DRM in general.

Justifying a shitty platform just because it's less shitty then a previous iteration of the same concept doesn't make it good.

[Jito463]

26 minutes ago, Crowbar said:

Justifying a ****** platform just because it's less ****** then a previous iteration of the same concept doesn't make it good.

And just because you're displaying your ignorance for the world to see, doesn't make your argument worth consideration.  I've tried to be understanding while presenting my viewpoint, but you're not arguing in good faith and refuse to even consider legitimate counter points to your own.  Not even agreeing with, you flat out refuse to acknowledge them as legitimate, despite myself and others giving you that courtesy on points you've raised.  As such, I see no further reason to continue this discussion.  I have better things to do with my time.

[mr moose]

27 minutes ago, Crowbar said:

I'll enjoy the 100% of games that I want to play because the ones I can't get on GOG since the dev/publishers don't make them available there are available elsewhere for free. Thanks for the concern though.

You can legally get all  the games for free?    now you are talking about piracy as if that justifies what?

 

27 minutes ago, Crowbar said:

My understanding of DRM is far more vast then yours. Just because you have convinced yourself otherwise and fail to accept the reality that the steam client is a form of it due to "reasons" that aren't exclusive to the platform and hidden gimmicks disguised as "features" doesn't change that. I've already provided an example of a profitable business model that doesn't force a DRM client be installed to purchase and download content. Pretending there isn't an alternative because you have an inferiority complex compelling you to spend 20,000 posts of time arguing online with a deranged lack of logic doesn't make you more knowledgeable on the subject.

Again, you are confusing your ideals and hatred for steam with actual facts.    BTW , the Bit I put in bold is purely against CS, it has nothing too do with the thread and is purely an attack.    If you can't discuss the topic then don't post.  

27 minutes ago, Crowbar said:

No goal posts were ever moved. You blatantly cherry picked a single sentence that was essentially one word different from what I said several times previously. If you followed the thread from the point which I joined, this would be obvious. Either that you think nitpicking trivial inconsistencies makes you the winner here. Either way, it's pretty sad...

 

You claimed Steam popularized DRM, failing to accept that DRM has been around decades before steam and that content has actually been far less impacted by DRM since steam is not up for debate.  If you wish to change your stance to only talk about steam then choose something that is actually debatable and stick to your arguments.   It's not just me that has interpreted your post the way it was, reading the thread at least 4 others also read the same thing.  If you genuinely think your inconsistencies are trivial then either explain why they are trivial yet still important enough to warrant being used in your argument or don't use them as part of your argument.

 

 

[Crowbar]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

You can legally get all  the games for free?    now you are talking about piracy as if that justifies what?

 

Again, you are confusing your ideals and hatred for steam with actual facts.    BTW , the Bit I put in bold is purely against CS, it has nothing too do with the thread and is purely an attack.    If you can't discuss the topic then don't post.  

You claimed Steam popularized DRM, failing to accept that DRM has been around decades before steam and that content has actually been far less impacted by DRM since steam is not up for debate.  If you wish to change your stance to only talk about steam then choose something that is actually debatable and stick to your arguments.   It's not just me that has interpreted your post the way it was, reading the thread at least 4 others also read the same thing.  If you genuinely think your inconsistencies are trivial then either explain why they are trivial yet still important enough to warrant being used in your argument or don't use them as part of your argument.

 

 

It justifies my position regarding your petty attempt to use the size of a game catalogue from a platform that specializes in OLD games against it in comparison to steam which literally lets any trash on their platform as long as they are willing to pay a percentage of sales. How many "games" get removed from steam on a weekly basis because they contain malware or other dubious material? I'm arguing the concept of GOG as being superior. Not the entire platform itself which is much smaller in size and typically caters to a more niche market. A specific title not being available DRM free means that I will get it else where. How exactly that's done is my business.

 

I've been arguing this entire time that steam popularized CLIENT BASED DRM. Cherry picking a single sentence with one missing word doesn't change the point I've made this entire time. I guess it's too much to ask that you follow and understand my argument from the beginning, my bad. I'll cater to your poor level of interpretation more closely moving forward.

 

Anything else you'd like clarification on? Maybe spell check my posts next? God forbid, I miss a word from one reply to the next or it will be grasped by you as having "moved the goal posts".

 

 

 

[mr moose]

34 minutes ago, Crowbar said:

It justifies my position regarding your petty attempt to use the size of a game catalogue

Two things:

 

1. I never mentioned the size of the a game library being justification for anything such thing. I merely pointed out that you can't use DRM to single out steam. 

2. the fact you call something that I didn't so "petty" indicates you have very little to actually add to the conversation. When you can actually discuss this without lowering yourself to petulant insults I will continue to read what you have to say. 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Crowbar said:

There is an almost perfect solution. It's called GOG.

Except GOG does not offer all the services Steam does, because there are additional services that Steam has as it's not just a purchasing and distribution platform. GOG isn't perfect if it doesn't offer services you actually use. These extras actually require a Steam client, or similar software. I even use and prefer the GOG Galaxy client over using the website.

[Crowbar]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Two things:

 

1. I never mentioned the size of the a game library being justification for anything such thing. I merely pointed out that you can't use DRM to single out steam. 

2. the fact you call something that I didn't so "petty" indicates you have very little to actually add to the conversation. When you can actually discuss this without lowering yourself to petulant insults I will continue to read what you have to say. 

1. I never singled out steam specifically for this. If you read my previous posts earlier in the thread I made it clear that my stance regarded all DRM clients but because tools continue to white knight for steam and compare them to epic as if they are the saviour of gaming with a poorly constructed "steam good, epic bad" argument then I'll make an example out of it.

 

2. You didn't say that specifically, but you did insinuate it:

8 hours ago, mr moose said:

Enjoy the <5% of games out there you can buy outside of a steam like client or without DRM.

 

Aside from that, I'll take the high road over your very clear grammatical errors in both #1 and #2. Don't worry, I won't hold it against you even though english is my second language and clearly your first.

[Crowbar]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Except GOG does not offer all the services Steam does, because there are additional services that Steam has as it's not just a purchasing and distribution platform. GOG isn't perfect if it doesn't offer services you actually use. These extras actually require a Steam client, or similar software. I even use and prefer the GOG Galaxy client over using the website.

Which to me are useless and don't make up for everything else terrible that valve does that's anti-consumer.

 

For all the crying being done about epic and exclusives every week, it's complete crickets when it comes to steam doing exactly the same. They have hundreds of games that you can't legally purchase anywhere else. Just because they don't specifically target exclusives with contractual clauses doesn't mean they aren't very much a reality on that platform.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, Crowbar said:

They have hundreds of games that you can't legally purchase anywhere else.

And that could be purely a Publisher choice and have nothing to do with Steam at all. Not every Publisher actually wants to deal with multiple different platforms and agreements and may also not agree with the terms of some of them i.e. GOG. Publishers have the majority share of control and power, these are the ones that enforce DRM, which distribution channels are used and how they will be used. More than one development studio has complained about this sort of thing and that has little to do with Steam at all.

 

You're drawing a causal conclusion without enough evidence to do so, games not being listed elsewhere doesn't actually prove what you are saying.

 

3 hours ago, Crowbar said:

For all the crying being done about epic and exclusives every week

I've never complained about EGS ever. Orgin sure but those complaints have been limited to security breaches (my account included), zero customer support re: my account, and no development of it at all to make it better. EA gets by with it because of how big of a publisher they are, EA and Origin is a self feeding loop that can exist on their own irrespective of how good or bad the service they offer. If you want to play EA published games that are only on Origin then you only have two choices, put up or don't buy/don't use. There's more than one game series that EA has the rights to that I used to play but I no longer play any of the new ones.

 

EGS could be just as bad as Origin, I have no idea and I do not care. Anything only on EGS I haven't played, I didn't choose not to use EGS because I hate what they are doing I just don't want to bother with another service and until I have a reason to care about what they have that won't change. It's up to EGS to entice me to use their service and exclusives won't do that. 

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, Crowbar said:

1. I never singled out steam specifically for this. If you read my previous posts earlier in the thread I made it clear that my stance regarded all DRM clients but because tools continue to white knight for steam and compare them to epic as if they are the saviour of gaming with a poorly constructed "steam good, epic bad" argument then I'll make an example out of it.

No you just phrased all your posts like this and expect us to assume you are not biased:

 

On 9/11/2019 at 12:32 AM, Crowbar said:

Assuming steam are doing this because "it's the right thing" is exactly that. Meanwhile they peddle a DRM client that's a forced install with many games having no legal alternatives. Please, explain to me how that doesn't "negatively impact your customers"?

and:

On 9/11/2019 at 2:49 AM, Crowbar said:

Because steam is a cancer on the gaming industry and I'm tired of seeing fan boys trip over themselves to praise valve on every occasion possible while sticking their head in the sand regarding everything they do that's terrible.

 

Problem is they ONLY care about the bottom line and customer be damned if you refuse to participate in valves bullshit and terrible service.

 

They are 100% a monopoly. What percentage of the PC gaming market do they hold? Far more then every single other client combined. From your list all but #2 apply.

 

Regarding the rest of your post, I'm not buying the excuses and not sure what part of having to install a DRM client you don't understand is DRM regardless if it's part of a particular game or not.

On top of saying steam popularized DRM you are clearly trying to lay the entire blame for all your woes at steams feet.  Hence why I said:

 

On 9/11/2019 at 7:26 AM, mr moose said:

You're assuming the opposite.  DRM is DRM and nearly every online game store has it in their product somewhere along the line, trying use it as the single reason Steam are (insert pet peeve here) is disingenuous.

 

Steam have their issues sure, but to pretend they are worse than others simply because they want to protect their resources from being abused is absurd given it is: 1. in direct retaliation to EGS using their wealth to promote what is clearly and significantly a more anti consumer practice.  and 2. does not prevent release on other platforms.

 

It is a win win for everyone except EGS who might have a harder time poaching goodwill clients from valve.

 

It's a very fair analysis of your posts and response.

 

Quote

Aside from that, I'll take the high road over your very clear grammatical errors in both #1 and #2. Don't worry, I won't hold it against you even though english is my second language and clearly your first.

 

Again resorting personal attacks,  all that shows us is you are flailing to find a rational argument for your position.

 

 

[TechyBen]

7 hours ago, Crowbar said:

An online account doesn't install trash software on your machine.

 

"okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay"?

You have a browser? You have cookies? You have a login? "Trash software". All software is subjective as to how good it is. LOTS of games are on multiple platforms. I don't see Steam insisting on *exclusivity*. As said, I have *multiple* games I can/do/have got on single DRM free download and quasi DRM free Steam codes too.

I could install steam, install it in a VM, uninstall it. Yeah, it's more work. But it's nothing problematic.

[TechyBen]

7 hours ago, Crowbar said:

Good thing your opinion means nothing to me. Like wise, (and all your excuses hidden as validations aside) steam has absolutely nothing to offer outside of being the largest platform due to age. As I've already explained to you, which you fail to acknowledge since it renders your entire argument useless, is that I don't want and never will consent to completely ridiculous installs on my machine. People whine that there isn't enough competition and then when some comes around they cry about fragmentation. You can't have it both ways.

 

There is an almost perfect solution. It's called GOG. You create a trivial online based account on a sever most likely in another country, pay for the game and then download it directly without any unnecessary nonsense. There's literally no simpler way that still guarantees the platform payment in advance.

 

What's your next excuse for valve not being able to do the same?

 

I hate GOG. Why use it? Why should I have to login to GOG, and give them money, when I can go directly to the Game Devs?

 

GOG is killing the industry!!!

 

No one has made an excuse for Valve. You can download a copy of every DRM free Steam game if you wish. Steam however, will not provide that for you. You can instead go to GOG, direct download, and others (I have multiple games that are available on Steam, that I instead went to the devlopers *directly* to purchase, and downloaded *directly* without Steam).

 

But if you wish to blame Steam, for linking their online chat, servers, ranking, teams, multiplayer, uploads of screenshots, forums, etc which *require logins* with the optional DRM... then by all means, miss the points by an astronomical unit or two. 

 

My horse is much higher than yours, so careful what you do. 

[leadeater]

54 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

But if you wish to blame Steam, for linking their online chat, servers, ranking, teams, multiplayer, uploads of screenshots, forums, etc which *require logins* with the optional DRM... then by all means, miss the points by an astronomical unit or two. 

Don't forget Steam Workshop and Mod support, it's not like the older/manual way is hard but what Steam offers in this way is so much easier and handles updates to those mods automatically, it's damn great.

[TechyBen]

10 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Don't forget Steam Workshop and Mod support, it's not like the older/manual way is hard but what Steam offers in this way is so much easier and handles updates to those mods automatically, it's damn great.

Oh, I actually hate Steam Workshop. All a mod developer has to do is close the page/mod/user account, and it deletes all your mods from them *automatically*... even if you were half way through a game.

Lost some saves that way, as when I rebooted the game, the content was deleted. So as said, I go direct for those games (RimWorld, KSP, Cobalt). It was annoying for XCOM as there is no Steam Free version... and when some Modders went from "Mod A" to "MOD v1 + MOD v2" for the expansion/non expansion versions, it, as said, deleted some of the original mods. The clever modders just renamed the old mod "MOD A DEPRECIATED" and then added a V1 and V2 to the mix. Again, lost some saves/in progress games that way.

 

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Oh, I actually hate Steam Workshop. All a mod developer has to do is close the page/mod/user account, and it deletes all your mods from them *automatically*... even if you were half way through a game.

Huh, I've never actually had that happen. Well that does suck.

[Jito463]

9 hours ago, Crowbar said:

all your posts in defense of valves terrible business practice's screams *** hurt fanboy.

And the fact that your rebuttal boils down to this, means you either haven't understood what I've been posting all along, or you're being intentionally disingenuous about it.  Either way, I still see no reason to continue.  And on that note, I'll completely bow out.

[TechyBen]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Huh, I've never actually had that happen. Well that does suck.

Yeah, just depends on the game. Games like Fallout 4, I would assume don't get as many game changing updates as games in Alpha/beta/Early access. Rimworld without Steam, I can choose not to update. I *can* choose the build on Steam, with full support for this. However, WorkShop skips this, so mods end up out of sync with version numbers

Fallout 4 and the likes, also I assume, don't have many developers turning off their mods, just abandoning them instead.

[Sauron]

On 9/9/2019 at 7:29 AM, Delicieuxz said:

why has Valve not acted on violations of it by the publishers of Metro Exodus, Shenmue III, The Outer Worlds, and others?

Because doing so would mean kicking out those publishers from their storefront and forcing them onto the EGS, losing prominence in the market.

On 9/9/2019 at 10:48 PM, PocketNerd said:

That clause (whether old or new) doesn't block exclusivity in any way, shape, or form. What it DOES do is ensure that developers and publishers actually commit to releasing on Steam once they make a page for their game.

Can we please stop finding any and every excuse to crap on EGS? It has major issues/flaws, sure, and it's fair to point out those specifically. But maybe just focus on that instead of getting irrational at every little thing?

Nah man, monopolistic practices are only ok when they make things more convenient for me! /s

[WkdPaul]

* thread somewhat cleaned *