I’m quite fond of Fanatical. They are based in the UK and also sometimes sell DRM free books/audiobooks

Third party key market places are kinda iffy, and there have been numerous cases of the keys being offered on there having been bought with stolen credit cards, or otherwise generated in ways that aren't quite above board.

I remember one interview with an indy dev in which they said they prefer people pirating, because chargebacks from stolen cards are actively costing them money.

For people who feel they need the entertainment games provide, but can't afford current prices, I feel pirating games from conglomerates, and buying from smaller studios and indies is the most socially responsible way to do it, but I'm not your mum.

Edit: Huh, looks like greenmangaming gets their keys directly from the publishers. Didn't know that was a thing. Guess I was a bit quick on the trigger there, should have checked first. Sorry about that.

I don't believe gog will ever have a full library. They require all their games to be DRM free. Until corporate gaming changes GOG won't.

Looks like it was baked into the image template they used

I realised that those who censor themselves on the Internet, grew up on the Internet when YouTube started demonitising profanities and thus picked up the habit.

We are getting old.

Most important of all they compensate their employees like they are actual humans.

gabe is a very smart person, if he doesnt have a post death plan for steam i would be immensely surprised.

On the other hand, Valve wishing to seek an alternative to Microsoft's poor decision^[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_(computer)#cite_note-cvg_newell_linux-2%3A%7E%3Atext=upon+the+release+of+Windows+8+in+2012] making has been a great boon to the Linux community. Valve was also there at the start of Vulkan^[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan#History]. But is "funny" that Gabe Newell started off as a Microsoft employee, in fact the one that led the team that ported Doom to Windows with Doom95 and in turn also helped launch Windows (95) as the gaming OS for decades to come.

As much as I distrust and hate corporations, Valve isn't in it for the shareholders, you can't buy Valve stocks and that means they at least have a bit more soul than a lot of other corporations - even though they are profit seeking.

What I don't like about them is how they sell you a service, not an actual game. You technically buy a lifelong lease on each game, never ownership. Your shit can be gone in minutes with nothing to prove for it, except for bank statements saying Valve took your money.

Which is why I'll always buy on GOG^[https://www.gog.com/en/about_gog] if possible. DRM free and European.

No business?

I work as a software developer for a small business and they do care about us and not just profits.

Recently we were all given a pay rise and a reduction in hours as they can afford to support that.

Depends if the business it publicly owned.

I think valve are mostly fair to consumers. The money they make from gamers is doing some good in the linux sphere.

Steam isn't perfect and I sure as shit won't be the one defending a corporation, and this isn't a good excuse at ALL, but if you've never gamed you wouldn't believe how much worse it is on the other side (GOG being the only exception).

I'm still gonna use American stuff that's good if they keep DEI. brb checking up on Steam.

Edit: it's not looking good tbh I think I'll switch to GOG / physical media as much as feasible.

Just buy future games from GOG. No need to delete Steam or already made purchases.

Remember steam started the business model of not actually owning your games.

GOG exists, go use GOG. Steam is popular because they don't fuck over buyers, and they run a good business model, people are ok not "owning" things if the service is reasonably well put together.

Gabe has made billions by stealing profit from the workers that actually make games.

steam takes a 30% cut, which isn't all that high, especially when you consider that they develop things like proton at zero cost to anybody, including developers. You're also getting the single largest and most widely used publishing platform, period. It's really hard to beat something of that caliber, so it's definitely a tradeoff. There are also cases of devs making games that become so popular they pull in millions of dollars worth of revenue.

They host tons of malware and shovelware and outright scam games and even protect them from “”““review bombing””"

in defense of steam, if they specifically curated high quality games people like you would accuse them of gate keeping the platform. Scams are definitely a thing, malware, technically is. I've not seen malware ever in my personal experience, and i doubt most people have, and whenever it does happen, steam responds accordingly so i'm not sure its a fair statement.

They pushed “early access” into the mainstream.

there's nothing necessarily wrong with early access, i actually think it's a really productive way to provide tons of play testing and development potential for smaller dev teams. Does it also incentivize shovelware? Sure, but it's a platform you can make money on, that's not abnormal. And again, it's usually very well known when games are abandonware.

And because of people like you that would literally suck Gabes dick for the meme, they get away with it.

surprised you didn't mention gambling, that's probably the most significant argument against steam right now, they effectively run what can be considered an online casino.

You can just not buy the games that have stuff like Denuvo etc. If you keep buying them, of course they'll keep including the DRM etc.

Steam is the storefront, and they have plenty of games you can buy without that crap.

I dont think a single more based company has ever existed.

Hyperbole much? I like Steam as much as the next guy but lets not pretend the guy that owns 6 yachts is a good person just because he's better than the next worst. Steam DRMs the shit out of games sold on their platform and if you're an indie dev that wants to sell your game Steam is THE place to do it.

Steam made $10bn last year, they have about 100 employees (their parent company Valve has about 400). I used to be a bigger fan of GabeN but more recently really started considering him and looking into it and realized he's just another unethical billionaire. This video by Coffeezilla is a good jumping off point. regarding the intentional targeting of youth with addictive gambling mechanics in loot crates and circumventing gambling laws. It's all very purposeful and continues to this day.

Linux isn't a company.