They could have easily crammed the Steam Deck full of stuff to make it hard to use for piracy - locking down everything, making it usable only to play games you legitimately own, force you to go through who knows what hoops in order to play games on it. That’s what Nintendo or Apple or most other companies do.
But they didn’t, because they realized they didn’t have to. It’s 100% possible to put pirated games on the Steam Deck - in fact, it’s as easy as it could reasonably be. You copy it over, you wire it up to Steam, if it’s a non-Linux game you set it up with Proton or whatever else you want to use to run it, bam. You can now run it in Steam just as easily as a normal Steam game (usually.) If you want something similar to cloud saves you can even set up SyncThing for that.
But all of that is a lot of work, and after all that you still don’t have automatic updates, and some games won’t run this way for one reason or another even though they’ll run if you own them (usually, I assume, because of Steam Deck specific tweaks or install stuff that are only used when you’re running them on the Deck via the normal method.) Some of this you can work around but it’s even more hoops.
Whereas if you own a game it’s just push a button and play. They made legitimately owning a game more convenient than piracy, and they did it without relying on DRM or anything that restricts or annoys legitimate users at all - even if a game has a DRM-free GOG version, owning it on Steam will still make it easier to play on the Steam Deck.
This seems pretty whack dude. Proton has been heavily contributed to via Valve, if at least only by paying people to work on it. Without Valve proton would be in a much more dire state than it is now. Seriously, just look at its progress just 6 months before the Steam Deck and after its announcement. It’s a night and day difference.
“some games don’t even work” I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. With a library of 1.2k trying to see games that don’t work when they’re “unsupported” I’ve yet to come across any. I’m sure there are but, again, what’s your point? That gaming on Linux still has some games that don’t work?
They don’t officially support piracy. What company does? And does Valve do anything to prevent your cracked Non-Steam game from running? So… Their “lack” of piracy support means nothing because you can still do whatever you want. Ok.
“Didn’t make games easier to buy because you have to create an account”. Alright, have fun redownloading things you’ve purchased with no record. Even indie stores have you make an account dude.
“You will get banned if a key is illegal” lmao, what the fuck is an illegal steam key?? You bought games from a stolen credit card or a region resell and had the key revoked? They don’t ban you. And if you’re talking about being region locked, congratulations, Valve is complying with that government. And if you’re talking about being in the U.S. trying to buy keys from other regions, that is hurting people in the region it’s priced for and you’re a jerk for that.
What the fuck are you talking about?
This right here is an example of Steam brand loyalty. Valve employees have nothing to offer Photon, yet you defend them for being Valve. “Lack” of piracy is not an argument, Valve has a company has stolen from companys before you were ever born, their newest crime, stealing patent game controller just shows how little they changed. Risking their entire existence to support an ideal place for games to steal is just a way to get sued by every company.
Lastly, yes you can get banned for illegal keys, do basic research where people got their accounts banned because of publishers who revoked the keys.
Seeing and taking advantage of services and being happy with it when there is consistency is not brand loyalty. Honestly, always putting these messages behind coy insults just detracts from the actual important part of what you’re trying to say, which is to be wary of where you put your trust. That’s a very valid point of view. It’s true, I am probably trading off these services for the potential longevity of my games.
Proton development was going very slowly before it was in Valve’s interest change that for their benefit. That language make you happy? You can tell me to research all you want but that is the truth. Proton development sped up exponentially after 2020. What am I defending? I literally said if only in paying people to work on it. The reality is, Proton is where it is today because it benefits the Steam Deck. The end result is the same for Linux gamers. It’s ridiculous to say that Valve offered nothing to Proton when graphed out there is a very clear rise in development after Valve got more involved.
Stealing patent game controllers, so you side with Corsair and Scuff, notorious patent trolls hoarding designs and actively preventing small controller makers? Awesome, great showing us where you stand there, that’s extremely telling. If you’re talking about other examples - my mistake. Corsair can rot in hell, they have destroyed so many awesome concept controllers with C&Ds. Oh by the way - newest crime? That was in 2015, 8 years ago lmao.
I’m not really sure what you are trying to say. Every company doesn’t support piracy but many go through extreme measures to prevent it. Opt-in developer Steam DRM is laughably trivial and literally is only to suggest buying it to avoid going through the hassle of cloning one git repository. Again, you are saying illegal keys but you’re not saying what that is. I did mention being banned can happen in extremely rare cases, but most examples when you actually look online are the fault of the user for working around pretty obvious things. Such as buying grey market or working around region locks to buy keys at a cheaper price.
Somebody only using Steamless to crack games and putting them in Steam via Non-Steam is at far less risk of getting their account banned than someone working around region locks and buying grey market is, since you are actively feeding into harmful business. Going around region locks hurts those players and grey market risks laundering/stolen credit card keys both of which affect the developers.
Valve isn’t perfect, I never implied they were. It’s taken a lawsuit (funnily enough, also in 2015) to make them more consumer friendly and yet one suit in Australia affected how they do business worldwide allowing refunds everywhere. Looking to Apple in the EU as an example where one country affects how it does business worldwide I am doubting they will do the same given that they’ve yet to do so for any cases so far.
Look - I don’t disagree that it’s dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket. The idea of Steam Servers going down would be devastating to many and it’s silly to trust a company at face value when they promise you’ll keep access to it if/when that happens. I have Steamless and keep the really important installers backed up for a reason, it’s smart to have just in case. It’s interesting that I’m able to do this at all on Steam, I have not been able to crack my own games for Ubisoft/EA so I can play them offline and without an account.
Who do you trust instead? Do you only pirate to make sure you’ve got the installer forever? Only GOG/itch for DRM free?
Personally I use Steam because I’m under the assumption that if Valve goes under it’s probably because the world is ending and our computers will be useless. Semi-/s
In the meantime what matters to me is being able to play remotely with friends. It has been huge for our friend group and as far as I know, there is no group remote play alternative available? Anywhere? Streaming my games to the living room or on my phone while on the bus - I know moonlight can do this but it never worked well for me. Controller input with SteamAPI also is a massive improvement and for the games I use it with, my Steam Controller is invaluable having mixed mouse and controller inputs. Cloud saves are pretty standard, but including per-game notes is unique and is now. essential. I don’t want to have to set syncthing to every single folder a game decides is a suitable location for saves, and using .txts or my phone notes was annoying. I only manage my emulation saves now.
Don’t even get me started on SteamVR compared to WMR. Great teams at working WMR, very friendly and communicative - very frustrating to actually play in. The quest is a joke.
I use these monthly at minimum, most of them daily. I’m not a fanboy so much as someone who uses a service that isn’t offered elsewhere. I’d be happy to jump ship from Valve if there was something. The main marketed competition is much more awful than Valve and actually has influence on the entire gaming market with Unreal Engine and they very quickly showed how little they care about the user. The other VR options on the market I tried, the Reverb G2 would have been okay if 1) WMR wasn’t a requirement, 2) inside-out camera tracking sucks and 3) inconsistent hardware makes them fragile. Half of what made the VR experience so good was that I was using the Index Knuckles. Got the Index a bit later and despite the lower res it was just such a better experience because I didn’t have to fiddle and tweak to make things work. I got the Steam link (because it was $5) because I was constantly annoyed with moonlight giving me issues - lo and behold the steam link just worked with no issues.
Until there’s a good alternative, I’m happy with my Steam Deck and Index. I’m content risking my library of games if it means that right now I’m able to play Overcooked with my friend in Indonesia, or end my game on PC and pick up where I left off downstairs either via Steam Link or these days the Deck. These are things that I could not do, either at all or as easily, without Steam.
Show me an alternative that has a smidge of what I use from Steam and I’ll start switching over. Playnight and GOG Galaxy aren’t it by a longshot. None from what I can tell exist except for a single self-hosted option that just came to fruition this year, and that’s solely for installers and a very barebones launcher (it was called Crack I think, hilarious, but I think the project has been renamed since then). But go on, keep saying it’s blind brand loyalty, ignore the litany of services that get used that make people see it as a worthwhile option.