742
As Xbox and PlayStation flounder, Steam is reportedly having another record year
(www.eurogamer.net)
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
742 points (99.3% liked)
Games
49843 readers
693 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
Authorized Regular Threads
Related communities
PM a mod to add your own
Video games
Generic
- !gaming@Lemmy.world: Our sister community, focused on PC and console gaming. Meme are allowed.
- !photomode@feddit.uk: For all your screenshots needs, to share your love for games graphics.
- !vgmusic@lemmy.world: A community to share your love for video games music
- !freegames@feddit.uk: A community sharing free games giveaways.
Help and suggestions
By platform
By type
- !AutomationGames@lemmy.zip
- !Incremental_Games@incremental.social
- !LifeSimulation@lemmy.world
- !CityBuilders@sh.itjust.works
- !CozyGames@Lemmy.world
- !CRPG@lemmy.world
- !horror_games@piefed.world
- !OtomeGames@ani.social
- !Shmups@lemmus.org
- !space_games@piefed.world
- !strategy_games@piefed.world
- !turnbasedstrategy@piefed.world
- !tycoon@lemmy.world
- !VisualNovels@ani.social
By games
- !Baldurs_Gate_3@lemmy.world
- !Cities_Skylines@lemmy.world
- !CassetteBeasts@Lemmy.world
- !Fallout@lemmy.world
- !FinalFantasyXIV@lemmy.world
- !Minecraft@Lemmy.world
- !NoMansSky@lemmy.world
- !Palia@Lemmy.world
- !Pokemon@lemm.ee
- !Silksong@indie-ver.se
- !Skyrim@lemmy.world
- !StardewValley@lemm.ee
- !Subnautica2@Lemmy.world
- !WorkersAndResources@lemmy.world
Language specific
- !JeuxVideo@jlai.lu: French
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Being customer friendly. What a novel idea.
I feel like this is not rocket science here, this is like business 101.
Make the customer happy
Enjoy increased sales and revenue
N,o, it is economics and at some point over the last decade or so companies decided that the customer should be subjected to a constant shift of quality until it arrives at a level where it is the worst they are possibly willing to accept. Quality down profits up. Welcome to our new world.
This is the new "the customer is always right" attitude.
profits down but stocks rise with increased investment.
The concept of "firing your customers" even became part of marketing strategy in the last decade. Amazing what kind of nonsense bubbles up out of the muck when markets see less competition.
Right behind us, is what they meant.
20 years ago, the exact opposite was said about Steam and they didn’t change much. People just got used to it.
No.
As a person who resisted hard 20 years ago, they earned it. I didn't get used to it, I found value. In cloud saves, in steam sales, in no pushy advertising, and so on.
As a Linux user over 20 years they also did what nobody else really tried. That matters a lot.
My husband remembers buying The Ship in a store, and when he went to install it out said he had to install something called Steam for the multiplayer. He was baffled and annoyed.
Now all the games we have save a few from GOG are steam.
Some games are bought directly from the developer too.
They failed at first attempt with steamOS, but they learned the lesson, and came back swinging with years of preparation.
Yeah the steam "sales" that cost more than used physical games because valve killed them. How generous of Gabe.
The steam cult among PC gamers is fucking absurd. Valve did more damage to PC gaming than any other company on the planet.
If it weren't for national and local governments repeatedly suing them we wouldn't even have their meager 2 hour refund policy.
I see 0 reason to buy a used game over pirating it so I don't really see what was lost. In both cases the devs get nothing, and buying from someone else is a hassle, and having large physical media instead of just some files is also annoying.
If we didn't have steam we'd instead have the fucking epic games store or EA origin (or whatever they renamed it to). Just because valve isn't perfect doesn't mean any publically traded company wouldn't have been so much worse. And they also did plenty of actual positives with SteamOS, Steam Deck, being the first to push consumer VR with the Vive..
Sure they didn't change much if you ignored all the improvements they made to the platform.
If they didn't the other competitors wouldn't be irrelevant today.
They literally cornered the digital sales market from the very beginning with HL2. It has nothing to do with "improvements to the platform". By the time other companies had the infrastructure to try to catch up it was far too late. If you wanted to sell a PC game digitally, you had to do it on steam.
So much ridiculous counterfactual revisionist history in this thread.
How many years did it take epic to implement a shopping cart for their store? It's so horrible they're scrapping the entire store and rebuilding from scratch. Almost a decade and they couldn't get the basics right.
They haven’t changed much? They have like literally a million more games available on their store now.
The basic principle is the same: a DRM-enabled online store, and more often than not the only source for certain games, a monopoly.
DRM is not required by Steam. Developers choose to add it.
No difference from a customer perspective.
Thats like blaming the hotel because your vacation had bad weather.
More like blaming the traveling platform when all hotels use a crappy feature they provide that no one asked for.
And with those resources they decided to make a huge long term investment in making PC gaming on windows optional, then even the worse experience. Don't see that loser Tim sweeny doing anything of that value... It's not exactly a monopoly either.. You can install any other available store on your pc, unlike consoles. More competition would be great but steams market share was earned in an environment that wasn't a walled garden.
Are they? Their returns policy is crap compared to GOG. Not sure how its even legal for them to refuse refunds just because you used a product for over 2 hours.