- cross-posted to:
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- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- games@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.world
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If you want a preview of an uncaring and anti-consumer Valve, look no further than the company’s efforts on Mac.
Valve never updated any of its earlier games to run in 64-bit mode… Apple dropped support for 32-bit applications in 2019
Funny enough, the only platform with a 64-bit Steam client is Mac.
I don’t disagree with concerns about monopoly, but the author’s key example is Macs. And from the example, it sounds to me like Apple disregards backwards compatibility (dropping 32-bit support, moving to ARM chips) and Valve isn’t investing to keep up. Meanwhile, Windows has a heavy backwards-compatibility focus, and Linux isn’t too bad either, so no wonder they still get Valve’s attention. So who is being “anti-consumer” in this example, Valve or Apple?
Agreed. This is a superficial history lesson masquerading as an article. While nothing lasts forever and Steam has its issues, the examples being cited are not supporting the not outrageous prediction that Steam might get worse in the future. It’s just not very insightful.
Anyone who, unlike the author, actually had to deal with early versions of Steam can attest to the fact that in most ways, the platform has dramatically improved.
To be clear there’s only been a single generation (2006) of x86 based Macs that weren’t 64bit. They’ve been telling everyone since 2007 (well actually earlier even, the final PPC generation was 64bit), that the 32bit was going to go away.
I hate to defend Apple arbitrarily but all us developers had plenty of notice, and had to specifically reconfigure the default settings on their projects to only be 32bit. If developers ignore deprecation notices for over a decade, then is it really the fault of the other side?
I am not a developer and honestly curious about this. What’s Apple’s reason for ditching 32 bit programs? Isn’t backwards compatibility a net positive for both developers and consumers?
I wouldn’t say Apple disregards backwards compatibility, but they certainly don’t prioritize it to the degree Microsoft does, or that the general open-source community does. For Microsoft, backwards compatibility is their bread and butter. Enterprise customers have all sorts of unsupported legacy shit, and it dictates purchasing decisions and upgrade schedules.
Apple gave devs and users a ton of lead time before dropping 32-bit support. The last 32-bit Mac hardware was in 2006 (the first gen of Intel Macs); it wasn’t until Catalina’s release in 2019 that 32-bit apps stopped running, and Apple continued releasing security updates for older OSes that could run 32-bit apps for a couple years after that. So that was basically 15 years of notice for devs to release 64-bit apps.
That was much more time than they gave Classic Mac apps under OS X, or PowerPC apps on Intel. I was much more annoyed when PowerPC support was axed. Only a matter of time until Intel apps stop running on Apple Silicon, too. That’s gonna be the end of the world for Steam games. Ironically, it’s already easier to run legacy Windows and Linux games on Mac than it is to run legacy Mac games.
It’s a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. Apple very obviously doesn’t want the Mac gaming ecosystem to exist in the same capacity as Windows and Linux, but Valve also has an obligation to its customers using Macs to keep the service running well.
macOS 10.14 has been EOL for more than 2 years now and basically every Mac released since 2012 is compatible with 10.15. Valve also didn’t actively flip a switch and disable functionality; they’re just no longer providing updates. I don’t think Valve shoulders any blame in this specific case - it’s unreasonable to expect any company to indefinitely support platforms that are effectively obsolete.
I got my first mac a few years back off the side of the road, a 2009 imac that didn’t work. I went to a lot of trouble to find and install the most up to date mac os I could get on it for the challenge and because I’d never used a intel mac before.
Believe me, they absolutely did just flick a switch. everything about steam worked fine until the day it didn’t even load up. removing support is one thing, actively bricking your product is a total scum fuck move that is just common practice in gaming now.
Isn’t it trivial to install boot camp on this thing?
Yeah, Valve has put a lot of effort into bridging the compatibility gap for Linux. Most of that work could also be ported to macOS, but they just don’t care.
It’s a shame, because getting 32-bit to 64-bit compatibility working would help Linux as well. I don’t know how much longer distros want to keep supporting 32-bit libraries, and some distros have already dropped them.
That said, macOS compatibility seems like a non-sequitur for an article calling Steam a “time bomb.” DRM is definitely the bigger issue here.
That has to be one of the dumbest articles I’ve read in a while.
While I personally use Steam very rarely (I prefer to use DRM-free versions of games), Steam has done very little to be considered on its way towards enshittification.
The macos situation is completely irrelevant because at this point its market share on steam is lower than linux and it makes no sense for them to invest only to be constantly screwed over by apple changing things on their platforms. My guess is it will be dropped within the next 3-5 years.
The author points out the deprecation of Steam on older platforms, but fails to mention the fact that this wasn’t always their choice, for instance the recent drop of Windows 7 support was caused by the fact that there’s an embedded chromium browser in it and google dropped support for Windows 7 around that time. A similar situation happened for Windows XP, which was dropped in 2019, a full FIVE years after Microsoft dropped support for it, and at this time Steam on XP was only used for retrogaming, it made no sense to keep supporting it, there are better ways to get old games on XP.
There’s barely a mention of all the good things that Valve has done for Linux gaming, but the article complains about Steam being 32 bit (which is still a requirement for wine to run, at least until the new wow64 mode becomes stable, and steam comes with its steam runtime specifically to avoid distro compatibility issues); they could have made proton only work with steam, they could have made their dxvk and vkd3d forks proprietary like nvidia did, but instead it’s all open source and very easy to build on all platforms and I use my own fork every day to play games without steam. Heck, there are even competitors for the steam deck that run proton.
Also, can we mention the fact that Steam has not turned into yet another subscription service like some of its competitors?
If I had to point at something that Steam absolutely did wrong, I’d say it’s allowing third party DRMs on the store, it’s a consistent source of issues, especially for old games. I understand that when they made the choice we didn’t have cancer like kernel level anticheat and denuvo, but still, Steam launching a launcher launching another launcher that launches the game is a trashy gaming experience and adds points of failure as we’ve already seen several times when big titles launch and their DRM servers go down, or when games get old and the DRM servers are shut down permanently.
While I’m sure Steam will eventually become enshittified, I don’t see that happening any time soon, maybe after Gabe retires, and that’s why you should keep a collection of DRM free games on your drives and not rely solely on Steam and other stores.
Just my opinion of course, feel free to disagree.
constantly screwed over by apple changing things on their platforms.
This was it for me. Like, you’re going to blame valve because apple keeps pulling the carpet out from under devs and users?
So, the bomb has many ticks left in it. But it’s still ticking.
If you generalize enough, everything is a ticking time bomb. Some may have a low amount ticks left (lifespan or a hamster) and some quite big (lifespan of the Sun).
Entropy is non negotiable.
1980 console rom games should last as long as we have silicon technology.
Anything on steam is probably not going to make it to 2050.
Steam at least promised the games be playable without needing Steam to be online.
A promise they have never honored. This was made blatantly clear when the steamdeck came out.
Only some games can run in offline mode.
Well, some games are dependent on online mode, or don’t make sense in offline mode. Especially MMOs. In the end, it’s just shutting down the game servers.
Got any specific names?
Almost every of the 1000 games in my steam account. Almost every game on there has coherent singleplayer mode.
I have my criticisms of Steam, but I see no sign of it marching toward some kind of big anti-customer explosion as suggested in this article. Unlike most others, it’s run by a privately owned company, so it doesn’t have investors pressuring toward enshittification. We can see the result by looking back at the past decade or so: Steam has been operating more or less the same.
Meanwhile, the author offers for contrast Epic Games, a major source of platform exclusives and surveillance software (file-snooping store app, client-side anti-cheat, Epic Online Services “telemetry”), all of which are very much anti-customer.
AFAIK, only one of the other stores listed is actually better for customers in any significant way: GOG. (For the record, I mostly like GOG.) But it was mentioned so briefly that it feels like the author only did so in hopes of influencing GOG fans.
Overall, this post looks a lot like astroturfing. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be sponsored by Epic or Microsoft.
Edit: I forgot something that has changed in the past decade:
Valve has spent the past five years investing in open platforms: At first by funding key parts (often the most difficult ones) of the open-source software stack that now makes gaming great on linux, and more recently by developing remarkably good and fairly open PC hardware for mobile gaming. No vendor lock-in. No subscription fees. No artificially crippled features. This has already freed many gamers from Microsoft’s stranglehold, and more of us are reaping the benefits every day.
This is the polar opposite of what the author would have us fear.
I get the risks of putting all eggs in one basket, but whenever people argue for competition using Epic as an example, a company that is demonstrably more anti-competitive and anti-consumer, it shows that they just think of the matter of theoretical ideals of evenness as opposed to benefits to the customers. I don’t see any good coming from Epic having as much or more marketshare than Steam.
Unlike GOG which only offers DRM-free games, a substantial advantage compared to any other store.
Makes me think of a Walmart opening up in a town and people arguing that the residents should buy from there because it’s competition. Company just existing doesn’t make it good.
Well said, private companies are incentivized to make their customers happy. Corporations are incentivized to make their shareholders happy. Sometimes those goals align, but they are not the same.
Valve won’t stay that way forever—the company is not immune to the pressures of capitalism
I’m glad that the author recognized the actual root cause of their argument, which is that Capitalism is bad and ruins everything, but why blame Steam for essentially just existing in a Capitalist world? They didn’t choose that, and they’re certainly doing a hell of a lot more than almost any other company their size that I can think of to resist shitty Capitalist practices.
It really feels like this author is just saying, “they’re resisting anti-consumer enshittification practices now, so the only place to go is down, ergo ‘timebomb’!”.
“Every person who isn’t a murderer is just a murder away from becoming a murderer. Timebomb!”
What a garbage article lol. The only two arguments I can pick out are 1. Old steam games haven’t been updated to work on macOS and 2. Some games require 3rd party launchers. I think the author was just angry that his mac dropped support for a 20 year old game.
Agreed, shitty read. The 30% cut is crazy high though, and IMO the best point the article has. Steam DOES have a monopoly and that’s inherently bad
It isn’t a monopoly though. Even ignoring the Blizzards, Epics and GOGs of the web, any developer can host their game on their own Web site and market it completely independently of Steam and keep 100% of their takings.
The monopoly on storefront argument holds water in mobile land where side-loading a game is not possible/easy. In the world of computers though, I don’t think the same standard applies.
That’s still a monopoly. The article says it too, if you don’t put your game on steam, your sales suffer. It’s similar to how spotify has a monopoly on the music streaming market.
A monopoly with checks notes 30% market share. It has a plurality, but not a majority.
Monopoly on a platform that they don’t own? That being Microsoft? Then seeing how epic isn’t even profitable on the launcher side and is a loss leader while their launcher is barebones it raises the question of what cut is actually realistic that allows a company to have a feature rich launcher and branch out into stuff like Linux, VR, and Steam Deck.
Current state feels more like Walmart expanding into new territory and trying to lure people with low prices, but isn’t sustainable with the main goal just being expansion.
You don’t need to own the OS to have a monopoly. What a weird thing to say. You don’t need to own the United States to have a monopoly in it. That’s an equivalent statement.
Your point about Epic not being able to compete means they have a monopoly. Steam is great, but part of that is because they essentially have infinite money to spend improving things to make sure no one else catches up.
Epic hasn’t given me a reason to buy from them. Fanatical, humble bundle, gmg, etc I find better if the only selling point is price with them having more consistent sales, bundles, and choice of platform.
Epic has done more to make me not consider them an option with their foray into the market being removing Metro Exodus near launch and taking monopolistic approaches to taking the approach of denying games from being sold on other platforms. Not just steam but GOG too with exceptions only being given to owners of the platform.
Agreed.
Them withholding a game makes me not consider them in the future. I’d rather pirate it if they were to keep withholding it.But I “allow” them to withhold 1st party games (or studios they aquire like Psyonix) from 3rd party stores. Same goes for Valve, EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard and Microsoft.
They did the work and sure are entitled to keep it. It may not be in the interested of the consumer to have the need to install yet another launcher but it’s fine.
Them buying up 3rd party releases are what I have issues with
Steam DOES have a monopoly and that’s inherently bad
Being popular does not make steam a monopoly… My son plays 80% steam games but has Epic launcher installed and plays rocket League regularly
There is nothing in Steam preventing or even making it hard for you to run PC games in any other way
having a market share like that is a form of monopoly. It’s obviously different from absolute monopoly, but they wield too much power as is.
And to be fair, running games on linux without steam is definitely more tricky than without.
There are two requirements to be considered a monopoly, or fall under antitrust laws:
- Have a large market share
- Be able to force competing products out of the market
Steam meets point 1, it doesn’t meet point 2. On the other hand, things like the Apple App Store, don’t meet point 1, but meet point 2, which makes them more likely to fall under antitrust. Windows meets both points, which is why the US sued Microsoft for not letting people choose their browser.
Can’t you use Proton on Mac? I’d think that would solve most compatibility problems.
The problem is that proton needs to translate direct X to Vulcan, but Apple doesn’t allow Vulcan, it has to be their own thing, Metal.
So it’s a lot of work for valve and fully dependent on apple not screwing them.
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The author has a MacBook and has discovered that the new Apple Silicon is terrible for games. Particularly 32-bit games. It turns out Valve hasn’t re-made these 10-20 year old games to compensate for Apple’s hardware compatibility changes.
Somehow, that’s Valve’s fault and a sign that they’re going down the drain.
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The article in no way describes any actions taken by Valve that leads me to believe there is any impending enshittification. They simply have made decisions, a lot of which they have stuck with for many years.
Enshittification has to do with bait and switch, effectively. It’s luring customers into a false sense of loyalty and then abusing that to their financial gain (see: Reddit and Spez from 2023).
The article basically says “there are some decisions by Valve I like, and some I don’t.” That in no way provides any path toward some bomb going off. Perhaps time will prove the author right, of course, because any company can easily decide to screw over their customers, but the article is click-bait and completely speculative as to what may happen.
And due to all of the above, I think the bomb is about to go off where elephants will fly out of my refrigerator and steal my soda.
Lol at the last section of the article. Valve is actually bad guys! Just trust me!
Valve won’t stay that way forever—the company is not immune to the pressures of capitalism, and there are already examples of anti-consumer behavior.
Eventually, the bomb will go off, and the full ‘enshittification’ of Steam will commence.
Lemmy has gotten to the point everything is getting classed as enshittification or whatever
It’s actually getting crappy being here
Like the whole section about macos. Apple constantly screws developers, and somehow, the author has seemed to blame Valve lol. There’s a lot of reason lots of people don’t develop for Mac, and they’re mostly valid rather than political
Or GitHub. In the real world, developers don’t have any issues. Only in Lemmy, where people are even focusing on stupid things, so a barely visible unobtrusive sentence on a table mentions copilot lol
Lemmy has gotten to the point everything is getting classed as enahittification or whatever
You could say that the discourse around enshittification has become enshittified
