Sure, here are my small list personal list of gripes, mostly minor except the first one.
Their continued stance on loot boxes and enabling of gambling.
They did try to do a paid mod system back in the day and got shutdown by gamers pretty quick.
Their initial discontinuation of batteries and LCD screens for their steam deck after only four years.
Their continued stance that they are selling revokable, non-transferable licenses and not games that you own.
Steam’s a great company and overall very pro-consumer company in my opinion, more so than most of the other companies in the PC gaming realm but I’ll criticize Steam when I see something I believe is anti-consumer regardless of my like for them because end of they day they’re still just a corporation that prioritizes profits over people and it’s just one death away from being enshitified like the rest of them.
In addition to the other comment, the only reason their famous refund policy exists is because Australia made them do it. And I really cannot stress how shitty the loot box stance is. Gamers hate loot boxes by and large yet somehow largely give Valve a pass despite the fact they hugely popularized the concept in the gaming space.
My first instance of lootboxes was when Valve introduced them in TF2. I was a dumb 20 year old living with my parents so i had disposable income. I wasted at least $200 on keys.
Yeah, it’s honestly very sad to see people defend these gaming corporations blindly, yes, including Steam, when they’re doing anti-consumer things.
I’ll take the bait… What anti-consumer stuff is Valve doing?
Sure, here are my small list personal list of gripes, mostly minor except the first one.
Steam’s a great company and overall very pro-consumer company in my opinion, more so than most of the other companies in the PC gaming realm but I’ll criticize Steam when I see something I believe is anti-consumer regardless of my like for them because end of they day they’re still just a corporation that prioritizes profits over people and it’s just one death away from being enshitified like the rest of them.
That have zero choice on the licensing at least for games they dont publish.
On the other hand they have kept installers for me long after the publisher has pulled their product.
In addition to the other comment, the only reason their famous refund policy exists is because Australia made them do it. And I really cannot stress how shitty the loot box stance is. Gamers hate loot boxes by and large yet somehow largely give Valve a pass despite the fact they hugely popularized the concept in the gaming space.
Gamers apparently love loot boxes, lol.
They have zero effect on the gameplay though. Ignore them if you want to, it really makes no difference.
My first instance of lootboxes was when Valve introduced them in TF2. I was a dumb 20 year old living with my parents so i had disposable income. I wasted at least $200 on keys.