Valve have been cooking! A new Steam Client Beta is available with something quite special for Linux gamers, as Valve work to continue improving Linux gaming.
Are you butthurt that I called it a monopoly because it is one? Its status as a “benevolent monopoly” doesn’t make it not a monopoly; its competitors’ incompetence doesn’t make it not a monopoly; competition existing doesn’t make it not a monopoly; that it’s not an illegal monopoly doesn’t make it not a monopoly.
Its incredibly stable and enormous market share, which is deeply entrenched because you don’t own the games you buy there and can’t bring them elsewhere, makes it a monopoly. The unhealthy amount of power Valve wields over the PC gaming market is exemplified when people panic over what’ll happen when Gabe Newell dies and fear that Valve might e.g. go public. Not because that’s extremely likely, but because that would be catastrophic to the PC gaming scene.
The point of pointing out that Valve is a monopoly is that they have functionally no real competition to worry about; they have all the leeway in the world to improve their client, so I’m not going to clap like a seal when the container for the software gets 64-bit support in the year of our lord 2026.
That’s not really Valve’s fault: Tell the other companies to suck less! All the other services are fucking terrible by comparison, GOG is the only one that comes close.
Are you butthurt that I called it a monopoly because it is one? Its status as a “benevolent monopoly” doesn’t make it not a monopoly; its competitors’ incompetence doesn’t make it not a monopoly; competition existing doesn’t make it not a monopoly; that it’s not an illegal monopoly doesn’t make it not a monopoly.
Its incredibly stable and enormous market share, which is deeply entrenched because you don’t own the games you buy there and can’t bring them elsewhere, makes it a monopoly. The unhealthy amount of power Valve wields over the PC gaming market is exemplified when people panic over what’ll happen when Gabe Newell dies and fear that Valve might e.g. go public. Not because that’s extremely likely, but because that would be catastrophic to the PC gaming scene.
The point of pointing out that Valve is a monopoly is that they have functionally no real competition to worry about; they have all the leeway in the world to improve their client, so I’m not going to clap like a seal when the container for the software gets 64-bit support in the year of our lord 2026.
That’s not really Valve’s fault: Tell the other companies to suck less! All the other services are fucking terrible by comparison, GOG is the only one that comes close.