Valve’s Good Guy Image Makes Up For The Steam Deck’s Problems
Valve’s Good Guy Image Makes Up For The Steam Deck’s Problems
Valve has a secret weapon up its sleeve when it comes to the Steam Deck.
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I don't see Valve as the good guy. I do not eat the "Gaben is amazing and it's not publicly traded so it's not a bad company!" and I have a lot of criticisms I could write up about them.
The Steam Deck is quite literally my favorite tech purchase ever, and I still like it just as much as I did day one.
So I strongly disagree. Valve's "good guy" image has nothing to do with my enjoyment of this device.
Valve is a "good guy" only when you consider that everyone else in the room are damn near comically evil villains. Valve is decent when compared to that, but they also still do shit like the CSGO market soooo
What's wrong with a game thats always been free to play having in game purchases? Its not like you need them to play it.
It was originally 15 USD, the f2p was in 2018. But it's had the lootbox bullshit since before it was cool to hate on it. (2013)
Oh I thought it was always free. Blizzard pulled that shit on me with SC2 I paid 60 bucks for then 10 years later they made it free to play but put the campaign behind a paywall.
I kind of agree but you also have to consider the industry that Valve is in and the plethora of anti-consumerism taking place right now.
Valve could have made the Steam Deck with a proprietary OS. They could have locked you into big picture mode and/or locked the bootloader like so many Android and Nintendo devices. They could have done everything in their power to ensure you can't install GoG or Epic games. They could have glued the SteamDeck together and serialized all the parts together so you could never replace any of them.
And you know what? No one would have batted an eye because that's what society has come to expect in this day and age, and far too many fucking people will tolerate and accept it.
Instead they went out of their way to build it on a FOSS OS, even going so far as to add the "exit to desktop" right into the GUI. They obviously don't actively promote other platforms but they also do absolutely nothing to stop you from installing them, or making literally any changes to the device that you want.
Instead they made every single compinent available for purchase from a third party retailer, who also includes detailed tutorials and diagrams.
Now could they be better and lower their commissions and refuse to allow DRM? Sure. But at least they put those commissions to good use developing pro-sumer hardware.
for me where valve is "the good guy" is having replacement parts available day one and having a decent enough queue system that might not of been perfect but helped to keep the scalpers at bay. then add in them not trying to lock it down, like letting you chose your own boot animation and making it easier to do when someone first did it, and it makes a great case for the device to me. all of that instills confidence in me to buy it.
valve isnt perfect, and no corporation is your friend, but thats a refreshing change from nintendo and sony and microsoft who try to lock the device down as hard as possible.