Heh. Paid for Win 7. Still not ashamed. Best system I had, even if it had it’s weird stuff. And it’s licence carried on to Win 10 and prolly 11. Cannot say with 11 as I am highly uninterested in it xD

You mentioned adding non-Steam games, but that’s just a shortcut.

And it’s exactly how I mentioned it. It’s simply a way to use some of steam features - for free - even if you use different shop. Their controller support, friend list, library access. A limited amount of access but nonetheless, yet again, something they provide that they don’t have to and other shops (except GOG I believe?) don’t support.

You lose the “Join Game” buttons, the cloud saves, and the lobby invites. That is the definition of a social moat. You can leave, but you’re socially penalized for doing so.

Cloud saves should be handled by whatever alternative you choose, and both join game and lobby invites should be ideally handled by game - that’s how it began, didn’t it? Steam simply offered option for games to extend it to friends chat out of the game. And hell, today even Discord of all things has something like this.

As for competition, the fact that GOG and Itch.io have to hide in tiny niches just to survive proves my point. When the #1 player has 75%+ of the market, they don’t have to be perfect, they just have to be too big to leave.

I admit, bad wording on my part. But while Itch relies on niche, in GOG’s case I meant their initiative of saving old games. Other than that, they are really competing as a full alternative. And…I just learned GOG does not publish it’s number, huh. But they are constantly growing from what I saw published, so evidently, you can throw gauntlet at Steam and do well. And I just learned that they aren’t really that far on feature parity, with library integration being something unique, huh. No wonder people on lemmy praise it xD

My solution of mandated interoperability is exactly how we fixed the phone industry. You can switch carriers and keep your number. We should be able to switch launchers and keep our friends and games. If Steam is truly as perfect as you say, they should have nothing to fear from a system where users are actually free to leave. A benevolent gatekeeper who refuses to unlock the gate is still a gatekeeper.

I just want to underline, again, that this is the first time I am facing that point and thus, have no opinion of my own yet formed, so I am not gonna say anything as it would simply be reductive. First reaction is mixed from me - number is one thing, forcing a store front to suddenly have to change contracts with game providers, clash with legal and all that to essentially allow you to carry over hundreds of products seems iffy. On the other hand, these are just copy keys at the end of the day so the only question is how easy would it be contract-wise? Dunno. And that’s why I am witholding forming an opinion as of now.

At the end I wanna mention only that our talk made me look up some stuff about both GOG - which I now appreciate a lot more, they really are closing in feature-wise to steam - and phone operators. The second one especially was a weird thing to discover. I was a kid when the number carry-over came to be and, honestly, believed it was some weird marketing strategy…fun to know it was one of early EU thingies.

First of all, yeah, price parity sucks…but also the only thing it changes is that simply being cheaper isn’t an option. From my PoV all it does is it forces competition to compete on features. Which they all fail to do.

Also, it is not just about making a better product. It is switching costs. Because our libraries and social circles are locked into a proprietary ecosystem, we aren’t choosing Steam every day. We are just stuck there.

Friend, steam literally alows you to load games outside of steam. You absolutely can still rely on steam friends when playing even pirated games. Steam literally allows you to do it. And having more than one store installed, while not comfy, isn’t a sin - we are choosing steam due to it’s services - controller support, linux support, inbuilt forums, friend network, robust review system, robust return policy, great user support, and probably even more that I don’t know about due to being more niche.

The solution is not for a competitor to build a “more perfect Steam,” that is impossible because Valve has a 20 year head start on our data. The solution is mandated interoperability.

Again, bull. Let’s look at competition, sans “We only sell our own games” stores.

• Epic Store - Literally antithesis to all you wrote. They push free games for you to build your library, buy exclusives to remove the forced price, advertise themselves as much as they can to push through steam’s domination…but they don’t support anything aimed at consumers. They don’t give a diddly doo about you. Thus, they fail…better yet, managed to piss people off.
• GOG store - They tried to innovate and find their niche and…they did it. Oh my, it’s like if you actually offer something it gets apprwciation from clients. It’s small compared to steam and doesn’t offer that much client-side, but with what they offer, they found themselves in stable position and with good public opinion.
• Itch.io - Similiarily to GOG, they used a niche and created sctually somewhat rich ecosystem there. And again, similiarily to GOG, they achieved stability. Supporting both comments and forums and alloeing creators to be close to their community, they became great place to start up and test waters. But they lack friend networks (AFAIK), game invite integration and all that. Although it seems they are okay with their niche…also I believe that their shop actually did chomp that niche away from steam, so they prove that competition is possible.

And just to be clean - I am not against your interchangable library idea, although I am not really for it either. I just really disliked how you described steam as some monstrous entity holding people by ransom.

Agree to disagree. 10 is fast, reliable and convienient. I agree it served as a sandbox for all the shit they crammed into 12, but it doesn’t change anything.

Still would prefer 7. Kinda loved 7.

I feel like the very moment we go for any linux aimed at being lightweight, windows loses due to cramming cramming as much compatibility and tools as is possible inside.

…

…and also you got me intrested in AntiX. I have old laptop that struggles even with Debian…wonder if that would work on it.

Straight up said I wouldn’t call 10 better than 7. So what’s your point? 10 is, overall, good OS. Not best, not great, good.

You say so yet 10 is fast, convienient and easy to use. Wouldn’t call it better than 7, but it was good.

People forgot already…

EVERY SECOND WINDOWS IS GOOD Win XP good, Vista bad, 7 good, 8 bad, 10 good, 11 bad, 12 good?

Only this time around Linux got to the point where everyday users can switch and only run into debiliating problems twice a year, so MS is losing customers.

Hey, what you descibe is a power user. And that’s valid, but power users also don’t tend to have problems with linux, and they ain’t anywhere close to majority of computer users. Also, to even download a game nowadays you need to have store installed so that’s crossed out, and then game drivers are installed by the store so (or added to cd installer in ye olde times) so wtf you on about.

But again. You are power user. Linux is, IMO, better than Windows for power users because you can do whatever with it. Windows is, however, better for granny, weird office lady and that quite dense kid who, while wanting to use computers, cannot be bothered to learn anything more than where the web browser icon sits.

Is it? For most users, windows takes care of absolutely everything and if something lacks, just google, download and done, especially because most software is written for windows. With Defender they even removed need of antivirus for a normal user.

If something lacks on Linux, half the time you need to say hello to console. You also need to learn about software alternatives, because there’s high probability that the default, well known option won’t work.

To both of which most people will say no to from the very start.

On one hand, maybe. On the other tho, a lot of parents are gamers themselves with big steam libraries. That can be really good argument for steam machine, and also Valve has brand loyalty on par with Sony or Microsoft, just not in consoles (yet).

While true overall, I was more going for the fact that people buy Ninendo because they want to buy Nintendo rather than because they want any random console. Meanwhile Sony and Microsoft are fighting for the same consumer - someone who wants an alternative to PC gaming. Which is also what Steam Machine is.

I am honestly curious how do Sony and Microsoft react internally to Valve deciding to get their part of cake. Nintendo shouldn’t care, their cake is a separate cupcake at the top anyway, but Sony and Microsoft are directly in the line of fire.

Time to start responding to Linux posts with “Just use Windows, lol” xD

I literally wanted to argue with top level comment about the fact that in Linux everything is fucking disconnected and a lot of placement makes some sense from technical PoV but sure as hell not from “I dunno what I’m doin” PoV.

But then this comment snapped me out of it. Control Panel in Windows is no more. I forgot as I still default to it on Win 10. They fucked up one of the most important parts of why Windows was better for green folk. :<

Nah, companies found solution to that long ago.

…

…HOW’S IT GOING JOHNY, GOT THAT LIST PARSED YET?

The update is downloaded in the background, and it asks you when to update, most folk just impulsively click later without thinking.

Hell, you can set preffered update hours!

I don’t. XP was great, Vista sucked, 7 was great, 8 sucked, 10 was okay and 11 sucks.

But honestly where I live tech magazines try to push Linux every now and often. Which, paradoxically, alienates people from it further connecting it to “computer people”.

You just discouraged me from linux lol. Steam using 2GB RAM in the background? Am I understanding this correctly?Because on Win 10 it uses ~350 MB, even with open window.

I honestly like it due to ehat it offerd and how it looks. And it’s kinda optimized. Once V3 rolls in thiugh, I am aiming at Floorp.

Just switching to new OS and new browser seems kinda meh.