So Valve is not your friend, according to Polygon.

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

It is indeed Don Camillo! Nice catch! It's from one of the Don Camillo films released between '52 & '65. I used to read the books when I was littler, but only saw the first film quite recently. Fernandel makes a fantastic Don Camillo.

No way! How on Earth someone that is not Italian and/or old enough even knows about him?!

 

[maninahat]

So this is being held up as an example of Polygon's excesses? It's just an overwritten but accurate article about how Valve isn't anywhere near as benign as its users seem to think. In other words, its the exact sort of pro-consumer, pro-gamer writing that would normally be heralded by people who say they want better games journalism, but because its written by a left leaning website it must be terrible.

 

[WeepingAngels]

So this is being held up as an example of Polygon's excesses? It's just an overwritten but accurate article about how Valve isn't anywhere near as benign as its users seem to think. In other words, its the exact sort of pro-consumer, pro-gamer writing that would normally be heralded by people who say they want better games journalism, but because its written by a left leaning website it must be terrible.

They went and criticized Valve and the best way to not address the truth is to attack the source.

 

[RaikuFA]

So this is being held up as an example of Polygon's excesses? It's just an overwritten but accurate article about how Valve isn't anywhere near as benign as its users seem to think. In other words, its the exact sort of pro-consumer, pro-gamer writing that would normally be heralded by people who say they want better games journalism, but because its written by a left leaning website it must be terrible.

Nah, OP is just overreacting. If Polygon wrote more stuff like this I'd go there more often.

 

[Saltyk]

Polygon is the "Buzzfeed" of video game news. Everything they post is bullshit to a fairly stinky degree. I used to think Kotaku was trash but Polygon has certainly gone out of their way to top that. I dunno, maybe a news site just needs clickbait these days in order to stay online. Hell you can even look at MSN or Yahoo for news without scrolling through click-bait trash.

Whoa. That seems a bit harsh. I mean I don't even think Buzzfeed wants to be compared to Buzzfeed.

 

[Dragonbums]

Weren't they also ones claiming COD WWII is not diverse enough?

If so then they're bunch of chauvinists and bigots in their death throes,
trying to get any attention to their crumbling platform
or given their target maybe just bunch of spineless twat's on EA's leash, smearing hit pieces on demand?

Neither option being worthy source of news on gaming industry.

For all the shit that gets thrown at Polygon I have to wonder how many times do people look at whether or not it's a review article or an editorial opinion piece. Because really- this isn't that big of a deal.

 

[Silvanus]

No way! How on Earth someone that is not Italian and/or old enough even knows about him?!

Was introduced by my mum. She's not Italian either, though, so I'm not sure how she came across Don Camillo to begin with. I'm pretty glad to find someone else who knows about it, too!

 

[CaitSeith]

Weren't they also ones claiming COD WWII is not diverse enough?

If so then they're bunch of chauvinists and bigots in their death throes,
trying to get any attention to their crumbling platform
or given their target maybe just bunch of spineless twat's on EA's leash, smearing hit pieces on demand?

Neither option being worthy source of news on gaming industry.

For all the shit that gets thrown at Polygon I have to wonder how many times do people look at whether or not it's a review article or an editorial opinion piece. Because really- this isn't that big of a deal.

My favorites are the ones that are neither [https://www.polygon.com/2015/6/1/8687867/rock-band-4-preview]. "All video games are stupid, of course", the greatest truth that no one wants to hear.

It's more hilarious being read aloud in an exaggerated british accent. https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/masterpiece-theatre-presents-games-journalism

 

[Fallow]

Polygon is Buzzfeed grade trash. Would you expect quality reporting from Fox News?

The article itself is clearly marked 'opinion' which means anything goes. There really is no need to be upset, or even care, about it.

 

[Fallow]

These elements have been discussed and explored throughout art and artistic critique since the very formation of art; they play a central role in some of the greatest artistic pieces (and their critiques) in the history of artistic media. Simply ignoring them would lead to a poorer, more bankrupt artistic landscape. I reject that completely.

But in these artistic explorations, or rather explorations of the artistic, have they been critiqued within or without context? I haven't seen any critique of art that focused on representation while disregarding everything else which is why I do consider it a valid concern that such is becoming quite common in videogame critique (including Twitter stuff from vidya "journos").

 

[shrekfan246]

A corporation isn't my friend? Say it ain't so!

Also, it's weird how some people like really hate some pretty harmless and bland websites like Polygon and Kotaku, or is this like an "ethics" thing that I'm just not getting? I dunno. I tend not to get angry about things like that.

I would not categorize polygon as harmless given they had something to do with those sites pushing the "you'll take what you've given" and being generally anti-consumer hacks.
whether people want to dwell on the ME3 controversy or not the gamers are entitled mythos arguably has not helped the fact that a fair bit of corporate games come to us peacemeil and mildly broken on day one.(not a big deal for me because, yah know Monkey island rule, and i mostly play indie anyway)
in fact if I'm not mistaken Colin Moriarty came from polygon and they were the folks that published this nonsense in the first place.

But if you disagree that then they are simply a bunch of corporate centrifuges, people being say "too old" to enjoy destiny, entitlement and the like doesn't really do anything but shit on their consumer base with sophist tripe.
The fact that they remain alive worries me greatly

Ok... so ... obviously I've missed a lot because I generally don't know what you're on about.

You see, Polygon is the worst enemy of frozen peaches and ethical jurnalism currently on the internet. Their tyrannical reign is literally ruining games and costing people their lives, so it's up to the noble crusaders of the anti-SJW brigade to take them down and once again bring peace and prosperity to the internet. Only the downfall of Polygon will allow games jernulasm to flourish (because the last target, Gawker, was already taken down, so they need a new bogeyman now)!

 

[Silvanus]

But in these artistic explorations, or rather explorations of the artistic, have they been critiqued within or without context? I haven't seen any critique of art that focused on representation while disregarding everything else which is why I do consider it a valid concern that such is becoming quite common in videogame critique (including Twitter stuff from vidya "journos").

Sometimes in context, sometimes out. There has always been lazy criticism.

This is adding caveats that were not present in the original complaint, though. A growing number of people are moaning about diversity being brought up at all, regardless of context.

 

[Fallow]

But in these artistic explorations, or rather explorations of the artistic, have they been critiqued within or without context? I haven't seen any critique of art that focused on representation while disregarding everything else which is why I do consider it a valid concern that such is becoming quite common in videogame critique (including Twitter stuff from vidya "journos").

Sometimes in context, sometimes out. There has always been lazy criticism.

This is adding caveats that were not present in the original complaint, though. A growing number of people are moaning about diversity being brought up at all, regardless of context.

I don't know anything about the original complaint, I skipped most of the posts. My interest was caught by the reference to oldschool critique of oldschool art, and I couldn't quite see how the "modern" critique of videogames could relate to the original, artistically minded critique without either malevolent intent or a disregard for the context of the subject.

 

[munx13]

"A business set up to make money is not your friend"

Another insightful piece of journalism from Polygon.

 

[TT Kairen]

If the first thought anyone had to this startling revelation was anything other than "No shit, butt-munch", then I would be fucking stunned.

Well, I got the "no-shit" part right, but I thought "asshat" rather than "butt-munch". Is that still stun worthy?

 

[runic knight]

No, valve isn't, but neither is any other business I deal with. Both parties have their own goals and are simply working with each other to get there, and that is fine. Hell, it is like a business relationship in a way.

Here's the breakdown. Steam is not my friend, but they are, essentially, a business partner of sorts. The provide me games with minimal fuss and decent support, and I provide them money. Pretty good deal, and despite fucking around with things like paid mods and the mess that is/was greenlight, they tend to know to stay on the up and up when it comes to actually selling and providing the games because it just is easier that way. I want games for a reasonable amount, that run well on my pc, and that I can trust will still be there tomorrow after I purchase them despite them being entirely digital. I also want to know that if the internet is acting up, I can still access my stuff just fine. And steam, it delivers on that well enough, as well as acting as a storefront and community hub. Good service overall in that regard and I don't mind using it, even if I still think it could be done better, and that valve themselves could improve on things. That can be hashed out overtime, as I said earlier, different goals between the parties and all that.

Polygon has routinely demonstrated nothing but contempt for their readers, gamers, and anyone who doesn't ideologically agree with their narrow political lean. When it comes to my relationship with them, they have failed, utterly, to provide their side of the deal as journalists and product reviewers (this being accurate, reliable, relevant information about games and the gaming industry), so I broke off that relationship years ago (or in short, I stopped going there, stopped trusting them as a source, etc). As it is, this article looks like a bitter jealous ex trying to talk shit about someone else.

Personally though, I think I like this study as an explanation as to why.

http://www.businessinsider.com/journalists-brains-function-at-a-lower-level-than-average-2017-5

 

[euphoria58]

Good Guy Valve worked hard to make us believe that willingly installing surveillance and control software onto our computers was a morally benevolent, perhaps even righteous act ? and we swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

The way this is worded makes Polygon act like Steam is spyware that can potentially hijack your computer, and not a DRM platform.

This is for authentication/anti-piracy purposes. Once this has been completed, the owner of either the retail or the Steam version can play Half-Life 2 single player in offline mode.

Nope, not seeing anything wrong here. Internet connection in 2004 was pretty standard, and an always-online connection to Steam has never been required to use its products, merely to download/update them and browse the online store, which would be really difficult to do without internet. This might've been the start of DRM internet trends, but it's far from a bad one, and in an internet-heavy world a quick online verification is still fine so long as it remains unintrusive, which Valve managed to do.

We also didn?t want anything else once we were comfortable with Steam, which is a big problem for anyone who doesn?t want to give Valve a third of every sale.

Brand recognition means that larger cuts can be claimed from the developers. A 30% cut for selling on one of the world's largest gaming platforms seems completely fair, especially given that, compared to other industries, a studio is still generally making out with at least half of the money they put in, after paying for the publisher, platform, and engine costs. By comparison it's not uncommon for musicians, comedians, and other stage performers to get a single-digit cut of event profits, album/recordings sales, ad revenue, and merchandise. Louis CK, who now independently books his own events, has done an amazing critique of the woes of stage performance pay and contracting.

EA launched its Origin client in 2011, and demanded that we install it if we wanted to play Battlefield 3. Our collective Stockholm Syndrome for Steam kicked in en masse, and we rained hellfire on this ?greedy corporation? for its temerity.

No, pretty sure that's because Origin requires an internet connection whereas Steam does not, and Origin's features are limited by comparison. Not to mention that a lot of EA IPs, even indie titles, are held hostage to Origin, and EA is a shitty company as a whole for various reasons. My personal issues with EA as a company started when they removed in-client matchmaking for Battlefield 3, and started enclosing the maps and introducing mechanics that made it much more a twitch shooter than a tactical one. Good thing Planetside 2 is going strong, since that's more or less BFBC2 that's still updated.The other issue is that there have been multiple EA games with official server shutdowns only a few years after release. Any multiplayer game supported by Steam can be still played as multiplayer, dead communities notwithstanding.

a forum post from two years ago

Oh my god, I'm dying. This is hardly worth mentioning as a point but holy shit, you can find something more credible than a forum post. If an opinion can be imagined, it exists on the internet. You can at least look for something that LOOKS credible to link to your article.

Valve had all your information and was tracking your data, but it would be wrong for other companies to do so.

This is the second time I've seen this mentioned. Source that says Steam is spyware, please?
I get that your gameplay data is tracked and your saves are kept in a cloud, but I'd like to see anything that says that they're monitoring save data in any way or are somehow distributing gameplay analytics of private/hidden accounts.

We were used to buying our PC games in stores, and we had recourse if they didn?t work. We could go talk to someone. Steam never provided that luxury, and it still doesn?t.

Pretty sure that Steam's human support staff is still human, and when a game bumps minimum requirements on you past what you can actually run the game at, you're entitled to a refund outside of the existing 14 days owned / 2 hours played window, which is enough to determine whether you want to refund a purchase anyways.

Players began noting that was Valve was doing was wildly illegal, pointing out quite accurately that under European Union law, consumers were entitled to a refund on all purchases ? even for something as simple as changing their mind.

Because, logistically and legally, it's somehow easy to return money that's been sent to a publisher (if not indie), developer, and Valve themselves. What happens if a refund request is made and only one or two parties agree that it should be given? Do you give a partial refund again? Do you force the parties that do agree to pay more? Do you force the third party to shell out too in a majority-wins situation? Google's having the same issue with monetary distribution of ad revenue to various networks and content creators because, frankly, companies generally can't afford to have dedicated digital rights lawyers on their payrolls, especially given that not many lawyers are dedicated to that field.

Valve, backed into a corner and hissing like a cat that doesn't want to go to the vet, pulled out all the stops to avoid providing the required financial information ? to the point where a seemingly infuriated and exasperated Judge Edelman blasted Valve for ?overkill? and issued the most politely worded legalese version of ?go to hell? that anybody has ever committed to paper.

From what I'm reading in this, Valve didn't want this information public because they believed it would sway public opinion and thus make the ruling on them biased- that if people saw that Valve was highly profitable they'd push harder for refunds. This next part is just conjecture, but assuming that Valve wanted to avoid further financial/logistical/legal issues, it's fully within their right to not release information, as the public has no inherent right to the affairs of a private company, so long as they're legal, and the word "confidential" means that the information is only withheld from the public, not from authorities, which is the wording that the article Polygon's link uses.

Even when Valve finally did get around to launching a refund program [...], many people quite accurately and angrily observed that the default refund option was in Steam credit

I've returned money to my bank from a refunded purchase before. It can be done, meaning that this argument completely falls through the floor. "The default option" isn't "the only option".

European law principally provides a right of withdrawal on software sales. However, it can be and typically is excluded for boxed software that has been opened and for digitally provided content once it has been made available to the end user. This is what happens when you make a transaction on Steam: The EU statutory right of withdrawal ends the moment the content and services are added to your account.

At the same time, Steam voluntarily offers refunds to all of its customers worldwide in a way that is much more customer-friendly than our legal obligations.

TL;DR: "Most publishers on our platform do not support the EU's refund policy, and we don't want to deal with the legal shit of forcing them to accept these laws on our platform, so instead we make them accept our own, identical refund policy which we can make them agree to without raising any legal or ethical concerns."
Besides, didn't you literally just say that this was illegal? Why is Valve claiming, then, that digital products are exempt from this? Doesn't this violate your earlier point?

But in the world of Good Guy Valve we give that marketing away, for free, to a billion-dollar corporation every year (sometimes twice a year, if he asks nicely), doing our bit to help that corporation make more money during a sale event.

So it's Valve's fault that Valve is a meme and they're evil for being it? I literally don't understand the justification behind this point. Can someone explain the logic here?

Valve themselves eagerly trumpeted that they had paid more than $57 million to Steam Workshop creators over four years ? an enormously impressive figure until you realize that it's only 25 percent of the sale price, which means Valve just made $171 million profit from ... setting up an online form where you can submit finished 3D models.

I thought CSGO was only like $20 and Dota 2 is free, so these games were very specifically set up on their MTX systems, which have worked to enormous success. So that $171 million Polygon's claiming goes to a form alone, ignoring that these modelers are getting paid massive amounts of money on MTXs for a game in which they played no part of the development process? K.

This is called ?speculative work? in the industry and it's hugely frowned upon as exploitative and unjust.

I feel bad for whoever thinks that they'd actually make a living off of this. Valve's not going around to designers telling them to spend their hard-earned time and effort to make models for a fraction of the fees. They're not trying to convince to-be grifters to sell knives door-to-door for a commission fee. Art's a labor of love, and people make fan work all the time for various things. This encourages that work and gives it a chance to pay off. I'm sure Valve isn't sourcing out their game to the community to develop in its entirety like Unreal Tournament is doing.

We emailed Valve for a comment on this issue before publishing the story, and have yet to hear back. After all, if you don't say anything, you can't tell a lie to the internet, right?

It's generally a matter of journalistic integrity to leave "X has not responded to questioning." at that and that alone. It irks me to see them to go straight to assumptions as to why Valve hasn't responded.

A company which will spend what has to be millions on legal fees to avoid having to pay you $15 in refunds, but which isn't ?evil.?

Seems unfair to be accusing Valve of opinions based on a policy decision that was changed two years ago to the consumer's favor, especially since that $15 in refunds assumes (A) you're the only person asking for a game refund in the entire world, (B) you're refunding a single game, and (C) Valve's ability to refund at the time was unanimously supported by the developer and publisher of the game.

I do think that the undercutting of Dota 2 content creators was a massive mistake and something Valve shouldn't have ever considered doing. That was certainly shitty. But I'm hoping that the community keeps them in line with this as they have with paid mods, and that Valve's occasional rough patch in their overhead decisions get better.

But no. Since you can play your games offline, if you've got your digital games backed up in an external hard drive, they're yours to play FOREVER without question. The only time you can't is if you wanted to play multiplayer or the game was multiplayer-only and the servers went down, and even then Valve still supports LAN play after Blizzard (under the oversight of Activision), once king of the LAN party, has now given that up entirely due to claimed anti-piracy concerns. Valve is not spyware. Valve's 30% cut is fair. Valve's 75% cut for Dota 2 and CSGO items are fair, though the means of distributing those microtransactions since 2016 has been really shitty and I hope they fix it.

 

[Naldan]

Valve's reputation has fallen so much over the last 10 years, this isn't really anything surprising. Valve has betrayed the trust of its fan base since like, every game after the Orange Box.

... Holy shit does time fly by...

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

Good Guy Valve worked hard to make us believe that willingly installing surveillance and control software onto our computers was a morally benevolent, perhaps even righteous act ? and we swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

The way this is worded makes Polygon act like Steam is spyware that can potentially hijack your computer, and not a DRM platform.

This is for authentication/anti-piracy purposes. Once this has been completed, the owner of either the retail or the Steam version can play Half-Life 2 single player in offline mode.

Nope, not seeing anything wrong here. Internet connection in 2004 was pretty standard, and an always-online connection to Steam has never been required to use its products, merely to download/update them and browse the online store, which would be really difficult to do without internet. This might've been the start of DRM internet trends, but it's far from a bad one, and in an internet-heavy world a quick online verification is still fine so long as it remains unintrusive, which Valve managed to do.

We also didn?t want anything else once we were comfortable with Steam, which is a big problem for anyone who doesn?t want to give Valve a third of every sale.

Brand recognition means that larger cuts can be claimed from the developers. A 30% cut for selling on one of the world's largest gaming platforms seems completely fair, especially given that, compared to other industries, a studio is still generally making out with at least half of the money they put in, after paying for the publisher, platform, and engine costs. By comparison it's not uncommon for musicians, comedians, and other stage performers to get a single-digit cut of event profits, album/recordings sales, ad revenue, and merchandise. Louis CK, who now independently books his own events, has done an amazing critique of the woes of stage performance pay and contracting.

EA launched its Origin client in 2011, and demanded that we install it if we wanted to play Battlefield 3. Our collective Stockholm Syndrome for Steam kicked in en masse, and we rained hellfire on this ?greedy corporation? for its temerity.

No, pretty sure that's because Origin requires an internet connection whereas Steam does not, and Origin's features are limited by comparison. Not to mention that a lot of EA IPs, even indie titles, are held hostage to Origin, and EA is a shitty company as a whole for various reasons. My personal issues with EA as a company started when they removed in-client matchmaking for Battlefield 3, and started enclosing the maps and introducing mechanics that made it much more a twitch shooter than a tactical one. Good thing Planetside 2 is going strong, since that's more or less BFBC2 that's still updated.The other issue is that there have been multiple EA games with official server shutdowns only a few years after release. Any multiplayer game supported by Steam can be still played as multiplayer, dead communities notwithstanding.

a forum post from two years ago

Oh my god, I'm dying. This is hardly worth mentioning as a point but holy shit, you can find something more credible than a forum post. If an opinion can be imagined, it exists on the internet. You can at least look for something that LOOKS credible to link to your article.

Valve had all your information and was tracking your data, but it would be wrong for other companies to do so.

This is the second time I've seen this mentioned. Source that says Steam is spyware, please?
I get that your gameplay data is tracked and your saves are kept in a cloud, but I'd like to see anything that says that they're monitoring save data in any way or are somehow distributing gameplay analytics of private/hidden accounts.

We were used to buying our PC games in stores, and we had recourse if they didn?t work. We could go talk to someone. Steam never provided that luxury, and it still doesn?t.

Pretty sure that Steam's human support staff is still human, and when a game bumps minimum requirements on you past what you can actually run the game at, you're entitled to a refund outside of the existing 14 days owned / 2 hours played window, which is enough to determine whether you want to refund a purchase anyways.

Players began noting that was Valve was doing was wildly illegal, pointing out quite accurately that under European Union law, consumers were entitled to a refund on all purchases ? even for something as simple as changing their mind.

Because, logistically and legally, it's somehow easy to return money that's been sent to a publisher (if not indie), developer, and Valve themselves. What happens if a refund request is made and only one or two parties agree that it should be given? Do you give a partial refund again? Do you force the parties that do agree to pay more? Do you force the third party to shell out too in a majority-wins situation? Google's having the same issue with monetary distribution of ad revenue to various networks and content creators because, frankly, companies generally can't afford to have dedicated digital rights lawyers on their payrolls, especially given that not many lawyers are dedicated to that field.

Valve, backed into a corner and hissing like a cat that doesn't want to go to the vet, pulled out all the stops to avoid providing the required financial information ? to the point where a seemingly infuriated and exasperated Judge Edelman blasted Valve for ?overkill? and issued the most politely worded legalese version of ?go to hell? that anybody has ever committed to paper.

From what I'm reading in this, Valve didn't want this information public because they believed it would sway public opinion and thus make the ruling on them biased- that if people saw that Valve was highly profitable they'd push harder for refunds. This next part is just conjecture, but assuming that Valve wanted to avoid further financial/logistical/legal issues, it's fully within their right to not release information, as the public has no inherent right to the affairs of a private company, so long as they're legal, and the word "confidential" means that the information is only withheld from the public, not from authorities, which is the wording that the article Polygon's link uses.

Even when Valve finally did get around to launching a refund program [...], many people quite accurately and angrily observed that the default refund option was in Steam credit

I've returned money to my bank from a refunded purchase before. It can be done, meaning that this argument completely falls through the floor. "The default option" isn't "the only option".

European law principally provides a right of withdrawal on software sales. However, it can be and typically is excluded for boxed software that has been opened and for digitally provided content once it has been made available to the end user. This is what happens when you make a transaction on Steam: The EU statutory right of withdrawal ends the moment the content and services are added to your account.

At the same time, Steam voluntarily offers refunds to all of its customers worldwide in a way that is much more customer-friendly than our legal obligations.

TL;DR: "Most publishers on our platform do not support the EU's refund policy, and we don't want to deal with the legal shit of forcing them to accept these laws on our platform, so instead we make them accept our own, identical refund policy which we can make them agree to without raising any legal or ethical concerns."
Besides, didn't you literally just say that this was illegal? Why is Valve claiming, then, that digital products are exempt from this? Doesn't this violate your earlier point?

But in the world of Good Guy Valve we give that marketing away, for free, to a billion-dollar corporation every year (sometimes twice a year, if he asks nicely), doing our bit to help that corporation make more money during a sale event.

So it's Valve's fault that Valve is a meme and they're evil for being it? I literally don't understand the justification behind this point. Can someone explain the logic here?

Valve themselves eagerly trumpeted that they had paid more than $57 million to Steam Workshop creators over four years ? an enormously impressive figure until you realize that it's only 25 percent of the sale price, which means Valve just made $171 million profit from ... setting up an online form where you can submit finished 3D models.

I thought CSGO was only like $20 and Dota 2 is free, so these games were very specifically set up on their MTX systems, which have worked to enormous success. So that $171 million Polygon's claiming goes to a form alone, ignoring that these modelers are getting paid massive amounts of money on MTXs for a game in which they played no part of the development process? K.

This is called ?speculative work? in the industry and it's hugely frowned upon as exploitative and unjust.

I feel bad for whoever thinks that they'd actually make a living off of this. Valve's not going around to designers telling them to spend their hard-earned time and effort to make models for a fraction of the fees. They're not trying to convince to-be grifters to sell knives door-to-door for a commission fee. Art's a labor of love, and people make fan work all the time for various things. This encourages that work and gives it a chance to pay off. I'm sure Valve isn't sourcing out their game to the community to develop in its entirety like Unreal Tournament is doing.

We emailed Valve for a comment on this issue before publishing the story, and have yet to hear back. After all, if you don't say anything, you can't tell a lie to the internet, right?

It's generally a matter of journalistic integrity to leave "X has not responded to questioning." at that and that alone. It irks me to see them to go straight to assumptions as to why Valve hasn't responded.

A company which will spend what has to be millions on legal fees to avoid having to pay you $15 in refunds, but which isn't ?evil.?

Seems unfair to be accusing Valve of opinions based on a policy decision that was changed two years ago to the consumer's favor, especially since that $15 in refunds assumes (A) you're the only person asking for a game refund in the entire world, (B) you're refunding a single game, and (C) Valve's ability to refund at the time was unanimously supported by the developer and publisher of the game.

I do think that the undercutting of Dota 2 content creators was a massive mistake and something Valve shouldn't have ever considered doing. That was certainly shitty. But I'm hoping that the community keeps them in line with this as they have with paid mods, and that Valve's occasional rough patch in their overhead decisions get better.

But no. Since you can play your games offline, if you've got your digital games backed up in an external hard drive, they're yours to play FOREVER without question. The only time you can't is if you wanted to play multiplayer or the game was multiplayer-only and the servers went down, and even then Valve still supports LAN play after Blizzard (under the oversight of Activision), once king of the LAN party, has now given that up entirely due to claimed anti-piracy concerns. Valve is not spyware. Valve's 30% cut is fair. Valve's 75% cut for Dota 2 and CSGO items are fair, though the means of distributing those microtransactions since 2016 has been really shitty and I hope they fix it.

You did too much for me to respond to it all, but as someone who is still saddled with bad internet in 2017 I can tell you your wrong about online and offline requirements with steam and origin. When steam came out, it did not work well of line. Yes you could set it to offline mode, but it would then require you to log in every few days to make it work. It was I guess a bug of it because it would never explain it to you (and it was patched away in a bug report several years latter). Meanwhile right of the bat origin let you set to offline and it worked the first time. I never had a issue playing a game offline on origin, but had tons with steam.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

No way! How on Earth someone that is not Italian and/or old enough even knows about him?!

Was introduced by my mum. She's not Italian either, though, so I'm not sure how she came across Don Camillo to begin with. I'm pretty glad to find someone else who knows about it, too!

You will find that pretty much anyone who is Italian and older than 30-35 knows about it