The pricing of the steam machine also isn't entirely valves fault because of the whole AI bubble driving prices up. It's wild to me that people are going "how dare valve" when they even admitted that they don't want to sell the system at a loss because if they did they'd have to do what other console makers do and charge for shit like online play.
Apart from what @Markorian already mentioned I think there are also a couple of other points:
This isn't the question I'm asking tho. There is no debate that Steam "won" PC and is winning the whole industry at large. I'm just asking why the outcry over the physical media NOW and only towards consoles, yet this is a foregone conclusion and even derided against in the PC space. Why isn't anyone taking Gabe up to task about the ownership of games on PC since they've done the exact same thing as Sony and MS are doing now.
people also forget that PC gaming was already starting to go digital only by like 2010. Discs are a bitch to make and are expensive. Which is why Sony's shareholders are happy Sony is ditching them.
Let's sing it all together now:
"Peo-ple are stu-pid."
Because steam didn't make it so you only had to buy digital games, physical games still worked for steam as well. Half Life 1 and 2, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Counterstrike Source and a few of Valves other games were all physically released for PC. There were also games that as long as you had the activation code to them you could install on steam, just incase your disk stopped working. That's how I got my copy of Medieval Total War.
Half life 1, yes, unless you mean Half Life: Source. The other ones I'm 99% sure I remember you *had* to install steam, make an account and connect to the internet to "activate", otherwise the discs were coasters. This is in contrast to at least PS4 discs or Switch cartridges (no idea about PS5/Switch 2) where you can put them in and play without any internet connection whatsoever.
Maybe I'm misremembering but the Orange Box had Half Life 2 and was a disc. You could play without an Internet connection from what I remember. Now obviously you need an Internet connection but back when the game was released I'm pretty sure you didn't. But again I could be wrong.
After Gabe passes, eventually the Saudis will buy Valve after Steam enshittifies itself and gets lawfaired to death.
Pretty sure I made a point about that. Valve can't dictate that publishers and developers stop producing physical copies. Never was the case. Sony going forward made that call forcing that upon everyone. Starting 2028, for example when FromSoftware releases a new game that game will only be available as a digital purchase on PS since Sony won't manufacture disks. Bamco can still decide on their own to manufacture physical copies for the PC version. Just strictly speaking about the physical medium.
Because that was always the case regardless if Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo or whatever. You were always buying a license not owning a product. People always misunderstood that.
No on PC you had to download the game. You could play it offline after install, but initially it served just as a Key to download the games. There supposedly was a DRM free version of Half Life 2 released somewhere in Europe but that was before the Orange Box.
Do you have a hacked PS5? Obviously, there are people who will drill holes into their motherboard to get free games, but even the softmodding available on some Switch units is too much of a barrier for most people to bother with. On PC, everyone knows you can google pirate bay to get free games.
Capcom's Resident Evil 9 is currently on sale for $56 on Steam but $70 on PSN and EGS. I don't think Capcom feels pressured by the existence of alternate storefronts. Then again, Playstation didn't tell Capcom that they had to sell RE9 for $70, that's something Capcom decided themselves because it's the market norm. Competition also doesn't depend on platform, it depends on the market, that's why RE9 is $70 but Pragmata is only $60, because Capcom expects Pragmata to be less competitive than RE9. I guess the reason for the sale is just that Capcom really appreciates Steam gamers.
Nope, needed internet. I specifically remember the text "requires steam account" in the back of the box of original Half Life 2, but can't find a picture to prove it.
Oh absolutely, but they were the ones to introduce it and set the trend. You can argue that it would happen anyway being that blueray was a clusterfuck on PC, and nowadays there isn't even a format that would fit the bill anyway. But let's not forget who introduced it first and got away with it. Valve and Steam is the first who set "you will own nothing and you'll be happy", in exchange for Gaben memes and "sales"
I stand corrected. My PC was complete dog shit back then so I was mainly a 360 player, so I'm mainly going off of my dogshit memory of the games I could play, I'm happy to be corrected though.
Yeah, in addition to what I said about it being an unfortunate but necessary evil, Valve made releasing and purchasing digitally more convenient, but never removed the option. Sony is removing the option, and reportedly also closing down most blu ray production as a whole, not just for gaming, not because this is the least bad for gaming as a whole out of two imperfect options, but because this is better for their bottom line.
You are right, and it is to our own detriment that physical ceased to be an important part of PC gaming especially since I am going to assume that most physical copies today are just merely boxes that hold a Steam activation code. But the trajectory that led us to this point as has been pointed out is quite messy and advantages or at least conveniences that would lessen the blow of forgoing physical media became an acceptable trade-off.
His Son Gray Newell essentially runs Valve at this point and has been for a while. He's 28.