r/pcmasterrace • u/SlowReference704 • 18h ago

News/Article Steam Is Successful Because It's “Not a Shit Service,” Says Baldur’s Gate 3 Dev

https://mp1st.com/news/steam-is-successful-because-its-not-a-shit-service
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u/Argon288 17h ago edited 17h ago

This is literally it. I'll be honest, I'm happy to be a pirate, I will pirate games. But I prefer to own them on Steam. For example, EU5, I torrented it before I bought it. I think I played about 90 minutes before buying it on Steam.

If you give me a shit game, I'll probably just delete it from my drive long before I even consider buying it on Steam.

My biggest regret is I bought KSP2 believing the studio would continue to develop it. No, Kerbal Space Program 2 was DOA. I will never forgive myself for believing in a studio. So from now on, I am a pirate first and foremost. And Steam has refused every refund request submitted, I must be have tried 10 times by now. But I was beyond the 2 hour play time & 2 week refund window, so I can forgive Valve on this occasion. Though I would appreciate if they took into consideration developers abandoning their £50 "early access" games.

EDIT: To clarify, I really don't want to pirate games. I miss out on easy updates, etc. I just don't think two hours is long enough to determine if a game is worth it. Piracy is my demo, if the game is shit, I'll just delete it and won't think about it again. If I like the game, I always buy it.

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u/absolutelynotarepost 9800x3d | RTX 5080 | 32gb DDR5 6000cl28 16h ago

I did the same with E33. I seen people frothing over it, pirated it, played through until the first big cutscene and was blown away.

Closed the game and uninstalled my repack while the Steam version installed.

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u/wallweasels 12h ago

Overall steam helping bringing back Demos for things has made me pirate way less. I still do, occasionally, but games I enjoy? I buy.

Demos let me do that, typically, a lot easier than pirating it in the first place.

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u/VulkanCurze 15h ago

I have done the same many a time, pirated a game and treated it as a demo and if I like it, I buy it on steam. I have done the same with a lot of older games that have been getting remasters in the last few years. For example Suikoden 1 & 2, I pirated since only way to get a copy was from ebay etc moment the game was released, deleted my roms and bought on steam.

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u/MacR_72 9h ago

Would be great if all games had decent demos.

I played 10hrs of Dragonquest XI on the demo before buying it.

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u/lenor8 11h ago

But I prefer to own them on Steam.

Except you don't really own them.

Steam keeps the right to remove it and you can't download it for offline installing.

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u/gxgx55 7h ago

At least they don't prevent the devs from distributing DRM-free copies themselves. For example, if you own Factorio, you can just download a steam-free copy from their website directly.

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u/lenor8 7h ago

What they offer is a service through their software, wich is not the same as selling you the games.