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Overdue for Steam to forbid the practice.


That’s not their job, and they already do what they need to: it requires disclosure in the games page/metadata. Customers can make an informed choice, except for cases like this where it’s changed post release.


> That’s not their job, and they already do what they need to: it requires disclosure in the games page/metadata.

By the same logic was it not Apple's job to decide that music downloads shouldn't have DRM and tell publishers to either get on board or not be available on iTunes?

I mean just like in that case I wish it didn't need to come to this, I wish the publishers would just not be piles of garbage to begin with, but this is the world we actually exist in so sometimes it's nice for a player in a position of power to use their power for good.


I cannot read this without laughing out loud, thinking about the crap Apple has been getting for having exactly such policies in their app store.


It’s not the same. Apple is entitled to have whatever rules they want on their store. The only reason it’s an issue is because they don’t allow any other store on the hardware.

Steam cannot stop people from installing other game stores, so they can have whatever rules they want.


Would probably be seen by governments as anti competitive and abusing their monopoly position.


> Would probably be seen by governments as anti competitive and abusing their monopoly position.

What monopoly position? There are dozens of game stores available on all the platforms Steam supports with nothing restricting users from installing and using however many of them they want. Outside of Valve's own Steam Deck hardware users had to go out of their way to install Steam in the first place. Even there the installation of third party launchers is not just supported but encouraged.

Some of the world's most popular games are not even available on Steam.




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