We do a lot of thinking about digital storefronts here at PCG, and a great struggle is that we don’t want to demonstrate too much bias in favor of Steam. But Valve’s platform just does it better.
It’s not perfect: Uneven moderation has rightly come under the most scrutiny in recent years, and I find those stories about how hyperprofitable Valve is a little hard to stomach in the face of its flat 30% revenue cut—it would probably continue to be one of the most profitable enterprises in human history with a more relaxed or graduated system.
But our hobby would be so much more worse off without Steam, and I generally trust Valve as a steward of PC Gaming, certainly more than any other company.
One thing that always shocks me is comparing it to any other service, marketplace, or social media platform of the same vintage—going on 20+ years now, depending on whether you set the start date at its literal inception, or when it started to be recognizably Steam.
There are vanishingly few products, pieces of software, anything digital that have been around this long and not been enshittified beyond belief. Whatever Steam’s issues, I’ve never felt like Valve is operating in bad faith or treating me like cattle to be monetized, and I think that goes a long way toward explaining its enduring popularity.
