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Polygon: Valve is not your friend, and Steam is not healthy for gaming

M

M3d10n

Member
The article would be more bearable if the writer didn't spend nearly a third of it rambling about inane stuff like "they keep 30% off the revenue, how dare them!".

The writer apparently has zero knowledge of how much (or little) of the revenue developers were left with back in the Good Old Days™ of retail PC gaming.
 
F

Fishook

Member
Been using Steam for around 12 years now, and it brought along of stuff such as Mods easy of updating games to the masses. Family Sharing, Big Picture Mode. GoG is slowly catching up.

As soon as people released they could make money via steam that's when it became of problem in terms of scams, gifting etc. I have no interest it that whatsoever but it's a huge market. I have no problem with Steam (Valve) making money out of virtual tat. I stay away
from that apart from selling a few cards.

I would rather have Steam that go back to how it was 15-20 years ago, Waiting ages for patches, hoping you local shop had that game in stock, no refunds. Cheaper games overall.
Indie and Niche would games would be virtually non existence if it wasn't for Steam.
 
S

Shengar

Member
tomhan said:
That's not true at all. Valve is a for profit corporation that is trying to make as much profit as possible. The fact that they don't answer to shareholders makes them have to publicly disclose much less than companies with shareholders and that may actually make them more dangerous.
Click to expand...
lol
If Valve was a public company, they will hire people and then sack them off later to give the illusions of growth. Public companies cheats all the fucking time and the investors can act like a cartel that holds the company at gunpoint to prioritize their own money at the cost of everything.
 
M

Memorabilia

Member
Succinct Verbosity said:
Valve aren't what they once were, but I certainly don't think are harming gaming insofar as games themselves are concerned, but the actual steam platform feels archaic these days next to Origin. Overall sales discussion aside, it is crazy how hard it is just to fibd games on sale anymore.
Click to expand...

I'm somewhat of a "Steam Fan"...but I have to agree with this. It seems market momentum is the biggest reason Steam continues to dominate, not because their interface or sales are actually better than the competition. I have a massive Steam collection but havent bought a game in the last 3 sales mainly because the sale discounts suck compared to previous sales of 2-3 yrs ago.
 
I

ikarinokami

Banned
as someone who has been pc gaming since matrox VGA cards were the top of the line, steam has been the best thing that has happened to PC game ever, and were it not more steam we would be in the Dark ages. I was one of those who initially refused to buy half life because of steam , however I'm not the kind of person to cut of my nose to spite my face, long live steam.
 
B

Bastables

Member
Weltall Zero said:
Unless you're Polygon and that corporation is Microsoft.
Click to expand...

Besides going to bat for MS's always online DRM scheme, Polygon have also gone to bat for the initial always online requirement for EA's Sim city. It seems they're anti consumer when it comes to online DRM scheme's but suddenly are the voice of the consumer concerning Valve... odd.
 
S

Shengar

Member
Steam is wholly different from Uber, AirBnB, and all that scummy "sharing economy" BS App. First, the majority of Steam features that runs through it as a storefront is handled primarily by their full time employee. They don't "hire" independent contractors to handle the technicalities of their stores. Second, the feature that bridge Valve to become being like Uber withs their Steam that is Workshop, is something else together. Valve have tried to monetize it before only to meet huge uproar online. Some argued that the payment for modders is too small while others argue that mod shouldn't be paid in the first place due to its clusterfuck IP right natures. I'm in the latter camp who believes charging money for supposedly a hobby activity to be extremely dumb.

Of course it's different for Workshop in their multiplayer game where it works as pre gallery for future paid cosmetic. In that case, it's acceptable that Steam is like "sharing economy" platform that took advantage of individual contractors. However it still stretch and in the large scheme of things Steam problems is wholly different.
 
G

Garrett Hawke

Member
saw this earlier

the tone is a little odd but i totally agree with the sentiment

it is so weird that people are like "i'll never download origin, why should i have to download a program just to play games?" and its like ummmm what is steam
 
C

Council Pop

Member
People saying "yeah, Steam is so awful to use" and "yeah, Valve don't even develop games anymore, fuck em!" are really missing the point. This isn't about consumers, it's about the exploitation of workers. Valve could have the most amazing products in the world but they'd still be awful because of the unethical way they treat their workshop developers.
 
A

Arulan

Member
Garrett Hawke said:
it is so weird that people are like "i'll never download origin, why should i have to download a program just to play games?" and its like ummmm what is steam
Click to expand...

"Why should I have to download a program that doesn't provide any value over Steam, for games that used to be on Steam, and are now held on a fishing pole to lure me into using something that provides no benefit to me?"

Maybe there is a reason why other storefront/clients such as GOG don't get the same criticism.

You know, when Amazon steps fully into the PC game storefront/client business, they won't be releasing a useless storefront/client that provides nothing of value over competitors. They'll be leveraging Twitch, and creating a stream-focused environment that provides value to its potential customers that doesn't exist elsewhere.
 
S

ScientificPizza

Banned
Garrett Hawke said:
saw this earlier

the tone is a little odd but i totally agree with the sentiment

it is so weird that people are like "i'll never download origin, why should i have to download a program just to play games?" and its like ummmm what is steam
Click to expand...
Yeah. Just because the article is poorly written doesn't mean the message is wrong
 
Lister

Lister

Banned
Council Pop said:
People saying "yeah, Steam is so awful to use" and "yeah, Valve don't even develop games anymore, fuck em!" are really missing the point. This isn't about consumers, it's about the exploitation of workers. Valve could have the most amazing products in the world but they'd still be awful because of the unethical way they treat their workshop developers.
Click to expand...

What exploitation of workers?

Workshop devs are not employees of Valve. They have a profit sharing arrangement and, yes it's absolutely not a fair one. But, then maybe the artists shouldn't be producing art for the workshop?

Youtubers also get a shitty deal with google, does that mean that google is mistreating its "employees"?
 
R

rakkadakka

Member
Only have to look as far back as the csgo gambling scandal to know that Valve isn't anyone's friend.

They mostly do the right thing but when they are wrong it takes something serious for them to fix it.

Much like any billion dollar corporation, no one should be placing blind faith in Valve. They are simply the least bad option.
 
K

Kthulhu

Member
Lister said:
What exploitation of workers?

Workshop devs are not employees of Valve. They have a profit sharing arrangement and, yes it's absolutely not a fair one. But, then maybe the artists shouldn't be producing art for the workshop?

Youtubers also get a shitty deal with google, does that mean that google is mistreating its "employees"?
Click to expand...

They brought up a transgender employee being referred to as "it" by her boss in the article.
 
Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
I mean, they've done some really good things for PC gaming. Such as... I dunno, kinda bringing it back from the brink?

No, they're not perfect, and I don't like that their client is essentially DRM, but not healthy for gaming? I'm not willing to go that far.
 
F

FinaruDensetsu

Member
Kthulhu said:
For real. This article is actually well written.

While I have never had the console fanboy stlye love that some do for Valve. This article shows why you shouldn't see them as any different than any other for profit company.
Click to expand...

This article is shit. It's not well written or argued at all.
 
M

Marcel

Member
Giving the article a fair second pass has not really endeared me to look for the cubic zirconia in the rough many are talking about. Any fair point the writer has made is buried under a mountain of garbage aka nerd purple prose.
 
G

gabbo

Member
patapuf said:
Lol. Do you know how much work modders put in their stuff?

and GOG is really great for the few that make it in. all the devs that are out - not so much. Really great for devs, that policy.
Click to expand...

Yes, actually I do, as I've been contributing/involved with one for the better part of a decade. The goal was never to make money off the work. I'm not saying it shouldn't be an option, but it shouldn't be the underlying reason to make a mod.

Valve doesn't want to involve people in the process to get things on their store, and it's become a cesspool. I'll take a less transparent process that blocks some over an endless wasteland of crap because there is no gatekeeper
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
I prefer Valve's walled garden over some of the others out there. So I don't mind continuing to support them. I also like what they are doing with Linux, especially their contributions to the AMD, Nvidia and MESA graphics driver teams.

Valve is a really weird company. They are completely privately owned, have no share holders to answer to and they do whatever they want. The amount of money they make annually is insane, and their platform only keeps growing in its userbase.

They do have a monopoly on the PC games market (though alternatives like GOG are gaining momentum) , they don't have any quality control on the games that get submitted (though this seems to be changing), and the gambling thing is an odd problem. But at the same time, I am OK with it. Better them than something like... Microsoft.
 
wipeout364

wipeout364

Member
I buy whatever I can off GOG but they are limited due to their DRM free policy. I don't want that to change but you only get new indie games and old AAA games so it's kind of limited. Valve really has let me down the last few years with huge amount of money they make yet how little they contribute in new content. Portal 2 was great; why can't they make more great games they have no money issues. Instead they go the games as service route to the extreme which sucks.
 
G

GRIMREEFZ

Member
While at first it read like petulance around the compendium bit I was in full agreement. Great article. But Im still sitting here like.. "no one is forcing you to use it." Additionally before steam, the tedium of downloading and installing game updates was awful. Having valve to all that for me automatically is enough for me to personally deal with them. Long live antiestablishment!
 
H

Human Trashcan

Banned
animlboogy said:
Most people playing PC games aren't playing Steam games.
Click to expand...

Okay maybe that's true but for the types of games that Steam sells a lot of copies of, they own the vast majority of market share. They may not have LoL, but that doesn't negate the fact that they have a near-monopoly on most AAA and indie games on PC.

Anno said:
Blizzard and Tencent probably have more people playing their handful of games each than Valve has on all of Steam at any given time.
Click to expand...

Like yeah obviously Blizzard doesn't need Steam because they predate them and are massive in their own right. Tencent probably does the vast majority of its business in Asia, no? I'm not sure that that's relevant.

Anyway this all feels like a bit of a sidetrack to try to dismiss the arguments presented in the article without having to engage with them.
 
N

nynt9

Member
Human Trashcan said:
Okay maybe that's true but for the types of games that Steam sells a lot of copies of, they own the vast majority of market share. They may not have LoL, but that doesn't negate the fact that they have a near-monopoly on most AAA and indie games on PC.
Click to expand...

Actually, they don't necessarily have a monopoly on indie games on PC. A vast amount of indie games are available on other stores or just the website of their creators.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
Human Trashcan said:
Okay maybe that's true but for the types of games that Steam sells a lot of copies of, they own the vast majority of market share. They may not have LoL, but that doesn't negate the fact that they have a near-monopoly on most AAA and indie games on PC.
Click to expand...

"Near-monopoly" on "most AAA" and "indie games". On all counts, this isn't at all accurate. All EA games, Ubi games, Blizzard games, Epic games, Rockstar, CD Projekt etc etc both exist on other stores (often exclusively) or are sold on third party sites with no Steam requirement or in addition to it. Indies in particular fall into this category. This is by definition not remotely a monopoly. The simple fact is, unlike a monopoly, customers are choosing Steam over competitors - often with good reason

The closest thing anyone can legitimately call Valve is part of an oligopoly - which is not a monopoly; and even then that is becoming more and more of stretch. More so (and eloquently expressed by Stump above) as each year goes by Steam is less and less relevant as a perceived "monopoly" or central part in an ecosystem that absolutely thrives with successful platforms / services for PC gaming that do not require Valve or Steam.
 
Dirk Benedict

Dirk Benedict

Gold Member
Data West said:
Some of talk REALLY need to get over this weird hate boner you have for polygon
Click to expand...


Polygon is shit. Always been shit. You don't need to hate them or have a boner that hates them to know they are worth less than protoplasm in the dreams of microbes.

I think the article touches on some noteworthy things and I'd take it seriously if it were put out by another site.
 
A

Anno

Member
Human Trashcan said:
Like yeah obviously Blizzard doesn't need Steam because they predate them and are massive in their own right. Tencent probably does the vast majority of its business in Asia, no? I'm not sure that that's relevant.

Anyway this all feels like a bit of a sidetrack to try to dismiss the arguments presented in the article without having to engage with them.
Click to expand...

LoL does insane business everywhere in the world. Valve doesn't have anything like a monopoly on PC gaming and it's only continuing to shrink. Even in the AAA space who would they even have a monopoly on? 2K I guess? Certainly not EA, Ubisoft, CDPR.
 
F

Fewr

Member
Dec said:
Do you know why workshop creators are as mad as they are?

Their cut from profits has never changed outside of ONE specific method of sale and that is the Battle Pass.

In previous years they sold workshop sets as individual sets or chests of 8~ sets of which you get 1 random for a couple dollars. In those scenarios the workshop artists have always received the same amount (chest money is split between all artists and valve, set direct purchases between creating artist and valve). This is still true, unchanged.

Since then though, Valve has begun quarterly (or about that often) Battle Passes that coincide with major tournaments/The International where you can do things in game to level the Battle Pass and earn chests and other rewards. These Battle Passes offer so much value to players compared to just normally buying cosmetics that the majority of cosmetics sales are now people buying into the Battle Pass. If you compare how workshop artists make money now to two years ago when it was "healthier" there are the exact same cuts they had before, but another way to earn on top of that. The only thing that has changed is that players are buying way less sets directly and way more cosmetics through the Battle Pass.

In the past all artists received a very small portion of the entire profits of the Battle Pass. While that is really nice for the artists, I can absolutely understand why that isn't ideal for Valve. The pay people are getting for just one set for one hero must be insane.

Instead they removed the workshop artist cut from Battle Pass purchases and moved them to the purchases that are directly for the things that artist made (buying treasures that are included in said Battle Passes).

It is absolutely understandable why workshop artists are so mad about it, they lost a lot of their income. But my point is "was that income way too high to begin with", and there is an argument to be had there, but probably not by either of us.

I just feel like all of the people up in arms about that workshop thing are either directly tied to the workshop or people who read statements by someone tied to the workshop or from a games journalism website that only read the statements from the people tied to the workshop.

I get that it's nice to be able to point to something and say "that's why Valve and Steam is bad for gaming!" but I think there is a lot more nuance to that workshop situation than a lot of people realize.
Click to expand...

This post made me rethink what is presented in the OP. Good job, I had no idea about this.
 
M

MartyStu

Member
Garrett Hawke said:
saw this earlier

the tone is a little odd but i totally agree with the sentiment

it is so weird that people are like "i'll never download origin, why should i have to download a program just to play games?" and its like ummmm what is steam
Click to expand...

I think you are misrepresenting the argument people usually make. The general complaint is usually against the "unnecessary" proliferation of these services. Most not even approaching parity with steam.
 
M

Marcel

Member
Dirk Benedict said:
Polygon is shit. Always been shit. You don't need to hate them or have a boner that hates them to know they are worth less than protoplasm in the dreams of microbes.

I think the article touches on some noteworthy things and I'd take it seriously if it were put out by another site.
Click to expand...

Let's not kid ourselves: the way the article is written makes it laughable regardless of who publishes it. It just oozes with desperation to land even a mild blow on Steam. It's comparable to when that guy from Rock Paper Shotgun was desperate to land a shot on Peter Molyneux and ended up looking like the asshole in the process.

It's hard to hear the valid point of the article when the author is giving his battle axe is getting a nice grind.
 
N

Nanashrew

Banned
Dirk Benedict said:
Polygon is shit. Always been shit. You don't need to hate them or have a boner that hates them to know they are worth less than protoplasm in the dreams of microbes.

I think the article touches on some noteworthy things and I'd take it seriously if it were put out by another site.
Click to expand...

It's a contributer piece by Tim Colwill, the creator of Point & Clickbait.

Just ignore the Polygon part because:

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Polygon as an organization.
Click to expand...
 
D

Dan-o

Member
Just some thoughts, that I'm sure were mentioned in the 8 pages of this thread, but just what came to mind when I read the article just now.

People hating on Polygon (trust me, I get it) but...
by Tim Colwill
Click to expand...
Tim Colwill is a trade union officer by day, and the creator of satirical gaming site Point & Clickbait by night. He is, against his better judgement, on Twitter.
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell, this is his one and only contribution to Polygon. His stuff on P&CB is excellent satire. Are people dismissing it because of where he got this published? I hope not. Anyway, I think he raises some good points regarding payments for content creators. I'm not sure I agree about the Steam Sale stuff, since that kind of customer hype isn't exclusive to Steam at all, but I get what he's saying regarding how the hype turns into free marketing.

Nanashrew said:
It's a contributer piece by Tim Colwill, the creator of Point & Clickbait.
Click to expand...
Is this really the first time his name is mentioned in this thread??
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
Human Trashcan said:
They are exploiting their workshop creators and take pretty much as little responsibility as they can all around, so yes
Click to expand...

Dec said:
Do you know why workshop creators are as mad as they are?

Their cut from profits has never changed outside of ONE specific method of sale and that is the Battle Pass.
......snip.........
Click to expand...

Again another important point that is waltzed past in drive by's and clickbait. Whilst absolutely galling, the context is out of the window for most people discussing this in terms of the actual state of workshop and how devs including Valve use it. Dota2 in particular being an odd flagship right now with contrasting philosophies that really bring into question what the future holds in terms of workshop / ugc, but also clearly not the all out "exploitation" when considering what the whole ecosystem looks like
 
K

KingGreasy

Member
I wonder why these type of articles never pop up about PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo. The level of control they fear from Valve is accomplished on consoles. The only way it would happen on PC is if either Windows or MacOS not only became the dominant operating system, but also having the software distribution dominated or entirely monopolized on those platforms through their own Microsoft or Apple store. I'd bet Microsoft's wet dream would be Windows 10 S becoming the standard Windows people want. Apple already has the hardware controlled at their end as well.

Steam was crap for some years before . At least on PC you can do direct sale, or choose whatever dozen or so stores you can sell through. Origin, B.net/Blizzard launcher, GOG Galaxy, UPlay, Bethesda launcher, whatever is doing well in China from probably something from Perfect World, Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, TaoBao; these services at least have an opportunity to compete and build their own userbase. I think the control that Steam has is overrated. They have no control over the direction of Windows or MacOS, they have a small stake in the development of Linux of which they're a relatively puny company in the pool of companies who have a stake in Linux. If the decline in Windows license sales continued hard and Microsoft decided to more aggressively monetize Windows post-first license sale, Valve has little they can do to deal with this other than just recommend people use older versions of Windows. If you go back 20 years ago before there was a popular store front, if you weren't approved for release on PlayStation or Nintendo, you were pretty screwed. Small section at GameStop because CD-keys made resale a no. Focus on SEO and hope Google brings people to your game. Stardock didn't want to be retailer so they sold Impulse and back then I thought Impulse was a legitimate alternative to Steam. GameStop for whatever reason rather than trying to build up a digital store over time with Impulse just doubled down on physical media.

Valve tries to do as little as possible. They tried to avoid having to deal with refunds. It eventually happened. I don't commend them for implementing refunds, its something I just view as something that should have been expected to be provided. One question I have is what is it about Origin and UPlay that they have such a limited amount of games that aren't EA or Ubisoft games? Is it that the process for developers to get their games on the platform is so arduous that it is not worth the effort? Whatever it is, I'll blame those companies and not Valve or the consumers. If the process of getting games on other services is simple, then why not put them on those services as well? The only real negatives to those stores are the lack of games, the lack of features that Steam does have; to me I particularly care about having support for numerous operating systems Linux and MacOS.

Too much of this article is complaining about Steam users. People care about the games. Steam is a tool. It gets used because you can consistently find the games if wanted and the community if wanted. If something came along as good of a service came along, it can compete over a long term, not overnight. EA games do fine on Origin. Blizzard games do fine on b.net/Blizzard launcher. Whatever change to distribution of PC games will change only if alternatives prove competitive over a long term or noticeably better to foster faster growth.

Whatever terrible things Valve does to Workshop developers is unknown to the vast majority buying and playing games and they have no reason to know any of that. Just as they have no particular reason to know about what cut Valve gets on transactions. Consumers will go to what's established and easy to use. Developers and journalist can continue to vocalize about Steam to target Valve for some change but they're talking to people that aren't even close to listening and will not because they come to Steam to find entertainment and they're finding entertainment.

Origin is close to being a capable competitor but it lacks games for whatever reason and in less points of importance it lacks bonus things like Workshop and Linux. Things don't get better overnight. It's the same with Youtube recently. Youtube is unstable and too powerful. Twitch allows direct uploads. DailyMotion and Vimeo are trucking along. Why not place content on as many platforms as possible and long term maybe one of them prove popular rather than betting it all on one platform and then blame users for not building up other platforms when the users only care about acquiring entertainment?
 
B

BiggNife

Member
orava said:
We listening polygon now? I though it was pretty much banned as a source here.
Click to expand...
This is nonsense. Polygon has a couple of bad writers (Ben Kuchera, Arthur Gies) but they've never been considered illegitimate.

And for fucks sake, the guy who wrote this is a contributor and this is the only thing he's ever written for polygon, so the "Whelp this is Polygon, must be bullshit" posts are pretty tiring. It's actually a well written article that raises a solid argument.
 
Dirk Benedict

Dirk Benedict

Gold Member
Nanashrew said:
It's a contributer piece by Tim Colwill, the creator of Point & Clickbait.

Just ignore the Polygon part because:
Click to expand...

I feel bad for him, then. My condolences to his credibility.

Marcel said:
Let's not kid ourselves: the way the article is written makes it laughable regardless of who publishes it. It just oozes with desperation to land even a mild blow on Steam. It's comparable to when that guy from Rock Paper Shotgun was desperate to land a shot on Peter Molyneux and ended up looking like the asshole in the process.

It's hard to hear the valid point of the article when the author is giving his battle axe is getting a nice grind.
Click to expand...

The article is a moist diaper. I just thought the person who wrote it had a few good points.
 
H

Human Trashcan

Banned
Nzyme32 said:
"Near-monopoly" on "most AAA" and "indie games". On all counts, this isn't at all accurate. All EA games, Ubi games, Blizzard games, Epic games, Rockstar, CD Projekt etc etc both exist on other stores (often exclusively) or are sold on third party sites with no Steam requirement or in addition to it. Indies in particular fall into this category. This is by definition not remotely a monopoly. The simple fact is, unlike a monopoly, customers are choosing Steam over competitors - often with good reason

The closest thing anyone can legitimately call Valve is part of an oligopoly - which is not a monopoly; and even then that is becoming more and more of stretch. More so (and eloquently expressed by Stump above) as each year goes by Steam is less and less relevant as a perceived "monopoly" or central part in an ecosystem that absolutely thrives with successful platforms / services for PC gaming that do not require Valve or Steam.
Click to expand...

Okay, fine, no monopoly. That still doesn't really address a lot of Valve's bad practices especially wrt waiving consumers' rights and exploiting labor. I don't think the central thrust of the article was "Valve has a monopoly and that's inherently bad", it's "Valve owns a large percentage of market share and gets away with a lot of shit people may not be aware of." This feels a little bit like pedantry over terminology used rather than engaging with those arguments.

animlboogy said:
If you want to go at Steam and Valve, focus on their frustrating handling of HL3, their lack of communication, their worrying use of community content that frankly isn't compensated as well as it should be. Which the article does, at points. But the crux of it is this idea that Valve holds a monopoly, and we need to do something about it.
Click to expand...

Okay, I get you. I think we focused on different parts of the article haha. I do think parts of Steam are really shitty and deserve to be called out though, and some of those aren't even addressed in the article, but as for those that are, I still think it's pretty damning, although the focus of the article is off (like those comments from the trans woman who used to work there - yikes).
 
T

The Illiterati

Member
None of this rings true to me. I was playing mod levels on Doom 20 years ago. Mod creators weren't making a penny for entirety of their existence until the Workshop came along. Then they made bank. Now they don't. So either quit making for Workshop or quit making mods, Valve doesn't owe mod makers anything. They've provided a platform that didn't exist, it doesn't have to always be as amazing as it was day one.
 
W

Weltall Zero

Member
Bastables said:
Besides going to bat for MS's always online DRM scheme, Polygon have also gone to bat for the initial always online requirement for EA's Sim city. It seems they're anti consumer when it comes to online DRM scheme's but suddenly are the voice of the consumer concerning Valve... odd.
Click to expand...

So, so, so true :D . And people wonder why they've become the laughingstock of gaming press so fast.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
Human Trashcan said:
Okay, fine, no monopoly. That still doesn't really address a lot of Valve's bad practices especially wrt waiving consumers' rights and exploiting labor. I don't think the central thrust of the article was "Valve has a monopoly and that's inherently bad", it's "Valve owns a large percentage of market share and gets away with a lot of shit people may not be aware of." This feels a little bit like pedantry over terminology used rather than engaging with those arguments.
Click to expand...

Please document the bad practices of "exploiting labor" and "wrt waiving consumer's rights" that Valve is exclusively doing here that are not being discussed by myself and others with this line of discussion, such that all that we've said is simple "pedantry" rather than a legitimate description of what is actually going on and the ecosystem?
 
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