this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is why I don't support devices like the ally. I don't want to give Microsoft another platform to get a monopoly over.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Yeah, I thought about getting the Ally, buying the Steam Deck's the way to go. Now if only Linux get a bigger market share and more apps, that'd be great.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Steam itself is a proprietary, DRM-ridden quasi-monopoly. Supporting Valve over Microsoft doesn't make much sense. They're both bad.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You are technically correct, but Valve is a very "consumer first" company. This of course is no guarantee they'll always be "good", but Valve has earned and maintained my trust over the years and I trust them more than any other company I can think of. Far and away orders of magnitude more than Microsoft.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Valve popularised lootboxes and allowed gambling with marketplace items for quite a along time. Doesn't sound very consumer first to me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That's a good point. I've never participated in that so it didn't really factor into my opinion of them. In every way I've interacted with the company they have been excellent.

I like them because they make niche products that may not have mainstream appeal, but that their customers love (steam link, steam controller, valve index, steam deck). They have excellent customer support and always do more than they have to:

  • My GF lost the power adapter to her steam link and asked how to buy a new one, they just sent her an entire replacement device since they were stopping production anyway
  • One of my Index lighthouses died and I had bought it used from a guy since they didn't sell them in my country yet. No questions, they sent me a new one
  • When they were releasing Half Life Alex they just checked if you'd ever had an index connected to your PC and if so they gave you a copy. No asking for proof of purchase or redeeming codes that expire.

I could go on, but yeah to me they are pushing Linux forward, making hardware that excites me, have reasonable prices, and great service. So I like them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I mean... if somebody has a gaming storefront monopoly in Windows it certainly isn't Microsoft. Concern about monopolistic practices is a great catch-22 between the OS dominance of Windows or the platform dominance of Steam, and I'm about as concerned about both.

FWIW, I have both a Steam Deck and a GPD Windows handheld and, being entirely agnostic about that entire conversation I default to my GPD Win 4, because of ergonomics, usability and compatibility concerns, in that order.