PC Gaming |OT1| Game Pass PC, Steam, Epic etc. - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Xbox One BT or a PowerA wired controller.

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I think we need to highlight regional pricing too.

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Just when I am about to leave PC gaming behind me, you make this thread

Lol

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No place to discuss PC stuff otherwise

I just hoped this thread could have come a little earlier :slightly_smiling_face:

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Changed the title.

@Doncabesa should we make this an OT for pc gaming?

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I had to change the title of the forum due to this. Tinkering is part of the PC Gamerā€™s toolbox.

Sure, feel free to pretty up the first post if youā€™d like.

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Sure- on it.

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They Pull Me Back In Al Pacino GIF by The Godfather

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I disagree with Steam being a monopoly, itā€™s the market leader, not a monopoly. Valve has done a lot of actions over the years that reduces their chances of monopoly, mainly Steam keys. A lot of shops would not really exist if it werenā€™t for Valve being so liberal with Steam keys. Valve has no obligation to allow Steam keys, but they do it, because it also helps Steam to grow. Same thing with tools, SteamVR being free to use by competitors even though Valve is making them. Steam Deck could have easily been closed off to only Steam, but Valve is making it open.

People want to use Steam because Valve has nutured the platform and made a lot of things that was difficulty and/or annoying/frustrating before with PC gaming to be easier today.

Valve has built up a trust with PC players over the years that the other companies (Epic, MS etc.) havenā€™t. Itā€™s their own fault other companies are late to the party.

Didnā€™t say it is a monopoly - but if you are saying there are no monopoly concerns when there are reports of 98% of the sales of games from Steam, it is clearly in that territory.

Donā€™t err in saying distributing keys means they are not a monopoly. That is a distribution and sales strategy. Them making Steam keys available at little cost has a name in the world of economics ā€“ ā€œdumpingā€. It is an amazing strategy, btw - and I like how they have made these keys available.

SteamDeck is open, how? Because you can install Windows on it as a dual boot? Open is if they have the code made available. They share their standards, and Xbox does it too. That kind of cooperation is good, and should not be considered unique.

Although Valve has made things easier for PC gaming, they are in very tricky territory. Concerns about monopoly have nothing to do with benevolence of companies like Google offering AOSP and Valve doing a lot of interesting things in the PC space.

Saying it is the fault of other companies being late to the party is exactly a monopolistic reason, btw. LOL. You are not making a case against monopoly, now. There is a reason monopolistic and restrictive trade regulatory commissions were formed - especially because companies like AT&T were telling everyone - you guys were late to the party.

You will find exact parallels in the world of monopolies and duopolies very easily.

PS - For true openness in hardware - check Facebookā€™s Open Compute initiative. MS is also a small part of that initiative.

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Anyone know how to reduce crashes to desktop in PC Game Pass Skyrim? It happens most often when using one handed weapons, but at other times too.

This has a very strong pull :sunglasses:

I am a console warrior now :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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???

Steam Deck runs a fork of Linux, and Proton is a great initiative as a compatibility layer.

And Open source isnā€™t just about making the code available, otherwise Unreal Engine with its EULA would be open-source too, but it isnā€™t.

A fork does not mean that code is open.

I searched for the code, and I canā€™t find it on github. (Unless someone can point me to the steamdeck code.)

That way - AOSP is a fork of Linux and is available.

Playstation 3 (and I suspect even 4 and 5) is a fork of netbsd too, and will probably not be available.

Quick detour- Proton is fantastic piece of translation code. Reminds me of the wizardry happening on the WSL and WSA for running Ubuntu in Windows or Android on Windows.

Open source IS about making the code available. But under different obligations. Those obligations depend on your chosen flavour of license.

GPL license would mean, if you change the code then you have to make it available under GPL

BSD and MIT licenses would mean no obligation to release your derivative code to others - like how Playstation 3 code would have been.

Dude - you are sharing this in the PC gaming thread. :rofl: LoL

smh

thatā€™s not what I meant. Of course a fork doesnā€™t mean code is open, what I mean is SteamOS is a fork of Linux and the OS itself is open source, only the steam client/launcher isnā€™t.

of course, I was just saying that ā€œcode available = open sourceā€ was a bit of an incomplete picture which you completed here lol. :sweat_smile:

Also, Steam Deck IS by definition open despite all this, even if the client itself is closed source. It doesnā€™t have to be ā€œopen sourceā€ to be an open ecosystem (much like most of PC) as a comparison to consoles. Donā€™t like steam? Uninstall and put GOG if you want and make every single purchase throughout the deviceā€™s life on that launcher without giving Steam a penny more. Thatā€™s what constitutes one aspect of being ā€œopenā€ in Steam Deckā€™s case. OP is right that Valve could have easily made it so that only the Steam client ran on the Deck (like every other console manufacturer would).

Although I do agree with Steam definitely having an overbearing presence on PC (and have done things that abuse their position in the market), but it sucks when literally every other launcher is a mess held together by strings and duct tape compared to it.

What Iā€™d like to know is, are you one of the folks on here who is for Microsoft acquiring Valve? :thinking:

Cuz if youā€™re willing to say Valve has a near monopoly on PC distribution, MS buying that would be even worse of a situation.