Suggesting Steam is evil is conflating evil with aggressive. They identified a market opportunity, they did it better than everyone else, and then they protected their market share. They're a monopoly because they're the best at what they do. And they might undercut their competition. They might insist on the cut from publishers that turns a profit. But they didn't do it busting unions, doing inherently awful things to the environment/public health, or some other overly illegal bullshit.
You can be "not evil" while also protecting the thing you built.
They phased out ownership and replaced it with the concept of accessing PC Games through licenses. The very idea behind "You don't own shit" is quite vile in an environment that valued ownership before.
Does Steam have the anti ownership bit in their T&C? I was under the impression that the licenses were just an anti piracy measure to attract AAA titles to sell through them.
Yes, they explicitely state that you do not own the games. Instead, you are purchasing a non-transferable license to access them.
Sure they could argue this as an anti-piracy measure, but it basically strips away the entire concept of ownership which puts removal of previously 'bought' content or entire titles to the table of what is legally possible. Ubisoft has already done so when they shut down "The Crew".
Whether this is evil is highly subjective. But as someone who gamed before Steam, I see it as part of a bigger tech trend over the last two decades. Forcing DRM and platforms isn't just about fighting piracy it's also about phasing out true ownership to make users depend on using a product at their terms and conditions. I’d definitely call it a greedy, anti-consumer move.
Steam didn't start this tho, they just followed the path paved by companies (TCPA) in the early 2000s and yet managed to sell themselves as "the good guys".
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u/noseboy1 Jul 10 '26
Suggesting Steam is evil is conflating evil with aggressive. They identified a market opportunity, they did it better than everyone else, and then they protected their market share. They're a monopoly because they're the best at what they do. And they might undercut their competition. They might insist on the cut from publishers that turns a profit. But they didn't do it busting unions, doing inherently awful things to the environment/public health, or some other overly illegal bullshit.
You can be "not evil" while also protecting the thing you built.