True then; true now. People who asskiss Valve (and Gaben by extension) are victims of years of effective marketing. Valve is as greedy and duplicitous as any other corporation. You're just looking at it through rose colored glasses because it's the primary mechanism by which you access your hobby.

[–] aluminium@lemmy.world -3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Did he/she lie? Steam is not even the least bad launcher. GOG offers DRM free games that don't even require a launcher.

Also don't forget that Valve probaly insane ammount of money with Microtransactions and Lootboxes and has essentially implemented NFTs into their games (without a blockchain) years before that word even existed.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Who said it was untrue? Just haven't heard that kind of thing said with deep angry sincerity since it was released.

[–] aluminium@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ah sorry, thought you implied that its an outdated view.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Fair enough. I think the only word I would disagree with out of the original statement is "useless."

"proprietary walled garden launcher that spy on its customers" is pretty accurate.