Ending My Loyalty To Steam

Over the years I've undergone numerous phases in where I buy my games. As with everyone who grew up in the early 2000s, there was just something scary about the idea of buying things online, so brick and mortar stores were the way to go. Add to the fact that download speeds weren't as fast and hard drive space was limited, it was an extra pain in the ass to switch to digital only gaming. Not to mention that consoles like the PS2 didn't have a digital storefront, and as ahead of its time as Steam was, it used to be a goddamn nightmare to work with, sometimes requiring a full restart just so you could open it up.

As I gradually moved from console to PC and finally got the ability to use my debit card for purchasing games online, I made the reluctant move to steam. A couple friends in Uni actually got me into it, because there were just really great multiplayer experiences like Don't Starve (at least multiplayer with people I actually knew) that I wasn't going to get on console. I'm a sucker for a good LAN play, four people screaming at each other in a room all wired up to a router while the most powerful computer hosts is an experience I hope everyone in the world gets to have. And after my first Steam sale, oh boy. I didn't think I could ever go back.

Time goes by, and between humble, freebie giveaways, Steam sales, Bundlestars/Fanatical and G2A, and here I am sitting with a gigantic library and I now know the true meaning of hundreds of games but nothing to play. As crazy as it is, there comes a point where you have to heartbreakingly choose between which games you keep installed and which you leave in the cloud, and the first time a game went from light grey to dark grey was like a coming of age. A right of passage that meant I was now playing with the big boys, even if our tastes were all different.

But something that hadn't occurred to me was the cycle I had now fallen back into. See, while I was now entirely aboard the Steam train and my money was somehow moving from my wallet into Valve's, I still wasn't aboard other services. GOG, UPlay, Origin, Itch.io, etc. all mean installing another client which meant another thing to boot at startup and another program to keep running in the background. All for the 3 or 4 games I couldn't get on Steam. Plus, PSN remains inexcusably expensive without sales half as frequently as Steam. Digital Games should cost less since bandwidth is cheaper than mass producing disks, plus retro games are somehow more expensive than more ambitious indie titles. Symphony Of The Night is turning 21 this year and it sells for R120 or $10 on the PSN. That's the same price as The Last Of Us.

So I ended up putting all my chips into Steam. Sure, I did begrudgingly buy the occasional PSN title or nab a GOG/Uplay freebie, but it's not like they had much staying power. But in hindsight, that was the wrong move. Because you're not going to get the most bang for your buck by giving Valve the monopoly. Noticing the GOG sale and how many titles I want there makes me realize that I've been missing out. I don't have the best rig but my laptop often surprises me with the number of titles it can play. Which means the most mileage I'm going to get is by having the widest selection of games available to me. Which, begrudgingly, means installing those two or three extra game clients, but I'll caveat that with not setting them to open on boot and not having them constantly in the background. And multiplayer games I'll leave to Steam for the time being because there isn't enough widespread adoption, at least in my friend circle, to justify buying them elsewhere, although ones like Don't Starve that don't rely on a friend list from Steam are fair game.

And with that I end my loyalty to Steam. I'm not saying that I won't be buying from Steam anymore but I am saying that I will no longer be buying for and from Steam exclusively. Because while I may be slow, I also realize that this is one of the only ways to stay ahead as a consumer. While any money I might save will probably go right back into games, at least that means I have more games for less money which means more free time I can fill up with new experiences.

And I guess I urge you to do the same. If pre-order culture and brand loyalty are poor consumer practices, then storefront loyalty is a different flavour of the same problem. They're making money off your loyalty, money you don't need to spend. Competition also means that each service has to improve itself in order for you to maintain your patronage. And as much as I like having all my games in one central hub, I also like having games. And unlike a streaming service subscription, installing and making accounts with these are free. Plus you eventually wreck your own recommendations so it's always nice to have a clean slate to see what it is that one algorithm is burying under the titles it thinks you're interested in.

If nothing else, give GOG and Itch.io a try. GOG's games are DRM free and Itch.io has plenty of indie titles you might never see hit the Steam storefront because they're either too niche or in a market too saturated.