Sleep-deprived rant against STEAM and VALVE Corporation.
Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2010 1:22 am
Here at Valve we like to treat our community well.
In exchange for occasionally autopatching your games, which has been done by games before STEAM existed, we can offer you-
Poor quality voice chat, with enormous input lag to boot!
Slow download times, no matter how fast your net elsewhere, select the correct region and speed, and we will make sure it is slower!
We can even offer buggy software for an OS that has already been replaced!
And high, high prices 90% of the year! Guarenteed higher than that of a tacky retail product with a box, manual, and disk!
And the best part is, you don't even have to think about how to use your software!
No matter how much you have payed third party developers through us for the product, we always make sure your rights remain safely within our hands. In fact, before you even downloaded anything, you gave us the right to terminate all of your games and ban access to them at our leisure. And if the business goes bust, you can spend less time playing games and think more about the economy, because your games go with us!
But the best part is, you don't even have to buy the games! Yes, even that step is cut out for your convinience! You don't actually have to have ownership, no, wouldn't that be aweful? Instead, we liscence the game TO you! You don't own the game, you only own our permission to play it!
And what if your relative decides he doesn't want his game, and he tries to sell, or even give it to you? Well that would just be aweful! Instead, we don't allow him to do that, oh no sir. We here at Valve don't give you the right to do what YOU want with our products that you bought, only what WE want!.
Now your relative learns the error of his ways, and sees that Valve corporation is a good investment. Did you really want that game? If that's the case, you can pay too! Now you can forfeit your liberties for larger sums of money than required to buy a product!
But we care about our community, so we can put the extra money we make from assuming that all of our customers will pirate, leak, trade, or even share (gasp!) our products, into making fabulous new products for you to borrow at high prices!
Now seriously, I have no quarrel with a producer reserving the right to prosecute you if you are found to be illegally sourcing, pirating, or releasing a product as your own work. But when Valve is liscensing out its games for you to borrow from them, with the threat of immediate termination and waste of money for letting your brother play or selling the game on at a reduced price because you have never played it and never will, you know something has gone wrong.
I hope it doesnt all end up this way.
In exchange for occasionally autopatching your games, which has been done by games before STEAM existed, we can offer you-
Poor quality voice chat, with enormous input lag to boot!
Slow download times, no matter how fast your net elsewhere, select the correct region and speed, and we will make sure it is slower!
We can even offer buggy software for an OS that has already been replaced!
And high, high prices 90% of the year! Guarenteed higher than that of a tacky retail product with a box, manual, and disk!
And the best part is, you don't even have to think about how to use your software!
No matter how much you have payed third party developers through us for the product, we always make sure your rights remain safely within our hands. In fact, before you even downloaded anything, you gave us the right to terminate all of your games and ban access to them at our leisure. And if the business goes bust, you can spend less time playing games and think more about the economy, because your games go with us!
But the best part is, you don't even have to buy the games! Yes, even that step is cut out for your convinience! You don't actually have to have ownership, no, wouldn't that be aweful? Instead, we liscence the game TO you! You don't own the game, you only own our permission to play it!
And what if your relative decides he doesn't want his game, and he tries to sell, or even give it to you? Well that would just be aweful! Instead, we don't allow him to do that, oh no sir. We here at Valve don't give you the right to do what YOU want with our products that you bought, only what WE want!.
Now your relative learns the error of his ways, and sees that Valve corporation is a good investment. Did you really want that game? If that's the case, you can pay too! Now you can forfeit your liberties for larger sums of money than required to buy a product!
But we care about our community, so we can put the extra money we make from assuming that all of our customers will pirate, leak, trade, or even share (gasp!) our products, into making fabulous new products for you to borrow at high prices!
Now seriously, I have no quarrel with a producer reserving the right to prosecute you if you are found to be illegally sourcing, pirating, or releasing a product as your own work. But when Valve is liscensing out its games for you to borrow from them, with the threat of immediate termination and waste of money for letting your brother play or selling the game on at a reduced price because you have never played it and never will, you know something has gone wrong.
I hope it doesnt all end up this way.
