Sony PlayStation

[Jay-Jay 10]

It is 2026 and I know I am a PC gamer and been completely digital since Half Life 2 in 2004 and for me personally back then Steam revolutionised the way I bought games, no longer did you have to buy a physical disk and install a game - Even if you buy physical games now they still install on PS5.
When Steam did this I much preferred it from Day 1.
I have not bought a physical game even for PS since probably the PS3.

What are PS5/Console gamers so against about moving to fully digital?
OK you don't open a new game on Christmas day, but pretty certain that was OUR childhood and not kids today - I am sure now most parents will buy games on launch rather than for Christmas.

I am not sure what games are like on console and the specific stores but on Steam if a game is removed from sale, then it is still available for you to download if it is in your library.

TBH, I am shocked it has taken consoles 20 years to follow PC and move to fully digital - Games are simply way to big now to fit on physical media and it should of died a long time ago.

Easy answer, you don't own anything. Sony just announced closing the Vita and PS3 store. Meaning if you have those systems you won't be able to buy games anymore unless you find them used. In the future that would mean them forcing you onto a new system. If they don't want to make games for a certain platform available anymore they can. It is the same with Steam, Games just disappear from the store from time to time. You basically are loaning them and not buying them. Multiple times you had full games disappear or weren't even able to download games you previously purchased because they were wiped from the store be it on consoles or on Stea,. Sony just recently wiped movies people bought on their platform, meaning you can't even download them anymore. Again movies you bought!

So yeah fully digital will be anti consumer and just means a reality where what you buy today isn't owned by you.

There have been also issues where downloaded games just didn't appear anymore in the bought or downloaded list, I had this happen on the Switch with two games and can't get them back even after writing to customer service. So I would have to buy them again.


Look at 360 Backwards compatibility on XBox. I can't play all my Xbox 360 games I purchased on my account on my future Xboxs and even if I still own a 360, the download list doesn't necessarily shows me all the games I bought.

It is also the reason I rarely buy on Steam and prefer GOG where I can download the game as a offline backup package on my PC.

Right now even if I never owned Prince of Persia on PS2 I can go in a Retro gaming Store and buy it there and play it. I won't be able to do that with Digital Only if games get delisted from stores, they are then gone forever.

 

[bsmaff]

Never had any game I have purchased on Steam no longer be available for download, even after it has been removed from the store.

Also all your points seem copy and pasted from the same debate PC had 20 years ago and people got over that very quickly.

 

[Jay-Jay 10]

Never had any game I have purchased on Steam no longer be available for download, even after it has been removed from the store.

Also all your points seem copy and pasted from the same debate PC had 20 years ago and people got over that very quickly.

If your fine with that cool. I am not and will be against fully digital.

Like I said I still sue GOG because I get a backup copy and avoid Steam. (Which by the way is one of the reasons GOG is popular since not everyone likes what Steam does)

But you also went 0 into my arguments of games disappearing and not being purchaseable anymore, me loosing 2 games that I would have to rebuy since I couldn't restore them through customer service and more. if you don't want to actually go into those arguments and instead just say "you just copy and paste" then honestly have 0 interest in any discussion with you. Also console and PC are totally different infrastructures.

But again if you are fine with games disappearing forever and not being able to be purchased anymore you do you.

 

[Chris Davies]

Sony just announced closing the Vita and PS3 store. Meaning if you have those systems you won't be able to buy games anymore unless you find them used. In the future that would mean them forcing you onto a new system.

To be honest, I hadn't considered this before. That's a scary thought.

I have an old PS3 loaded with Rock Band content (I spent an embarrassing amount of money on songs for it in my 20s) - but I imported the Rock Band games / equipment from Canada to get it early, because I was a huge fan. Which meant I needed a Canadian PS account to buy the DLC through.

I can no longer log into the PS account with all the content on it because Sony did a sweep of accounts where IP addresses didn't match location data. I can still play by logging into my "actual" UK account, but once that hard drive dies... All my content is gone, and the thought of it breaks my heart.

Lots of storefronts have now been closed, e.g. Xbox 360, and if your content is simply deleted at some point... That's a really sad thought.

I just hope the people lobbying for industry change manage to get somewhere.

 

[Jay-Jay 10]

To be honest, I hadn't considered this before. That's a scary thought.

I have an old PS3 loaded with Rock Band content (I spent an embarrassing amount of money on songs for it in my 20s) - but I imported the Rock Band games / equipment from Canada to get it early, because I was a huge fan. Which meant I needed a Canadian PS account to buy the DLC through.

I can no longer log into the PS account with all the content on it because Sony did a sweep of accounts where IP addresses didn't match location data. I can still play by logging into my "actual" UK account, but once that hard drive dies... All my content is gone, and the thought of it breaks my heart.

Yep and that is why fully digital is scary. Sony also has a precedent with PT where even if you had downloaded the game previosuly you now can't download it anymore.

And physical media is still active today in a lot of places. You can still buy movies. You can still get music on vinyl and I love record stores. And I love being able to go to flea markets or retro gaming stores and finding old games and buying them and then playing them.

Same with books. Even with products like the Kindle bookstores still exist and it is still great to go there and buy a book.

Imagine all of it going fully digital. How sad that would be. How much magic of these places would be lost. How much more boring city centres would get.

 

[shumway]

Unlike, for example, Xbox Games Sony sells it's games exclusively in the PS-store. So in theory they could charge whatever price they want.

 

[NeoRetro]

It's been a long long time since we, for example, can't get the latest live update and all PES DLC on PS3...
For Fifa, it's really really hard to found it, even if you import it with a PS3 Jailbreak. I only found some september to december with links (on the web) still working,
2 years ago apx, a guys released all DLC versions for every single PES, well, only US, to apply yourself on the PS3 OS system (a bit like on a PC with docs etc.) Then rebuild the PS3 structure so the files added will be associated.
For those who wants it, check on X "elmaestrobushit" he got all the links for PES and some for 2 or 3 Fifa he can found, it's harder to get they real "DLC" with updated faces, kits, boots etc.

So the system is already a problem. Now, if you're directly connected on the web without even an account : your game will be up to the latest "1.05 version" for example.... But i don't know if they said they would close it definitively.
Not a problem, there's a website recensing for practically every single game the latest update, many people brought a PS3 Jailbroken for the offline only, but you could've still play online on some game if you wanted to with some tricks. To be honest i know it since 2-3 weeks, before that, i throught that the PS3 online stuff was left open but a bit like some kind of "ghost dimension" lol for playing online, and yesterday i learn ironically that they will close totally PS3 online service. So, no more direct update of, at least, the last corrected version of the game.

 

[sk_rea2f]

 

[bsmaff]

The backlash will be forgotten about in no time at all.
People will moan for a while, then no one will care.

 

[sk_rea2f]

The backlash will be forgotten about in no time at all.
People will moan for a while, then no one will care.

Yeah... Probably when GTA 6 releases later this year.
The fact that they decided to address the controversy a month later to their shareholders instead of their costumers shows where their priorities are.

 

[ThomasGOAL]

AI upscaling is coming to PS5​

https://blog.playstation.com/2026/10/01/ai-upscaling-is-coming-to-ps5/

 

[PRO_TOO]

 

[el niche]

not gonna lie, almost tempted to buy a ps5...

 

[etb10dmk]

This is the cherry on top if its true, but besides, AI will jailbreak it faster than ever. Regardless, Sony is not the same company from 20 years ago, so I'll gladly piss on their grave without any remorse. Same with Xbox, and publishers like EA, Blizzard, Activision or Ubisoft. Valve is the only model to the gaming industry salvation...

 

[bsmaff]

How is Valve the only model to the gaming industry?

They also charge the PS tax of 30% for every game sold for doing F all, just the platform to download the games.
They released an over priced Steam machine which has worse performance than a PS5 Pro for twice the price.
Valve killed the PC CD\DVD market and made PC move to fully digital.

I am struggling to see what Valve has really done for gaming..

 

[Hayes]

Fuck sony 💩🖕🏻

 

[ScipioA]

Easy answer, you don't own anything. Sony just announced closing the Vita and PS3 store. Meaning if you have those systems you won't be able to buy games anymore unless you find them used. In the future that would mean them forcing you onto a new system. If they don't want to make games for a certain platform available anymore they can. It is the same with Steam, Games just disappear from the store from time to time. You basically are loaning them and not buying them. Multiple times you had full games disappear or weren't even able to download games you previously purchased because they were wiped from the store be it on consoles or on Stea,. Sony just recently wiped movies people bought on their platform, meaning you can't even download them anymore. Again movies you bought!

So yeah fully digital will be anti consumer and just means a reality where what you buy today isn't owned by you.

There have been also issues where downloaded games just didn't appear anymore in the bought or downloaded list, I had this happen on the Switch with two games and can't get them back even after writing to customer service. So I would have to buy them again.


Look at 360 Backwards compatibility on XBox. I can't play all my Xbox 360 games I purchased on my account on my future Xboxs and even if I still own a 360, the download list doesn't necessarily shows me all the games I bought.

It is also the reason I rarely buy on Steam and prefer GOG where I can download the game as a offline backup package on my PC.

Right now even if I never owned Prince of Persia on PS2 I can go in a Retro gaming Store and buy it there and play it. I won't be able to do that with Digital Only if games get delisted from stores, they are then gone forever.

There is a provisional bill being tabled in Congress aimed at Sony and other companies basically which amounts to if you bought something with cash you not the company retain the rights to own it in perpetuity and the companies have to make it necessary that it remains available.

I will say to younger folks on here don't get carried away with digital this and that. Sure it's convenient and space saving particularly if you haven't got a large house. But you don't own anything physically. If a streaming site like Netflix decides to pull some films, TV series they can. Same for music services. If they decide to stop publishing an e-book or selling it they can. Of course we know what they are trying to do in the gaming sphere.

I have an enormous blu ray library 400o titles plus. Hundreds f hardback mainly non-fiction books on all sorts of subjects, a huge CD library mainly classical music and a small select number of games I sometimes try to play when I have time which is quite rarely.

For films for example a blu ray can be in lovely collectors edition with all sorts of special features. You don't get that with streaming. A physical book is less straining on your eyes too and you can get some lovely hardback editions. And if you look after your libraries and equipment properly they should last a lifetime.

This loaning nonsense is basically an attempt by companies to extort ever more and more money from consumers who have been loyal to them. You see it with Adobe for example. I as a hobbyist photographer am getting sick of their continual price increases and credit system for generative AI within Ps.

 

[ScipioA]

The backlash will be forgotten about in no time at all.
People will moan for a while, then no one will care.

I think this time they have burnt too many bridges. We could well see a return given how many developers are unemployed a return to craft studios turning out their own titles in physical form that grow by word of mouth on the net as once happened in the very early days of gaming.

Sony have morphed into IOI and like RP1 let's hope the gamers keep up the pressure. I am sure we will. You can push people only so far before a reaction takes place.

 

[Hayes]

First they take ur disc next they will take your games library too !

This will be ur future 🧙🏻‍♂️

https://www.techspot.com/news/112919-sony-deleting-551-movies-tv-shows-you-bought.html

You will own nothing and you will be happy 😁

Fuck sony 🖕🏻

 

[Sami 1999]

If sony removes disc drive and physical media, then why would anyone buy this over a Xbox which already does that? You might as well get a switch 2 or just a pc at that point.

 

[Hayes]

Soon they will add ads to your purchased games and u will be happy about it 😁

Fuck sony 🖕🏻

 

[Sami 1999]

This is the cherry on top if its true, but besides, AI will jailbreak it faster than ever. Regardless, Sony is not the same company from 20 years ago, so I'll gladly piss on their grave without any remorse. Same with Xbox, and publishers like EA, Blizzard, Activision or Ubisoft. Valve is the only model to the gaming industry salvation...

View attachment 455038

Steam is no hero. They are just a bit better than Sony and MS in terms of service but at the end of the day, they were a part of the problem too by killing physical media on pc.

 

[etb10dmk]

Steam is no hero. They are just a bit better than Sony and MS in terms of service but at the end of the day, they were a part of the problem too by killing physical media on pc.

They didn't killed physical media on PC and that never was their intention unlike Sony or others. Steam was released as a platform in 2003 with the objective to publish Valve games on their platform as an optional digital store front for their products. During the years digital makets were booming as a whole and more publishers were included into their store because its common sense from a healthy business standpoint. Besides, physical games were also released side by side (Valve included), then was the publisher's decisions to move to a digital store during the years for convenience, easy process regarding releases, etc. If not for Valve, other stores could took their place, and thank God that was Valve and not Epic or other shithole company like Ubisoft or EA. I'm a Steam user for 21 years, and I was never let down by their support, on the contrary. Besides I own their hardware, a Steam Deck Oled for almost 2 years, also a Steam Machine + controller for few months and I was never been so happy enjoying an awesome big library without being bated and sucked into that console exploitative ecosystem...

 

[bsmaff]

They didn't killed physical media on PC and that never was their intention unlike Sony or others. Steam was released as a platform in 2003 with the objective to publish Valve games on their platform as an optional digital store front for their products. During the years digital makets were booming as a whole and more publishers were included into their store because its common sense from a healthy business standpoint. Besides, physical games were also released side by side (Valve included), then was the publisher's decisions to move to a digital store during the years for convenience, easy process regarding releases, etc. If not for Valve, other stores could took their place, and thank God that was Valve and not Epic or other shithole company like Ubisoft or EA. I'm a Steam user for 21 years, and I was never let down by their support, on the contrary. Besides I own their hardware, a Steam Deck Oled for almost 2 years, also a Steam Machine + controller for few months and I was never been so happy enjoying an awesome big library without being bated and sucked into that console exploitative ecosystem...

I really don't understand your love for Valve..
In a PC they killed the physical media, as they forced everyone to have a Steam account for Half Life 2 and then obviously to save mass manufacturing costs everyone switched to that platform before eventually starting their own platforms to try and cut out Valve's 30% sales tax.

I also don't understand your hate for Epic as they help the developers by only have 15% cut on the store front which could have a massive impact for indie developers + they give away decent free games now and again.

Steam is easily the most user friendly of all the platforms but Valve are no saint and I don't understand why so many people love them so much, as some of my friends simply won't buy games if they aren't on Steam.

But in actual PS5 news:
Sony has released a new forced update for PS5 users if they wish to carry on using the PSN store and PSN online.
Not sure how true it is either but rumours also state if you don't update your firmware you also can't download any of your purchases from the PSN store either.

 

[etb10dmk]

I really don't understand your love for Valve..
In a PC they killed the physical media, as they forced everyone to have a Steam account for Half Life 2 and then obviously to save mass manufacturing costs everyone switched to that platform before eventually starting their own platforms to try and cut out Valve's 30% sales tax.

I also don't understand your hate for Epic as they help the developers by only have 15% cut on the store front which could have a massive impact for indie developers + they give away decent free games now and again.

Steam is easily the most user friendly of all the platforms but Valve are no saint and I don't understand why so many people love them so much, as some of my friends simply won't buy games if they aren't on Steam.

But in actual PS5 news:
Sony has released a new forced update for PS5 users if they wish to carry on using the PSN store and PSN online.
Not sure how true it is either but rumours also state if you don't update your firmware you also can't download any of your purchases from the PSN store either.

If we go back in the past the belief that Valve "killed" physical media overlooks the massive retail tax of the 2000s, while praising Epic's 15% cut ignores the massive platform infrastructure and 0% external key features that Steam provides for free (as the entire ecosystem like interface, modding, community, practical queues, discounts and so on). PC games were actively dying at retail because stores similar as GameStop and Walmart took up to a 50% cut, leaving indies completely priced out of the market. In other hand Steam did not kill physical media, but saved PC industry later from retail distribution bottlenecks. To compete, Epic relies on paying millions for anti-consumer time-exclusivity deals, forcing players onto a launcher that lacked for years basic features like shopping carts, user reviews, and forum support. And besides, Epic Store hit the industry with devastating workforce reductions greed. In March 2026, Epic laid off over 1,000 employees, which accounted for roughly 20% of its entire workforce leading to the degradation of their platform and general stability. Epic shoots themselves in the foot thinking that miraculously AI will do everything right for them but failing blatantly as always converting their platform into Steam's Temu version:





Also, the real-world financial data and public developer testimonials completely back up why the 12% or 15% cut argument is flawed in practice. When indie developers share their actual sales metrics a clear reality emerges in this regard, a 15% cut of low sales generates less revenue than a 30% cut of high sales, 5:1, ratio, so selling 10k copies is not as same as selling 2k. Not to mention that Epic claims hundreds of millions of registered accounts, driven primarily by Fortnite and its free giveaways. However, data indicates these users are largely just giveaways collectors or Fortnite players who rarely browse or purchase premium AAA or third-party indie titles. In conclusion, developers favor Steam because its integrated ecosystem reliably generates the sales volume needed with the warranty to fund future projects, and because the platform is solid with many free features, users will always use it as the main goal to increase their great library...

---

 

[Sami 1999]

They didn't killed physical media on PC and that never was their intention unlike Sony or others. Steam was released as a platform in 2003 with the objective to publish Valve games on their platform as an optional digital store front for their products. During the years digital makets were booming as a whole and more publishers were included into their store because its common sense from a healthy business standpoint. Besides, physical games were also released side by side (Valve included), then was the publisher's decisions to move to a digital store during the years for convenience, easy process regarding releases, etc. If not for Valve, other stores could took their place, and thank God that was Valve and not Epic or other shithole company like Ubisoft or EA. I'm a Steam user for 21 years, and I was never let down by their support, on the contrary. Besides I own their hardware, a Steam Deck Oled for almost 2 years, also a Steam Machine + controller for few months and I was never been so happy enjoying an awesome big library without being bated and sucked into that console exploitative ecosystem...

They 100% killed physical media on PC by introducing this online drm BS. Their policy also sucks when makes it so devs can't price their games lower on other platfroms even if those platforms require less share from each sale of the game. Steam is had to cave into the credit card nonsense where games had to be removed because VISA deemed them to be inappropriate.

You can't even play your games on the hardware the game was supposed to run on, because Steam no longer supports those older OS even if the game itself supports those older OS.

If anything, Steam is one of the absolute garbage out there and part of the problem of PC gaming. Only decent "online" store is GOG so far since it has a strict policy of no DRMs. You purchase the game and you can install the game without needing to ever connect to online drm.

 

[bsmaff]

They 100% killed physical media on PC by introducing this online drm BS. Their policy also sucks when makes it so devs can't price their games lower on other platfroms even if those platforms require less share from each sale of the game. Steam is had to cave into the credit card nonsense where games had to be removed because VISA deemed them to be inappropriate.

You can't even play your games on the hardware the game was supposed to run on, because Steam no longer supports those older OS even if the game itself supports those older OS.

If anything, Steam is one of the absolute garbage out there and part of the problem of PC gaming. Only decent "online" store is GOG so far since it has a strict policy of no DRMs. You purchase the game and you can install the game without needing to ever connect to online drm.

The only people who are bothered by DRM are those who enjoy the high seas.

 

[Sami 1999]

The only people who are bothered by DRM are those who enjoy the high seas.

You can buy games for cheap already. But if you think only people bothered by drm are pirates then you are not thinking of the bigger issue here.

The fact that DRM throws a wrench at game preservation. And examples weren't even far off even for this forum. FIFA 16, FIFA 21, 22, PES 20, to name a few are some of the football games that were near extinction because these games were delisted from the stores, cd keys would eventually run out, and thanks to DRM you couldn't even boot these games anymore if you hadn't already purchased them.

Only reason they are preserved right now are thanks to cracks that were made for these games recently. Even now, FIFA 18 World Cup DLC has not been preserved and only reason I can still play it is because I purchased the game back in the day.

DRM does absolutely no good for customers. I had so many issues booting my games from EA app because they fail DRM check and I have to restart EA app and the game few times until it starts working. And living in 3rd world where internet is a luxury, there have been cases when I couldn't even start the game for few days because my internet was out but the game was asking for online verification even though the game was already installed.


So no. DRM is a cancer for game preservation and just calling people pirates for being concerned about DRM is such a shallow way of looking at this issue.

 

[etb10dmk]

They 100% killed physical media on PC by introducing this online drm BS.

Again, Steam did not kill physical media. the PC industry naturally migrated to digital distribution due to lower costs, convenience, and the disappearance of disc drives. The decline of physical PC games was driven by hardware trends as consumers stopped buying PCs with DVD/CD drives and developers, who realized that patching 50 GB to 100 GB games over the internet was infinitely more viable than printing them onto multiple physical discs. Steam actually saved the PC gaming market at a time when rampant piracy and retail store closures as I said like GameStop, Best Buy, Wallmart, etc were causing publishers to abandon PC gaming entirely (regarding DRM, see my last part of the comment).

Their policy also sucks when makes it so devs can't price their games lower on other platfroms even if those platforms require less share from each sale of the game.

This can be adjusted by the keys/codes that Valve generates for free so developers can sell them on third-party websites like Humble Bundle or Green Man Gaming. Valve takes a 0% cut from these external sales. The rule simply states you cannot use Steam's free infrastructure to heavily undercut the price offered on Steam itself. However, developers are 100% free to sell the native version of their game on the Epic Games Store, GOG, or their own website for whatever price they want (lower or higher), as Valve has no jurisdiction over what happens outside its ecosystem.

Steam is had to cave into the credit card nonsense where games had to be removed because VISA deemed them to be inappropriate.

This is not Steam's fault, but rather the reality of a financial monopoly that dictates rules for the entire internet and adult content. When payment processors like VISA or MasterCard alter their terms of service, they force every digital platform including Steam's competitors, crowdfunding sites, and independent stores to comply under the threat of losing card processing privileges. If Steam lost the ability to accept VISA, the vast majority of PC gamers wouldn't be able to buy games at all. Valve acted to protect its global user base by adapting to banking regulations, which is a broader financial system issue, not a choice by Valve.

You can't even play your games on the hardware the game was supposed to run on, because Steam no longer supports those older OS even if the game itself supports those older OS.

Steam stopped supporting legacy operating systems like Windows 7 or 8 because Steam's internal web browser relies on Google Chromium, which drops support for unsafe, outdated OS architectures. Maintaining a secure digital network that processes financial data on operating systems that Microsoft itself has abandoned and stopped patching is a massive cybersecurity risk. Furthermore, for affected games, community tools or Steam's built-in offline mode often allow users to launch game executables directly from their root folders without running the Steam client at all, provided the game doesn't use third party DRM.

If anything, Steam is one of the absolute garbage out there and part of the problem of PC gaming.

Steam is objectively the primary reason PC gaming is as accessible, healthy, and open as it is today. Far from being "garbage," Valve has single handedly funded massive open source projects like Proton used by SteamOS, allowing thousands of Windows games to run flawlessly on Linux and making devices like the Steam Deck possible. Additionally, Steam provides free infrastructure to developers such as Steam Input, community forums, cloud saves, matchmaking servers, and a consumer friendly automated refund system features that the fragmented PC market desperately lacked before. So your statement "garbage" is unfounded. If Steam is garbage, what about the others? 3x beyond garbage?

Only decent "online" store is GOG so far since it has a strict policy of no DRMs. You purchase the game and you can install the game without needing to ever connect to online drm.

I agree that GOG is a great consumer friendly store, but the idea that Steam forces DRM on every game is factually incorrect. DRM on Steam is 100% optional and decided by the developer/publisher, not Valve. While Steam offers a basic wrapper tool like Steamworks DRM, developers are entirely free to opt out. In fact, there are hundreds of popular games on Steam that are completely DRM free such as The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, Factorio. You can download these games via Steam, close the client, copy the game files to an external drive, and play them on a machine without internet. When a game uses restrictive DRM like Denuvo, EA App, or Ubisoft Connect etc., that is a corporate decision made by that specific publisher, not a mandate from Steam.

 

[Sami 1999]

Again, Steam did not kill physical media. the PC industry naturally migrated to digital distribution due to lower costs, convenience, and the disappearance of disc drives. The decline of physical PC games was driven by hardware trends as consumers stopped buying PCs with DVD/CD drives and developers, who realized that patching 50 GB to 100 GB games over the internet was infinitely more viable than printing them onto multiple physical discs. Steam actually saved the PC gaming market at a time when rampant piracy and retail store closures as I said like GameStop, Best Buy, Wallmart, etc were causing publishers to abandon PC gaming entirely (regarding DRM, see my last part of the comment).

This can be adjusted by the keys/codes that Valve generates for free so developers can sell them on third-party websites like Humble Bundle or Green Man Gaming. Valve takes a 0% cut from these external sales. The rule simply states you cannot use Steam's free infrastructure to heavily undercut the price offered on Steam itself. However, developers are 100% free to sell the native version of their game on the Epic Games Store, GOG, or their own website for whatever price they want (lower or higher), as Valve has no jurisdiction over what happens outside its ecosystem.


This is not Steam's fault, but rather the reality of a financial monopoly that dictates rules for the entire internet and adult content. When payment processors like VISA or MasterCard alter their terms of service, they force every digital platform including Steam's competitors, crowdfunding sites, and independent stores to comply under the threat of losing card processing privileges. If Steam lost the ability to accept VISA, the vast majority of PC gamers wouldn't be able to buy games at all. Valve acted to protect its global user base by adapting to banking regulations, which is a broader financial system issue, not a choice by Valve.

Steam stopped supporting legacy operating systems like Windows 7 or 8 because Steam's internal web browser relies on Google Chromium, which drops support for unsafe, outdated OS architectures. Maintaining a secure digital network that processes financial data on operating systems that Microsoft itself has abandoned and stopped patching is a massive cybersecurity risk. Furthermore, for affected games, community tools or Steam's built-in offline mode often allow users to launch game executables directly from their root folders without running the Steam client at all, provided the game doesn't use third party DRM.

Steam is objectively the primary reason PC gaming is as accessible, healthy, and open as it is today. Far from being "garbage," Valve has single handedly funded massive open source projects like Proton used by SteamOS, allowing thousands of Windows games to run flawlessly on Linux and making devices like the Steam Deck possible. Additionally, Steam provides free infrastructure to developers such as Steam Input, community forums, cloud saves, matchmaking servers, and a consumer friendly automated refund system features that the fragmented PC market desperately lacked before. So your statement "garbage" is unfounded. If Steam is garbage, what about the others? 3x beyond garbage?

I agree that GOG is a great consumer friendly store, but the idea that Steam forces DRM on every game is factually incorrect. DRM on Steam is 100% optional and decided by the developer/publisher, not Valve. While Steam offers a basic wrapper tool like Steamworks DRM, developers are entirely free to opt out. In fact, there are hundreds of popular games on Steam that are completely DRM free such as The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, Factorio. You can download these games via Steam, close the client, copy the game files to an external drive, and play them on a machine without internet. When a game uses restrictive DRM like Denuvo, EA App, or Ubisoft Connect etc., that is a corporate decision made by that specific publisher, not a mandate from Steam.

Steam 100% normalized digital media on PC. Physical media wouldn't have died out if this system of game distribution was not normalized on PC. Drives disappeared because publishers started abandoning physical media thanks to steam.

I wasn't talking about key codes. I'm talking about how Steam's policy is to ensure games are sold at same price across all platforms [eg: epic]. Devs can't sell a game for 30$ on epic and then 50$ on steam even though Epic takes small cut from each sales.


It's not a customer's headache that steam has to stop supporting legacy operating systems and hardwares. The problem remains. You cannot play the game on your original hardware anymore without 3rd party interventions. Relying on 3rd party hacks just to play games you purchased on a hardware the game is supposed to run is straight up ridiculous. And this is why GOG remains superior.

Valve made proton not for customers but for their own benefit. And I wouldn't blame them for this. They run a business after all. The push for steam os started because Microsoft attempted on selling games on windows store and this would mean publishers might move away from steam. Fortunately for them, Microsoft sucks, so it has been a non-threat for them ever since.

Of course Steam doesn't force DRM on games. Neither do they force "no DRM policy" like GOG does. This will always make GOG the best platform out there. And Steam launcher in itself is a layer of DRM in the first place.


In short term, DRM issues mean nothing since games are accessible. In long term it will cause catastrophic damage to game preservation. And the fact that movements like stop killing games are being actively pushed aside by court shows how corrupted the gaming industry is.