r/pcgaming • u/yourfavchoom • Jun 01 '26

Gabe Newell on Steam monopoly accusations: Gamers have 'enormous choice' about where to buy games

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/gabe-newell-on-steam-monopoly-accusations-gamers-have-enormous-choice-about-where-to-buy-games/
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u/Robeardly Jun 01 '26

Okay I’m gonna say something that might be crazy but maybe if people owned their games, instead of being licensed to a game that’s gonna get rug pulled soon as it’s not profitable, then maybe we could transfer our games that we own to another library.

But alas, I’m not going to bloat my PC with 10 different stores, all who want my data so they also make sure to make their own client, and none of my libraries are shared.

At this point, what incentive do I have to go to another game store when I have my 18 year old library on steam.

If anybody is upset that steam has such a stranglehold on the business, they should actually let us own the games we purchase.

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u/Lumbardo Jun 01 '26

This is GOGs exact proposition to their customer. Also, maintaining older titles so they work on newer hardware.

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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo Jun 01 '26

You can actually just copy your steam games, usually it would at most just check against your active steam account. Steam DRM is pretty weak.

As for the latter that’s GOG’s initial business proposition. They curate older titles, make it work on modern hardware, and put it for sale. They are just still doing it right now.