Since responding to the latter half has proven to be a challenge, I have taken it upon myself to modify the contents of both responses with corrections and notes. If you find my tone a little condescending, I'm sorry, I wanted to try something different.
Midnightshade: It's not "toxic" at all. Only to people who can't stand criticism. The great thing about steam is sales, refunds, great interface, and mod workshop. I also love they accept freedom of expression and aren't censoring games to cancel culture mobs or people that find everything "problematic" (cringe word).
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Going into detail about 'cancel culture,' 'mobs,' and how the word 'problematic' makes you wince is irrelevant to the topic at hand. A possible rewording of this sentence that would be more palpable could instead talk about how Steam's marketplace is open to anyone with 100 dollars to spend. This is the only sticking point I have with this response -- otherwise, good job!] Also, it's not a rental. It's no different than buying here. All games now are a license, especially on PC, as discs aren't a thing anymore. I have faith in steam as it has such a following. You know it's not going to go away, and your games will still be there.
Steam and GOG are my two gaming platforms on PC, outside of Uplay for games that require it (at least it's better than
[WHAT'S OFFERED ON EITHER] Origin or
[THE] Microsoft store). I prefer GOG and the Galaxy launcher that integrates with everything (the less I have to see of that stupid epic store, the better). Also, some games work better on Steam for mods or Nintendo Switch Cross-Save.
I've been on Steam since it started as just a Launcher for Half-life
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Nice poisoning of the well there.] with the puke coloured interface that introduced all kinds of crashing, now it's all Forced updates which sometimes break content, moderators that ban you for posing questions about a title that could hurt sales if people see it in a certain light and they cast shade on you in private chat it’s super toxic unless you're bowing down and gobbling up everything and saying "thanks, master."
[EDITOR'S NOTE: While Moderator abuse on Steam has occurred in the past, it's usually with insecure developers who are power-tripping over the people who post in their forums. While it would be better for this not to happen, the average developer/moderator isn't like that. Also worth noting, what are you talking about? There's paranoid energy to this whole response that makes responding to it in any sensible manner a serious challenge.] Or when Support calls you a Lying thief for requesting a refund on a broken game…..
The Community mods get toxic reporters
[EDITORS NOTE: STOP USING THE WORD 'TOXIC', WE GET IT. I don't usually write in all caps like that, but seriously, find another word.] who target people they have their groups and go about it in a way to avoid getting banned on the forums; with that flaming and false reporting, sometimes a Valve mod catches on, and the false reports get the ban mostly it’s the aggrieved getting banned for their threads going out of ‘[insert arbitrary rule violation].’
Then the barely English speaking moderators who have no concept of colloquialisms.
[THE MODERATORS] ban or warn people with absurd reasoning then harass and follow these people around to every post giving some insane warning running on their little power trip.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: I have been using Steam since 2012 and have never had this happen to me. That doesn't mean it can't happen or will never happen, but I imagine that these moderators are a hell of a lot less aggressive than this makes it out to be.] There are many places you can view that show you don't own anything on steam. It's put as you rent a space to play a game in their DRM locked room until they kick you out
[EDITORS NOTE: Cool, that's the idea. It might be a little anti-consumer, but Steamworks constantly updates, lets you play your games offline. The probability of them shutting down with the current amount of users they have on their platform and the number of companies in support of Steam now is very flimsy; I'd like to imagine that that date in time won't be for a very, very long time. Again, stop sounding paranoid; it makes it hard to take any of the things you're saying here seriously.]. As for refunds, many titles break after the 2-hour mark. It's a given, and that timer counts up even when you launch a game, and it crashes the process may be active in the background, and you don't know this; your 2-hour mark is gone in idle time.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: This is where I almost agree with you. Some games, particularly the older ones, do not have the best Steam releases. That said, if a game is REALLY broken (we're talking unplayable), you will absolutely know this before the 2-hour mark has passed. Things like game-breaking bugs can occur past those two hours, though. However, I'd advise anyone to look into their purchases beforehand. If there's a game-breaking bug past those two hours, you will absolutely hear about it in the game's discussions board and (more importantly) the user reviews. These bugs can also be patched out if the developer is active enough.] Their SSA does not give you a license to the products, only a subscription to the steam service and platform under the condition you keep spending money there
[EDITOR'S NOTE: This is almost true until you say "(...)under the condition you keep spending money there". The only time you are forced to purchase on Steam is when you create a new account and want to engage in community features. This feature isn't there to make Valve money; it's just an effortless way of vetting out illegitimate accounts], If you break forum rules, there's a possibility of losing access to all your games as some people have already had this happen.
[EDITORS NOTE: According to a thread on Steam complaining about this, this only applies to PERMANENT bans. There isn't a "possibility" of losing games; if you get permanently banned, you get permanently banned. Bear in mind, the people in charge of this nuclear button aren't your average game developer or the forum moderator. These people look over the content posted on Steam; they are employees of Valve. Knowing how big Valve is as a company, do you really think they'll let their moderators who can delete all of your games at the press of a button be bad at their jobs? I'd imagine that the circumstances leading to that ban have to be significant if that's the consequence.] “Steam and your Subscription(s) require the download and installation of Content and Services onto your computer. Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms). This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license. Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account, and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.”
If you lose access to your account, you lose access to the games by license and by DRM, There are others with way more knowledge on this, but E-thugs and Mafia-like attitude towards ownership, I don’t want any part of that.
-- or, as I'm about to demonstrate you can also say good things about the things you dislike. The latter is preferable, but if you don't have anything to add, that's fine. This is unnecessarily long and doesn't come off as well written argument against Valve's monopoly in the slightest.
In my personal opinion, Steam isn't a perfect platform; I wish it had more viable competition. But it does the job. It's DRM isn't super intrusive (I can, for example, install most games on several computers without there being a limitation unless the publisher sticks another layer of DRM on top of it that stops me from doing that), there's a large library of pretty good games that either don't get released on GOG or are only released on GOG once they've dipped in popularity. The number of community features is an excellent touch that I wish more gaming platforms took notes from. Again, not perfect; the fact that anyone can release a game on Steam means that the store is cluttered with games you'd only buy if you were high, drunk, or had money to burn. It also sucks that most games are bound to Steamworks, but get this: it's the expectation, not the norm. There are quite a few games on Steam that you can play without ever needing to launch Steam. The communication for which games let you do this and which don't is pretty murky, and I wish there were an option to put that information on the store page, but my point is that not all games are tied to Steam.
What I have given you is a fair analysis of Steam as a platform. Rule of thumb: if you're ever going to talk trash about something, or talk positively about it, be prepared to say both good and bad things about it. Even if those good or bad things are minor, insignificant, or easy to ignore, it makes your opinion come off as something that's discussable. Just screaming into the void about how much you hate something or showing undying love makes your opinions seem underdeveloped at best.
