Former Valve Developer Says Steam Was Killing PC Gaming

Published: April 6, 2019 1:18 PM /

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steamkillingheader

Richard Geldreich, a former developer at Valve, has claimed that the Steam platform was actually killing PC gaming. The claims came during a twitter conversation with Epic founder Tim Sweeney in which he defended the company against claims that their store was potential spyware. The conversation started when Sweeney posted an article from usgamer talking about the allegations that the Epic Store is spyware tracking players' data and sending it the Chinese government.

Since its release late last year the Epic Store has faced open criticism from gamers who were against the store's policy of aggressively seeking exclusivity deals. The spyware allegations started appearing on reddit threads, some of which have garnered thousands of upvotes and hundreds of comments. Defenders have said that the spyware claims are baseless and rooted in stereotypes of Chinese culture and values.

After Sweeney's tweet, Geldreich jumped in to offer reassurance that Epic where doing a good job for the industry. Not long after twitter used ColeG joined the conversation to reiterate complaints about exclusivity and 'potential spyware'. Geldreich came back calling the spyware claims 'insane', saying that Steam also collects an insane amount of user data as well but never has to deal with these sorts of claims.

He went on to make the claim that Steam itself had actively been killing PC gaming for years, and that their 30% share of all profits is the reason that so many developers where jumping ship to Epic.

https://twitter.com/richgel999/status/1113988444370300928

https://twitter.com/richgel999/status/1113994738745483264

https://twitter.com/richgel999/status/1114303524202995712

Despite his claims, other Twitter users in the same thread stuck behind their dislike of the Epic Store and their belief that it was more harmful to PC gaming than Steam or Valve ever has been. As the conversation went on people sought ways of discounting Geldreich's opinions on the basis that he was a disgruntled ex-employee of Valve, rather than simply an industry professional with an insider opinion.

https://twitter.com/TheDORIANGRAE/status/1114132386852347905

What do you think about Geldreich's comments? Do you think that the Epic Store offers a better deal to developers? Let us know in the comments below!

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Will has been writing about video games professionally since 2016 and has covered everything from AAA game reviews to industry events and everything in… More about William