Developers can and almost always do close to offer their games on multiple platforms and can even choose self hosted direct distribution of they do choose. Customers can choose to purchase their games on steam, itch, epic, Microsoft, or any of the many places they’re often hosted simultaneously. Steam is more often than not the choice people choose to use of their own free will because they perceive it as being the superior service.

Why do you believe excellence should be punished?

If someone says they’re not interested in dating Republicans, it doesn’t mean they are any better than the average person at picking one out from a crowd.

Valve is profitable because of the reputation they’ve built up over many years as being an incredibly consumer friendly storefront. Avoiding corporate bloat, and focusing their attention on the core aspects of their business consumers care about has allowed them to thrive where many others failed. Valve created and maintained a fantastic product. So yes.

Stream created and maintains a platform that gamers and developers want to use but more importantly, they’ve built up a reputation that people believe in and trust.

Gamers and developers are so eager to use steam because in all the years they’ve been operating, they still support and expand upon family sharing, have a fantastic refund policy (for consumers), don’t employ aggressive exclusivity deals, don’t limit download speeds behind paywalls, and provide a great review and recommendation system.

They’ve become successful due to this reputation, why should we punish them for that?

Valve created a fantastic entertainment product that people voluntarily choose to use. Why would you want to turn something people already love into something completely different? Counterproductive - especially when direct distribution is essentially free and universally accessible.

Flaked sea salt actually dissolves slower, not faster than standard table salt on account of its larger crystals!

When you vote for a candidate you hate you’re telling them that they don’t have to change their platform to have your support. People making safe votes against their own interests is precisely why the people in power get away with all this bullshit. Don’t waste your vote by giving it to someone who doesn’t stand for what you believe in.

That sounds like a nightmare! I don’t think game developers (or any other artist) would want the CRA breathing down their neck, telling them what they can or can’t do with their work. I certainly wouldn’t program under those conditions.

This would be an issue if the servers use any proprietary code, libraries, or services the developer is not at liberty to distribute.

A studio may also to reuse their networking code for a sequel, and it would suck being forced to release that just because an older title got discontinued - could lead to exploits, or just competitors profiting off of your hard work with no compensation in exchange.

I’m not comfortable with the idea of the government dictating what developers must do with their games. There are legitimate legal, financial, and artistic reasons they may not want to be forced to distribute in that way.

I think that it’s the responsibility of consumers to make sure they have the level of ownership over the games they like. I personally don’t really like to invest into live service games for this reason, but I do enjoy playing them on occasion and appreciate that they’re free to play and receive constant updates. Forcing the Deves to open source their code at the end of the game’s life cycle would jeopardize their vision and our ability to play games like them.

I’ve seen stranger things.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/10/ukraine-draft-troops-reinforcements-training/

Your definition doesn’t seem to be correct. This article mentions government granted monopolies (i.e hydro) and states monopolies (i.e healthcare).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-granted_monopoly

Contrary to what I said earlier, residents of certain provinces have been complaining that the quality of their healthcare has been substandard, and are upset that there are no alternatives available as the law forbids private doctors from even setting up shop there.

What’s wrong with a monopoly if people are satisfied with it’s service? In Canada, the government has a monopoly on healthcare and generally people don’t complain.

I suspect if we banned the ability to earn profits from farming, there wouldn’t be many people who would want to farm. Personally, I’d rather choose an unprofitable job that was less exhausting, like being a starving artist.

Elon Musk has never been to space.