# Steam is a "Service"? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [September 8, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879 "2014-09-08T16:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879/41 "2014-09-19T15:12:57Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > Ability to quickly and easily see who is joinable and then join them (apparently Steam has the second part, but not the first) It does, you just open your friends list and it shows you what games are playable there, and whether you can join them. The support for this has to be coded into the game, though. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879/42 "2014-09-19T17:51:08Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > 😕 > > Why, in the context of a gaming service, would you care about anything more than that? Because I don’t want to bother people who are really busy? Okay, so I play fighting games. Clearly most people here don’t. But if someone is in Training Mode, they’re much more likely to accept an invite to a game than they are if they’re already playing with people. > [@](#): > > It does, you just open your friends list and it shows you what games are playable there, and whether you can join them. I have literally never seen an indicator of ‘joinable’ or anything on my friends list. o.o ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879/43 "2014-09-19T19:40:45Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > I have literally never seen an indicator of ‘joinable’ or anything on my friends list. o.o A game it works well on that I play is Saints Row 4. If someone is playing that, I get a thing on my friends list telling me they’re playing it, and an option to Join. Obviously, they get the option in-game. It’s not used in many games, as far as I can tell. But that’s the devs not making use of what’s available. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879/44 "2014-09-21T08:21:47Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > At this point a game not being on Steam is basically a deal breaker. Very close. The only publisher that comes to mind that can successfully operate without Steam is Blizzard, and they’re a behemoth. For everyone else, yeah, Steam is a sine qua non. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879/45 "2014-09-21T09:45:02Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > Valve is a privately held company (LLC). > There are no shareholders and unless the founders decide to sell, retire, or just plain die they will be running things for the foreseeable future. Well, but typically people have founded a very successful internet service sell it for a fortune to the like of Microsoft or Google, and it goes south from there. I’m sure they are eyeing it. The most successful game provider on the web, and a social media too. They will want it, they will have it. And they will mess everything up. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879/46 "2014-09-21T09:56:19Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > Valve is a privately held company (LLC). > There are no shareholders and unless the founders decide to sell, retire, or just plain die they will be running things for the foreseeable future. If it’s an LLC, there are shareholders. A private company can be held by shareholders and the shares can be sold. As for the second half, I say that the current shareholders won’t be there indefinitely, you say that unless they sell/retire/die, they’ll be running things for the foreseeable future. Those two statements do not intersect. We must trust in St. Gabe, hallowed be his name. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879/47 "2014-09-21T13:42:41Z")
Steam lists out all of it’s [game services](http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/gameservices.php) and [publishing services](http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/publishingservices.php) on it’s own webpage. You might not personally use any of them but they are undeniably services. From a developer’s perspective, if you’re a store, then I ship you a binary that’s the same as every other binary and you deliver it to the user. If you provide a service, then I need to manually change my game code to integrate with that service and I have a binary that’s customized to depend on the [service API](https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/api). ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879/48 "2014-09-21T14:28:20Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > Very close. The only publisher that comes to mind that can successfully operate without Steam is Blizzard, and they’re a behemoth. For everyone else, yeah, Steam is a sine qua non. Electronic Arts seems to be staving off bankruptcy despite all their new titles the past few years being Origin only. Ubisoft releases on Steam but I have no issues with the Uplay service. The only time I really miss Steam is titles that don’t use any major service and thus languish in my “purchased games” list on Amazon or Gamersgate. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2014, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879/49 "2014-09-22T02:46:37Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > If it’s an LLC, there are shareholders. A private company can be held by shareholders and the shares can be sold. Yes and no. It depends on how the owners want to define it. E.g. Liz and her law partner have their firm set up as an LLC. Each holds a 50% stake in the company. They are treating it as “shares” in the sense that they own percentages of the company. But it’s not as if there’s a specific quantifiable number of something outside of a percentage of their company’s net worth (and potential net worth) that either could sell off as “shares”. And, the fact that they are a law firm means that only another barred attorney could even buy into part of that firm’s value. So referring it to as “shares” is really a matter of semantics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steam-is-a-service/697879.md?page=2)