We used to make games. Now we make money!
I’m pretty content with them making an absolutely excellent and pro-customer online store instead of good games. Even though we have a lot of the good games, and there are never enough of them at the same time, we have just one or two good gaming stores thanks to Steam and GOG.
Steam is anti consumer and only wishs to kill their competition by locking you in. They actively hate you.
Daily reminder that steam takes 30% of all sales, money that could be going to developers. They can do this because they have built a soft monopoly over the years. They are not your friend.
I seriously doubt hosting all game files, literally accessible version history and old depots, discussion-artwork-mod forums and files, very customizable profiles besides also hosting plethora of game servers warrant an anti-consumer or monopoly considerations for the cost.
Add to this the actual no-extra cost of developing compatibility for extended OSs and environments like Proton for Linux, platform-wide controller and other input support (including shitty aftermarket and off-brand controllers), native VR support without limiting it to Index.
Also add the access of all information contained to the open internet, promoting various niche genres and games through oft-held week-long “XYZ fests”, encouraging the return of free game demos for people to try out, an automatic refund system with actually rather quick and understanding human support, and not forcing exclusive releases for its platform.
Did I mention the rather cheap Steam Deck and also Valve still being self-sustaining and apparently being able to continue its services for years to come solely thanks to the customer base and not rich sugardaddy rich parent companies?
Do I also need to mention most of the services directly and indirectly help all developers releasing their games in steam? By forums, refund policies allowing consumers to try out games without fears, unified server systems, etc?
I apologize if my tone is harsh, but in the face all the services of Valve, now tell me again how this 30% is an unfair and anti consumer, anti competitive cut and stealing from the devs, please.
Valve made 10B in 2022 from their store. 10 thousand million. It does not cost anywhere near that to run servers and host gamer profiles. They could charge 5% and gaben would still be drowning in hookers and coke.
There is a 30% tax being exerted on all games by like three companies. It’s not good for us the consumers, they are literally fucking us.
Steam is anti consumer and only wishs to kill their competition by locking you in.
There is a 30% tax being exerted on all games by like three companies.
First of all, your two sentences in two comments conflict. If there are already other companies practicing the same prices as with Steam, Steam can’t be killing competition by pricing, but with other things like superior service, which is the only benefit sought from competition.
Second, although I agree in general that no private person or company should hoard massive wealth, in a lot of situations owning capital is the only way in current economic workings of the world to develop new things and not stagnate with the same old, years later outdated service. I mentioned very low profit Steam Deck, a push for VR with both hardware and an actual game rather than a tech demo, very low profit Linux gaming, completely unnecessary (profit-wise) indie game fests, that mean out-of-pocket expenses or development time that is not with utmost shareholder profit in mind. For defense of this point’s main premise of accumulating wealth beyond meeting regular interval maintenance work, I would ask that do you deride any taxes or extra price on products that go to government for funding undeveloped or harsh sectors like agriculture, medicine, better transportation ways, etc. that none of which you may utilize but pay a cut for? I’m not staying Valve is a public institute, but it also does research and development with consumers as main beneficiaries on its own scale.
Third, Valve making 10B through 30% cut means Valve held their responsibility and successfully finalized the sales of the games before they cut their share, not in advance of games being sold. This means that developers already got their 70% in their accounts. I’m not saying it is still a just amount of cut when the effort between developing a game and distributing it is compared, but Valve isn’t obligated to just take maintenance fees. They are a private company, like their competitors, and they also have a right to make profit, as their competitors do. Unlike most of their competitors, they actually provide wide variety of quality services and consumer-focused R&D. Sure I’d like to buy games for 10-20% cheaper with Valve going down on its cut, but it is for my best interest that I’m not limited to Windows, most-advertised games only are shoved down my brain but actually good but less advertised games are shown to me, I have very easy access to multiplayer and game related content easily through integrated utilities, etc., none of which their same-percentage-cut having competitors nor their lower-percentage-competitors do and seem to intend to do.
Fourth, Gaben is a weird choice of target for attacking personally for earning huge money through their company and service. I don’t know how many rich CEOs or shareholders you can count that have as little ego Gaben shown to have through his personal deliveries of Steam Deck packages, his constant highlight and emphasis on the team members who he worked with and reached success on many project by name basis and not as a general “as a last thought, I’d like to make random comment to thank my team” in all of his interviews, personally taking time to answer a huge amount of direct consumer emails.
If Valve took a lesser cut, could they achieve all these? Maybe. Would I, the customer, buy games for cheaper? Yes. Would I be deprived of the services that are better for my best interest? Maybe. Do their competitors with same cuts or lower cuts achieve or strive to achieve at least a closer level of what Valve provided to its customers and open internet? No indication of that at all for years now.
Valve, Xbox, etc have a soft monopoly. When I say competition, I meant more up and coming game stores that are a threat (some of which just want to be part of the club and don’t want to actively strive for true competition but that’s an other issue). Sorry, I wasn’t being clear.
They do invest in their business. My main take is that what they grab is a lot bigger than what they give. Most treat them as heros when they are more like the shiniest boot on our necks. There is precious little in the scope of things that seperate valve from the rest of wallstreet.
I specifically choose gaben because he curates this type of image while in reality, he is a villain that at a minimum indirectly collides with a handful of competitors in order to rob thousands of developers and their consumers.
I don’t really want cheaper games, although that would be nice. I mostly just think of all my favorite ones that didn’t have a sequel, had it cancelled or even came out as a buggy mess. I don’t know if that would have happened if they had 25% more budget.
In essence, I think valve is just as harmful to the industry as Xbox, Nintendo and Sony and this persona they curate is an illusion. Mostly, my problems are with our current brand of capitalism as a whole though, no doubt about it.
We have Epic, too. Their store is quite ok. Sure, not on the level of Steam, but they’ll get there. But I’d say they’re on GOG level when it comes to features.
If you’re omitting Epic because you don’t like the consumer unfriendly stuff the company does, it feels weird on a post about Valve doing some pretty fucked up shit.
This sets a terrible precedent. We’ve already seen some pretty not-awesome shit from Valve in regards to their other lootbox farm.
Specifically, TF2 is a bot-infested mess, and for years now, their only real involvement with the game has been to try and squash fan projects. This was first seen with TF2C and Open Fortress, where they asked the devs to take down all downloads and promised full official releases before ghosting them, and now with TFS2, where they just went straight to the DMCA.
It’s always been weird to me that when loot box bad articles popped up a few years ago they always used overwatch’s lootboxes, when counterstrike did it first, does it in a more anticonsumer way and makes them cost more. Anyway I like valve on the whole but I do hope governments but an end to the whole child gambling insanity, particularly valves brand of “you can trade all this for real money on an unregulated scam ridden open market” version of it.
I would even buy some stupid loot box, too, if it would help them integrating team deathmatch in csgo2 again!
This, this is exactly what all the NFT games were aiming for. Valve had implemented the same nonsense 10 years earlier.
Valve has it in every game with their items and cards
Guess it is because of federation but kind of weird how I see the same article posted multiple times not once but multiple times throughout a couple of weeks.
Good for them, valve is one of the few good ones.
But I don’t understand why people buy loot boxes. The chance of getting a rare item is so small. They can just spend much less money in the steam market and buy the item they want.
How are they one of the good ones if they’re pulling this bullshit?
That’s some mental gymnastics! They’re good which means they can do the thing we use to label companies as bad?
Just make up your mind whether lootboxes are ok or not.
I think they are fine personally, specially when it’s just cosmetic items.
