A new lawsuit was filed earlier this month in the UK that alleges Valve, owner of Steam, has been overcharging 14 million PC gamers and abusing its dominant position in the UK.
It’s true that Steam is in a dominant market position so I do agree they should be kept in check. At the same time, their value-add is quite reasonable, so I wonder what the “correct” charge is for the service they provide. Or perhaps some system they need to make more open to competition like Steamworks or the Workshop?
Private companies can have shares and shareholders too, fyi. They just aren’t traded on a public market and aren’t beholden to a public mandate of profit or share growth above all else.
I was like…what comment did they make in response to mine that got removed before I got a chance to see…and now I can guess the type of comment it was. It’s ok to be wrong, it doesn’t mean you’re weak or a bad person.
I had made a reply for this user here: https://lemmy.ca/comment/9780622 but I guess he wanted to give me a copy paste reply for a reply I was giving to someone else…
The comment can be boiled down to: Everyone is sucking up to Valve like usual, they could just as easily become evil like Google did, despite their old motto and everyone in tech loving them in the past. Being private is the one thing keeping Valve from enshittifying themselves so they are just as bad as any company.
How big do you think Valve is? They’re estimated around 8 B net worth. That’s 3 orders of magnitude less than Microsoft, at 3 trillion. 8 B is chump change at the megacorp stage.
So long as Valve remains private, the experience getting shittier in the name of more profits is a pressure that faces Valve but not necessarily an inevitably.
If Valve breaks the trust they have built in ways that Google and Microsoft have and continue to do, of course I will stop using them where feasible. Assurances mean nothing, I will respond to action with action of my own. Support more games for Linux, I will buy more of their games. Support bad practices like kernel-level anticheat, launchers in launchers in launchers, PSN, I will buy fewer of those games. I have an account with GOG (I have spent a little bit of money, I would more it Galaxy was available for Linux), Epic (I have spent $0 there because of Tim Sweeney’s aversion to Linux) and Itch.io (has a Linux client). I can move platforms if Steam has a sudden change of heart tomorrow and becomes hellbent on screwing customers over.
I think that there is regulation to be had re: the ownership of games or minimum availability of service for what is paid on both the seller and consumer side. But “I’m paying too much for games because of Valve’s monopoly” wasn’t really on my radar of things that Valve is doing wrong.
It’s true that Steam is in a dominant market position so I do agree they should be kept in check. At the same time, their value-add is quite reasonable, so I wonder what the “correct” charge is for the service they provide. Or perhaps some system they need to make more open to competition like Steamworks or the Workshop?
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Megacorps has shareholders. Tell me, how many shareholders are there in Valve? What’s their current stock price?
Private companies can have shares and shareholders too, fyi. They just aren’t traded on a public market and aren’t beholden to a public mandate of profit or share growth above all else.
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I was like…what comment did they make in response to mine that got removed before I got a chance to see…and now I can guess the type of comment it was. It’s ok to be wrong, it doesn’t mean you’re weak or a bad person.
I had made a reply for this user here: https://lemmy.ca/comment/9780622 but I guess he wanted to give me a copy paste reply for a reply I was giving to someone else…
The comment can be boiled down to: Everyone is sucking up to Valve like usual, they could just as easily become evil like Google did, despite their old motto and everyone in tech loving them in the past. Being private is the one thing keeping Valve from enshittifying themselves so they are just as bad as any company.
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How big do you think Valve is? They’re estimated around 8 B net worth. That’s 3 orders of magnitude less than Microsoft, at 3 trillion. 8 B is chump change at the megacorp stage.
Valve is a private company that acts with good will. Not sure what you’re on about.
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So long as Valve remains private, the experience getting shittier in the name of more profits is a pressure that faces Valve but not necessarily an inevitably.
If Valve breaks the trust they have built in ways that Google and Microsoft have and continue to do, of course I will stop using them where feasible. Assurances mean nothing, I will respond to action with action of my own. Support more games for Linux, I will buy more of their games. Support bad practices like kernel-level anticheat, launchers in launchers in launchers, PSN, I will buy fewer of those games. I have an account with GOG (I have spent a little bit of money, I would more it Galaxy was available for Linux), Epic (I have spent $0 there because of Tim Sweeney’s aversion to Linux) and Itch.io (has a Linux client). I can move platforms if Steam has a sudden change of heart tomorrow and becomes hellbent on screwing customers over.
I think that there is regulation to be had re: the ownership of games or minimum availability of service for what is paid on both the seller and consumer side. But “I’m paying too much for games because of Valve’s monopoly” wasn’t really on my radar of things that Valve is doing wrong.