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You know sometimes I actually straight up FORGET that Steam is run by the same company that created Half-Life?
They:
When you do something well, people don't notice you've done anything at all.
They simply did what everyone else refused to do, get out of their own way.
I think the key was that Steam wasn't created to make money, but to solve problems they themselves had, like "How do we get new versions of Counter Strike out to all these players?"
Then as Valve wasn't the only company having these problems, the solution could easily be sold to others.
If the other companies really wanted to crack Steam's near-monopoly, the solution would be to tackle the problems associated with not having all your games on Steam. Work together on a open-source launcher supporting all stores, similar to GOG Galaxy. First make something useful that tackles an unsolved problem, then you can make money off it when it becomes successful.
Instead they go in just trying to make a buck, and end up just being worse versions of Steam.
That ended up being a bit of a rant, but I'm frustrated at their shortsighted market strategies :p
Oh indeed! And that's why I love GOG! I actually try to check GOG first just in case I can buy a game I want there before I go through with buying it on steam. I would actually gladly pay MORE for the GOG version because it removes bullshit like DRM!
I used to do the same, but I lost a lot of confidence in GOG after they retroactively restricted their cloud saves to 200 MB.
My hundred-hour Witcher 3 save is exactly the kind of thing I want backed up, but that's no longer possible. And the very low limit they set, and the urgency with which they started deleting the very data they were expected to keep safe, reeks of a desperation to save money that makes me hesitant to invest more in their ecosystem.
I really want them to succeed though, and I think they have the right idea with Galaxy. Even Epic giving me games for free doesn't make me actually use their client or store.
But somehow the obvious idea of forming a consortium to develop open standards and implementations for game clients, doesn't seem like something that will ever happen.
His plan isn't based off trying to squeeze blood from stones, it's to sell some video games. Not a very capitalist mindset, but there you have it.
Don't ask TF2 player how they feel about this meme
TF2 released in 2007
I mean it's true for TF2 also, overwatch killed itself lol
They did the bare minimum of banning bots so TF2 has been going pretty great recently. I think I've encountered 1 or 2 bots in the last 2 weeks and I'm pretty sure those were just blatant cheaters and not actually bots
I have a mixed feeling about Gabe and Valve.
While I am insanely grateful for proton (even if it was strategically important for them, they didn't do it out of kindness of heart), some other stuff disturb me:
- The 30% percent cut, stealing money from devs
Sigh. Here we go again. I'll just copy one of my older comments about that attitude.
Steam is not a parasitic middle man, it is a collection of services that would have to be provisioned and operated by the developer otherwise. The 30% cut pays for:
If the revenue from the cut exceeds the operational costs: it's called profitability, not theft. The world doesn't run on good vibes.
The 30% percent cut, stealing money from devs
This is a pretty spicy take. Let's consider two possibilities:
Game devs choose to distribute independently, and sell their game for $20. They sell 100,000 copies and make $2 million in revenue, and keep the entire $2 million.
Game devs choose to distribute via Steam, promote it with a 50% off sale, it goes to the Steam front page, sells 500,000 copies at only $10 each, for a total $5 million in revenue. Steam takes $1.5 million and the devs take $3.5 million.
In scenario 2 the devs make 75% more than in scenario 1. Did Valve steal from the game devs?
Obviously Valve and the developer collaborated to steal money from the consumers who wouldn't have bought the game without the promotion.
to make sure: /s
I love Valve for a lot of things but I'll never forget that they spearheaded some of the most predatory microtransactions in the industry (loot boxes and battle passes) and were happy to help Bethesda try to sell mods until players raised a huge stink.
A steam account being un-inheritable, making you defacto a tenant of your games
Canβt you just give your kids your steam password ? How would they notice ?
Yes you can workaround it. But this is still a society right they forbid you. And who can say that in 2100 they won't implement a cleanup job that lock all accounts that are over 100 years old ? π€ͺ
I'm not sure about that either - unless you really want your real name on a Steam account, you just change the password and the payment method and you should be fine, right?
You can't change the login username. That's about it. You can change the profile link, profile name, avatar and other cosmetics, and edit payment methods.
I didnβt knew about he claiming to be a libertarian. Rothbard must be turning over in his grave.
A steam account being un-inheritable, making you defacto a tenant of your games
This is unenforceable under US Law
Well I am European π
don't you guys have better consumer protections?
Maybe, maybe not.
Frankly I don't even know if this clause can be enforced in Europa. I wanted to point out that we shouldn't rely on the customer protection laws of each country to address that: this clause shouldn't exist in the first place.
But to be frank, it most likely doesn't come from Valve and rather from the games company themselves.
"If you have the patience to sit by the river and wait, eventually, the corpses of your enemies will float by." Sun Tzu
The "do nothing and win" strategy.
It's called making a product/service for their customers instead of for the shareholders bank balance.
This is why Gabe is the goat