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They really figured out the infinite money glitch.
They've been nothing but fair to me as a customer but the cynic in me thinks they've got an excessive amount of good will to squander since they dominate the PC gaming scene.
Please don't become shitty. And please release new non competitive games.
Gaben said it best when he said "piracy is a service issue, not a price issue." There is no other company that even comes close to matching Steam's services, both to consumers and developers. The industry could become a different place when he dies. I don't see any other CEO continuing to spend money to innovate and expand services rather than offer less and charge more to extract record profits.
This is absolutely mad cope, but I want to believe that, as forward thinking as Gabe is, he either will find a worthy successor, or already has one lined up to ensure the company isn't saced for all it's worth when he's gone.
I feel the same, I know that things will likely go downhill if he goes. That's why I also buy GoG games, I want to be able to download them if things go sour with Steam.
You can downlowad some of the steam games. DRM is possible, but not mandatory
CDPR came to the rescue even outside of GOG. My son bought Cyberpunk 2077 the other day on Steam and luckily for me it comes without DRM so I can even play it while he is playing.
Developers really trying to kill that by having buggy /launchers that run off steam launcher on top
I mean this is obvious af
When Netflix had 90% of the shows that you wanted to watch and they weren’t annoying little fucks with account sharing and geo location, everyone was happy to support them
But once paying users feel like they are being taken advantage of, instead of catered to, they leave.
There’s so many cases where pirating is not only cheaper (duh) it’s actually a better product/experience. And when you charge to provide a worse product/experience than what people can get for free, then you can’t be surprised at the outcome
Price has become a big issue lately too.
They really figured out the infinite money glitch.
Provide a decent service then sit back and watch your would-be competition develop increasingly effective footguns?
Yep that the one
That's what you can do if you're not publicly traded. The supposedly "wise" market whenever anything goes wrong always seems to insist on burning down decades of good-will to extract a few bucks.
the average person really needs to realize that most businesses are just hilariously incompetent, the only reason things stay together is because of shittily paid workers doing their jobs despite management's best efforts.
I laugh whenever some one thinks the government is "inefficient" and that the company will be more efficient. I've watched publicly traded companies waste a tonne of money on various boondoggles.
Usually the company survives despite the incompetence for other reasons.
If they were publicly traded they could have started to do the smart things that investors like to see, like spending billions to integrate AI in steam. Why is there no AI in steam yet ? Clearly a failure, Gabe should be replaced by a CEO that would not lose time and money in frivolous things like Linux (what is Linux BTW ?) and start improving the company values by adding AI and firing employees.
Figuring out how to easily port Windows games to Linux was definitely a recipe for profit.
And it was a shitload of work that took a decade plus, even being built on top of pieces that were even older, with absolutely zero guarantee of any kind of a payout.
Very few companies make these kinds of risks anymore.
It's not only goodwill, it's a survival tactic for valve. The worst case scenario for them, is see microsoft expand their monopoly to have all apps and software available only through their Microsoft app store, competing directly with valve, with the unfair advantage of microsoft controlling both windows and the app store. They could (and probably have) tried to get to where apple is with its app store on macos/ios. Though of course this would be an anticompetitive move, but the intentions could still exist making valves life difficult.
The moment they can untie gaming from windows, they have a path forward to keeping themselves not only alive but relevant and probably safe.
They could (and probably have) tried to get to where apple is with its app store on macos/ios.
They did.
The Windows 10/11 "S Mode" only allows installing software through the Windows store. It was mostly relegated to OEM installs for cheap x86 and ARM laptops, thankfully.
Ew. I hate that. I see they offer an option in settings to permanently switch out of S mode, but that seems like it's a crappy excuse. I'm guessing most users are never going to go there, and will stay in S mode, using only Microsoft's awful products. That's their intention, at least.
It's not a coincidence that they are not a publicly traded company...
I've been on Steam since 2005, and the only thing that sucks about Valve is that their steam sales are shit now. Other than that I've had no issues with them. They seem like a decent company.
There's also the gambling, and the 30% cut that allows them to make $3.5 million per head.
Steam is pushing the industry forward on Linux support though, so they have my support.
Flash sales were great but refunding is better.
While they are worse now, part of the problem is that long time users already have many of the games that get big discounts in the newer sales.
Valve is the living proof that you can have great service and still be profitable. Will capitalists learn? No
Why have great service and be profitable when you can have terrible service and be 1.6% more profitable?
Correction: Be just as profitable but cash out on that profit slightly sooner.
More like far less profitable over years, but far more this quarter. And when it inevitably goes south because you're squeezing too hard? Who cares, on to the next company!
Wonder how much of this comes from the gambling business. They don’t own the secondary market where you can sell skins, but they are the gateway into that world.
I suspect a fair chunk. Steam for gamers and devs is great and all but its underbelly of opening up the world of gambling to kids is real gross. Its insane how valve has been getting away with it for so long.
Weird how if you pay the people activly invested in a product things work rather than having to awnser to why line no go up
Valve is simply the last major company in this industry that I still like. Imagine that! A company makes bank off of treating customers and employees right! What a novel concept!
Showing the importance of sustainable business models over the throw your entire budget at everything then end up firing hundreds and thousands of employees while giving bonuses to executives because the quarterly earnings weren't as high approach that lot of publicly traded companies have moved towards.