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My belief is that they're flush with Steam money, and hardware isn't core to their business. If anything, they want to expand the PC gaming ecosystem, which is

My belief is that they're flush with Steam money, and hardware isn't core to their business. If anything, they want to expand the PC gaming ecosystem, which is already very DIY and mod-friendly. Thus, they can afford to set themselves apart from the likes of Apple and tell their customers to have fun. Pessimistically, I imagine that if their hardware business boomed exponentially, their support costs would rise and the hardware designers would be pressured to reduce PEBKAC risks...

urthor 5y ago
Valve's principal line of business right now is utterly eradicating Epic Game Store from existence. Its tool for doing that is consumer sentiment. This all plays into Valve's business strategy. They're fighting to justify ye ole 30% cut.
- jcastro 5y ago
  The prescience of doing SteamOS/Steam Machines/Steam Controllers years before EGS seems to have paid off for them. (Eventually, and probably by accident, time will tell but the device seems to be pretty badass so far).
- sennight 5y ago
  > Its tool for doing that is consumer sentiment. That is the tool for basically doing anything productive as a business... it isn't as if they've done some about face at the emergence of genuine competition - they've always been unusually well liked (especially considering the industry).
  - urthor 5y ago
    In contrast, a prominent thread about Adobe currently sits on the front page.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Hey, if Apple released repair videos, device schematics, commit their translation tech and kernel development to upstream, maintained CI/CD pipelines for all major operating systems, built platform-agnostic hardware APIs for third-party vendors and built safe inroads for the modding/enthusiast community, I think their 30% wouldn't be so hard to swallow. All we got were some lame whitepapers instead.
- SXX 5y ago
  Valve already decreased it cut for highest-grossing titles to 25% (after $10 million in sales) or 20% (after $50 million in sales). And fortunately for Valve even 3 years after release Epic Games Store don't even have half of Steam features. Also Epic is so consumer-hostile (or as they call it pro-developer) that they won't ever implement player-reviews into their system. So it's not that hard for Valve for keep their mindshare. Far larger danger for them is Microsoft with it's Xbox game subscription model and unlimited amount of money.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    That seems backwards. The vast majority of games aren't making $10mm, definitely not $50mm. Why take more money from the small indie developer?
    - nindalf 5y ago
      Because they can. Where are these small developers going to go? Itch.io, GOG, Epic, Humble? These are all options but it’s suicide to not list on the Steam store. Too many PC gamers use Steam exclusively. Meanwhile the large developers, the ones who are making $50M+, those developers have enough pull to make the user install a custom client like Origin. That’s why Valve cuts them a better deal.
    - SXX 5y ago
      Because they can and there are is no real competition. Epic Game Store so far is laughtable attempt at pumping money into user-hostile service that missing tons of features. For now the only good reason to release on EGS is Epic giving your company money. Disclosure: I work at small indie PC gamedev studio. I just point out how Valve changed rules for big companies back in 2018. So they have different revenue share compared to both Apple / Google and consoles.
    - jimmydorry 5y ago
      The fixed cost of hosting a game is relatively fixed (providing a storefront, first level customer support, license management), and the part of the cost that scales but is still cheap (bandwidth is larger for bigger titles). However, there are many times more small indie titles than there are big successes, and it's the big titles that draw users to your platform and bring in the money. If Valve flipped their model, those indie titles would be even more of a net drain on their profitability, while there would be more incentive for the big titles to release on their own platforms.
TulliusCicero 5y ago
People look at companies too cynically here. While obviously Valve wants to make money, they also have a culture and values that don’t always align with a Homo Economicus perspective. Not all of Valve’s actions can be trivially explained as the fastest route to dollars. Unlike most companies we discuss here, Valve is not publicly held, and doesn’t seem particularly interested in being so. That, combined with their dominance of the PC gaming market, means their culture is more free to let them target things orthogonal to making money, when the whim strikes them.
- nindalf 5y ago
  They worry less about money because they have so much of it. Steam’s 30% cut of all game revenue is a lot. It’s different at companies that have to worry about making money. Speaking of which, there’s a lot of negative sentiment around these parts for Apple and Google taking 30% of their stores (“rent seeking”), but not so much around Valve for doing the same. Possibly because HN skews more towards app developers who pay fees to the former and less towards game developers.
  - ohgodplsno 5y ago
    Steam takes 30% under 10 million in sales, 25% under 50 million, 20% after that, and there's also internal agreements to lower that cut. That said, negative sentiment about Steam has been a heavy subject in years past. There's a reason Epic came in swinging with super low fees.
  - pie_flavor 5y ago
    With Steam, you get your money's worth. A user forum, a friends list and invitation system, Steam Workshop, extensive controller support, etc. The lack of any features other than the ability to deploy on the platform at all is what makes the App Store's cut rent seeking.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    Steam allows you to generate keys that you then sell (or give away) on other stores. With no cut for them (purely third-party information, I have no personal insight), but the same UX as if someone had bought it on Steam. That alone makes a huge difference and is nothing that either Apple or Google offer.

urthor 5y ago

Valve's principal line of business right now is utterly eradicating Epic Game Store from existence. Its tool for doing that is consumer sentiment. This all plays into Valve's business strategy. They're fighting to justify ye ole 30% cut.

jcastro 5y ago
The prescience of doing SteamOS/Steam Machines/Steam Controllers years before EGS seems to have paid off for them. (Eventually, and probably by accident, time will tell but the device seems to be pretty badass so far).
sennight 5y ago
> Its tool for doing that is consumer sentiment. That is the tool for basically doing anything productive as a business... it isn't as if they've done some about face at the emergence of genuine competition - they've always been unusually well liked (especially considering the industry).
- urthor 5y ago
  In contrast, a prominent thread about Adobe currently sits on the front page.
smoldesu 5y ago
Hey, if Apple released repair videos, device schematics, commit their translation tech and kernel development to upstream, maintained CI/CD pipelines for all major operating systems, built platform-agnostic hardware APIs for third-party vendors and built safe inroads for the modding/enthusiast community, I think their 30% wouldn't be so hard to swallow. All we got were some lame whitepapers instead.
SXX 5y ago
Valve already decreased it cut for highest-grossing titles to 25% (after $10 million in sales) or 20% (after $50 million in sales). And fortunately for Valve even 3 years after release Epic Games Store don't even have half of Steam features. Also Epic is so consumer-hostile (or as they call it pro-developer) that they won't ever implement player-reviews into their system. So it's not that hard for Valve for keep their mindshare. Far larger danger for them is Microsoft with it's Xbox game subscription model and unlimited amount of money.
- fragmede 5y ago
  That seems backwards. The vast majority of games aren't making $10mm, definitely not $50mm. Why take more money from the small indie developer?
  - nindalf 5y ago
    Because they can. Where are these small developers going to go? Itch.io, GOG, Epic, Humble? These are all options but it’s suicide to not list on the Steam store. Too many PC gamers use Steam exclusively. Meanwhile the large developers, the ones who are making $50M+, those developers have enough pull to make the user install a custom client like Origin. That’s why Valve cuts them a better deal.
  - SXX 5y ago
    Because they can and there are is no real competition. Epic Game Store so far is laughtable attempt at pumping money into user-hostile service that missing tons of features. For now the only good reason to release on EGS is Epic giving your company money. Disclosure: I work at small indie PC gamedev studio. I just point out how Valve changed rules for big companies back in 2018. So they have different revenue share compared to both Apple / Google and consoles.
  - jimmydorry 5y ago
    The fixed cost of hosting a game is relatively fixed (providing a storefront, first level customer support, license management), and the part of the cost that scales but is still cheap (bandwidth is larger for bigger titles). However, there are many times more small indie titles than there are big successes, and it's the big titles that draw users to your platform and bring in the money. If Valve flipped their model, those indie titles would be even more of a net drain on their profitability, while there would be more incentive for the big titles to release on their own platforms.

TulliusCicero 5y ago

People look at companies too cynically here. While obviously Valve wants to make money, they also have a culture and values that don’t always align with a Homo Economicus perspective. Not all of Valve’s actions can be trivially explained as the fastest route to dollars. Unlike most companies we discuss here, Valve is not publicly held, and doesn’t seem particularly interested in being so. That, combined with their dominance of the PC gaming market, means their culture is more free to let them target things orthogonal to making money, when the whim strikes them.

nindalf 5y ago
They worry less about money because they have so much of it. Steam’s 30% cut of all game revenue is a lot. It’s different at companies that have to worry about making money. Speaking of which, there’s a lot of negative sentiment around these parts for Apple and Google taking 30% of their stores (“rent seeking”), but not so much around Valve for doing the same. Possibly because HN skews more towards app developers who pay fees to the former and less towards game developers.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  Steam takes 30% under 10 million in sales, 25% under 50 million, 20% after that, and there's also internal agreements to lower that cut. That said, negative sentiment about Steam has been a heavy subject in years past. There's a reason Epic came in swinging with super low fees.
- pie_flavor 5y ago
  With Steam, you get your money's worth. A user forum, a friends list and invitation system, Steam Workshop, extensive controller support, etc. The lack of any features other than the ability to deploy on the platform at all is what makes the App Store's cut rent seeking.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  Steam allows you to generate keys that you then sell (or give away) on other stores. With no cut for them (purely third-party information, I have no personal insight), but the same UX as if someone had bought it on Steam. That alone makes a huge difference and is nothing that either Apple or Google offer.