5 ms·

I think Valve does have a reputation for having this type of model. They've famously expressed an intention to not go public or sell the company to anyone else.

I think Valve does have a reputation for having this type of model. They've famously expressed an intention to not go public or sell the company to anyone else. This is also what leads to them being a fairly small and selective company that can afford to cherry-pick employees, and that also has an allegedly more employee-friendly culture than others. Just like the recollection in the original post, they might have that "infinite abundance" mindset - their initiatives in game development, hardware and VR are probably subsidized by Steam many times over.

poisonborz 3y ago
I would argue that they made a really good early bet with Steam which rakes in enough profit that they can keep this (or whatever) mindset. They never really had competition in the PC space. If they would need to come up with new and better products each fiscal year they would look very different.
- Ntrails 3y ago
  I feel like you could have said the same about google or facebook. They made a dominant early platform and could have comfortably lived off that success? There are a bunch of companies trying to compete with valve. They are not behind any more of a moat than anyone else.
  - gloryjulio 3y ago
    For some reason steam is really just better than anything else combined. Maybe except gog as it's drm free
  - adrianN 3y ago
    Did Google or Facebook do anything that is not "living comfortably off early success"? AFAIK they had a very poor track record in monetizing anything they built in the last ten years or so.
    - lmm 3y ago
      I think that's their point. If Google or Facebook had stayed with a Valve-sized team and stuck to their knitting, would they really have made any less money?
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        Would this preclude buying Instagram? That was considered expensive at the time, but I think was a great buy for them and is a significant part of keeping Facebook competitive now and for the next half-decade. Facebook marketplace and groups are other successful (IMO) sub-products that might not get built if "stick to your knitting" was the mantra.
    - antupis 3y ago
      both had slump but I think Facebook has been much better shape after Zuck did layoffs and pivoted away from metaverse. Llama and Meta Smart Glasses both feel like groundbreaking products.
  - tigroferoce 3y ago
    I'd dare to say that Google is very bad at doing products. They tried so many times and almost always failed, the list of products killed by Google is huge, They really succeeded in search, maps and gmail; all of these products are engineering-first products, created in the early days. One might argue that YouTube and Android should go in that list, but I disagree. YouTube was acquired and it never managed to become something really big (it failed to compete with Netflix for video streaming, with Spotify for music and with TikTok for social network). Android also, was acquired and without a pletora of hardware vendor supporting it, it would have failed too (I'd say that Android without Samsung is nothing -- of course, it's big on embedded things, like cars or TVs, but it's not a world-wide product like gmail). And likewise it is failing in AI, against OpenAI, which looks like another engineering-first product.
    - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
      > YouTube was acquired and it never managed to become something really big Before YouTube there was Google Video, which was moderately successful (it was just that YouTube was more successful, so it got acquired).
      - tigroferoce 3y ago
        I strongly believe that Google Video would have been killed by Google long ago. They bought YouTube because they couldn't create it themselves. And they never managed to turn that into a real product, IMO. But there are just my opinions, of course.
    - PoignardAzur 3y ago
      Youtube failed to become something big? I think you've lost yourself in your argument a bit.
      - tigroferoce 3y ago
        It's not that it's not big. It's that it's not as big as it could be. It's not gmail-big or maps-big, at least for me. It is outclassed by many other, in their respective niches (video streaming, music, and social networking), and despite the huge efforts, Google never managed to turn it into a subscription-based service. It's not that it's not big, it's that it is not on the same level than maps or gmail, IMO.
  - indigochill 3y ago
    > There are a bunch of companies trying to compete with valve. What strikes me as a bit odd with relation to specifically competitors to the Valve client (essentially a game library and store rolled together), the competitors that come to mind are... * EA/Origin * Epic * Ubisoft EA and Ubisoft are only selling games they publish, IIRC. Epic sells games from other publishers, but always gives Fortnite preferential treatment (and has the Unreal Editor in its own tab in the client, or did last I paid attention). Valve is still by a large margin the only one that comes to mind that feels as close to a neutral store/library as you can find (even when they released Artifact and Alyx, neither of those were permanently pinned to the top like Fortnite is in the Epic store). Of course, developers can still buy preferential treatment, but it at least feels like you're competing with other developers and not "the house". I'm not making an argument that Valve's being anti-competitive here, just it's surprising to me how hard these competitors -aren't- trying to be a real competitor. I expect due to internal pressures from their respective game publishing branches.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      There’s GOG, but they seem more niche for retro/hardcore gamers.
      - indigochill 3y ago
        Ah, of course, I knew I was forgetting one. They did start that way although they've branched out since then. For example they sell Everspace 2, which is a much newer game. They actually might be my favorite since all the games they sell are DRM-free. You can download the installer of every one of their games locally and they'll run "forever" without any dependency on GOG or their Galaxy library app (unlike Steam). Though their selection is more limited since IIRC they manually review every game they list. However, even they tend to favor their "in-house" games (they're a sibling company of CDPR which developed the Witcher games and Cyberpunk 2077 and you'll frequently see those featured prominently there). Not as bad as Epic, though. More in the style of how Steam advertised Half Life 2 and Portal in the early days of Steam.
- LarsDu88 3y ago
  And yet they crank out new and innovative "products" every 4 years. So much so that they were essentially doing 90% of what Meta is trying to do now with 100x less people and budget. I think the real answer lies in the fact that at a public company, you will need to answer to shareholders, but at Valve, you actually need to answer to the whims of benevolent dictator Gabe Newell.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
    Valve also has much better hackers than Facebook.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      Since VR was mentioned tangentially, how many 'Valve hackers' is one John Carmack worth?
      - Aeolun 3y ago
        Zero, right now, as he’s not working with Facebook any more.
        Eisenstein 3y ago
        I guess everyone takes everything seriously now and there is no light banter anymore...
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        LarsDu88 3y ago
        Not only not working there, but distinctly said he left because he complained that too much money was being sent down the money hole and productivity per capita was abysmal
      - edgyquant 3y ago
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  Same can be said for a company like Microsoft or Google. They have their core products and milk cows for years. And Valve had plenty of competition and they knew their audience pretty well to make digital purchases something to consider for many. Plus, they simply have the better product.
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  Steam doesn’t exist without Valve’s catalog of games and especially Half-Life 2. Its continued success can’t be simple luck given how much competition they have, although at times it does seem like Microsoft, Google (Stadia), Epic, Ubisoft simply want Steam to win.
keyringlight 3y ago
Valve had the advantage of Newell/Harrington starting the company with a pile of money from being former MS staff, which gave them the ability to say "when it's done" for their first game. As the resulting first game was a hit and they didn't owe much (if anything) to their publisher Sierra [1], from that point on they've kept rolling the success forwards. Being a private company there's no details I'm aware of on how much has been taken out of the business, although Harrington left not long after Half-life. [1] I vaguely remember a legal dispute when Valve did release steam years later as Sierra were being cut out.
amadeuspagel 3y ago
There's a classic tweet I remember about Valve, about someone who finally learned who his boss was the day he fired him.
briffle 3y ago
I remember the forums (and slashdot comments) just hammering valve for thinking of creating steam and introducing DRM to their games, and that they would never, ever use it because of that. But Valve has had an awesome record of using it responsibly, and its kind of amazing I can log in, click and 60 seconds later be playing a game I bought in 2003.
EasyMark 3y ago
Mullvad ( a much smaller company) seems to have a similar set of goals and values. Not everything needs to be under the umbrella of a 800lb gorilla multinational. I hope that some of those entities can learn to be more creative rather than trying to reduce everything to something bean counters who need to report quarterly gains or get fired. It disincentivises taking risks at all.

poisonborz 3y ago

I would argue that they made a really good early bet with Steam which rakes in enough profit that they can keep this (or whatever) mindset. They never really had competition in the PC space. If they would need to come up with new and better products each fiscal year they would look very different.

Ntrails 3y ago
I feel like you could have said the same about google or facebook. They made a dominant early platform and could have comfortably lived off that success? There are a bunch of companies trying to compete with valve. They are not behind any more of a moat than anyone else.
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  For some reason steam is really just better than anything else combined. Maybe except gog as it's drm free
- adrianN 3y ago
  Did Google or Facebook do anything that is not "living comfortably off early success"? AFAIK they had a very poor track record in monetizing anything they built in the last ten years or so.
  - lmm 3y ago
    I think that's their point. If Google or Facebook had stayed with a Valve-sized team and stuck to their knitting, would they really have made any less money?
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      Would this preclude buying Instagram? That was considered expensive at the time, but I think was a great buy for them and is a significant part of keeping Facebook competitive now and for the next half-decade. Facebook marketplace and groups are other successful (IMO) sub-products that might not get built if "stick to your knitting" was the mantra.
  - antupis 3y ago
    both had slump but I think Facebook has been much better shape after Zuck did layoffs and pivoted away from metaverse. Llama and Meta Smart Glasses both feel like groundbreaking products.
- tigroferoce 3y ago
  I'd dare to say that Google is very bad at doing products. They tried so many times and almost always failed, the list of products killed by Google is huge, They really succeeded in search, maps and gmail; all of these products are engineering-first products, created in the early days. One might argue that YouTube and Android should go in that list, but I disagree. YouTube was acquired and it never managed to become something really big (it failed to compete with Netflix for video streaming, with Spotify for music and with TikTok for social network). Android also, was acquired and without a pletora of hardware vendor supporting it, it would have failed too (I'd say that Android without Samsung is nothing -- of course, it's big on embedded things, like cars or TVs, but it's not a world-wide product like gmail). And likewise it is failing in AI, against OpenAI, which looks like another engineering-first product.
  - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    > YouTube was acquired and it never managed to become something really big Before YouTube there was Google Video, which was moderately successful (it was just that YouTube was more successful, so it got acquired).
    - tigroferoce 3y ago
      I strongly believe that Google Video would have been killed by Google long ago. They bought YouTube because they couldn't create it themselves. And they never managed to turn that into a real product, IMO. But there are just my opinions, of course.
  - PoignardAzur 3y ago
    Youtube failed to become something big? I think you've lost yourself in your argument a bit.
    - tigroferoce 3y ago
      It's not that it's not big. It's that it's not as big as it could be. It's not gmail-big or maps-big, at least for me. It is outclassed by many other, in their respective niches (video streaming, music, and social networking), and despite the huge efforts, Google never managed to turn it into a subscription-based service. It's not that it's not big, it's that it is not on the same level than maps or gmail, IMO.
- indigochill 3y ago
  > There are a bunch of companies trying to compete with valve. What strikes me as a bit odd with relation to specifically competitors to the Valve client (essentially a game library and store rolled together), the competitors that come to mind are... * EA/Origin * Epic * Ubisoft EA and Ubisoft are only selling games they publish, IIRC. Epic sells games from other publishers, but always gives Fortnite preferential treatment (and has the Unreal Editor in its own tab in the client, or did last I paid attention). Valve is still by a large margin the only one that comes to mind that feels as close to a neutral store/library as you can find (even when they released Artifact and Alyx, neither of those were permanently pinned to the top like Fortnite is in the Epic store). Of course, developers can still buy preferential treatment, but it at least feels like you're competing with other developers and not "the house". I'm not making an argument that Valve's being anti-competitive here, just it's surprising to me how hard these competitors -aren't- trying to be a real competitor. I expect due to internal pressures from their respective game publishing branches.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    There’s GOG, but they seem more niche for retro/hardcore gamers.
    - indigochill 3y ago
      Ah, of course, I knew I was forgetting one. They did start that way although they've branched out since then. For example they sell Everspace 2, which is a much newer game. They actually might be my favorite since all the games they sell are DRM-free. You can download the installer of every one of their games locally and they'll run "forever" without any dependency on GOG or their Galaxy library app (unlike Steam). Though their selection is more limited since IIRC they manually review every game they list. However, even they tend to favor their "in-house" games (they're a sibling company of CDPR which developed the Witcher games and Cyberpunk 2077 and you'll frequently see those featured prominently there). Not as bad as Epic, though. More in the style of how Steam advertised Half Life 2 and Portal in the early days of Steam.
LarsDu88 3y ago
And yet they crank out new and innovative "products" every 4 years. So much so that they were essentially doing 90% of what Meta is trying to do now with 100x less people and budget. I think the real answer lies in the fact that at a public company, you will need to answer to shareholders, but at Valve, you actually need to answer to the whims of benevolent dictator Gabe Newell.
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
  Valve also has much better hackers than Facebook.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    Since VR was mentioned tangentially, how many 'Valve hackers' is one John Carmack worth?
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      Zero, right now, as he’s not working with Facebook any more.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        I guess everyone takes everything seriously now and there is no light banter anymore...
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - LarsDu88 3y ago
        Not only not working there, but distinctly said he left because he complained that too much money was being sent down the money hole and productivity per capita was abysmal
    - edgyquant 3y ago
raxxorraxor 3y ago
Same can be said for a company like Microsoft or Google. They have their core products and milk cows for years. And Valve had plenty of competition and they knew their audience pretty well to make digital purchases something to consider for many. Plus, they simply have the better product.
ShamelessC 3y ago
Steam doesn’t exist without Valve’s catalog of games and especially Half-Life 2. Its continued success can’t be simple luck given how much competition they have, although at times it does seem like Microsoft, Google (Stadia), Epic, Ubisoft simply want Steam to win.

keyringlight 3y ago

Valve had the advantage of Newell/Harrington starting the company with a pile of money from being former MS staff, which gave them the ability to say "when it's done" for their first game. As the resulting first game was a hit and they didn't owe much (if anything) to their publisher Sierra [1], from that point on they've kept rolling the success forwards. Being a private company there's no details I'm aware of on how much has been taken out of the business, although Harrington left not long after Half-life. [1] I vaguely remember a legal dispute when Valve did release steam years later as Sierra were being cut out.

amadeuspagel 3y ago

There's a classic tweet I remember about Valve, about someone who finally learned who his boss was the day he fired him.

briffle 3y ago

I remember the forums (and slashdot comments) just hammering valve for thinking of creating steam and introducing DRM to their games, and that they would never, ever use it because of that. But Valve has had an awesome record of using it responsibly, and its kind of amazing I can log in, click and 60 seconds later be playing a game I bought in 2003.

EasyMark 3y ago

Mullvad ( a much smaller company) seems to have a similar set of goals and values. Not everything needs to be under the umbrella of a 800lb gorilla multinational. I hope that some of those entities can learn to be more creative rather than trying to reduce everything to something bean counters who need to report quarterly gains or get fired. It disincentivises taking risks at all.