4 ms·

Valve gets a lot of heat for slowing down on first party gaming content, but I think Steam has been a net positive for the gaming community. There are certainly

Valve gets a lot of heat for slowing down on first party gaming content, but I think Steam has been a net positive for the gaming community. There are certainly some cases where the accessibility has created "noise" and other trouble, but overall I think this is a good thing. Their 30% cut is absolutely justified once you start looking into everything they do for you as a developer and the market that you have access to. It is a lot easier to pay that kind of fee when you don't feel like your technology partners actively hate the fact that you merely exist. Steam is still like what Netflix used to be. You have pretty much everything you care about in one place. Even big monster AAA developers like EA have given up and put their content on the platform. If I had to pick between having HL3 and a coherent gaming ecosystem, I'd pick the latter.

andyferris 1y ago
It interests me that it needs to be an "or". A HL3 team could essentially function as an independent studio using the Steam platform, with some funding thrown from Valve. Assuming the ROI is positive what exactly is holding them back?
- wiseowise 1y ago
  > Assuming the ROI is positive what exactly is holding them back? Absurd expectations.
- Lanolderen 1y ago
  They want it to be good? Throwing it at a third party sounds like a good way to get a meh game and then have to release it since you've already spent X$ on it.
- ekianjo 1y ago
  > Assuming the ROI is positive what exactly is holding them back? The Google problem where every project that is not Search has a much worse ROI.
  - jsheard 1y ago
    Yep, and that applies to Valve at two levels because Steam dwarfs the ROI of their games, and their forever-games like Counter Strike dwarf the ROI of any singleplayer game they'd ever be able to make. It's a miracle they even got Alyx out of the door, that was a special case since it was part of their larger VR initiative.
    - ekianjo 1y ago
      And Alyx was probably a huge failure, ROI wise, because nobody buys VR headsets. I know, not "nobody", but by far and large it has remained a super niche market.
- davidbanham 1y ago
  That’s what they did for CS:GO, developed by Hidden Path.
- account42 1y ago
  They did try that, Episode 4 was being developed by Arkane. Unfortunately 4 comes after 3 which never happened.
Panzer04 1y ago
The other things is steam doesn't constrain competition (afaik? Open to being wrong but this is how I'd understood it). Devs can sell their own games, games can be on other platforms, etc. Despite that gamers think it's worth the convenience and utilities steam provides to keep shopping there. Steam isn't dominant because it's strangling competition like the app store and similar. People can trivially download alternatives, but they choose steam anyway.
- Cyph0n 1y ago
  Yet for some reason, people still use Steam as a “gotcha” to justify why Apple’s terms are fair. But as you’ve hinted at, Steam is very different from the iOS App Store because it is competing organically with other app stores on Windows. Steam does not control Windows or the hardware, so it cannot “force” itself to be the only option to download games on Windows. And even when it does have full control over the platform and HW (Steam Deck), it’s just a light wrapper around a standard Linux distro (Arch).
- ThatPlayer 1y ago
  Steam is currently being sued by Wolfire for being anti-competitive by allegedly having a "platform most-favored-nations" clause. Preventing games on other platforms from being priced lower. According to the developer: > [Valve] would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM. > I believe that other developers who charged lower prices on other stores have been contacted by Valve, telling them that their games will be removed from Steam if they did not raise their prices on competing stores. https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/ https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-cla...
  - Hikikomori 1y ago
    Its not true. You're allowed to sell for lower elsewhere, but you can't sell steam keys for a lower price than steam store. So if you create a version of your game that works without steam you can sell that for a lower price.
bsjaux628 1y ago
Do we also point out being the first to implement DRM and erode digital ownership, being the first to tie game installation to a platform client, creating micro transactions or being fine with child gambling (CS skins) in the net negatives, or are we not allowed to criticize Lord Gabel today?
- terribleperson 1y ago
  The gambling is the only thing I think you can reasonably attack them for. They didn't create microtransactions, those had already been figured out in Korea. The DRM was necessary for Steam to be palatable to publishers (and it's always been more of a pro-forma thing than a real attempt at DRM like Denuvo), and a world without Steam would absolutely have seen per-publisher e-shops that would also have DRM. Tying game installation to a game client... again, that was a 'when' not an 'if', and they weren't even the first. If I recall, you had to install a client to install Wild Tangent games. The client was also, arguably, malware.
AddLightness 1y ago
I'm very scared about the future though. What happens when Gabe is gone? The entire PC Gaming industry is essentially locked in to a single platform. If Steam decided to charge $10/mo people have so much invested into their libraries they would likely do it. What about $20 or $30 per month? I'm not sure why Steam always seems to be exempt from the "perils of digital ownership" arguments
- newsclues 1y ago
  Microsoft/xBox are waiting to buy Valve.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised, especially after eventually there is a management change. Most folks aren't keeping tabs on how many studios Microsoft nowadays owns as publisher, even moreso after the ABK deal.
    - jayd16 1y ago
      Easier to track the ones they don't own and that's almost not a joke.
- markus_zhang 1y ago
  I’d just quietly turn to GoG and download all of my games just in case. But anyway I’m no longer that interested in games now. Reality is more challenging and fun.
- Hendrikto 1y ago
  > I'm not sure why Steam always seems to be exempt from the "perils of digital ownership" arguments Because they have been consistently good citizens for more than 2 decades. They built a reputation. Something other companies are eager to piss away at the first opportunity to sell out or squeeze their customers. It’s not surprising that Valve is successful and trusted with this approach. What is surprising is that it is apparently so incredibly hard for other companies to understand this very simple fact. 1. Build a good product. 2. Consistently act in good faith. 3. Profit.
SXX 1y ago
As consumer I very much agree with you, but as game developer 30% is abysmal amount of money. Imagine you're indie developer or owner of a small 3-10 people studio that finally released reasonably successful game: 1 - Let's say you invested $100,000 of your own money for vertical slice and managed to find a publisher to give you $200,000 to complete the game. 2 - Ignore that you had some failed games before, but this time you let's say sold 100,000 copies for $10 each average. 100k sold is a big success really. But here is the math: 1 - Valve got $1,000,000 as gross revenue for 100,000 sales. 2 - Usually 16% is VAT and immenient refunds. So now $840,000 left. 3 - Now Valve took their 30% cut. $588,000 left. 4 - Now your publisher took $200,000 to recoup invested money. $388,000 left. 5 - Now publisher split remaining $388,000 by honest 50/50. Now your company sold 100,000 copies of a game, but only get $194,000 gross income as royalties. And if you will make any profit you'll likely pay at least 20% corporate or divident taxes so yeah at best your profit gonna be $155,000. So you did all the work, somehow managed to fund it, worked on game for a year and got $155,000 while Valve made $252,000 for payment processing and CDN. Steam do not provide marketing - it only boost already successful products. PS: This is best case scenario. Usually your publisher will also recoup whatever expenses they had on their end for marketing and whatever.
- TheFreim 1y ago
  I would note that they do provide quite an immense amount of value to developers. Achievements, transferable inventory system, multi-player (steam networking), among other things. The 30% cut still feels high, especially since most games can't or won't take advantage of every single service Steam provides, but I do think they provide quite a bit of developer value that needs to be factored in.
  - SXX 1y ago
    You really missing my point here. Problem with platforms is that platform-holders are taking bigger cut from a small struggling companies than they take from likes of EA or Ubisoft. If you look at majority of small and mid-size game development studios Valve is basically taking half of their income unless your game earns more than $10,000,000. It's totally okay to like Valve or Steam as gamer. As fellow gamers I totally agree with you. Just next time when you wonder why you favorite studio went bankrupt or why you niche genre game never got a sequel this is why: because some monopoly took 50% of their profit.
YesBox 1y ago
> Their 30% cut is absolutely justified That is debatable. For one thing, Steam is partly (mostly?) built off the backs of games marketing their games and providing a Steam link (marketing costs money for the devs). Steam kick started this chicken/egg problem by creating their own great games first. Second, Steam does not provide your game any marketing (algorithmic visibility) unless it's already successfully marketed outside of Steam (marketing is not free), and again later once it hits a certain number of sales. Third, per Tim Sweeney, games during the retail era had a bigger margin for the the studios than they do today [1] [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqLdjlgf/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqL... edit: So I do feel a little upset that Steam gets free marketing for every game put on the site (important note you can (and should in most cases) place your game up on the site long before its ready to purchase, and steam will advertise other games on your page), doesnt provide any marketing in return (via the discovery queue) unless you bring in tens or hundreds of thousands of clicks, and then turns around and skims 30% of all my work which they are greatly benefiting from (e.g. what if the customer goes to my page, wish lists my game, then purchased a different game in the mean time? At least e.g. amazon has referral links)
- keyringlight 1y ago
  I think there's a lot of weirdness if you try to answer "what is the PC gaming platform?" and how Valve or anyone else fits into it, and because it's PC a lot of answers can be true simultaneously, and many different users want/expect different things. Is it processor architecture? Is it the OS? Is it the store and whatever facilities they provide? Is it the mode of physical interaction with the device (desk, couch+TV, etc)? Is it being able to assemble any random collection of hardware and expecting it to work? Does that discount set builds? Is it mandatory that the user is free to screw around with the software any way they please or can you lock stuff down? At least on the commerce side, it's been the case since steam was opened up to third parties that they were the gatekeeper for success unless you were already huge (and now very few companies want to go it alone). Going back to Introversion's Darwinia they were just scraping by until they got on steam, developers have long been complaining that the varied methods Valve has used to get on the store (manual review, greenlight, etc) showed the vast majority of gamers only purchase through it or that you'll get a large wave of new business when you release on it. Now it seems like a 'tragedy of the commons' situation unless you've got your own marketing or it's a hobby project. It seems like you've now got to do mental gymnastics to say Valve doesn't own the PC gaming platform
hamdingers 1y ago
> I think Steam has been a net positive for the gaming community This is probably true on balance, but needs to be tempered with the reality that they also pioneered or popularized many of the worst parts of modern gaming. Always-on DRM, paid DLC, loot boxes and exploitive monetization, esports gambling (indirectly, they were complicit until legal pressure forced them not to be), FOMO monetization, "early access" and launching incomplete games, etc. All exist in their modern forms at least in part due to Valve. Disclaimer: I'm a valve fanboy who buys all their first party software and hardware. They still put out great products despite the ways they've changed gaming for the worse.
- SXX 1y ago
  Valve did not do anything for Always-on DRM other than allowing it to exist on platform. On Steam itself DRM barely exists.
  - account42 1y ago
    Steam's DRM may be trivial to circumvent technically but the legal situation is clear: you do not own what you buy on Steam, you cannot resell it, cannot gift it to your friends once you are done, you cannot leave it to your heirs. And no, you don't have any guarantees that you yourself still have access to it tomorrow.
    - SXX 1y ago
      Technically Steam itself dont enforce any DRM on any games. Period. Unfortunately legal situation is not that different on any platform. GOG gives you offline installers and avoid technical DRM measures in all games, but that's about it - all other things you listed are still missing.
account42 1y ago
It'd rather gaming was where Netflix used to be before the Netflix you are thinking about - physical releases that you can actually own instead of being eternally beholden to a service provider.

andyferris 1y ago

It interests me that it needs to be an "or". A HL3 team could essentially function as an independent studio using the Steam platform, with some funding thrown from Valve. Assuming the ROI is positive what exactly is holding them back?

wiseowise 1y ago
> Assuming the ROI is positive what exactly is holding them back? Absurd expectations.
Lanolderen 1y ago
They want it to be good? Throwing it at a third party sounds like a good way to get a meh game and then have to release it since you've already spent X$ on it.
ekianjo 1y ago
> Assuming the ROI is positive what exactly is holding them back? The Google problem where every project that is not Search has a much worse ROI.
- jsheard 1y ago
  Yep, and that applies to Valve at two levels because Steam dwarfs the ROI of their games, and their forever-games like Counter Strike dwarf the ROI of any singleplayer game they'd ever be able to make. It's a miracle they even got Alyx out of the door, that was a special case since it was part of their larger VR initiative.
  - ekianjo 1y ago
    And Alyx was probably a huge failure, ROI wise, because nobody buys VR headsets. I know, not "nobody", but by far and large it has remained a super niche market.
davidbanham 1y ago
That’s what they did for CS:GO, developed by Hidden Path.
account42 1y ago
They did try that, Episode 4 was being developed by Arkane. Unfortunately 4 comes after 3 which never happened.

Panzer04 1y ago

The other things is steam doesn't constrain competition (afaik? Open to being wrong but this is how I'd understood it). Devs can sell their own games, games can be on other platforms, etc. Despite that gamers think it's worth the convenience and utilities steam provides to keep shopping there. Steam isn't dominant because it's strangling competition like the app store and similar. People can trivially download alternatives, but they choose steam anyway.

Cyph0n 1y ago
Yet for some reason, people still use Steam as a “gotcha” to justify why Apple’s terms are fair. But as you’ve hinted at, Steam is very different from the iOS App Store because it is competing organically with other app stores on Windows. Steam does not control Windows or the hardware, so it cannot “force” itself to be the only option to download games on Windows. And even when it does have full control over the platform and HW (Steam Deck), it’s just a light wrapper around a standard Linux distro (Arch).
ThatPlayer 1y ago
Steam is currently being sued by Wolfire for being anti-competitive by allegedly having a "platform most-favored-nations" clause. Preventing games on other platforms from being priced lower. According to the developer: > [Valve] would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM. > I believe that other developers who charged lower prices on other stores have been contacted by Valve, telling them that their games will be removed from Steam if they did not raise their prices on competing stores. https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/ https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-cla...
- Hikikomori 1y ago
  Its not true. You're allowed to sell for lower elsewhere, but you can't sell steam keys for a lower price than steam store. So if you create a version of your game that works without steam you can sell that for a lower price.

bsjaux628 1y ago

Do we also point out being the first to implement DRM and erode digital ownership, being the first to tie game installation to a platform client, creating micro transactions or being fine with child gambling (CS skins) in the net negatives, or are we not allowed to criticize Lord Gabel today?

terribleperson 1y ago
The gambling is the only thing I think you can reasonably attack them for. They didn't create microtransactions, those had already been figured out in Korea. The DRM was necessary for Steam to be palatable to publishers (and it's always been more of a pro-forma thing than a real attempt at DRM like Denuvo), and a world without Steam would absolutely have seen per-publisher e-shops that would also have DRM. Tying game installation to a game client... again, that was a 'when' not an 'if', and they weren't even the first. If I recall, you had to install a client to install Wild Tangent games. The client was also, arguably, malware.

AddLightness 1y ago

I'm very scared about the future though. What happens when Gabe is gone? The entire PC Gaming industry is essentially locked in to a single platform. If Steam decided to charge $10/mo people have so much invested into their libraries they would likely do it. What about $20 or $30 per month? I'm not sure why Steam always seems to be exempt from the "perils of digital ownership" arguments

newsclues 1y ago
Microsoft/xBox are waiting to buy Valve.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised, especially after eventually there is a management change. Most folks aren't keeping tabs on how many studios Microsoft nowadays owns as publisher, even moreso after the ABK deal.
  - jayd16 1y ago
    Easier to track the ones they don't own and that's almost not a joke.
markus_zhang 1y ago
I’d just quietly turn to GoG and download all of my games just in case. But anyway I’m no longer that interested in games now. Reality is more challenging and fun.
Hendrikto 1y ago
> I'm not sure why Steam always seems to be exempt from the "perils of digital ownership" arguments Because they have been consistently good citizens for more than 2 decades. They built a reputation. Something other companies are eager to piss away at the first opportunity to sell out or squeeze their customers. It’s not surprising that Valve is successful and trusted with this approach. What is surprising is that it is apparently so incredibly hard for other companies to understand this very simple fact. 1. Build a good product. 2. Consistently act in good faith. 3. Profit.

SXX 1y ago

As consumer I very much agree with you, but as game developer 30% is abysmal amount of money. Imagine you're indie developer or owner of a small 3-10 people studio that finally released reasonably successful game: 1 - Let's say you invested $100,000 of your own money for vertical slice and managed to find a publisher to give you $200,000 to complete the game. 2 - Ignore that you had some failed games before, but this time you let's say sold 100,000 copies for $10 each average. 100k sold is a big success really. But here is the math: 1 - Valve got $1,000,000 as gross revenue for 100,000 sales. 2 - Usually 16% is VAT and immenient refunds. So now $840,000 left. 3 - Now Valve took their 30% cut. $588,000 left. 4 - Now your publisher took $200,000 to recoup invested money. $388,000 left. 5 - Now publisher split remaining $388,000 by honest 50/50. Now your company sold 100,000 copies of a game, but only get $194,000 gross income as royalties. And if you will make any profit you'll likely pay at least 20% corporate or divident taxes so yeah at best your profit gonna be $155,000. So you did all the work, somehow managed to fund it, worked on game for a year and got $155,000 while Valve made $252,000 for payment processing and CDN. Steam do not provide marketing - it only boost already successful products. PS: This is best case scenario. Usually your publisher will also recoup whatever expenses they had on their end for marketing and whatever.

TheFreim 1y ago
I would note that they do provide quite an immense amount of value to developers. Achievements, transferable inventory system, multi-player (steam networking), among other things. The 30% cut still feels high, especially since most games can't or won't take advantage of every single service Steam provides, but I do think they provide quite a bit of developer value that needs to be factored in.
- SXX 1y ago
  You really missing my point here. Problem with platforms is that platform-holders are taking bigger cut from a small struggling companies than they take from likes of EA or Ubisoft. If you look at majority of small and mid-size game development studios Valve is basically taking half of their income unless your game earns more than $10,000,000. It's totally okay to like Valve or Steam as gamer. As fellow gamers I totally agree with you. Just next time when you wonder why you favorite studio went bankrupt or why you niche genre game never got a sequel this is why: because some monopoly took 50% of their profit.

YesBox 1y ago

> Their 30% cut is absolutely justified That is debatable. For one thing, Steam is partly (mostly?) built off the backs of games marketing their games and providing a Steam link (marketing costs money for the devs). Steam kick started this chicken/egg problem by creating their own great games first. Second, Steam does not provide your game any marketing (algorithmic visibility) unless it's already successfully marketed outside of Steam (marketing is not free), and again later once it hits a certain number of sales. Third, per Tim Sweeney, games during the retail era had a bigger margin for the the studios than they do today [1] [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqLdjlgf/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqL... edit: So I do feel a little upset that Steam gets free marketing for every game put on the site (important note you can (and should in most cases) place your game up on the site long before its ready to purchase, and steam will advertise other games on your page), doesnt provide any marketing in return (via the discovery queue) unless you bring in tens or hundreds of thousands of clicks, and then turns around and skims 30% of all my work which they are greatly benefiting from (e.g. what if the customer goes to my page, wish lists my game, then purchased a different game in the mean time? At least e.g. amazon has referral links)

keyringlight 1y ago
I think there's a lot of weirdness if you try to answer "what is the PC gaming platform?" and how Valve or anyone else fits into it, and because it's PC a lot of answers can be true simultaneously, and many different users want/expect different things. Is it processor architecture? Is it the OS? Is it the store and whatever facilities they provide? Is it the mode of physical interaction with the device (desk, couch+TV, etc)? Is it being able to assemble any random collection of hardware and expecting it to work? Does that discount set builds? Is it mandatory that the user is free to screw around with the software any way they please or can you lock stuff down? At least on the commerce side, it's been the case since steam was opened up to third parties that they were the gatekeeper for success unless you were already huge (and now very few companies want to go it alone). Going back to Introversion's Darwinia they were just scraping by until they got on steam, developers have long been complaining that the varied methods Valve has used to get on the store (manual review, greenlight, etc) showed the vast majority of gamers only purchase through it or that you'll get a large wave of new business when you release on it. Now it seems like a 'tragedy of the commons' situation unless you've got your own marketing or it's a hobby project. It seems like you've now got to do mental gymnastics to say Valve doesn't own the PC gaming platform

hamdingers 1y ago

> I think Steam has been a net positive for the gaming community This is probably true on balance, but needs to be tempered with the reality that they also pioneered or popularized many of the worst parts of modern gaming. Always-on DRM, paid DLC, loot boxes and exploitive monetization, esports gambling (indirectly, they were complicit until legal pressure forced them not to be), FOMO monetization, "early access" and launching incomplete games, etc. All exist in their modern forms at least in part due to Valve. Disclaimer: I'm a valve fanboy who buys all their first party software and hardware. They still put out great products despite the ways they've changed gaming for the worse.

SXX 1y ago
Valve did not do anything for Always-on DRM other than allowing it to exist on platform. On Steam itself DRM barely exists.
- account42 1y ago
  Steam's DRM may be trivial to circumvent technically but the legal situation is clear: you do not own what you buy on Steam, you cannot resell it, cannot gift it to your friends once you are done, you cannot leave it to your heirs. And no, you don't have any guarantees that you yourself still have access to it tomorrow.
  - SXX 1y ago
    Technically Steam itself dont enforce any DRM on any games. Period. Unfortunately legal situation is not that different on any platform. GOG gives you offline installers and avoid technical DRM measures in all games, but that's about it - all other things you listed are still missing.

account42 1y ago

It'd rather gaming was where Netflix used to be before the Netflix you are thinking about - physical releases that you can actually own instead of being eternally beholden to a service provider.