11 ms·
People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there. But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty to
by TulliusCicero 11mo ago
People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there.
But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty towards the consumer than other major companies in their space, by a long shot.
- asacrowflies 11mo agoThey even seem to be on of the rare companies that recognized the issues of this and massively pulled themselves BACK from these dark patterns. They seem to have major restraint and working to undo the evil..... imagine if a Activision blizzard had something like the steam market place for cards and gifts..... They would be full face in the cocaine to make it all WORSE and more egregious
- avhception 11mo agoWe really shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good here. Of course they have their faults, but I'll take Valve over any of the other players in their market all day every day without even thinking twice. EDIT: You're absolutely right, is what I'm trying to say.
- haunter 11mo ago>They even seem to be on of the rare companies that recognized the issues of this and massively pulled themselves BACK from these dark patterns ??? They didn't All the 3rd party trading and gambling sites are up and running on the Steam API. They didn't change anything at all
- nialv7 11mo agoValve is estimated to make $16.2 billion from Steam alone in 2025 [0], and CS:GO loot boxes only netted them ~1bn in 2023 [1] (and CS:GO player count is only slightly higher now compared to 2023, so I expected the income number is similar). Why don't they just take a 6% pay cut and make sure there is nothing to criticize them about :/ [0]: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-makes-almost-usd50-million-per-employee-raking-in-more-cash-per-person-than-google-amazon-or-microsoft-gaming-giants-350-employees-on-track-to-generate-usd17-billion-this-year https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-mak... [1]: https://csgocasetracker.com/blog/2023-Year-Review https://csgocasetracker.com/blog/2023-Year-Review
- jimbob45 11mo agoTo be fair, they may have just wrecked the CS lootbox economy permanently.
- ceedan 11mo agoThey need to keep wrecking it. Skins should just be fixed cost items.
- bigyabai 11mo agoDisagreed. Games like Fortnite and League of Legends went down this road and ended up at even more unfathomable $500 microtransactions. The only issue with skin trading is that people will take it more seriously than it is, which is a problem with all cosmetic systems.
- ceedan 11mo agoThere are huge gambling cultures around skins. All kinds of theft and scamming. There is no "only issue". There are tons of issues
- internet101010 11mo agoNah. Digital items should be transferable, similar to physical gacha like Pokemon cards.
- Qwertious 11mo agoThat doesn't mean they should be reliable speculation vehicles. AFAIK Valve hasn't interfered with the gifting of digital items, only sales.
- SchemaLoad 11mo agoIt was getting out of control when tiktok "investment guides" were instructing people who don't even play the game to start buying CS skins to make a profit.
- xbmcuser 11mo agoThe major reason is they are a private company with good business. The don't have a need to keep adding to shareholder value ie stock price instead just need to generate a yearly income. We have reached a point where the shareholders are a companies real customers and that is who they all try to attract.Everytthing else a company does is just to attract shareholders
- nish__ 11mo agoExactly. Going public is like leaving your baby to be raised by wolves.
- londons_explore 11mo agoIf you IPO but the founders still have more than half the voting rights, you can fully ignore the public in all your decision making and there is nothing the other shareholders can do.
- consp 11mo agoCan't they sue you out of control? Fiduciary duty and all?
- londons_explore 11mo agoIf you employed your cousin on a huge wage, probably yes. But if you're just running the company 'badly' (in the shareholders eyes), probably no.
- triceratops 11mo agoFiduciary duty means "put the shareholders' interests above yours". Not "make the shareholders more and more money no matter what".
- triceratops 11mo agoOnly kind of. The most obvious examples are big tech companies such as Meta or Alphabet. But they pay their employees in RSUs. If the stock price falls employees make less money and can be lured away.
- MattDaEskimo 11mo agoLet's be honest about this current situation. Valve pushing for Linux gaming is for survival, not charity. Windows is closing in on them: stricter kernel access (tougher time for anti-cheat) Encouraging users to use the app store, or more accurately: discouraging users to install from binary They threaten Valve's business model, and Valve is responding with proton & SteamOS
- eecc 11mo agoWhy is it though. Just release a SteamOS with Secure Boot enabled and you’re done. It’s really simple
- sheepscreek 11mo agoYour argument doesn’t make any sense. What does this have to do with supporting Arm chips? It’s not like AMD and Intel are waging a war against Valve. If anything Steam helps them by strengthening the PC gaming market, leading to higher CPU/GPU sales.
- lallysingh 11mo agoSlowly getting their stuff independent of wintel gives a lot of flexibility. And the big gaming market's on phones / tablets. A steam controller could find itself paired to an iPad running steam in a year or two.
- Miraste 11mo agoWe're too far into the grip of monopolies for that. Apple would never let a full version of Steam run on iPads. Google wouldn't either. I think more ARM Valve hardware is likely.
- sheepscreek 11mo agoThe only play I see here is a legitimate Valve console to take on XBOX and Sony. Plus Arm on a Steam Deck would improve the battery life considerably (assuming they are able to integrate with some powerful GPU solution).
- johnnyanmac 11mo agoI still put them in the same box as Apple until they fix the price parity and/or adjust their cut. Even Apple is finally having their hand forced there. They are relatively better, but we still need to keep monopolies accountable. Valve is just smart enough to remember what worked 30-40 years ago compared to the rampant greed these days.
- LtWorf 11mo agoThe difference is that you aren't forced to buy a game from steam.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- johnnyanmac 11mo agoYou're not forced to buy an Iphone. You also weren't forced back in the day to use Internet explorer. We should remember our history so we aren't doomed to repeat it.
- LtWorf 11mo agoYou are forced to have a phone and there's only 2 bad choices.
- johnnyanmac 11mo agoTechnically 3. Not much different from the Desktop situation. Just replace Microsoft with Google because Microsoft had the grace to bow out early. Similar to desktop, I choose the middle ground between true freedom and walled garden. At least you Can de-googlefy 95% of Android. More than you can de-microsoft Windows.
- LtWorf 11mo ago3?
- michaelbuckbee 11mo agoEven there, didn't they recently make some changes to the CS go skins ecosystem to devalue much of the aftermarket sales.
- enedil 11mo agoDon't forget GoG which is an alternative game store with a strong anti-DRM stance (all the games there are DRM free).
- 5d41402abc4b 11mo agoSteam makes installing windows games easy. With GoG i would need to setup wine myself.
- M95D 11mo ago^ The essence of why we're doomed.
- LinXitoW 11mo agoBecause Steam gives customers useful features that are good? GoG should also directly support Linux.
- M95D 11mo ago> GoG should also directly support Linux. GOG is an online shop. It shouldn't support anything but browsers, bank cards and download managers.
- monerozcash 11mo agoThe charitable interpretation here is that GOG should ship linux binaries, whether native or wine-wrapped installers. This would be a perfectly reasonable ask despite GOG being a webshop that only supports browsers.
- M95D 11mo agoWine wrapped installers for ... which distro? They ship a shell script that extracts the linux game binaries to user's home dir. Works on all linuxes. GOG ships what's available. If game devs never made any linux binaries, then there won't be any linux binaries. What? You expected GOG to make a linux port of the game? Games with wine don't require any special installers. Just open the wine desktop and install the windows game from there, like any other windows program you use in Linux. If you think that's too hard, then get a PS/Xbox and see my original reply, the one with the "we're doomed". BTW, you can set up your linux to directly execute Windows binaries using binfmt_misc, but that may also be too hard for some...
- anilakar 11mo agoWhen you're skimming 30 % off worldwide PC game purchases you can afford to do that.
- kryogen1c 11mo ago> gambling/loot box [...] legit ethical concerns I've never understood this argument. Dopaminergic and attention pathways/systems are under full assault from every angle, and parents give their 6 year olds phones, and people take a moral stance against... loot boxes? Thats like taking a moral stance against flavors in alcohol. I kinda think youre missing the point.