4 ms·

Valve 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 sl

by nialv7 11mo ago

Valve 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 ago
To be fair, they may have just wrecked the CS lootbox economy permanently.
- ceedan 11mo ago
  They need to keep wrecking it. Skins should just be fixed cost items.
  - bigyabai 11mo ago
    Disagreed. 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 10mo ago
      There are huge gambling cultures around skins. All kinds of theft and scamming. There is no "only issue". There are tons of issues
  - internet101010 11mo ago
    Nah. Digital items should be transferable, similar to physical gacha like Pokemon cards.
    - Qwertious 10mo ago
      That doesn't mean they should be reliable speculation vehicles. AFAIK Valve hasn't interfered with the gifting of digital items, only sales.
- SchemaLoad 11mo ago
  It 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.
TulliusCicero 11mo ago
There's an argument that loot boxes that give you cosmetics just aren't that big of a deal, at least if we're talking about adults. Especially since Magic the Gathering and similar card games are very normalized, and have a straightforwardly more evil monetization strategy, since you need to do gambling there to even play the game, it's not cosmetic. There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?" It's a clear double standard, and I've never heard an actually good explanation for it that makes it sound justifiable. edit: The other thing is that the people blowing money on cosmetics gambling fund the game such that all the core gameplay stuff in Dota and CS and be totally free for the average player, and that's pretty great for a lot of consumers. It's not exactly the same yet since Deadlock isn't being monetized yet, but I've spent hundreds of hours in the game having a blast for free, I can't give Valve money even if I want to, and that buys a fair amount of goodwill from me.
- saghm 11mo ago
  > There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?" It's a clear double standard, and I've never heard an actually good explanation for it that makes it sound justifiable. The closest I've heard to something compelling is that the digital goods aren't the same as actual physical goods, and that somehow that makes it worse, but I still don't find it particularly compelling; I've heard people (often lovingly) refer to trading cards as "cardboard crack" explicitly to joke about how ridiculous it is to be paying for stuff that's essentially just ink and paper.
- lallysingh 11mo ago
  I always interpreted that as cosmetics are OK because it doesn't make the game unfair. You can't buy advancement in the game that way. Subsidizing the game's devel/ops cost isn't a bad thing. Especially if it's optional and doesn't change the game.
  - TulliusCicero 11mo ago
    Very few people have a problem with just paying for cosmetics in a game. The main issue here is that it's gambling for cosmetics, rather than straightforwardly purchasing specific items.
jaggederest 11mo ago
I'd guess that there's markedly different margins on lootboxes versus running the entire steam store. I'd be surprised if lootboxes only earned them 6% of profits, I'd guess they're something like 10% or more, assuming that they're like 90% margin and the regular steam store side is more like 50% margin (which is still absurd, for what it's worth).
xboxnolifes 11mo ago
Because a billion dollars is still a billion dollars.
gishh 11mo ago
Valve selling skins is just so trivial relative to dopamine-inducing doom-scrolling, social media in general, the toxicity of the news cycle, I can keep going. It would be super democrat-american to address valves loot boxes before, say, fucking healthcare. We need a government priority Jira board of things that need to be addressed. Loot boxes _might_ make the backlog.

by nialv7 11mo ago

jimbob45 11mo ago

To be fair, they may have just wrecked the CS lootbox economy permanently.

ceedan 11mo ago
They need to keep wrecking it. Skins should just be fixed cost items.
- bigyabai 11mo ago
  Disagreed. 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 10mo ago
    There are huge gambling cultures around skins. All kinds of theft and scamming. There is no "only issue". There are tons of issues
- internet101010 11mo ago
  Nah. Digital items should be transferable, similar to physical gacha like Pokemon cards.
  - Qwertious 10mo ago
    That doesn't mean they should be reliable speculation vehicles. AFAIK Valve hasn't interfered with the gifting of digital items, only sales.
SchemaLoad 11mo ago
It 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.

TulliusCicero 11mo ago

There's an argument that loot boxes that give you cosmetics just aren't that big of a deal, at least if we're talking about adults. Especially since Magic the Gathering and similar card games are very normalized, and have a straightforwardly more evil monetization strategy, since you need to do gambling there to even play the game, it's not cosmetic. There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?" It's a clear double standard, and I've never heard an actually good explanation for it that makes it sound justifiable. edit: The other thing is that the people blowing money on cosmetics gambling fund the game such that all the core gameplay stuff in Dota and CS and be totally free for the average player, and that's pretty great for a lot of consumers. It's not exactly the same yet since Deadlock isn't being monetized yet, but I've spent hundreds of hours in the game having a blast for free, I can't give Valve money even if I want to, and that buys a fair amount of goodwill from me.

saghm 11mo ago
> There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?" It's a clear double standard, and I've never heard an actually good explanation for it that makes it sound justifiable. The closest I've heard to something compelling is that the digital goods aren't the same as actual physical goods, and that somehow that makes it worse, but I still don't find it particularly compelling; I've heard people (often lovingly) refer to trading cards as "cardboard crack" explicitly to joke about how ridiculous it is to be paying for stuff that's essentially just ink and paper.
lallysingh 11mo ago
I always interpreted that as cosmetics are OK because it doesn't make the game unfair. You can't buy advancement in the game that way. Subsidizing the game's devel/ops cost isn't a bad thing. Especially if it's optional and doesn't change the game.
- TulliusCicero 11mo ago
  Very few people have a problem with just paying for cosmetics in a game. The main issue here is that it's gambling for cosmetics, rather than straightforwardly purchasing specific items.

jaggederest 11mo ago

I'd guess that there's markedly different margins on lootboxes versus running the entire steam store. I'd be surprised if lootboxes only earned them 6% of profits, I'd guess they're something like 10% or more, assuming that they're like 90% margin and the regular steam store side is more like 50% margin (which is still absurd, for what it's worth).

xboxnolifes 11mo ago

Because a billion dollars is still a billion dollars.

gishh 11mo ago

Valve selling skins is just so trivial relative to dopamine-inducing doom-scrolling, social media in general, the toxicity of the news cycle, I can keep going. It would be super democrat-american to address valves loot boxes before, say, fucking healthcare. We need a government priority Jira board of things that need to be addressed. Loot boxes _might_ make the backlog.