6 ms·
We let kids gamble so much money in games that they don't have to nickel and dime the adults.
by benoau 6mo ago
We let kids gamble so much money in games that they don't have to nickel and dime the adults.
- franga2000 6mo agoThat's true now, but Valve has been like this since the start, way before skins and microtransactions.
- bitmasher9 6mo agoYou’re ignoring how much of a role the TF2 hats played in pushing microtransaction skins. Steam came out in 2003. TF2 hats came out in 2009. It’s lived in the world of micro transactions way longer than it lived in the before times.
- regularfry 6mo ago2013 rather than 2009, I think? The pyro dropped in 2010, and I'm pretty certain hats came later.
- Polycryptus 6mo agoI'd call crates the beginning, and those came with the Mann-conomy update in 2010.
- georgeecollins 6mo agoI think you are blaming Valve for forces way beyond Valve's control. Valve isn't perfect, but it is a way better steward for PC gaming and PC gamers than any other American tech company would be.
- Cpoll 6mo agoIt's harder to say that when they invented loot crates. Sure everyone's doing it now, and someone else would've done it eventually, but Valve pioneered it. I suppose, yeah, some things would be a lot worse without Steam, so there's that.
- Melatonic 6mo agoYou could also argue loot crates are just the digital version of Pokémon card packs
- perryprog 6mo agoYou could, but that doesn't make /either/ an acceptable to market towards kids.
- georgeecollins 6mo agoYeah, because that would be like selling packs of baseball cards to kids with enticements like chewing gum, a practice that was outlawed in the United States in the 1950's.
- wtetzner 6mo agoWas it outlawed in the 50s? I remember getting baseball cards with gum in the 90s...
- wmeredith 6mo agoEh, Topps did in the 1950s and The American Tobacco company did it in 1909.
- georgeecollins 6mo agoYes, I was there. I sat through a presentation about their original concept for selling content in Team Fortress. Trust me when I say that it turned out nothing like they originally conceived of-- which is a whole different story. The whole idea that they "invented" loot crates is weird because the idea goes back to collectable card games and other things. I am not saying they are without fault.
- Pay08 6mo agoAnd various games from Asia were already doing lootboxes in video game form since about the time Valve was founded.
- nmfisher 6mo agoAs much as I like Valve, it's difficult to ignore how large a part they played in shifting the PC market towards F2P. I bought TF2 with the Orange Box, and for a few years it was amazing. Then it went F2P with hats, and overnight the player base turned into a cesspit (and the hats themselves completely ruined the aesthetic that they spent years painstakingly crafting).
- freehorse 6mo agoMost other companies would still nickel and dime the adults, though.
- tapoxi 6mo agoThey still do that, Valve popularized the concepts of battle passes (with Dota 2) and loot boxes (with Team Fortress 2). They also took a paid game with TF2 and added all that monetization after the fact. Counter-Strike especially has a pretty nasty gambling scene that Valve refuses to control, even though its only possible because of their marketplace and APIs.
- avadodin 6mo agoThe only real in-game purchase in Counter-Strike is the game itself to gain access to the ranking system. The skins are a superfluous add-on. They knowingly profit from gamblers if you will but gamblers are going to gamble. The gamblers were offered e-sport or gambling and they chose the latter. You could use Robinhood to build up a growth portfolio starting from a handful of dollars or you could use it to buy 0DTE OTM options on credit. Guess which one the gamblers chose.
- proteal 6mo agoI’d like to point out that TF2 was part of the Orange Box bundle that included Half Life, Portal, and TF2. Those single player games were never given away for free, so as a purchaser of the bundle, I wasn’t miffed TF2 went free to play. In fact, quite the opposite. Because TF2 is free, there are like 50k people to play with me everyday. I think $0 is the right price for TF2. I agree CS is icky re: skins and gambling. But to say “refuses to control” is disingenuous. They’ve done many things to curtail gambling, like preventing tourneys from displaying gambling sponsors and adding trade restrictions that hampered bot activity. Valve is between a rock and a hard place here- they recognize gambling is a net negative on the value of their game (hence the curtailing and remonetization efforts). Remember, valve didn’t create skin trading with the expectation of third party gambling, so this is something unprecedented they’ve had to figure out as they go. Despite its drawbacks, the gambling market has some positives that valve can’t ignore. It creates liquidity and demand for the skins. People who pay hundreds of dollars for skins hate to see their value plummet. So if valve nuked gambling today, it would upset a lot of folks. I think valve has done a phenomenal job balancing their business needs with the social obligations with the players.
- nananana9 6mo agoThey also nickel and dime the adults, but only the ones who make the games. It's fine though, because they're nice to players and they've brainwashed them into giving their money to Valve instead of to the developers who actually make the games they fucking play.
- jdoe1337halo 6mo agoI agree that 30% is too large of a cut, but what would be appropriate? 15%? Steam does add a ton of value from an immediate audience, solid advertising opportunities, and amazing distribution for the developer.
- Forgeties79 6mo agoLinux releases they only take 10% FWIW Edit: whoops that’s completely false. I do not know where I got that idea
- ekianjo 6mo agoNope
- Forgeties79 6mo agook
- LollipopYakuza 6mo agoThat sounds great but I can't find any information about it. Do you have a link, please?
- Hikikomori 6mo agoHow about charging for services rendered based on cost to produce them rather than some arbitrary number. Some effective competition would be good, but likely outcome is publishers taking more.
- philipallstar 6mo ago"We" is the kids' parents, and I would assume it's the parents' money.
- xboxnolifes 6mo agoDoes Valve even own games played by kids anymore? Aren't all of the cs skin traders and tf2 players in their 20s at youngest?
- WhrRTheBaboons 6mo agoThey are not. The literal selling point of valve's games for kid gambling is that you don't need to pass KYCs for gambling with steam credits.
- lsaferite 6mo ago> literal selling point Could you perhaps back that claim up with some documentation from Valve?
- doctorpangloss 6mo agoThe problem with Steam is developers are paying 30% to introduce their players to CSGO and DOTA2. Another POV is, nobody on HN has any idea what he's talking about, it's all vibes.
- 12_throw_away 6mo ago[dead]
- wredcoll 6mo agoI too disapprove of the csgo/dota2 gambling markets on principle, but how many people actually participate in it? Like, 10k? 100k? 1 million? That seems hard to believe.
- noxvilleza 6mo ago[dead]
- order-matters 6mo agoto be fair, every gaming company nowadays is also doing this and still choosing go nickel and dime the adults and not do anything positive for the community Steam lets you trade your items with others. with all the copycats that came out, im not sure any of them allow for you to trade things you bought with other players within the same game, let alone letting them buy it off you for virtual currency you could use to buy other games with
- odo1242 6mo agoTo be fair, the trading feature is part of what enables the gambling system to work (i.e. selling weapon skins). Most game companies will explicitly try to not have a trading system on any items that are obtained by random chance because, well, gambling.
- order-matters 6mo agoexcept a lack of trading features encourages more gambling because youre not allowed to directly purchase or trade for items you want that are only dropped through random chance and are thus forced to gamble for them. without trading they effectively remove everything about exchanging money for goods except the gambling part. and for regular microtransaction stores without gambling, it just kills the second hand market for sake of profits steams dollar system is very clearly 1 directional as well. you put money into steam and it never comes out without violating their terms of service the point isnt to eliminate gambling. the point is to make sure the people gambling are doing it responsibly. and if you do that and enable trading then you have other benefits to the ecosystem and make it easier to engage with it however you want, even if it's just to only buy old unpopular items for cheap. because if thats all you want to do, you are forced to pay for fewer "fresh" items from the shop in other games or gamble a little bit and live with whatever you get (which will also likely be less total items for same price in addition to likely not being the unpopular items you would have selected) so i have a hard time believing the companies that dont have a trading system are doing so for any reason other than try to squeeze more money out of normal users who would have otherwise spent less in a more robust market system.
- sophrosyne42 6mo agoThis kind of naiive cynicism is exactly why we don't deserve Valve, and will eventually lose companies like them.
- fwipsy 6mo agoValve engaged in price fixing by preventing publishers from selling games at a lower price than other platforms. They're committed to openness to the extent that it helps them undercut consoles, but not to the extent of allowing others to undercut them. Selling cheap open hardware seems like classic "commoditize your complement" tactics. (Especially since most gamers will probably just buy from the steam store when using their hardware anyways...) I'm glad valve exists, but they are not a charity and do not need your sympathy.
- sophrosyne42 6mo agoThe term you are looking for is price gouging (i.e., having a higher price than everyone else). However, these terms (price fixing, gouging, undercutting) are completely vaccuous, and can be equally applied to any market price, making the accusation moot. Monopoly law is just a racket designed to allow rent seeking behavior by companies who do not want to compete.