6 ms·

I'd like to have an honest conversation about this, but imo Valve is no better than the iOS app store: it aggressively rent seeks and has essentially destroyed

by dvt 5mo ago

I'd like to have an honest conversation about this, but imo Valve is no better than the iOS app store: it aggressively rent seeks and has essentially destroyed the shareware model (which was the best way to discover software in the 80s-90s). It has also willingly been complicit in underage gambling via loot boxes for more than a decade now. I think Gabe Newell is a visionary for building Steam in 2003, way before Jobs had the same idea, but absolutely everyone and their mother hated Steam back then. I remember the memes on IRC and various forums (and I've been on Steam for a very[1] long time, the first or second day it came out I think). Two decades later, props to them and their useful acolytes for gaslighting the entire gaming community. No idea how Gaben is regarded as some sort of Christlike figure these days, but here we are. Maybe it's just a "lesser of two evils" thing, as companies/platforms like EA and Ubisoft are the absolute scum of the earth. [1] https://steamcommunity.com/id/dvxirl/ https://steamcommunity.com/id/dvxirl/

vitaflo 5mo ago
If you think they aggressively rent seek then you do not know the history of game publishing.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
Rohansi 5mo ago
> imo Valve is no better than the iOS app store You can't buy the top search result position on Steam. That alone sets them far apart for me.
- Pay08 5mo ago
  You can buy the rotating banner at the top.
  - drewwwwww 5mo ago
    you can’t, actually
  - scubadude 5mo ago
    You can sponsor a promotion; sales on a bunch of games - but it's not "Brought to you by the cool refreshing taste of Pepsi" it's like "Berlin Game Developers".
    - Pay08 5mo ago
      I meant the carousel.
  - Rohansi 5mo ago
    You can't. Check the very bottom of this page: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/visibility https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/visibility
- a96 5mo ago
  Steam is also cross-platform. But sadly still essentially all-DRM.
  - Rohansi 5mo ago
    Steam as DRM is basically the best case scenario. It is opt-in for developers, meaning there is no DRM at all for some games on Steam. You can download it, back it up, run it without Steam. The games that do use Steam's DRM are trivial to "crack" by replacing a DLL in game folder with a stub (you can find open source ones on GitHub). If Steam had no DRM I think publishers would lean more on other options which are worse for customers.
eudamoniac 5mo ago
Steam is just a storefront. They hold no monopoly position or power. It's not comparable to iOS app store. Devs are free to list their game on any other storefront concurrently.
- dvt 5mo ago
  This is the same argument Microsoft used ("we're just an OS, totally not a monopoly"). I think to anyone that spends any time doing any PC gaming, it's obvious that Steam is the only relevant storefront by a country mile.
  - eudamoniac 5mo ago
    That a really silly comparison. An OS is a big deal, you can't just switch off. Steam is a video game store. You can install shit from anywhere. People stick to steam because it's good. It's not morally wrong to have the best product on the market.
    - dvt 5mo ago
      If you want the audience as an indie developer, it would behoove you to launch on Steam (because they're a monopoly). Again, MS used all these cute arguments, and they don't really work. There's a reason Valve is always playing very nicely with regulators (especially w.r.t. the gambling stuff). They don't really want to rock the boat, but a benevolent monopoly is still a monopoly and I do think that a 30% cut for running a distribution platform is pretty predatory, especially as bandwidth has been commoditized.
      - eudamoniac 5mo ago
        Again, it is not wrong to make the best product. It behooves any manufacturer to sell to distributors with largest reach, especially if it is a non-exclusive agreement, and this is perfectly normal market activity. You seem unaware of the legal definition of monopoly; Valve is nowhere near it. The made up internet definition, having a majority of sales in a market, is just what happens when the product is good. Actually it would be a bit of a market failure for the best product to not have the most sales. Also please don't point to the failure of Epic or other stores; they're just bad products. Epic store didn't even have a shopping cart for years. No one competent is competing, and that's not Valve's problem.
jasonfarnon 5mo ago
"has essentially destroyed the shareware model (which was the best way to discover software in the 80s-90s)" funny, I was thinking the same thing with "shareware model" replaced by "warez model".
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
taneq 5mo ago
As someone who worked in game dev in 2008, we loved Steam, for the same reason we loved the iOS App Store. We take it for granted these days but the ability to self-publish on a first class platform and receive 70% of the sales revenue literally redefined the indie game dev industry. Use of the term ‘rent seeking’ is, in my experience, often correlated with a sense of entitlement and a lack of appreciation for what is actually provided. It’s only rent seeking if no additional value is added which is clearly not the case here.
- dylan604 5mo ago
  I'm surprised you haven't been flagged or just a dead comment. Any signals that Apple is not pure evil for taking 30% is not part of the echo chamber group think around here. People never want to admit that it costs money to retail your product no matter where it is. In the physical world, there's manufacturing and delivery costs. Getting shelf space at a retailer takes a lot of negotiating where you have very very little room to bargain. Retailers will even force you to buy back unsold product. Yes, software doesn't have all of that but have their own nuances. A lot of indie game devs don't have time/skill/want to do a lot of what an app store can do. Expecting to get all of that for free because it is software is just not sane. If you are self-hosting all of it, it will not be free as you will be paying for payment processors and a hell of lot more in attracting eyeballs.
  - wtetzner 5mo ago
    The problem with Apple is not the 30% cut, it's that you're not allowed to use other app stores or install apps without their store.
invalidSyntax 5mo ago
"destroyed the shareware model". You know that they only sell games, and just have the games that they made in the list too(them just being amazing and popular). It's not some easy task as recovering old systems when there are every type of games imaginable. Even if valve made a option to do that, no one will since other companies don't do anything like that.
throw10920 5mo ago
> it aggressively rent seeks I don't know about the rest of your claims ("shareware was the best way to discover software" is really a personal opinion), but this is just factually false. Unlike iOS, where you cannot publish an app unless you pay the 30% cut, there is nothing that prevents you from developing and a Windows/MacOS/Linux game yourself. You can simply choose to not use Steam - but the benefits of developing and publishing with it (myriad SDKs, game servers, networking, social features, trading cards, anti-cheat, achievements, payment methods, reviews, discovery, forums, launchers, updates, CDN, and on and on and on...) are so overwhelming that it is simply worth it for the vast majority of gamedevs. Fact: Steam is not rent-seeking - the value that they provide is tremendous, and you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition.
- fc417fc802 5mo ago
  > you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition. That's not how it works. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Plenty of businesses engage in rent seeking without having a captive (by most definitions) audience. All that's required is a very modest barrier (ex network effect, non-zero switching cost, etc) and a sufficiently large audience. Rent seeking isn't even mutually exclusive with adding value. A business can do both simultaneously by virtue of being able to multitask. Most businesses offer more than a single product or service after all.
  - throw10920 5mo ago
    So first off, you start out by lying about my words, so we immediately know you're not operating in good faith. What I said: > Steam is not rent-seeking - the value that they provide is tremendous, and you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition. That's a compound statement that you cut off to change the substance of. What you quoted: > you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition. And now that we've called out your lie, we can move on to the substance, which is also incorrect. The definition of rent-seeking disagrees with everything that you've said: "The attempt to profit by manipulating the economic or political environment, especially by the use of subsidies." https://www.wordnik.com/words/rent%20seeking https://www.wordnik.com/words/rent%20seeking Steam is doing none of that. > Rent seeking isn't even mutually exclusive with adding value. This is factually incorrect - both according to the dictionary definition of the phrase, and according to the way that it's used casually, which is extraction of value without creation of it. I'm glad that this is happening in the open - when people have to actively lie to try to push a narrative about Steam, it really shows that they have no legitimate points - every thread where these lies are exposed just (justly) boosts Valve's reputation.
chocochunks 5mo ago
Shareware died before Steam. Steam launched in 2003 and didn't sell any 3rd party games until 2005. Nobody gave a shit about shareware in 2003. Nobody gave a shit about shareware in 2010 when Steam seriously became useful as a place to play more than the Orange Box and Counter-Strike. I hated Steam when I first encountered it, but it's not a requirement to publish a game on PC/Mac/Linux. Nor is the process to install non-Steam games full of scary warnings like Google Play even on their own platform SteamOS. And they do let publishers give keys to 3rd party stores to sell unlike virtually every other platform. They aren't perfect but they are nowhere near what Apple does with iOS.
Iron_Ninja5 5mo ago
> has essentially destroyed the shareware model Wouldn't the Steam digital demo system be the modern evolution of the shareware model? For free you can access a limited portion of the game to try it and consider eventually buying it.

by dvt 5mo ago

vitaflo 5mo ago

If you think they aggressively rent seek then you do not know the history of game publishing.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

Rohansi 5mo ago

> imo Valve is no better than the iOS app store You can't buy the top search result position on Steam. That alone sets them far apart for me.

Pay08 5mo ago
You can buy the rotating banner at the top.
- drewwwwww 5mo ago
  you can’t, actually
- scubadude 5mo ago
  You can sponsor a promotion; sales on a bunch of games - but it's not "Brought to you by the cool refreshing taste of Pepsi" it's like "Berlin Game Developers".
  - Pay08 5mo ago
    I meant the carousel.
- Rohansi 5mo ago
  You can't. Check the very bottom of this page: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/visibility https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/visibility
a96 5mo ago
Steam is also cross-platform. But sadly still essentially all-DRM.
- Rohansi 5mo ago
  Steam as DRM is basically the best case scenario. It is opt-in for developers, meaning there is no DRM at all for some games on Steam. You can download it, back it up, run it without Steam. The games that do use Steam's DRM are trivial to "crack" by replacing a DLL in game folder with a stub (you can find open source ones on GitHub). If Steam had no DRM I think publishers would lean more on other options which are worse for customers.

eudamoniac 5mo ago

Steam is just a storefront. They hold no monopoly position or power. It's not comparable to iOS app store. Devs are free to list their game on any other storefront concurrently.

dvt 5mo ago
This is the same argument Microsoft used ("we're just an OS, totally not a monopoly"). I think to anyone that spends any time doing any PC gaming, it's obvious that Steam is the only relevant storefront by a country mile.
- eudamoniac 5mo ago
  That a really silly comparison. An OS is a big deal, you can't just switch off. Steam is a video game store. You can install shit from anywhere. People stick to steam because it's good. It's not morally wrong to have the best product on the market.
  - dvt 5mo ago
    If you want the audience as an indie developer, it would behoove you to launch on Steam (because they're a monopoly). Again, MS used all these cute arguments, and they don't really work. There's a reason Valve is always playing very nicely with regulators (especially w.r.t. the gambling stuff). They don't really want to rock the boat, but a benevolent monopoly is still a monopoly and I do think that a 30% cut for running a distribution platform is pretty predatory, especially as bandwidth has been commoditized.
    - eudamoniac 5mo ago
      Again, it is not wrong to make the best product. It behooves any manufacturer to sell to distributors with largest reach, especially if it is a non-exclusive agreement, and this is perfectly normal market activity. You seem unaware of the legal definition of monopoly; Valve is nowhere near it. The made up internet definition, having a majority of sales in a market, is just what happens when the product is good. Actually it would be a bit of a market failure for the best product to not have the most sales. Also please don't point to the failure of Epic or other stores; they're just bad products. Epic store didn't even have a shopping cart for years. No one competent is competing, and that's not Valve's problem.

jasonfarnon 5mo ago

"has essentially destroyed the shareware model (which was the best way to discover software in the 80s-90s)" funny, I was thinking the same thing with "shareware model" replaced by "warez model".

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

taneq 5mo ago

As someone who worked in game dev in 2008, we loved Steam, for the same reason we loved the iOS App Store. We take it for granted these days but the ability to self-publish on a first class platform and receive 70% of the sales revenue literally redefined the indie game dev industry. Use of the term ‘rent seeking’ is, in my experience, often correlated with a sense of entitlement and a lack of appreciation for what is actually provided. It’s only rent seeking if no additional value is added which is clearly not the case here.

dylan604 5mo ago
I'm surprised you haven't been flagged or just a dead comment. Any signals that Apple is not pure evil for taking 30% is not part of the echo chamber group think around here. People never want to admit that it costs money to retail your product no matter where it is. In the physical world, there's manufacturing and delivery costs. Getting shelf space at a retailer takes a lot of negotiating where you have very very little room to bargain. Retailers will even force you to buy back unsold product. Yes, software doesn't have all of that but have their own nuances. A lot of indie game devs don't have time/skill/want to do a lot of what an app store can do. Expecting to get all of that for free because it is software is just not sane. If you are self-hosting all of it, it will not be free as you will be paying for payment processors and a hell of lot more in attracting eyeballs.
- wtetzner 5mo ago
  The problem with Apple is not the 30% cut, it's that you're not allowed to use other app stores or install apps without their store.

invalidSyntax 5mo ago

"destroyed the shareware model". You know that they only sell games, and just have the games that they made in the list too(them just being amazing and popular). It's not some easy task as recovering old systems when there are every type of games imaginable. Even if valve made a option to do that, no one will since other companies don't do anything like that.

throw10920 5mo ago

> it aggressively rent seeks I don't know about the rest of your claims ("shareware was the best way to discover software" is really a personal opinion), but this is just factually false. Unlike iOS, where you cannot publish an app unless you pay the 30% cut, there is nothing that prevents you from developing and a Windows/MacOS/Linux game yourself. You can simply choose to not use Steam - but the benefits of developing and publishing with it (myriad SDKs, game servers, networking, social features, trading cards, anti-cheat, achievements, payment methods, reviews, discovery, forums, launchers, updates, CDN, and on and on and on...) are so overwhelming that it is simply worth it for the vast majority of gamedevs. Fact: Steam is not rent-seeking - the value that they provide is tremendous, and you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition.

fc417fc802 5mo ago
> you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition. That's not how it works. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Plenty of businesses engage in rent seeking without having a captive (by most definitions) audience. All that's required is a very modest barrier (ex network effect, non-zero switching cost, etc) and a sufficiently large audience. Rent seeking isn't even mutually exclusive with adding value. A business can do both simultaneously by virtue of being able to multitask. Most businesses offer more than a single product or service after all.
- throw10920 5mo ago
  So first off, you start out by lying about my words, so we immediately know you're not operating in good faith. What I said: > Steam is not rent-seeking - the value that they provide is tremendous, and you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition. That's a compound statement that you cut off to change the substance of. What you quoted: > you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition. And now that we've called out your lie, we can move on to the substance, which is also incorrect. The definition of rent-seeking disagrees with everything that you've said: "The attempt to profit by manipulating the economic or political environment, especially by the use of subsidies." https://www.wordnik.com/words/rent%20seeking https://www.wordnik.com/words/rent%20seeking Steam is doing none of that. > Rent seeking isn't even mutually exclusive with adding value. This is factually incorrect - both according to the dictionary definition of the phrase, and according to the way that it's used casually, which is extraction of value without creation of it. I'm glad that this is happening in the open - when people have to actively lie to try to push a narrative about Steam, it really shows that they have no legitimate points - every thread where these lies are exposed just (justly) boosts Valve's reputation.

chocochunks 5mo ago

Shareware died before Steam. Steam launched in 2003 and didn't sell any 3rd party games until 2005. Nobody gave a shit about shareware in 2003. Nobody gave a shit about shareware in 2010 when Steam seriously became useful as a place to play more than the Orange Box and Counter-Strike. I hated Steam when I first encountered it, but it's not a requirement to publish a game on PC/Mac/Linux. Nor is the process to install non-Steam games full of scary warnings like Google Play even on their own platform SteamOS. And they do let publishers give keys to 3rd party stores to sell unlike virtually every other platform. They aren't perfect but they are nowhere near what Apple does with iOS.

Iron_Ninja5 5mo ago

> has essentially destroyed the shareware model Wouldn't the Steam digital demo system be the modern evolution of the shareware model? For free you can access a limited portion of the game to try it and consider eventually buying it.