3 ms·

steam/valve are good guys

sunnybeetroot 3mo ago
Yeah they’re not too shabby
jchw 3mo ago
Even Valve has its sins with questionable monetization, alleged anti-competitive practices, and of course DRM, it's just, for their size it's challenging to find companies that aren't much worse for these bullet points. Still, a rare exception of a company that seems worth the openness of one's mind. It's pretty shameful that this alone is worthy of praise, even forgetting the things Valve does that are just generally positive.
- rcxdude 3mo ago
  Questionable monetization meaning essentially turning a blind eye to and profiting from the gambling industry that skirts regulations and targets kids that is enabled by the market for rare skins in their games (as well as the inherently gambling-like means that those skins are sold in the first place).
  - jchw 3mo ago
    I'm not even exaggerating when I say that feels utterly benign these days. Merely just choosing to not police it is certainly a choice, but it's still a far cry from the more active participation in basically exploiting people that is pretty much normalized these days with stuff like sports betting and prediction markets. I don't say this feeling that it is good, just that it is where it feels like we are at right now.
Closi 3mo ago
I'm not sure on that: 1) Lots of people think they are partly complicit in all the skins trading/gambling that children do, which is basically skirting gambling laws. This has culminated in a current lawsuit in New York which claims they broke gambling laws. 2) They also currently have a large antitrust lawsuit going on, due to them requiring Most Favored Nation pricing while setting a 30% commission fee vs 12% on competitor platforms, which exploits market position and artificially raises game prices to Steam's benefit.
- inexcf 3mo ago
  1) This is a legit point although i don't see Valve as a big problem in that area. They invented lootboxes but refused to be as bad as others who followed them. Today with valve these things are restricted purely to cosmetics. 2) is weak. The 30% rate was set in 2003 when Steam had zero market power and was identical to the rate used by Apple, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo. Valve later added tiered reductions (25% above $10M, 20% above $50M), bringing the effective average to ~24%. The rate moved downward while the platform added massive infrastructure: free multiplayer matchmaking, cloud saves, Workshop, Proton, anti-cheat, global CDN, refunds, and community tools. The 30% buys far more today than it did two decades ago. Developers can also generate unlimited(or i think now limited to some ratio of steam sales) Steam keys and sell them anywhere else with Valve taking 0% commission. If valve were extracting monopoly rents, this escape route would not exist. The actual lawsuit targets the PMFN price parity clause not the commission itself. And on PC, which is an open platform where Epic's 12% store gained roughly 3% share in seven years despite hundreds of millions in investment, the monopoly framing falls apart. That 12% is also based on EPIC using lots of anti-competitor and anti-consumers tactics and using Fortnite money to prop up the store.
  - BoorishBears 3mo ago
    30% was set when they were handpicking every title, a home internet line today was a $10,000+ a month DC connection, and they could legitimately replace a publisher taking 60%. The fact they whittled away the value they provided time and time again until they became a market of slop and had the audacity to keep a 30% cut is insane. It's funny that gamers villainize Sweeny for being the person that they think Newell is. It turns out trying to deliver value in a market has tough as gaming is not easy, and you will make tons of mistakes... at least compared to extracting nearly every dollar you can and leaving a skeleton crew to run the ship. And I guess make $1,100 PS4s as a side hustle.
    - inexcf 3mo ago
      > 30% was set when they were handpicking every title ... they could legitimately replace a publisher taking 60% The "handpicking" era was a walled garden developers spent years protesting. Greenlight was a direct response to developer demands for openness. The "slop" you complain about is what developers asked for. Valve then built discovery tools (reviews, curators, personalized queues, Next Fest) to handle the volume. > they whittled away the value they provided time and time again Since 2003 Steam added multiplayer matchmaking, cloud saves, Workshop, Proton, anti-cheat, Remote Play, game recording, Steam Families, regional pricing, refunds, the Steam Deck/SteamOS ecosystem, and ongoing VR investment. The effective commission dropped to ~24% for successful titles through tiered reductions. The rate went down while the platform expanded massively. That is the opposite of whittling away value. > leaving a skeleton crew to run the ship Valve grew from 78 employees in 2003 to ~550 today. Revenue per employee is high because the business is efficient. A company "extracting every dollar" does not fund Proton to make Windows games run on Linux at its own expense, develop VR hardware, or sell the Steam Deck near cost. > gamers villainize Sweeny for being the person that they think Newell is Sweeney himself explained the difference in 2019: "It's nearly perfect for consumers already... There is no hope of displacing a dominant storefront solely by adding marginally more store features or a marginally better install experience. These battles will be won on the basis of game supply, consumer prices, and developer revenue sharing." https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-ceo-the-only-way-to-displace-steam-is-with-exclusives-good-prices-and-better-revenue-sharing/ https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-ceo-the-only-way-to-displace-st... He admitted Steam was already an excellent product. His conclusion was not to build something better. It was to buy exclusivity and remove games from Steam, forcing consumers onto a store that lacked basic features for years. Epic spent $444M on exclusivity deals in 2020 alone. It wasn't an affinity for some gabe cult that consumers rejected Epic but because Epic offered them fewer choices and a worse experience. > make $1,100 PS4s as a side hustle Valve sells hardware to establish new platform categories, not as high-margin "side hustles." Valve's hardware strategy has always been about expanding the Steam ecosystem, not milking unit margins and current hardware shortages fucked them.
madeofpalk 3mo ago
Valve is a company built on getting children addicted to gambling.
- bensonperry 3mo ago
  _built on_? not built on the games they developed or the platform they built?
  - madeofpalk 3mo ago
    Both!
HeatrayEnjoyer 3mo ago
Valve had to be dragged kicking and screaming by Australia just to provide the basic fundamental right of refunds. Large corporations are not your friend. They are the enemy; they vary only in type and depth of diabolicalness.
- protimewaster 3mo ago
  I do always think it's interesting that the "bad" guys like EA had, for a long time, much friendlier store terms (refunds) than Valve did. I also never thought that it was very nice of Valve to historically have security practices that are so bad that a group of security experts wrote them a letter begging for better security practices.

Yeah they’re not too shabby

jchw 3mo ago

Even Valve has its sins with questionable monetization, alleged anti-competitive practices, and of course DRM, it's just, for their size it's challenging to find companies that aren't much worse for these bullet points. Still, a rare exception of a company that seems worth the openness of one's mind. It's pretty shameful that this alone is worthy of praise, even forgetting the things Valve does that are just generally positive.

rcxdude 3mo ago
Questionable monetization meaning essentially turning a blind eye to and profiting from the gambling industry that skirts regulations and targets kids that is enabled by the market for rare skins in their games (as well as the inherently gambling-like means that those skins are sold in the first place).
- jchw 3mo ago
  I'm not even exaggerating when I say that feels utterly benign these days. Merely just choosing to not police it is certainly a choice, but it's still a far cry from the more active participation in basically exploiting people that is pretty much normalized these days with stuff like sports betting and prediction markets. I don't say this feeling that it is good, just that it is where it feels like we are at right now.

Closi 3mo ago

I'm not sure on that: 1) Lots of people think they are partly complicit in all the skins trading/gambling that children do, which is basically skirting gambling laws. This has culminated in a current lawsuit in New York which claims they broke gambling laws. 2) They also currently have a large antitrust lawsuit going on, due to them requiring Most Favored Nation pricing while setting a 30% commission fee vs 12% on competitor platforms, which exploits market position and artificially raises game prices to Steam's benefit.

inexcf 3mo ago
1) This is a legit point although i don't see Valve as a big problem in that area. They invented lootboxes but refused to be as bad as others who followed them. Today with valve these things are restricted purely to cosmetics. 2) is weak. The 30% rate was set in 2003 when Steam had zero market power and was identical to the rate used by Apple, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo. Valve later added tiered reductions (25% above $10M, 20% above $50M), bringing the effective average to ~24%. The rate moved downward while the platform added massive infrastructure: free multiplayer matchmaking, cloud saves, Workshop, Proton, anti-cheat, global CDN, refunds, and community tools. The 30% buys far more today than it did two decades ago. Developers can also generate unlimited(or i think now limited to some ratio of steam sales) Steam keys and sell them anywhere else with Valve taking 0% commission. If valve were extracting monopoly rents, this escape route would not exist. The actual lawsuit targets the PMFN price parity clause not the commission itself. And on PC, which is an open platform where Epic's 12% store gained roughly 3% share in seven years despite hundreds of millions in investment, the monopoly framing falls apart. That 12% is also based on EPIC using lots of anti-competitor and anti-consumers tactics and using Fortnite money to prop up the store.
- BoorishBears 3mo ago
  30% was set when they were handpicking every title, a home internet line today was a $10,000+ a month DC connection, and they could legitimately replace a publisher taking 60%. The fact they whittled away the value they provided time and time again until they became a market of slop and had the audacity to keep a 30% cut is insane. It's funny that gamers villainize Sweeny for being the person that they think Newell is. It turns out trying to deliver value in a market has tough as gaming is not easy, and you will make tons of mistakes... at least compared to extracting nearly every dollar you can and leaving a skeleton crew to run the ship. And I guess make $1,100 PS4s as a side hustle.
  - inexcf 3mo ago
    > 30% was set when they were handpicking every title ... they could legitimately replace a publisher taking 60% The "handpicking" era was a walled garden developers spent years protesting. Greenlight was a direct response to developer demands for openness. The "slop" you complain about is what developers asked for. Valve then built discovery tools (reviews, curators, personalized queues, Next Fest) to handle the volume. > they whittled away the value they provided time and time again Since 2003 Steam added multiplayer matchmaking, cloud saves, Workshop, Proton, anti-cheat, Remote Play, game recording, Steam Families, regional pricing, refunds, the Steam Deck/SteamOS ecosystem, and ongoing VR investment. The effective commission dropped to ~24% for successful titles through tiered reductions. The rate went down while the platform expanded massively. That is the opposite of whittling away value. > leaving a skeleton crew to run the ship Valve grew from 78 employees in 2003 to ~550 today. Revenue per employee is high because the business is efficient. A company "extracting every dollar" does not fund Proton to make Windows games run on Linux at its own expense, develop VR hardware, or sell the Steam Deck near cost. > gamers villainize Sweeny for being the person that they think Newell is Sweeney himself explained the difference in 2019: "It's nearly perfect for consumers already... There is no hope of displacing a dominant storefront solely by adding marginally more store features or a marginally better install experience. These battles will be won on the basis of game supply, consumer prices, and developer revenue sharing." https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-ceo-the-only-way-to-displace-steam-is-with-exclusives-good-prices-and-better-revenue-sharing/ https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-ceo-the-only-way-to-displace-st... He admitted Steam was already an excellent product. His conclusion was not to build something better. It was to buy exclusivity and remove games from Steam, forcing consumers onto a store that lacked basic features for years. Epic spent $444M on exclusivity deals in 2020 alone. It wasn't an affinity for some gabe cult that consumers rejected Epic but because Epic offered them fewer choices and a worse experience. > make $1,100 PS4s as a side hustle Valve sells hardware to establish new platform categories, not as high-margin "side hustles." Valve's hardware strategy has always been about expanding the Steam ecosystem, not milking unit margins and current hardware shortages fucked them.

madeofpalk 3mo ago

Valve is a company built on getting children addicted to gambling.

bensonperry 3mo ago
_built on_? not built on the games they developed or the platform they built?
- madeofpalk 3mo ago
  Both!

HeatrayEnjoyer 3mo ago

Valve had to be dragged kicking and screaming by Australia just to provide the basic fundamental right of refunds. Large corporations are not your friend. They are the enemy; they vary only in type and depth of diabolicalness.

protimewaster 3mo ago
I do always think it's interesting that the "bad" guys like EA had, for a long time, much friendlier store terms (refunds) than Valve did. I also never thought that it was very nice of Valve to historically have security practices that are so bad that a group of security experts wrote them a letter begging for better security practices.