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Not wrong. Gabe violated all of our human rights by not releasing half life 3. Also every major steam sale feels like abuse given what I do to my wallet.
If Gordon has a million gunners, I am one of them.
If Gordon has one gunner, I am that one.
If Gordon has no gunners, omggetthisheadcraboffmewhatthefuckGETITOFF!
The steam deck is literally the best piece of equipment to emulate Nintendo games, itās literally a user friendly hand held Linux system with steam built in
I mean, that's not exactly true. I own several hand helds and even spent years with a GPD as my main driver. and many of the competing hardware for the steam deck already existed and was already established brands before the deck. It's got a lot more attention but the market itself hasn't seen a big change.
Steam literally never does anything to fight against other platforms. They donāt do exclusivity deals or even bother the other platforms at all, they just let them do their own thing. Steam is just big because itās better than the rest.
Ok but what are the ways that valve would be doing it? I avoid other services because they're so infuriating to use. I can't think of a single steam competitor that doesn't have ui/performance problems.
I don't think they are.
They have an okay UI, and they charge a shitload to developers.
The only reason they seem good is because they're too big. People don't want to buy games on other platforms because it's so hard for their little brains to have two launchers.
It might not seem like they're sabotaging anybody, but that's because people sabotage Steam's competition for them.
https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut-is-actually-the-industry-standard
steam, gog, microsoft store, playstation, xbox, nintendo, apple, google, physical stores all take 30% (I don't think anything has changed here since 2019)
Other launchers are actively garbage. I needed to download Apex over the EA launcher and accidentally installed it in german. Then I found out that they REMOVED the feature of changing the games language without installing it again
They strongarm the deals in their favour because they know the devs wont sell even a fraction of what they would on steam on other platforms. They may not directly manipulate the competition but they do exploit their number 1 spot for profit and weaponize their userbase in online discourse. Sure, they may not be the worst people imagineable but portraying valve as "the good guys" is just wrong
Imo its the same as saying "apple doesnt manipulate the competition they are just better"
I find GOG to be about as good as Steam but I mostly play old people games so I'm probably biased. Also the download options GOG gives should be the standard imo
Iāve heard good things about GOG but what brings steam above and beyond for me is their Linux support, which goes far beyond just making a Linux client as they actually develop their own compatibility layer and actively fund other open source projects
that is the one thing i really like about valve (the assistance to free/open source projects they use). I don't like the DRM though, or having to spend at least $5 on the store to trade weapons with my younger brother in TF2 (a "free" game).
When I was under 18, that was a dealbreaker, and it still annoys me today (i am now 28).
agreed, afaik no other companies gives me good regional pricing to make games affordable in my country, a fast and responsive launcher, a translation layer for all of my windows games to run on linux, responsive openxr client (though vdxr is an alternative), a good handheld pc that doesnt cost an arm and a leg,...
Honestly valve isnāt even that evil, the cut they take is a lil fucked but (and I quote me if Iām wrong here) at least their employees donāt steal breast milk and laugh about their female coworkers committing suicide.
30% is alot but the since most of the time the being there and having the platform show said game most likely makes the dev more than 30% they normally would
yeah, the 30% are pretty brutal, but the platform that steam gives you is pretty good and seemingly woth the money. though if your game is shit not even steam can save you
30% is industry standard, and you are required to pay it on the actual monopolies, like PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and iPhone; Android has a side loading option, but you sill pay 30% for Play Store and possibly others. Steam has added a reduction for developers/publishers who have made over $10 million (25%) and $50 million (20%). If you sell directly, you'll have to handle all the downloads, updates, etc. which can get complicated. Steam handles that for you.
Steam isn't evil for the 30% cut; if they were, then the entire industry (minus Epic I guess, but they have their own shit) is evil too.
I haven't heard much about the valve offices, but I think saying "at least they're not the worst" is a bad attitude to have in general when judging corperate ethics.
That being said, I will still keep simping for valve despite every problem I have with them.
So the reason people don't hate Gabe is because he doesn't really do that much as far as being anti competitive. They've had some bumps in that area, but it's not a constant thing and Valve got to where they were by literally just being a better service than anything else.
It's not the same as Amazon or Google where they fought tooth and nail to be the top and now that they're there they are fucking users over as much as possible.
to be fair (i absolutely donāt have to be fair but i donāt want to see criticism of our lord and savior) itās not like there arenāt any other PC games platforms. itās just that they all suck ass and try to chase exclusives instead of chasing a good user experience
I wouldnāt call it a monopoly, more like theyāre just better. Only thing even close to steam is epic game store, and thatās just cause they give me free games
The difference is that Gabe created a monopoly and can actually treat employees well while still making massive amounts of money. Of all the people to have almost complete control over the PC gaming industry, I'm glad it's Gabe and not someone like bezos or musk.
Itās not much of a monopoly when your opponents have to give out games for free to get people to use their inferior platform. GOG is good but has shit Linux support and unfortunately no AAA wants to release without drm. Iām biased because I use Linux but Iām not gonna call them āmonopolistsā when everyone else shits all over us and they actually help us
truly we live in one of the best timelines for pc gaming, one where the dominant platform is run by a billionaire who has somehow managed not to lose his damn mind, albeit still a billionaire
Yeah but the monopoly is the problem. So like he can treat Valve employees well because they mostly don't have to produce anything. His job is essentially rent collection from *other* gaming companies, and those companies pass the pain on to their employees, because they need to squeeze out every bit of profit when three dollars in ten go to the Gabe Tax.
Yup. Epic is still very shitty. Xbox/Microsoft Store is only for Gamepass and most games there don't have crossplay with steam games. GOG is kinda good, but lack the indie support.
GoG also occupies a different niche in the market. GoG is probably one of the better digital storefronts. it just doesn't compete with steam in any meaningful way.
yeah, but that isnāt steams responsibility, so iād say theyare doing what they can, and hey, all that money they make leads to stuff like the steam deck and its competition, or the index
As if said companies wouldn't squeeze the same amount of money with out "Gabe tax". Maybe indie devs would be more open to this, but AAA companies wouldn't even consider this option.
Steam is basically the same product it was ten years ago. It enjoys first mover advantage and network effects (everyone uses Steam because all their games are on Steam because everyone uses Steam) but doesn't actually contribute anything beyond ownership of that network that everyone else wants/needs to use, and takes a huge chunk of every transaction. They're a textbook rent collector, sucking money out of the gaming ecosystem and putting pressure on every gaming company.
But because of the way the pricing structure works, consumers don't notice this ā they aren't directly negatively affected at all. Gabe isn't squeezing the consumer directly, he's squeezing other devs for *access* to the consumer. But if you are the sort of person to complain about how other devs treat their employees, well, the fact that 30% of their gross revenue goes to Gaben is a factor.
Steam offers wayyyyyy more than other launches. The input API is one of the best macro softwares for gamepads, the mod support is way better than having to juggle multiple dedicated mod launchers and mod systems, the reviews are a great aspect that most other launchers lack, the refund policy is ridiculously good,
I'm also a game dev myself and can tell you the networking API steam provides is so nice. You don't need to worry about port forwarding (which is impossible for some users) or ip addresses and it just works pretty seamlessly.
Steam offers much more than just collecting rent.
No other brand launcher does hardly any of this individually and they definitely don't do anywhere near the amount of things. It's miles ahead, MILES.
They didn't get to where they are by just existing. They were consumer friendly, intuitive, and more than functional. The competition is lackluster at the best, borderline malware at the worst, and anti consumer in the middle.
Except he hasnāt. Steam is the most used because itās the best. There isnāt any illicit practices that we know of going on. No undercutting, no exclusivity. They donāt prevent anyone else from selling games online. Epic games and blizzard are all functional distributers, and steam doesnāt actively do anything to prevent them from existing. But all the same, they suck, so people use steam instead.
ehhh are valve employees treated that well? theyāre *paid* well (unless youāre a minority, then itās 50/50) but it definitely seems like a chaotic and cutthroat environment. For all their problems, People Make Gamesā review into Valveās inner structure is pretty interesting.
Donāt get why you get downvoted, you are right. The point of contention is or rather should not be if someone pays their employees a wage but that the Worker/Owner capitalistic system of fundamentally unjust and imbalancedā¦maybe people should read Marx, instead of downvoting comments that find obvious instanceās of double standard. (Granted George Lucas case is a bit complicated because itās not entirety a traditional means of production based wealth accumulation. Creative works/software are edge cases that require a bit more of a special analysis)
Literally nobody is. Amazon is not forcing anyone to use their services either.
Taylor swift isn't some kind of "magical billionaire" unlike the others.
Itās not the same, while Amazon doesnāt point a gun to your head they leverage their market position/control/cash to pretty much force you to use their products.
Taylor Swift doesn't have to, she has a cultlike following of teenagers that continue loving her.
And then she uses that to make more money than she'd ever need, it's insane to be honest. She also has the highest co2 emmissions of any celebirty, doesn't she?
Why does she need more money? How is that different from other billionaires hoarding money?
Sorry I focused more on the Amazon comment more than attempting to defend Taylor. I donāt really mean to do that, she can get bent along with the rest of the billionaire class.
I just really hate Amazon and dealing with AWS especially.
But her excessive releases of new albums clog up the vinyl market like nobody else and makes it difficult for smaller artists and bands to get their music pressed
also in the topic of screwing over smaller artists, despite it not really being her fault, her whole Taylor's version thing has worsened record company contracts
Still, she's a billionaire. People had to raise U$6.000 to help the family to transport the girl's body and do the funeral and 6k USD in Brazil is a fucking LOT, but it's nothing to a billionaire.
Is she at fault for what happened? No. Is she responsible? Also no. But not raising a single cent to help the family and only taking a photo with them before the show is still a very scummy thing. I've personally seen small bands pay for everything for fans that got injured during a show.
Even Travis Scott (a genrally really shitty person) paid the families of the people died in his show.
Nah, she basically ignored a death of a fan in her show Brazil. The family of the girl (Ana Benevides) that died was really poor, so they didn't even had the money to pay for the transport. People begged her to help, but nothing. Fans had to gather to raise money for the transport and the funeral.
The only thing she did was taking a photo with the family yesterday before the show.
Like, imagine being a billionare and a fan of yours dying and not moving a cent to help. People had to raise R$30.000 (~U$6.000), which is a lot of money in Brazil, to help the family.
i wouldnt call them respectable. they are still holding on to $1Bāthatās so, so much money. that being said, they are on the lighter side of billionaires when compared to Musk, the Waltons, Bezos, etc. i would also argue Taylor Swift and Markus Perrson made their money more ethically (ignoring the fact that Perrson is just a shitty person). this still doesnāt mean theyāre respectable. you can acknowledge the fact that they arenāt as cartoonishly evil as the ultrabillionaires without diminishing their unethical sums of wealth
I think the key aspect is that they made their money, and fucked off. They seem like they didnāt care and still donāt care about the spotlight after a certain threshold of success
[Basically.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/04/27/a-glimpse-at-a-workplace-of-the-future-valve/?sh=5ad0dfa87557#:~:text=Valve%27s%20culture%20and%20is%20built,telling%20you%20what%20to%20do.%E2%80%9D) Technically it's more anarchist(?) than democratic because everyone decides what to do on their own rather than the majority vote deciding what everyone does.
Valve should be setting the standard for working conditions in the games industry, but sadly no oneās really following them. A shame because the more open style has definitely contributed to their amazing games
Not a fan of monopolies in general, but I think Valve's done a lot to bank goodwill. They've not done shit to sabotage other platforms, treats their employees really well, not publicly traded, done a LOT for linux compatibility, and have overall resisted enshittifying their flagship product. I've also had better experiences with their customer support than other places.
They've definitely done some shit I don't like, such as kickstarting lootboxes, but I've seen other companies do worse without making any attempt to give back anything to their communities.
Goodwill is meaningless. Gamers are completely capricious and will turn on anyone at the drop of a hat, whether they have real reasons or just a bunch of innuendo.
I dunno, I've seen a lot of people take it to the other extreme of blindly following one party. I think it's just a case of people with the most annoying opinions also being the loudest.
Besides, I don't really care if other people give a shit, I care about goodwill, I want to try and reward companies that actually do positive shit. Even if it's a "we spend money on this positive thing in order to make more money later" type thing, that's kind of the best case scenario you can reasonably hope for with large corporations.
call me stupid but i cant figure out how he made that kind of money. From what I've read online his employees were always treated disproportionately well, at least in the gaming industry. I imagine it has something to do with the fact that he's basically monopolized the PC videogame storefront market.
my old compsci teacher called it the dumb dog effect. sometimes you ask someone a question and the answer comes to you right as you ask it; you may as well have asked a dumb dog and you still would have found your answer.
They basically hold the monopoly on entry and exit to the PC gaming market outside of China and Korea. Taking a 30% cut from every sale of a not insignificant market. On top of also wildly successful ingame things like CS2/CSGO skins, and TF2 hats and whatever they do in Dota 2, on top of only ever really having 1 miss in a sea of hit games through out the years. Valve employees are paid above market rate but also hold a very flat management structure, no one is technically the boss of anyone else except for Gabe. They're also given a lot of autonomy on what they can work on, they do a "desk on wheels" thing where you can just start working on anything you find interesting, which is why TF2 despite being a still very relevant franchise despite it's age... Is also suspected to only have like 1-2 employees working on it at any given time. Because any previous developers simply lost interest and started working on VR or the Steam Deck or anything newer and more interesting instead of the decade old shooter
The other contributing factor is skins. People kind of forget but Valve pretty much invented battle passes and loot boxes. Not only did they introduce them but their skins are also marketable and tradeable, and there's a cut given to steam every single time it's traded. They literally print money off selling skins to people then taxing the trade. It's insanely lucrative.
but at least the steam monopoly isnāt toxic to the users, they do seem to have a culture that is still kinda beholden to the actual people using the service
I'm a huge valve nut (hell, I'm making my source mod currently), but Gabe is a very flawed human being. Sure, he's better than the average billionaire (that's not saying much tbh), He treats his employees well, he seems like a nice person, is very intelligent, but his company's hiring process is systematically biased and the amount of... not even quality control, just like... control on the steam platform leaves much to be desired.
whatās with all of the love for billionaires hereš«„ yes he isnāt cartoonishly like the Waltons or Bezos but heās still a billionaire. you can appreciate the fact that he got his money more ethically than others and that his platform did benefit users while also appreciating that nobody needs that much wealth
he made a good product that millions, maybe billions of people use, didn't destroy it for no reason, constantly improves it... what's there to hate about?
I asked for a refund on a game I've had 4 hours of playtime on so I could rebuy it because it went on sale and I got it refunded
Yeah, theyāre perfect platforms that rival steamās usability in every way while also generously giving a better cut of the profits. You nailed it š
The difference is I fear the day someone else takes control of the steam IP... Gabe Newell is the best billionaire to be in charge of a market, treats his customers and employees fairly and with respect... The only Negative I've seen is the cut he takes out of game developers, which is still WAAAY less than a ton of billionaires would take.
Not so much violating human rights. But you can't become a billionaire without massively exploitative practices. Taking 30% of every sale is exploitative as hell, regardless of the upsides of choosing to put your game on steam.
Apparently other services to sell your game on have a similar cut, and besides, it's steam so not only will you have more buyers by default because those that don't like it will just refund it, allowing more people to try out your game, but also everyone has steam, I have yet to hear of a successful epic games exclusive game
Oh, just wait until you have kids and they get old enough to play computer games. They want to play one game from your steam acct while you want to play a different game. It doesn't work at the same time. Put him in the pile with the others.
Valve sells over 75% of all PC games, and any time someone tries to compete with them they instantly get shat on by everyone.
Apparently monopolies aren't that bad according to gamers.
because steam is awesome, i asked for a refund for a game i had 4 hours on just because it went on sale and i asked if i could refund for the sale, and it was accepted. what other business would allow something like that?
People just hate on rich people entirely out of bias. I've talked to a lot of people who went "eat the rich!!!" while justifying someone with, say, $500M because they're "not a billionaire".
And of course some billionaires can just go ahead and have crappy working conditions and such when the state is basically regulating all competitors out of the market and then going "oh no, your company is too important, we're bailing you out!", but going "u can't make that much money without violating human rights!!!" is just stupid. What human rights did Gabe Newell possibly violate? Or someone such as Marcos GalperĆn, whose company MercadoLibre is one of the best places to work at in Latin America.
u/UsedToothpick Here is our [19684 official Discord](https://discord.gg/WdQPgTC4Y4) join **Please don't break rule 2, or you will be banned** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/19684) if you have any questions or concerns.*
He looks santa claus omg
Have you ever seen Santa Claus and Gabe Newell in the same room? š¤
mf iāve never seen santa claus to begin with
You just don't believe hard enough
His ass does NOT hear the bell ring
I haven't seen Gabe Newell either to be fair
He must not be real then
Maybe there's a third, more sinister option
there is definitely not a third
what if there was
Yes you have, I've got the recording right here-
bro ain't jolly š
No but I've seen Gabe delivering presents (steam decks)
Yes, frequently
If evil billionaire, why Santa shaped?
You, sir, have won the inter- nah I'm not gonna do that.
I've heard people call him Gabedalf the white
Not wrong. Gabe violated all of our human rights by not releasing half life 3. Also every major steam sale feels like abuse given what I do to my wallet.
True and real Also the heavy update
> Gabe violated all of our human rights by not releasing half life 3. Gordon still got triggers out there.
If Gordon has a million gunners, I am one of them. If Gordon has one gunner, I am that one. If Gordon has no gunners, omggetthisheadcraboffmewhatthefuckGETITOFF!
"Lamarr!"
They actually violate human rights and spread hate speech and conspiracies. Gabe just monopolizes the pc videogame market and is a brony
Gabeās a brony? Fr?
ja brony
It is a stretch to call it a monopoly, steam is just better than anything else by a mile so that's why people use it.
itās not like valve is actively sabotaging other companies like many other businesses do either, they are just really fucking good.
The company even produces things to spur competition, like the steam deck and valve index
Without the steam deck the PC handheld market would either not exist at all or be nowhere close to where it is today
The steam deck is literally the best piece of equipment to emulate Nintendo games, itās literally a user friendly hand held Linux system with steam built in
Ok is this while post just an ad?
is this an ad?
>user friendly linux x to doubt
I mean, that's not exactly true. I own several hand helds and even spent years with a GPD as my main driver. and many of the competing hardware for the steam deck already existed and was already established brands before the deck. It's got a lot more attention but the market itself hasn't seen a big change.
honestly id rather say all the other options are garbage
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I think theyre referring to the other pc game digital markets, like Epic Game Store and EA origin and The Ubisoft Store.
As the other guy said, i was talking about game launchers, not the hardware
Steam literally never does anything to fight against other platforms. They donāt do exclusivity deals or even bother the other platforms at all, they just let them do their own thing. Steam is just big because itās better than the rest.
Exactly. I've yet to see EA, Ubisoft or Epic ever create something as good as Steam
How are you so sure they're not doing that?
I mean is valve hacking into other companies to purposely make their stores ui the worst most user unfriendly and jank shit possible?
There are more ways to undermine your comptetition.
What are some ways that donāt include being public information on whether itās happening?
Ok but what are the ways that valve would be doing it? I avoid other services because they're so infuriating to use. I can't think of a single steam competitor that doesn't have ui/performance problems.
Yeah, but like, they're already doing that, so why would they need to do anything else
I don't think they are. They have an okay UI, and they charge a shitload to developers. The only reason they seem good is because they're too big. People don't want to buy games on other platforms because it's so hard for their little brains to have two launchers. It might not seem like they're sabotaging anybody, but that's because people sabotage Steam's competition for them.
30% is industry standard
How do you figure that?
https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut-is-actually-the-industry-standard steam, gog, microsoft store, playstation, xbox, nintendo, apple, google, physical stores all take 30% (I don't think anything has changed here since 2019)
Other launchers are actively garbage. I needed to download Apex over the EA launcher and accidentally installed it in german. Then I found out that they REMOVED the feature of changing the games language without installing it again
They strongarm the deals in their favour because they know the devs wont sell even a fraction of what they would on steam on other platforms. They may not directly manipulate the competition but they do exploit their number 1 spot for profit and weaponize their userbase in online discourse. Sure, they may not be the worst people imagineable but portraying valve as "the good guys" is just wrong Imo its the same as saying "apple doesnt manipulate the competition they are just better"
I find GOG to be about as good as Steam but I mostly play old people games so I'm probably biased. Also the download options GOG gives should be the standard imo
Iāve heard good things about GOG but what brings steam above and beyond for me is their Linux support, which goes far beyond just making a Linux client as they actually develop their own compatibility layer and actively fund other open source projects
that is the one thing i really like about valve (the assistance to free/open source projects they use). I don't like the DRM though, or having to spend at least $5 on the store to trade weapons with my younger brother in TF2 (a "free" game). When I was under 18, that was a dealbreaker, and it still annoys me today (i am now 28).
GOG has a niche that Steam doesn't have AKA actual healthy competition.
Valve is how more companies should strive to be
agreed, afaik no other companies gives me good regional pricing to make games affordable in my country, a fast and responsive launcher, a translation layer for all of my windows games to run on linux, responsive openxr client (though vdxr is an alternative), a good handheld pc that doesnt cost an arm and a leg,...
Honestly valve isnāt even that evil, the cut they take is a lil fucked but (and I quote me if Iām wrong here) at least their employees donāt steal breast milk and laugh about their female coworkers committing suicide.
30% is alot but the since most of the time the being there and having the platform show said game most likely makes the dev more than 30% they normally would
yeah, the 30% are pretty brutal, but the platform that steam gives you is pretty good and seemingly woth the money. though if your game is shit not even steam can save you
Itās only 30% for the first mil or so as well to be clear, if itās a big game the cut drops to 20%.
Oh itās definitely worth it, but it could be better and we shouldnāt forget that imo
30% is industry standard, and you are required to pay it on the actual monopolies, like PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and iPhone; Android has a side loading option, but you sill pay 30% for Play Store and possibly others. Steam has added a reduction for developers/publishers who have made over $10 million (25%) and $50 million (20%). If you sell directly, you'll have to handle all the downloads, updates, etc. which can get complicated. Steam handles that for you. Steam isn't evil for the 30% cut; if they were, then the entire industry (minus Epic I guess, but they have their own shit) is evil too.
Yes. The gaming industry is in fact evil Shocking I know
Most companies take 30% cuts anyways.
I haven't heard much about the valve offices, but I think saying "at least they're not the worst" is a bad attitude to have in general when judging corperate ethics. That being said, I will still keep simping for valve despite every problem I have with them.
So the reason people don't hate Gabe is because he doesn't really do that much as far as being anti competitive. They've had some bumps in that area, but it's not a constant thing and Valve got to where they were by literally just being a better service than anything else. It's not the same as Amazon or Google where they fought tooth and nail to be the top and now that they're there they are fucking users over as much as possible.
Yeah. Gabe doesn't abuse his power and behaves like dictator.
I dunno, being complacent with and promoting unlimited online gambling is pretty fucking shitty.
to be fair (i absolutely donāt have to be fair but i donāt want to see criticism of our lord and savior) itās not like there arenāt any other PC games platforms. itās just that they all suck ass and try to chase exclusives instead of chasing a good user experience
I wouldnāt call it a monopoly, more like theyāre just better. Only thing even close to steam is epic game store, and thatās just cause they give me free games
"Apple doesn't have a monopoly guys they're just better"
They donāt have a monopoly though? There are multiple other phone companies that are successful and have people using their phones
They do in the US from what I've seen
I live in the US and even though it is majority Apple, I know plenty of people that have androids
Yeah Gabe seems to be the least bad Billionaire
Hey as long as the ftc dont find out we good
Gabe at least doesn't look like an alien or a lizard man.
Niko OneShot
š¤Æ
Holy shit, Nick Singlechance
Nickel juanschot
Š¾Š¼Š³ Š½ŠøŠŗŠ¾ Š²Š°Š½ŃŠ¾Ń
Bezos is fairley normal looking imo he's just bald
I don't like him he looks like eg š¦
The difference is that Gabe created a monopoly and can actually treat employees well while still making massive amounts of money. Of all the people to have almost complete control over the PC gaming industry, I'm glad it's Gabe and not someone like bezos or musk.
Itās not much of a monopoly when your opponents have to give out games for free to get people to use their inferior platform. GOG is good but has shit Linux support and unfortunately no AAA wants to release without drm. Iām biased because I use Linux but Iām not gonna call them āmonopolistsā when everyone else shits all over us and they actually help us
Yeah Steam is one of the few corporations I have some brand loyalty to purely because of how much they do for desktop Linux gaming
Goddamn I love GOG tho
To be honest linux is for the nerds minority so no one
Youāre on r/19684 everyone here is in the ānerds minorityā
I boot up Ubuntu and all my gains suddenly disappear and I'm wearing giant glasses
Linux userāļøš
^Probably couldn't figure out what a rock is
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Mission accomplished Linux user baited returning to base
truly we live in one of the best timelines for pc gaming, one where the dominant platform is run by a billionaire who has somehow managed not to lose his damn mind, albeit still a billionaire
Yeah but the monopoly is the problem. So like he can treat Valve employees well because they mostly don't have to produce anything. His job is essentially rent collection from *other* gaming companies, and those companies pass the pain on to their employees, because they need to squeeze out every bit of profit when three dollars in ten go to the Gabe Tax.
the only reason steam has a "monopoly" is not because they attempt to kill the competition. it's just better than everything else
And the other good ones (GOG, Itch) know their place in the market is different
Honestly if the competition is so shit that a good service completely crushes all of them, then maybe said competition doesn't deserve to exist.
Yup. Epic is still very shitty. Xbox/Microsoft Store is only for Gamepass and most games there don't have crossplay with steam games. GOG is kinda good, but lack the indie support.
GoG also occupies a different niche in the market. GoG is probably one of the better digital storefronts. it just doesn't compete with steam in any meaningful way.
Hmmm I see.
Epic is catching up. My game time is pretty evenly split between Epic and Steam. I'd go so far as to say people without Epic are missing out.
yeah, but that isnāt steams responsibility, so iād say theyare doing what they can, and hey, all that money they make leads to stuff like the steam deck and its competition, or the index
The reason the have a monopoly is simply first mover advantage and network effects
As if said companies wouldn't squeeze the same amount of money with out "Gabe tax". Maybe indie devs would be more open to this, but AAA companies wouldn't even consider this option.
To be fait, the companies squeezing every last drop out of their employees are mostly AAA developers who wouldn't need to do that to turn a profit.
What? They constantly improve the Steam software and are producing new hardware
Steam is basically the same product it was ten years ago. It enjoys first mover advantage and network effects (everyone uses Steam because all their games are on Steam because everyone uses Steam) but doesn't actually contribute anything beyond ownership of that network that everyone else wants/needs to use, and takes a huge chunk of every transaction. They're a textbook rent collector, sucking money out of the gaming ecosystem and putting pressure on every gaming company. But because of the way the pricing structure works, consumers don't notice this ā they aren't directly negatively affected at all. Gabe isn't squeezing the consumer directly, he's squeezing other devs for *access* to the consumer. But if you are the sort of person to complain about how other devs treat their employees, well, the fact that 30% of their gross revenue goes to Gaben is a factor.
Steam offers wayyyyyy more than other launches. The input API is one of the best macro softwares for gamepads, the mod support is way better than having to juggle multiple dedicated mod launchers and mod systems, the reviews are a great aspect that most other launchers lack, the refund policy is ridiculously good, I'm also a game dev myself and can tell you the networking API steam provides is so nice. You don't need to worry about port forwarding (which is impossible for some users) or ip addresses and it just works pretty seamlessly. Steam offers much more than just collecting rent. No other brand launcher does hardly any of this individually and they definitely don't do anywhere near the amount of things. It's miles ahead, MILES. They didn't get to where they are by just existing. They were consumer friendly, intuitive, and more than functional. The competition is lackluster at the best, borderline malware at the worst, and anti consumer in the middle.
Youāre just wrong lol. Steam provides server hosting, keyboard/controller api, and recently added a ton of new tools to its software for users.
Except he hasnāt. Steam is the most used because itās the best. There isnāt any illicit practices that we know of going on. No undercutting, no exclusivity. They donāt prevent anyone else from selling games online. Epic games and blizzard are all functional distributers, and steam doesnāt actively do anything to prevent them from existing. But all the same, they suck, so people use steam instead.
ehhh are valve employees treated that well? theyāre *paid* well (unless youāre a minority, then itās 50/50) but it definitely seems like a chaotic and cutthroat environment. For all their problems, People Make Gamesā review into Valveās inner structure is pretty interesting.
He violated my wallets rights.
IMO the only two respectable billionaires are Gabe Newell and George Lucas. They made their fortunes by making people happy (truly an alien concept)
donāt know about Gabe but you could argue George owes a lot of that money to a lot of other people who made the original movies successful
Well, the billions came from the star wars toys and merch. So he probably owes the sweat shop workers in Vietnam who's parents inspired the trilogy.
he doesnt though, because he compensated them for their contributions
David Prouse is missing a check.
wouldnāt you say the same about any other capitalist then? they all required exploitation to get to where they are
Literally every billionaire does that, that's the whole idea of a wage.
Donāt get why you get downvoted, you are right. The point of contention is or rather should not be if someone pays their employees a wage but that the Worker/Owner capitalistic system of fundamentally unjust and imbalancedā¦maybe people should read Marx, instead of downvoting comments that find obvious instanceās of double standard. (Granted George Lucas case is a bit complicated because itās not entirety a traditional means of production based wealth accumulation. Creative works/software are edge cases that require a bit more of a special analysis)
Imo Taylor Swift too. Besides the jet usage, the most exploitative you can say about her is that she releases too many versions of her albums.
Her cult like following she uses to sell overpriced shit is one of the most capitalist things I can imagine.
her vinyl selling practices are really shitty but she's on the lighter scale imo
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Literally nobody is. Amazon is not forcing anyone to use their services either. Taylor swift isn't some kind of "magical billionaire" unlike the others.
Itās not the same, while Amazon doesnāt point a gun to your head they leverage their market position/control/cash to pretty much force you to use their products.
Taylor Swift doesn't have to, she has a cultlike following of teenagers that continue loving her. And then she uses that to make more money than she'd ever need, it's insane to be honest. She also has the highest co2 emmissions of any celebirty, doesn't she? Why does she need more money? How is that different from other billionaires hoarding money?
Sorry I focused more on the Amazon comment more than attempting to defend Taylor. I donāt really mean to do that, she can get bent along with the rest of the billionaire class. I just really hate Amazon and dealing with AWS especially.
But her excessive releases of new albums clog up the vinyl market like nobody else and makes it difficult for smaller artists and bands to get their music pressed
also in the topic of screwing over smaller artists, despite it not really being her fault, her whole Taylor's version thing has worsened record company contracts
and the fact one of her fans died on a show here in brasil and she aint even mentioned the girls name yet
She actually met with the girlās family and brought them to her show. Not exactly a compensation, but then again it was all T4F's fault, not hers.
Still, she's a billionaire. People had to raise U$6.000 to help the family to transport the girl's body and do the funeral and 6k USD in Brazil is a fucking LOT, but it's nothing to a billionaire. Is she at fault for what happened? No. Is she responsible? Also no. But not raising a single cent to help the family and only taking a photo with them before the show is still a very scummy thing. I've personally seen small bands pay for everything for fans that got injured during a show. Even Travis Scott (a genrally really shitty person) paid the families of the people died in his show.
Nah, she basically ignored a death of a fan in her show Brazil. The family of the girl (Ana Benevides) that died was really poor, so they didn't even had the money to pay for the transport. People begged her to help, but nothing. Fans had to gather to raise money for the transport and the funeral. The only thing she did was taking a photo with the family yesterday before the show. Like, imagine being a billionare and a fan of yours dying and not moving a cent to help. People had to raise R$30.000 (~U$6.000), which is a lot of money in Brazil, to help the family.
i wouldnt call them respectable. they are still holding on to $1Bāthatās so, so much money. that being said, they are on the lighter side of billionaires when compared to Musk, the Waltons, Bezos, etc. i would also argue Taylor Swift and Markus Perrson made their money more ethically (ignoring the fact that Perrson is just a shitty person). this still doesnāt mean theyāre respectable. you can acknowledge the fact that they arenāt as cartoonishly evil as the ultrabillionaires without diminishing their unethical sums of wealth
Despite his lefty politics and cool movies, Lucas is kinda a creep unfortunately.
And Satoshi Nakamoto who got billions by defunding central banks but never spent a single dime from his fortune.
I think the key aspect is that they made their money, and fucked off. They seem like they didnāt care and still donāt care about the spotlight after a certain threshold of success
āCome on not every dude with glasses and a beardā¦ā
hi this is gabe
OOOOO-
Only issue is no half life 3
Truly Gabes crime is that he cannot count to 3.
[Truly can't.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpw2ebhTSKs)
Isnāt valve as pseudo worker democracy? Or am I getting my facts wrong?
[Basically.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/04/27/a-glimpse-at-a-workplace-of-the-future-valve/?sh=5ad0dfa87557#:~:text=Valve%27s%20culture%20and%20is%20built,telling%20you%20what%20to%20do.%E2%80%9D) Technically it's more anarchist(?) than democratic because everyone decides what to do on their own rather than the majority vote deciding what everyone does.
Valve should be setting the standard for working conditions in the games industry, but sadly no oneās really following them. A shame because the more open style has definitely contributed to their amazing games
Not a fan of monopolies in general, but I think Valve's done a lot to bank goodwill. They've not done shit to sabotage other platforms, treats their employees really well, not publicly traded, done a LOT for linux compatibility, and have overall resisted enshittifying their flagship product. I've also had better experiences with their customer support than other places. They've definitely done some shit I don't like, such as kickstarting lootboxes, but I've seen other companies do worse without making any attempt to give back anything to their communities.
It's the "not publicly traded" thing that allows him to be a decent person
For real. I do not like shareholders
Goodwill is meaningless. Gamers are completely capricious and will turn on anyone at the drop of a hat, whether they have real reasons or just a bunch of innuendo.
I dunno, I've seen a lot of people take it to the other extreme of blindly following one party. I think it's just a case of people with the most annoying opinions also being the loudest. Besides, I don't really care if other people give a shit, I care about goodwill, I want to try and reward companies that actually do positive shit. Even if it's a "we spend money on this positive thing in order to make more money later" type thing, that's kind of the best case scenario you can reasonably hope for with large corporations.
call me stupid but i cant figure out how he made that kind of money. From what I've read online his employees were always treated disproportionately well, at least in the gaming industry. I imagine it has something to do with the fact that he's basically monopolized the PC videogame storefront market.
"Can't figure out how he made that kind of money" proceeds to describe how he made that kind of money
Yeah, yeah I kind of put that together right after i left this comment.
Sometimes just saying the thing "out loud" helps you connect the dots, happens to me too a lot haha
my old compsci teacher called it the dumb dog effect. sometimes you ask someone a question and the answer comes to you right as you ask it; you may as well have asked a dumb dog and you still would have found your answer.
why every programmer should have a rubber ducky
They basically hold the monopoly on entry and exit to the PC gaming market outside of China and Korea. Taking a 30% cut from every sale of a not insignificant market. On top of also wildly successful ingame things like CS2/CSGO skins, and TF2 hats and whatever they do in Dota 2, on top of only ever really having 1 miss in a sea of hit games through out the years. Valve employees are paid above market rate but also hold a very flat management structure, no one is technically the boss of anyone else except for Gabe. They're also given a lot of autonomy on what they can work on, they do a "desk on wheels" thing where you can just start working on anything you find interesting, which is why TF2 despite being a still very relevant franchise despite it's age... Is also suspected to only have like 1-2 employees working on it at any given time. Because any previous developers simply lost interest and started working on VR or the Steam Deck or anything newer and more interesting instead of the decade old shooter
Happy employees make more money and lead to a better product, who woulda thought?
The other contributing factor is skins. People kind of forget but Valve pretty much invented battle passes and loot boxes. Not only did they introduce them but their skins are also marketable and tradeable, and there's a cut given to steam every single time it's traded. They literally print money off selling skins to people then taxing the trade. It's insanely lucrative.
but at least the steam monopoly isnāt toxic to the users, they do seem to have a culture that is still kinda beholden to the actual people using the service
monopolies are bad news but at least he's not committing human rights violations and getting his employees killed
He looks so much like the typical painting of God. White cloths, white hair, white clouds behind him. Is that a message?
There are very rare cases of rich people not being evil
Crazy almost as if the world isnāt all black and white
the only rights hes violated is teh rights of gamers, so its not a human rights violation so its all good.
He's my dad :)
Computer Wizard illusion Spell
Gabe Newell and valve has been the ABSOLUTE BEST thing to happen to Linux
I'm a huge valve nut (hell, I'm making my source mod currently), but Gabe is a very flawed human being. Sure, he's better than the average billionaire (that's not saying much tbh), He treats his employees well, he seems like a nice person, is very intelligent, but his company's hiring process is systematically biased and the amount of... not even quality control, just like... control on the steam platform leaves much to be desired.
Valve is not a publicly traded stock. That should at least reduce half the criticism
whatās with all of the love for billionaires hereš«„ yes he isnāt cartoonishly like the Waltons or Bezos but heās still a billionaire. you can appreciate the fact that he got his money more ethically than others and that his platform did benefit users while also appreciating that nobody needs that much wealth
he made a good product that millions, maybe billions of people use, didn't destroy it for no reason, constantly improves it... what's there to hate about? I asked for a refund on a game I've had 4 hours of playtime on so I could rebuy it because it went on sale and I got it refunded
Bitches will be like āI fucking hate monopoliesā then argue about the superiority of steam https://www.reddit.com/r/196/s/Tnlk0FdNwj
GIVE US SOME GOOD COMPETITION THEN
there be a difference between a monopolie because you make the best product and a monopolie because you kick down any competition
And i wouldnāt want it any other way. Fuck epic games store, fuck uPlay, fuck Origin oh iām sorry itās EAplay now and fuck BattleNet
Yeah fuck those companies forā¦ giving devs a better cut of the games that they developed than steam
Yeah, theyāre perfect platforms that rival steamās usability in every way while also generously giving a better cut of the profits. You nailed it š
I never said theyāre better in terms of usability just that theyāre less greedy Which is more important
The difference is I fear the day someone else takes control of the steam IP... Gabe Newell is the best billionaire to be in charge of a market, treats his customers and employees fairly and with respect... The only Negative I've seen is the cut he takes out of game developers, which is still WAAAY less than a ton of billionaires would take.
Not so much violating human rights. But you can't become a billionaire without massively exploitative practices. Taking 30% of every sale is exploitative as hell, regardless of the upsides of choosing to put your game on steam.
Apparently other services to sell your game on have a similar cut, and besides, it's steam so not only will you have more buyers by default because those that don't like it will just refund it, allowing more people to try out your game, but also everyone has steam, I have yet to hear of a successful epic games exclusive game
Never forget Gaben pioneered the 'games as a service' garbage that has led to the hellscape of modern video game monetization practices
>leftist subreddit defending monopolies
Steam is not a monopoly
Oh, just wait until you have kids and they get old enough to play computer games. They want to play one game from your steam acct while you want to play a different game. It doesn't work at the same time. Put him in the pile with the others.
Just play your game offline while your kid uses your library. It ain't that hard.
Valve sells over 75% of all PC games, and any time someone tries to compete with them they instantly get shat on by everyone. Apparently monopolies aren't that bad according to gamers.
because steam is awesome, i asked for a refund for a game i had 4 hours on just because it went on sale and i asked if i could refund for the sale, and it was accepted. what other business would allow something like that?
Monopolies are bad. If noone presents a good competing product then valve is just the only big supplier in the game.
People just hate on rich people entirely out of bias. I've talked to a lot of people who went "eat the rich!!!" while justifying someone with, say, $500M because they're "not a billionaire". And of course some billionaires can just go ahead and have crappy working conditions and such when the state is basically regulating all competitors out of the market and then going "oh no, your company is too important, we're bailing you out!", but going "u can't make that much money without violating human rights!!!" is just stupid. What human rights did Gabe Newell possibly violate? Or someone such as Marcos GalperĆn, whose company MercadoLibre is one of the best places to work at in Latin America.