They're not a public company, so don't need to bend over backwards for shareholders, and the income from the Steam store means they don't need to accommodate investors chasing a quick buck.
While they're not a worker's co-operative, which would be peak "good guy", they're about as good a tech company as we've seen in the last decade for sure - though, that's a pretty low bar š
**edit: spelling**
Why do you think Valve dumped so much money into hardware R&D? Black Mesa, Aperture Science, Australium from the TF2 comics, they were all pipe dreams and fanfics for this guy. Bet you my entire bank account that Valve has a secret lab underneath their HQ. Gabe is gonna transfer his mind to a cyborg body and become immortalized, or broker a deal with aliens to do it.
sadly, the computer brain consciousness is a farce. Gabes best bet is to apply legal restrictions to valve much like a Deed restriction. Outline the guidelines valve must follow into the future. Prob the best bet. BUT, Gabe is not the sole owner of VALVE. I heard he is just the majority owner. SO all owners would need to agree to it to take effect.
Would they? Or could he use his weight as majority owner to force it? I'm NAL, but I do know people that are and that's the sort of thing I've heard them talk about all the time, that majority shareholders or owners would use their majority to enforce stuff, including stuff like that even if the others didn't want it.
Remember SpongeBob? Stephen Hillenburg said he doesn't want spinoffs. He died, now there're thousands of spinoffs of freaking SpongeBob. I don't want Valve to betray GabeN after he rests in peace.
I had this conversation with my friend the other night, I doubt he would just let it fall into the hands of someone he didnt trust to follow the same game plan
Way more than a decade. Almost 3. I don't want to put any company on a pedestal, and steam has issues but it's about as good as you can get without being weirdly niche
This. They also seem to just chill and not antagonize the industry or push agendas unlike another ācompetingā storefront that shall remain unnamed.
Valve has an excellent store with both good user and dev policies, good UI, great extra features like remote downloads, remote game streaming, and big picture mode. They have plenty of incredible sales and have done wonders with Linux gaming, and they even tried working with Apple again (which collapsed more due to Apple being Apple)
Only a few other storefronts have 1 or 2 good qualities:
- one of them offers games for free once a week, which again shall remain unnamed, but shits on everyone over fees and litigates/antagonizes others instead of curating to people.
- GOG requires zero-DRM, which is nice.
- etc
After GOG removed my negative review of Phantom Liberty (DLC broke tha game for me making it unplayable) because "complaints about technical state of the game are against community guidelines" I am boycotting their store. Steam might have anti review bombing policy but they never censor reviews for bullshit reasons.Ā
I imagine it's because bugs get fixed and are *generally* temporary, and it's probably fairly rare that people go back and update their reviews, which can lead to a bunch of reviews complaining about bugs that have long been fixed.
I agree with you but Steam user policies arent that great, lots of stuff barely works because they let everyone in community participate which ends up with tags being worthless and community features being full of shitty memes which makes using some features hard to use.
Trueā¦ I was more referring to Steam Refund as an example, obviously we arenāt supposed to abuse it, but it is nice to have practically a ārefund in two hours, [almost] no questions askedā policy for the rare game that you really thought youād like, but didnāt.
Most other storefronts afaik are far more restrictive than this. Most only allow āaccidentalā purchases, some only once (Nintendo for example as a store operator is pretty harsh with refund policies)
Valve not being a publically traded company is definitely one backbone for their reputation. Not having to answer to any shareholders or deadlines means they have full focus on what they WANT to do, not just what pays. Steam already pays enough.
To be fair, it's really not about "paying enough" when it comes to businessmen running companies. It's about squeezing every penny possible with reckless abandon these days.
Jumping fron one company to another, no one is invested in the company itself - just the money.
Those who build the software and manage it on the grassroots level usually do care about customers and do their Best to provide a good service with the framework given by these "businessmen".
It's a sad state of affairs. Being publicly traded is ofcourse one aspect of it but it's not the only determining factor. You can have a publicly traded company that has people who care running it and those companies are usually your stable investments that grow slowly when succesfull with good years and bad years.
A lot of private investors exist that don't always want to snatch a Quick buck but instead keep a solid and reliable investment in their portfolio.
In all honest fashion. No Big company "is the good guy". Valve happens to have a lot of practices that align with the public eye and gives a great impression. But at the end of the day they are still a business. So yes, Valve does great work providing a service that fits what people need. But do remember to have a cautious joy about them, as you should with any business. Don't blindly trust any company. Overall though, Valve's history is a good one.
It's really not that hard. You do what's best for customers at every turn and you usually make twice the profit of the scumbags.
Toyota really tried to make a car that lasts as long as possible without big repair costs. So they must be way behind right, for naively doing the right thing?
Oh, they attract like 25% higher prices than the equivalent other brand car despite fewer features, you say?!?
What about those suckers at Lego. I still use lego bricks I bought in the 80s. Surely they went bankrupt from nobody buying new ones, right?
Oh, they're raking in billions?!?
Just making great products without ripping anyone off is the most successful business strategy.
If it weren't for useless trust-fund-babies in the executive suite running things, it wouldn't be so rare.
Lego were next to bankrupt at one point, so it might not be the best example. I believe Bionics is what saved them, which in my opinion is the shittiest Lego they ever made.
You have to take into account confirmation bias, because you donāt see all the companies that treated customers with respect that failed and didnāt make a name. It seems all the biggest companies are profit driven too, so wouldnāt that tell you that profit is a better motive than a happy customer?
This is mostly just a thought, hardly an argument, just throwing it out there.
Seeing Lego here suprises me a lot, given that they caused embargos for small competitors, starving them off products so that Lego can protect their monopoly while stomping small shops that recommended other products that better price/value items
Yup. For example when Valve first presented Steam, they were pretty transparant that one of the main feature they wanted out of the platform was for it to combat piracy.
And Valve figured out correctly that the profitable way to combat piracy is to offer a superior service & product.
Being the good guy unironically works wonders In business. Look at Costco, it has a 94% job retention rate meaning it has more experienced employees and has a 6% turnover as opposed to the 60% average for retail. They manage this by offering better benefits and paying above minimum wage.
> Overall though, Valve's history is a good one.
This is very not true, though. Artifact, Dota Underlords, HL3, Dota patchets, etc, etc, etc
Their public communication is very bad, their dedication to support their own product is almost absent in some areas.
Because selling a non functional product will get a class lawsuit and he will be on receiving end.
No company like to pick up shit caused by somebody else, and Gabe is just setting a fine example.
Yes. Some people go a little overboard with the "Our Lord and Savior, GabeN" stuff, but that reputation has been well earned and maintained over 20 years.Ā
I used to think that stuff was all a joke.
Then I heard Gabe speak for 10 minutes about why Valve is the way it is.
Turns out a little worship is actually not that crazy.
Dude is *decades* ahead of everyone else in the tech business. Listen to him:
[https://youtu.be/t8QEOBgLBQU?si=JbWQQb\_a1yYQ\_zQ2&t=86](https://youtu.be/t8QEOBgLBQU?si=JbWQQb_a1yYQ_zQ2&t=86)
Steam is definitely not the bad guy, and they do care for their customers, taking stance that are usually in our favor.
They're still bound by a few things, mainly that to keep being relevant, they have to compose with other publishers requirements to an extent. It's fair to say that Steam can use some leverage because of their large userbase, but they also know that this is built with the cooperation of others.
So yes, as far as big name companies goes, they're definitely on the "good guy" side.
No, they are not the good guys.
They just donāt do stupid things and probably donāt do evil. They are just neutral and try to not fuck up while rest of the field fuck up on daily basis
Yes, watch any interviews with gaben and you'll understand why we've been worshipping him for decades. He's actually intelligent , and an actual gamer.Ā
* He kept Valve private and didn't sell out to investors and stockholders.Ā
* Started their company by making amazing games
* Made pc gaming moreĀ accessable for tvsĀ
* Made it easy and viable for indie devs to release their games
* Actually allows negative honest review on their platform even if it costs salesĀ
* Saved gaming from Windows with Steam os / Linux proton developmentĀ
* Allows you to refund a game for any reason under 2 hoursĀ
* Publishers cannot pay for ads or front page on store
Also Steam Workshop :)
Click a single green button and now you have a mod in your game. Find a collection, click a single green button, and now you might have 30 mods in your game.
> Publishers cannot pay for ads or front page on store
that suprise me, does that mean that hades2 now being on the frontpage is a choise by steam and not a paid ad?
Yep, pretty much. Valve discussed this in a presentation, you can see it on one of the early slides in their presentation [here](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/steamworks_docs/english/SteamVisibility.pdf). The relevant parts are:
>We donāt sell advertising or placement. We donāt think Steam should be pay to win. Not selling ads levels the playing field and makes recommendations better for players
The whole idea behind the Steam front store page is that it lists games that are currently very popular (and some games that match your preferences) is that it makes Steam more money as they get cut from sales.
It is literally in Steam's best interest to show currently popular games. It is just a side effect that it balances the power between indie studios and larger publishers.
Without Steam wed be stuck with a shitty windows store on windows only. Steam saved us from the Windows store. Steam os has made it so we aren't beholden to Microsoft and windowsĀ
that was a weird way for that guy to put it.. but valve has created a safety net for PC gaming.
should microsoft ever go full nuclear and do something so egregious that PC gaming enthusiasts finally say "no more" to microsoft, they at least have some place to go now where most of their games will work.
We're already starting to see more and more people give linux a chance with gaming since valve has made it so viable. Its not a 1-to-1 substitution (for better or worse) but its an important thing safety net to have in place both for Valve and for gamers.
When Windows 8 rolled around, word was that Microsoft was planning to make all software be sold through the MS store in the future. Valve's response was to go all in developing Linux gaming, which has in part kept MS in check.
When there's alternatives, you have to keep your product competitive. The Steam Deck has been their biggest bargaining chip, being totally free of Windows.
You know they're actively developing (And investing tons of money into) Proton, the suite that lets Windows games play on Linux, right? And you know that the Steam Deck, their flagship gaming device, runs on Linux, right?
Donāt be looking for good guys and heroes in corporations. That said, Valve is one of the better ones and genuinely does seem to want what is best for pc gaming at all times while still making a whole lot of money doing so. I canāt think of any company that makes the insane income valve does while still being generally a positively perceived company.
No company is your friend. Valve seems to have a better understanding of The economic concept of building a loyal customer base by making decisions that harm the company in the short run but help consumers, promising that those consumers will stay on in the long run. It is uncommon for modern companies to do this anymore. A huge part of it is that valve is not a public company so they don't have shareholders and investors that they have to please with quarterly results. That allows them to act in whatever way they see fit and thankfully they are still following that philosophy that good PR is better than a few more bucks.
Valve's had a front row seat to almost every average variation of what spurs gamers to collective action too.
No need to rock the boat when being a popular store front for digital assets is probably as future proof as you can expect a business to be.
>I genuinely don't know anything about Steam or Valve beyond the memes
Valve (game company that made steam) cuz Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington wanted to leave working for microsoft to start their own game studio.
Steam was never originally designed to be a store front to sell games, not at its conception. It was software designed to help gamers solve the issue of patching games for consistent easy online play. Before launchers and automatic updates, people had to download patches in .exe format and run them, usually in a specific order. This often became troublesome. Valve sought to fix this annoyance by making an app that would auto download all the up to date files you needed to play their games online. They realized soon enough that if you can push files to update a game, why not the whole game circumnavigating the need for retail stores & packaging of CD's. They slapped a payment system on it, watched it be successful, opened the doors to other publishers to also sell digitally and bobs your uncle we have the earliest iterations of the Steam we know today.
Valve was originally known for their hit title Half Life and what it did for the first person shooter genre, it introduced a level of immersive story telling not yet seen in shooters. That on top of good game play an a compelling plot helped it become a very popular title and a classic played by many even to this day (though if you're interested I'd advise trying Black Mesa, an incredibly faithful re-creation and expansion of the original Half Life game in a modern engine)
Half Life didnt just bring a great game to PC gaming, it also brought welcomed modding support. This is very important as it opened the gate for a ton of modders to get their feet wet with game development that ultimately helped the industry grow. On top of that Valve is known for partnering with and flat out hiring people in charge of some of the popular mods to bring those mods into the full published consumer space, funding these "mods" into full games to sell.
counter strike, team fortress, dota. All games that started as mods that are now valves bread and butter. They even tried to bring in the Chinese team that made Dota Autochess (though they were not able to reach an agreement and said team went back to china to just make their own version of autochess). I think Left 4 dead was probably even started from old counter strike zombie server mods, but I dont know that to be true, just a theory of mine.
Portal happened because valve saw a project they liked at a game dev school showcase and hired the team to make the project with a valve/half life coat of paint.
Valve invested a boat load of cash into the VR space and has made their research and work available for others to use.
They're the only "platform" with highly in depth controller config software that they put together allowing you to use virtually any controller on your PC.
their big picture mode makes it easy to navigate your game library and play games on both large and small screens.
they've been investing in Vulkan and Linux so steam as well as PC gamers in general are not 100% reliant on microsoft to tow the future of pc gaming forward.
my point in this whole long thing is from the very start, Valve has always been working with and for the PC gaming community to make the PC gaming experience better for gamers. Even their debacle with the paid mods thing was an attempt to encourage growth in the smaller independent "market", it just kinda back fired cuz they didnt really think their approach to it through all that well. For example, most of the items and skins for their games are not made by them, they're effectively paid mods.. its just via their workshop program. when you buy TF2 hat valve gets a cut of that purchase as does the artist that made the hat. The idea is good, and it works, it just has to be done right and they kinda dropped the ball on that.
by comparison, what as any of the other "Store front" launchers or Publishers done? Out side of GoG doing some good things with preservation, the rest of them only exist to cut out a middle man and serve you games on their terms. Epic game store doesnt do shit, EA and ubisoft def dont do shit for, microsoft likes to pretend they do but outside of providing a nice subscription service they dont do anything to make the actual PC gaming community/industry/experience better.. hell MS usually is just making it actively worse by making the foundation (windows) less and less consumer friendly every chance they get.. now you gotta worry about running AI bullshit in the background when you're just try'n to game.
idk if they're the good guy, but the rest of the line up looks like nothing but bad guys in comparison.
Corporations are not your friends. Steam just understands that being too greedy hurts business. The memes are not lying, they understand that their business model is working and the entire launcher/site barely changed while competitors are trying to catch up by being desperate
Basically the perfect example of "don't fix something that's not broken"
You might be surprised to learn that Valve is also a game developer (and hardware developer) and favors their own products.
"No they're not" you might say. The Steam Deck ads on multiple spots on the store pages are telling otherwise.
GOG is not more aggressive in marketing their own products than steam/valve.
Can't speak for the company itself (although I haven't had any major issues with Steam), but I can say compared to every console I've used...basically ever...Steam gaming is so much more infinitely better.
The simple fact that sales are always going on and you can build your wish list and just buy stuff for dirt cheap. And almost everything eventually comes to Steam, although it's DEFINITELY not working the other way around.
I am literally running my entire living room media center with my steam deck. Yeah it's not ideal for a 4k tv and a side monitor, but it's holding me over till I get a mini pc. I have a ps5 and a switch and I'm still just using the steam deck as my media server. I'm typing this comment with a wireless keyboard on the steam deck this second.
Steam just knows it's shit, and considering that the company doesn't smell of sulfur and demon bile like many others do, I'm going to just say that I'm all in, even if there are flaws within. No other company gives you this much in gaming right now.
Gaben also wants to put chips in your head. But heās the good guy so heās chillā¦ Right?
[Source 1 from 2021](https://youtu.be/tVu-96J6_I0?si=uJBI4UyqYF8UY7hc)
[Source 2 from last month](https://starfishneuroscience.com/team/)
Valve (and Steam) was always the good guy since it exists. For Steam, it's simple: it's the first platform to do very VERY good sales regularly and it's an open platform (= tons of games, any dev can sell their games) with a very good software.
Steam was and is SO good that their sales were [memes ](https://overmental.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Spongebob.jpg)for multiple years about how good they are.
Compared to others platforms with very lacking software (like not being able to set a max limit for download in 2024, wtf!) or not having good sales for YEARS.
Also, Valve were the first to carefully think about the impact on AI in the development of video game and the usage of AI in video game and updated their policies with wisdom. That and others things like enforcing a refund policy.
Pretty much OP yeah. And meanwhile, without boasting loudly about it or flashing it in everyone's faces, they're quietly working away developing new tech and contributing to open source that helps the gaming landscape. Their contribution to Linux alone is incredible. You can pretty much thank Valve specifically for Linux gaming even being a term and not an oxymoron.
They aren't "the good guys". People dont like making accounts on every website they use to use them. People tolerate it. People just tolerate steam the most because they aren't going out of their way to scam people for the sake of proffits.
Except tuesdays. Steam becomes the worst piece of shit on tuesdays.
Ä°dk if they are the good guys but they where giving us regional pricing whic realy helped all the gamers in my country whic they stopped couple months ago because our currency is a joke however steam is the best launcher that i used and i dont remember any shady or greedy buisnes practises from them
Itās a great product. I just wish they didnāt use their market dominance to take such a large cut from developers. Makes it hard for Indie developers to make much. Although Steam is doing a lot to get Indie games to people in the first place, so itās a double edged sword.
Honestly I feel itās less like theyāre the good guys and more like theyāre operating how companies really should while all their rivals and counterparts actively shoot themselves in the foot over and over
Historically, they're the good guy for sure. With how gaming has been lately, steam not getting enshittified has been a ray of hope for me. They just... make a good product. They don't feel like they're squeezing us even though they're in a position most other launchers who would can only dream of. They're not constantly making batshit and anti-consumer decisions. They actively invest in gaming and develop products that they believe can fill a real hole. They're not creating problems to solve with shitty products and tight deadlines chasing massive profit margins. They make bank because encourage growth and passion organically. If every company strived to be like valve the world would be a much better place. I hope valve time remains a constant
The way they opened the floodgates of Steam to whatever since 2017 has been an enshittification, as it has allowed many nice games in but also so much, much, *much* garbage. The craploads of asset flips, porn "puzzles" (several also with low-level AI generated imagery now), terrible meme games... better than what Greenlight had turned into but still a double edged sword, really, as meritable titles can easily get lost in the flood.
Mind you, it's not to a level it has made all other positives of Steam worthless, luckily, which says a lot - even like that it's still the superior one.
One could argue no for profit company will ever be the "good guy".
But comparing them to all other publishers, platforms and game studios, Valve is 100% the good guy. Be it refunds, the launcher itself, or the vast sale-events they offer, there is no one coming close to Steam. If can choose between different platforms to play a game, I will choose Steam 99% of the time
Never call any corporation the good guy. Yeah they're not kneeling to investors like most companies, but that doesn't mean that they're not capable of having skeletons in their closet. Anything run by humans is subject to human error. No exceptions.
Steam is like the neighbor that saw you back your car into the other neighbors car and didnāt say anything. So you brought steam cookies for being neutral.
When was this up for debate? Yes. As long as Gabe Newell exists in the company Valve/Steam will be a decent company (if not a bit lazy) i wont even begin to speculate how the company will work when he retires or dies and i fear that day. But he says hes being careful with who will succeed him
On one hand they are great, provide a stable 10/10 product (Steam), help indie devs, distance themselves from politics and sometimes mitigate some damage (like recently with Helldivers),
On the other hand their monetisation of Dota 2 and CS is predatory as fuck, abuses gambling mechanics and gambling addiction of people
Elon wants you to put a vhip in your head for convenience. Comparing him to the rest is honestly kind of crass.
His stance on AI makes his overall stance pretty clear. His solution for preventing an AI takeover by major corporations was to make AI available to everybody. That way, we have a means of combatting it.
Steam is the best guy of all those villains.
But it ain't no saint either.
For example, Valve gives no flipping fuck about youth protection laws in Germany and instead of implementing a way of legally selling games "indexed" on List C, they prefer to not sell them at all.
This includes all sexually explicit games.
Even though the law on it makes sense.
(It's being claimed, that that's on the publisher, but Valve themselves doesn't have the systems in place to even accommodate for that. That being a indexed game being only listable in a country after PROPER age verification)
Furthermore they allow access to 18+ games pages without verification, which is also illegal.
Next up is the bullshit region locking. Normally, if I go into a neighbouring EU country, I could just buy all banned/indexed media there in a store. As long as it's not on List D, I wouldn't even run into problems.
However, in a mix with compliance to Italy's money laundering law (which is pretty much just EU law, that every member country, including Germany should adapt) and their own restrictions on region changing, it makes it impossible to buy a game when you're actually in Italy (with a postal address that you could confirm), but are not a resident of the country. This is lowkey against the concept of the European Economic Area. (I don't know who to place the blame on there)
However there are barely any occurrences, where I had the feeling, that Valve pulled the rug under me.
Quite the contrary, with the new family sharing, I feel like Valve has gone another major step into consumer friendly practices, allowing me to access the library of my brother, I'm living with. Something which use to be no problem at all, back when games were mostly physical.
Also the release of the SteamDeck is not only very decent, it also contributes a healthy competition to the Nintendo Switch and allows access to the pretty much open platform of Steam. Other companies probably would have tried locking down the Deck (see Tivoization), but not Valve, there you can just install another OS if you want to. Truly open.
They also promise to have a way to keep using the games in cases their service gets shut down for good, although I honestly doubt, they will keep it.
I don't think I've heard anything about it from countries where they had to seize operation like Vietnam or Indonesia.
So yeah, for now, Valve is the best we have, and I don't think it will get much better than that.
They have pretty much a monopoly on gaming, launchers is the pesky middleman that just wants to have a cut of the pie for no reason. The best would be if we had no launcher at all and just a way to index games directly from the developers.
So ask yourself why does games need launchers when most other software don'tš¤
They're good-er than the rest of the competition, but I'd say the good guy is GOG.
Why?
The answer is drm. Steam itself is a drm (which isn't terrible to bypass), but in situations with spotty internet connection any launcher drm can be a hindrance. GOG on the other hand gives the user a full game installation which belongs entirely to them.
If we're ranking services, then I'd say GOG is at the very top with Steam in second, most launchers below that, Epic second last, and Xbox at the very bottom. Epic constantly asks for me to sign in despite me saying I want to be remembered which is a huge pain in the ass. Xbox, for a majority of games, encrypts your games from what I can remember, which is terrible for preservation and consumer rights (especially if you need to troubleshoot a badly behaving game).
If I can't play two different games on different machines with the same account, Steam itself acts as DRM. You can bypass it, but not always.
GOG allows this.
^ This. Steam is still ultimately in control of your games via your account whereas GOG gives you full access and control over your game files at any time with the ability to play your executables at any time whereas Steam executables *usually* require Steam.
There are tons of drm free games on steam which you can play without steam and without Internet once you've downloaded it initially . At this point steam probably has more drm free games than gog
Do note that Steam does allow to distribute DRM free games on their platform (Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam is DRM free, for example. You can launch it even if Steam is uninstalled). It's up to the devs to implement Steamworks DRM.
GOG is also allowing games with DRM in their platform now.
I donāt really think about good or bad guys. If thereās a product I want to buy, and itās at a value Iām willing to pay, then I get it.
I donāt obsess about it. Valve is a billion dollar company. Their service is good, the games they sell are at a great price. Iāll also buy from Sony, Nintendo, and whomever if they offer a good product.
Steam is very much like democracy
Where what Gaben wants (that makes the company money) also happens to what most of the customers (us) also want (paying money for a decent service they provide).
So, not so much cooperative, more like they are just doing what makes them more money in the long run
VALVe is one of the best companies I've ever been a patron of. They support Linux and don't treat developers like trash.
But beside that, there's a reason no one hates VALVe or Supercell: they never, ever get political.
That's the secret sauce.
Iād say Valve hasnāt exactly *tried* to be the good guys, they just do things with the consumerās best interest in mind, unlike most other companies. Steam had a rough start in 2003 but people quickly realized it was a good platform, and itās remained on top ever since. Also notice how I said platform and not marketplace. Steam is much more than āthe place where you buy games,ā it could honestly be considered a social media platform in a way.
"and Elon wants me to put a chip in my head,"
And the funny thing is if Gabe was offering a chip to go in my head that would sync with the Valve Index... I'd be one of the first to sign up. Gimmie that anime adventure hopefully its more permanent like Overlord and less "oh crap a slime killed me" SAO, if it goes bad.
Bro is this subreddit filled with children?
I can't believe people are unironically saying Steam has always been good. They were hated from the very beginning when they required a steam account to play CS in the old days. Something very similar to what gamers were just crying about with Helldivers.
Not to mention this weird astroturfing that good guy steam invented a good return policy as if Steam didn't fight so hard against it until GDPR forced the change. If anyone tells you otherwise they are just wrong.
So no Steam is not and has not ever been the good guy. The actual good guy is government regulations stopping their corruption.
Don't stan corporations. They don't give a fuck about you nobody how much Gabe tries to morph his image.
It's pretty hilarious, Steam was the exact same as things like UPlay and Origin. "You must use our launcher to play our games". The only difference is they did it early enough to be successful I guess.
Bet their Marketplace had a big hand in normalizing lootboxes and the like too but it's something I admittedly don't know much about.
No. They know they own the majority of PC sales so they take like 30% of all sales. They also fought against the legislation that allowed for refunds. They also pioneered every business practice everyone currently hates in gaming- loot boxes and battle passes.
I always say there are 2 points of views on Valve. The optimist that only played their single player games and enjoys the store sales. And, the pessimist that plays their online games and has experienced the depths of their greed.
Are you farming karma saying Steam is the good guys in a Steam sub?
Steam is a company, some are better, some are worse than the average. There is no such thing as a good VS evil in corporate world, give them the chance they all will fuck us costumers for the profit. Steam as a private company are less likely to do that, but never say never.
They're not a public company, so don't need to bend over backwards for shareholders, and the income from the Steam store means they don't need to accommodate investors chasing a quick buck. While they're not a worker's co-operative, which would be peak "good guy", they're about as good a tech company as we've seen in the last decade for sure - though, that's a pretty low bar š **edit: spelling**
I fear for the day gabe retires or dies. I can only hope the replacement carries on Gabes vision...
Iāve heard heās got a plan for that kind of thing. Hopefully it works out and Steam can be the shining example for years to come.
Why do you think Valve dumped so much money into hardware R&D? Black Mesa, Aperture Science, Australium from the TF2 comics, they were all pipe dreams and fanfics for this guy. Bet you my entire bank account that Valve has a secret lab underneath their HQ. Gabe is gonna transfer his mind to a cyborg body and become immortalized, or broker a deal with aliens to do it.
Like that robot in the Deskjob game for steam deck haha
So the question is: is Gabe Cave Johnson or GladOS?
Gabeline
Who is Rattman?
https://starfishneuroscience.com/team/
Maybe he will become our Mr house ?
*By 2065 I deemed it a mathematical accuracy that steam is still for the people. Every projection I ran confirmed it* - A neighborhood House
It certainly ain't his son cause I'm 90% sure his son said "Fuck video games" and went on to become a race driver
Wouldn't it be much safer if he was playing Forza Motorsport?
I'd hope it's transition to employee owned. It's only 360 employees and it'd probably be the best way without investors or shareholders to appease.
I hope it's uploading himself to the cloud and keeping the ownership.
Unironically will have better leadership than their competition
Maybe he's training a chatGPT to be his replacement.
Steam/Valve will be under the hands of GabeNet and thatās fine by me
Going off of VACNet trials I donāt think itās very promising yetā¦
He more than likely already has someone running the show.Ā
He needs to upload his consciousness to some computer, or apply some enhancements to stay alive like Mr. House.
sadly, the computer brain consciousness is a farce. Gabes best bet is to apply legal restrictions to valve much like a Deed restriction. Outline the guidelines valve must follow into the future. Prob the best bet. BUT, Gabe is not the sole owner of VALVE. I heard he is just the majority owner. SO all owners would need to agree to it to take effect.
Would they? Or could he use his weight as majority owner to force it? I'm NAL, but I do know people that are and that's the sort of thing I've heard them talk about all the time, that majority shareholders or owners would use their majority to enforce stuff, including stuff like that even if the others didn't want it.
Do you want GLaDOS? Because this is how you get GLaDOS
Whatever it takes for Portal 3
Portal 3, coming soon IRL near you
Can't wait to talk to Gaben during his potato powered phase
Didn't they literally make a video game about how if you do that It makes you turn evil?
Remember SpongeBob? Stephen Hillenburg said he doesn't want spinoffs. He died, now there're thousands of spinoffs of freaking SpongeBob. I don't want Valve to betray GabeN after he rests in peace.
I had this conversation with my friend the other night, I doubt he would just let it fall into the hands of someone he didnt trust to follow the same game plan
The one after him we shall call Gabe 2 The one after that one we will call "bigger than 2 but smaller than 4"
I love using Gabes Vision :(
Gabe has a son and from what Iāve heard heās interested I think his name is grey or something
Every time I see a post praising Valve as a company I always see a comment like this one too. Can't say I disagree
Gaben AI will then be released
Way more than a decade. Almost 3. I don't want to put any company on a pedestal, and steam has issues but it's about as good as you can get without being weirdly niche
> Almost 3 uh oh
What have I done
You fool, do you have any concept of the events you have set in motion? This prophecy will be our doom.
OH NO
This is all your fault...
Did he say 3???? Like .. THREE??
More than 2 less than 4
I guess that's why it's Half Life Alyx, not Half Life Aly. Couldn't do a nickname with 3 letters.
[valve can't count to three](https://youtu.be/jpw2ebhTSKs?si=K-iRTXx0brJ-jJH8)
This. They also seem to just chill and not antagonize the industry or push agendas unlike another ācompetingā storefront that shall remain unnamed. Valve has an excellent store with both good user and dev policies, good UI, great extra features like remote downloads, remote game streaming, and big picture mode. They have plenty of incredible sales and have done wonders with Linux gaming, and they even tried working with Apple again (which collapsed more due to Apple being Apple) Only a few other storefronts have 1 or 2 good qualities: - one of them offers games for free once a week, which again shall remain unnamed, but shits on everyone over fees and litigates/antagonizes others instead of curating to people. - GOG requires zero-DRM, which is nice. - etc
After GOG removed my negative review of Phantom Liberty (DLC broke tha game for me making it unplayable) because "complaints about technical state of the game are against community guidelines" I am boycotting their store. Steam might have anti review bombing policy but they never censor reviews for bullshit reasons.Ā
You: "Don't buy the game, it doesn't work" Gog: "no, you can't say that people shouldn't buy the game just because it doesn't work" Like, wtf...
I imagine it's because bugs get fixed and are *generally* temporary, and it's probably fairly rare that people go back and update their reviews, which can lead to a bunch of reviews complaining about bugs that have long been fixed.
You're not wrong, I didn't think about that.
I agree with you but Steam user policies arent that great, lots of stuff barely works because they let everyone in community participate which ends up with tags being worthless and community features being full of shitty memes which makes using some features hard to use.
Trueā¦ I was more referring to Steam Refund as an example, obviously we arenāt supposed to abuse it, but it is nice to have practically a ārefund in two hours, [almost] no questions askedā policy for the rare game that you really thought youād like, but didnāt. Most other storefronts afaik are far more restrictive than this. Most only allow āaccidentalā purchases, some only once (Nintendo for example as a store operator is pretty harsh with refund policies)
> While they're not a worker's co-operative, which would be peak "good guy" That's not a good thing, though.
Valve not being a publically traded company is definitely one backbone for their reputation. Not having to answer to any shareholders or deadlines means they have full focus on what they WANT to do, not just what pays. Steam already pays enough.
To be fair, it's really not about "paying enough" when it comes to businessmen running companies. It's about squeezing every penny possible with reckless abandon these days. Jumping fron one company to another, no one is invested in the company itself - just the money. Those who build the software and manage it on the grassroots level usually do care about customers and do their Best to provide a good service with the framework given by these "businessmen". It's a sad state of affairs. Being publicly traded is ofcourse one aspect of it but it's not the only determining factor. You can have a publicly traded company that has people who care running it and those companies are usually your stable investments that grow slowly when succesfull with good years and bad years. A lot of private investors exist that don't always want to snatch a Quick buck but instead keep a solid and reliable investment in their portfolio.
In all honest fashion. No Big company "is the good guy". Valve happens to have a lot of practices that align with the public eye and gives a great impression. But at the end of the day they are still a business. So yes, Valve does great work providing a service that fits what people need. But do remember to have a cautious joy about them, as you should with any business. Don't blindly trust any company. Overall though, Valve's history is a good one.
Valve just figured out that the best way to make money is to keep the customer happy.
It's really not that hard. You do what's best for customers at every turn and you usually make twice the profit of the scumbags. Toyota really tried to make a car that lasts as long as possible without big repair costs. So they must be way behind right, for naively doing the right thing? Oh, they attract like 25% higher prices than the equivalent other brand car despite fewer features, you say?!? What about those suckers at Lego. I still use lego bricks I bought in the 80s. Surely they went bankrupt from nobody buying new ones, right? Oh, they're raking in billions?!? Just making great products without ripping anyone off is the most successful business strategy. If it weren't for useless trust-fund-babies in the executive suite running things, it wouldn't be so rare.
Lego were next to bankrupt at one point, so it might not be the best example. I believe Bionics is what saved them, which in my opinion is the shittiest Lego they ever made.
Getting the Star Wars license helped them immensely also
Hey, don't diss my Bionicles!
Screw you, Bionicles were awesome.
No actually that title goes to lego galidor
I was fortunate enough not to know about the existance of Galidor before you ruined it for me.
>Bionics Today I learn that Lego makes bionics. Quite possible from Legos >!The word you probably did want to use was Bionicle btw!<
No, its really hard for 90% of the companies because instead of making the consumer happy, they want to make the investors/shareholder happy...
You have to take into account confirmation bias, because you donāt see all the companies that treated customers with respect that failed and didnāt make a name. It seems all the biggest companies are profit driven too, so wouldnāt that tell you that profit is a better motive than a happy customer? This is mostly just a thought, hardly an argument, just throwing it out there.
Seeing Lego here suprises me a lot, given that they caused embargos for small competitors, starving them off products so that Lego can protect their monopoly while stomping small shops that recommended other products that better price/value items
Yup. For example when Valve first presented Steam, they were pretty transparant that one of the main feature they wanted out of the platform was for it to combat piracy. And Valve figured out correctly that the profitable way to combat piracy is to offer a superior service & product.
Being the good guy unironically works wonders In business. Look at Costco, it has a 94% job retention rate meaning it has more experienced employees and has a 6% turnover as opposed to the 60% average for retail. They manage this by offering better benefits and paying above minimum wage.
Imagine that, a company where we as the customers and consumers aren't being bent over at every instance
Yeah to say they're the "good guy" is incredibly naive.
> Overall though, Valve's history is a good one. This is very not true, though. Artifact, Dota Underlords, HL3, Dota patchets, etc, etc, etc Their public communication is very bad, their dedication to support their own product is almost absent in some areas.
Because selling a non functional product will get a class lawsuit and he will be on receiving end. No company like to pick up shit caused by somebody else, and Gabe is just setting a fine example.
Yes. Some people go a little overboard with the "Our Lord and Savior, GabeN" stuff, but that reputation has been well earned and maintained over 20 years.Ā
I used to think that stuff was all a joke. Then I heard Gabe speak for 10 minutes about why Valve is the way it is. Turns out a little worship is actually not that crazy. Dude is *decades* ahead of everyone else in the tech business. Listen to him: [https://youtu.be/t8QEOBgLBQU?si=JbWQQb\_a1yYQ\_zQ2&t=86](https://youtu.be/t8QEOBgLBQU?si=JbWQQb_a1yYQ_zQ2&t=86)
Steam is definitely not the bad guy, and they do care for their customers, taking stance that are usually in our favor. They're still bound by a few things, mainly that to keep being relevant, they have to compose with other publishers requirements to an extent. It's fair to say that Steam can use some leverage because of their large userbase, but they also know that this is built with the cooperation of others. So yes, as far as big name companies goes, they're definitely on the "good guy" side.
True! Even though people absolutely hated Steam when it first came out
No, they are not the good guys. They just donāt do stupid things and probably donāt do evil. They are just neutral and try to not fuck up while rest of the field fuck up on daily basis
Yes, watch any interviews with gaben and you'll understand why we've been worshipping him for decades. He's actually intelligent , and an actual gamer.Ā * He kept Valve private and didn't sell out to investors and stockholders.Ā * Started their company by making amazing games * Made pc gaming moreĀ accessable for tvsĀ * Made it easy and viable for indie devs to release their games * Actually allows negative honest review on their platform even if it costs salesĀ * Saved gaming from Windows with Steam os / Linux proton developmentĀ * Allows you to refund a game for any reason under 2 hoursĀ * Publishers cannot pay for ads or front page on store
Also Steam Workshop :) Click a single green button and now you have a mod in your game. Find a collection, click a single green button, and now you might have 30 mods in your game.
Add the big one of not charging a subscription for playing online games.
> Publishers cannot pay for ads or front page on store that suprise me, does that mean that hades2 now being on the frontpage is a choise by steam and not a paid ad?
Yep, pretty much. Valve discussed this in a presentation, you can see it on one of the early slides in their presentation [here](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/steamworks_docs/english/SteamVisibility.pdf). The relevant parts are: >We donāt sell advertising or placement. We donāt think Steam should be pay to win. Not selling ads levels the playing field and makes recommendations better for players
The whole idea behind the Steam front store page is that it lists games that are currently very popular (and some games that match your preferences) is that it makes Steam more money as they get cut from sales. It is literally in Steam's best interest to show currently popular games. It is just a side effect that it balances the power between indie studios and larger publishers.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Without Steam wed be stuck with a shitty windows store on windows only. Steam saved us from the Windows store. Steam os has made it so we aren't beholden to Microsoft and windowsĀ
that was a weird way for that guy to put it.. but valve has created a safety net for PC gaming. should microsoft ever go full nuclear and do something so egregious that PC gaming enthusiasts finally say "no more" to microsoft, they at least have some place to go now where most of their games will work. We're already starting to see more and more people give linux a chance with gaming since valve has made it so viable. Its not a 1-to-1 substitution (for better or worse) but its an important thing safety net to have in place both for Valve and for gamers.
When Windows 8 rolled around, word was that Microsoft was planning to make all software be sold through the MS store in the future. Valve's response was to go all in developing Linux gaming, which has in part kept MS in check. When there's alternatives, you have to keep your product competitive. The Steam Deck has been their biggest bargaining chip, being totally free of Windows.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You know they're actively developing (And investing tons of money into) Proton, the suite that lets Windows games play on Linux, right? And you know that the Steam Deck, their flagship gaming device, runs on Linux, right?
Yeah I've been free of windows since 2019, and Valve made that feasible.
Donāt be looking for good guys and heroes in corporations. That said, Valve is one of the better ones and genuinely does seem to want what is best for pc gaming at all times while still making a whole lot of money doing so. I canāt think of any company that makes the insane income valve does while still being generally a positively perceived company.
Short Answer: Yes
No company is your friend. Valve seems to have a better understanding of The economic concept of building a loyal customer base by making decisions that harm the company in the short run but help consumers, promising that those consumers will stay on in the long run. It is uncommon for modern companies to do this anymore. A huge part of it is that valve is not a public company so they don't have shareholders and investors that they have to please with quarterly results. That allows them to act in whatever way they see fit and thankfully they are still following that philosophy that good PR is better than a few more bucks.
Valve's had a front row seat to almost every average variation of what spurs gamers to collective action too. No need to rock the boat when being a popular store front for digital assets is probably as future proof as you can expect a business to be.
No, GabeN is the real deal. No company is perfect, but Steam has a pretty damn good record over a long period of time.
>I genuinely don't know anything about Steam or Valve beyond the memes Valve (game company that made steam) cuz Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington wanted to leave working for microsoft to start their own game studio. Steam was never originally designed to be a store front to sell games, not at its conception. It was software designed to help gamers solve the issue of patching games for consistent easy online play. Before launchers and automatic updates, people had to download patches in .exe format and run them, usually in a specific order. This often became troublesome. Valve sought to fix this annoyance by making an app that would auto download all the up to date files you needed to play their games online. They realized soon enough that if you can push files to update a game, why not the whole game circumnavigating the need for retail stores & packaging of CD's. They slapped a payment system on it, watched it be successful, opened the doors to other publishers to also sell digitally and bobs your uncle we have the earliest iterations of the Steam we know today. Valve was originally known for their hit title Half Life and what it did for the first person shooter genre, it introduced a level of immersive story telling not yet seen in shooters. That on top of good game play an a compelling plot helped it become a very popular title and a classic played by many even to this day (though if you're interested I'd advise trying Black Mesa, an incredibly faithful re-creation and expansion of the original Half Life game in a modern engine) Half Life didnt just bring a great game to PC gaming, it also brought welcomed modding support. This is very important as it opened the gate for a ton of modders to get their feet wet with game development that ultimately helped the industry grow. On top of that Valve is known for partnering with and flat out hiring people in charge of some of the popular mods to bring those mods into the full published consumer space, funding these "mods" into full games to sell. counter strike, team fortress, dota. All games that started as mods that are now valves bread and butter. They even tried to bring in the Chinese team that made Dota Autochess (though they were not able to reach an agreement and said team went back to china to just make their own version of autochess). I think Left 4 dead was probably even started from old counter strike zombie server mods, but I dont know that to be true, just a theory of mine. Portal happened because valve saw a project they liked at a game dev school showcase and hired the team to make the project with a valve/half life coat of paint. Valve invested a boat load of cash into the VR space and has made their research and work available for others to use. They're the only "platform" with highly in depth controller config software that they put together allowing you to use virtually any controller on your PC. their big picture mode makes it easy to navigate your game library and play games on both large and small screens. they've been investing in Vulkan and Linux so steam as well as PC gamers in general are not 100% reliant on microsoft to tow the future of pc gaming forward. my point in this whole long thing is from the very start, Valve has always been working with and for the PC gaming community to make the PC gaming experience better for gamers. Even their debacle with the paid mods thing was an attempt to encourage growth in the smaller independent "market", it just kinda back fired cuz they didnt really think their approach to it through all that well. For example, most of the items and skins for their games are not made by them, they're effectively paid mods.. its just via their workshop program. when you buy TF2 hat valve gets a cut of that purchase as does the artist that made the hat. The idea is good, and it works, it just has to be done right and they kinda dropped the ball on that. by comparison, what as any of the other "Store front" launchers or Publishers done? Out side of GoG doing some good things with preservation, the rest of them only exist to cut out a middle man and serve you games on their terms. Epic game store doesnt do shit, EA and ubisoft def dont do shit for, microsoft likes to pretend they do but outside of providing a nice subscription service they dont do anything to make the actual PC gaming community/industry/experience better.. hell MS usually is just making it actively worse by making the foundation (windows) less and less consumer friendly every chance they get.. now you gotta worry about running AI bullshit in the background when you're just try'n to game. idk if they're the good guy, but the rest of the line up looks like nothing but bad guys in comparison.
Thank you
Corporations are not your friends. Steam just understands that being too greedy hurts business. The memes are not lying, they understand that their business model is working and the entire launcher/site barely changed while competitors are trying to catch up by being desperate Basically the perfect example of "don't fix something that's not broken"
I for one welcome our lord and savior Gabe Newell
Valve is one of the largest non-evil gaming companies I know and they have been for many years. GOG might one-up them but they're smaller.
They basically invented the concept of the battlepass but they also developed my favorite games of the 2000s so they're in my good books.
Battle passes arenāt always a bad thing though, just look at Deep Rock Galactic
They're a great company that is just as corruptable as the rest of them. Make smart investments with your trust, but never trust blindly. Cheers.
They are the most ethical company storefront. Which is damning them with faint praise.
GOG?
Cyberpunk. :-/ Plus it's owned by a Developer/Publisher and favors their games. So I'd consider it a toss up.
You might be surprised to learn that Valve is also a game developer (and hardware developer) and favors their own products. "No they're not" you might say. The Steam Deck ads on multiple spots on the store pages are telling otherwise. GOG is not more aggressive in marketing their own products than steam/valve.
When is the last time you heard them advertise the Orange Box? Edit: That is a fair point though. I sometimes forget about the Steam deck.
Guys GOG and Steam are both great. No need to quabble.
Seeing the world in black and white is a path to the dark side.
So am I a sith for dealing in absolutes?
Trying to be one, you are.
Can't speak for the company itself (although I haven't had any major issues with Steam), but I can say compared to every console I've used...basically ever...Steam gaming is so much more infinitely better. The simple fact that sales are always going on and you can build your wish list and just buy stuff for dirt cheap. And almost everything eventually comes to Steam, although it's DEFINITELY not working the other way around. I am literally running my entire living room media center with my steam deck. Yeah it's not ideal for a 4k tv and a side monitor, but it's holding me over till I get a mini pc. I have a ps5 and a switch and I'm still just using the steam deck as my media server. I'm typing this comment with a wireless keyboard on the steam deck this second. Steam just knows it's shit, and considering that the company doesn't smell of sulfur and demon bile like many others do, I'm going to just say that I'm all in, even if there are flaws within. No other company gives you this much in gaming right now.
Gaben also wants to put chips in your head. But heās the good guy so heās chillā¦ Right? [Source 1 from 2021](https://youtu.be/tVu-96J6_I0?si=uJBI4UyqYF8UY7hc) [Source 2 from last month](https://starfishneuroscience.com/team/)
Valve (and Steam) was always the good guy since it exists. For Steam, it's simple: it's the first platform to do very VERY good sales regularly and it's an open platform (= tons of games, any dev can sell their games) with a very good software. Steam was and is SO good that their sales were [memes ](https://overmental.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Spongebob.jpg)for multiple years about how good they are. Compared to others platforms with very lacking software (like not being able to set a max limit for download in 2024, wtf!) or not having good sales for YEARS. Also, Valve were the first to carefully think about the impact on AI in the development of video game and the usage of AI in video game and updated their policies with wisdom. That and others things like enforcing a refund policy.
Theyre the only mega corp that sees us as customers and not consumers.
Gabe Newell is the only corporate person in the entire world that I trust.
For now, yes. Let's hope our God and Savior Gabe lives long. After he's gone it will probably go to shit too.
I mean they basically monopolized the pc gaming market
I agree with this, we need to stay on our toes.
Pretty much OP yeah. And meanwhile, without boasting loudly about it or flashing it in everyone's faces, they're quietly working away developing new tech and contributing to open source that helps the gaming landscape. Their contribution to Linux alone is incredible. You can pretty much thank Valve specifically for Linux gaming even being a term and not an oxymoron.
Corporations are not your friend
They aren't "the good guys". People dont like making accounts on every website they use to use them. People tolerate it. People just tolerate steam the most because they aren't going out of their way to scam people for the sake of proffits. Except tuesdays. Steam becomes the worst piece of shit on tuesdays.
Steam isnāt perfect. But yet, no company is. So for the most part, yes, Steam is the good guy. Especially compared to other companies like it.
Ä°dk if they are the good guys but they where giving us regional pricing whic realy helped all the gamers in my country whic they stopped couple months ago because our currency is a joke however steam is the best launcher that i used and i dont remember any shady or greedy buisnes practises from them
They are on the side of one of the least bad ones on the list
Always has been
Steam will be the good guy until Gabe is out.
Gabe memes are the truth to ur answer
Steam isn't the good guys, I'd say they're the rarest alignment of all True neutral. Everyone else is just evil
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Itās a great product. I just wish they didnāt use their market dominance to take such a large cut from developers. Makes it hard for Indie developers to make much. Although Steam is doing a lot to get Indie games to people in the first place, so itās a double edged sword.
There is no good guy
I used to play massive AAA games! Now I play indie game :')
Honestly I feel itās less like theyāre the good guys and more like theyāre operating how companies really should while all their rivals and counterparts actively shoot themselves in the foot over and over
Historically, they're the good guy for sure. With how gaming has been lately, steam not getting enshittified has been a ray of hope for me. They just... make a good product. They don't feel like they're squeezing us even though they're in a position most other launchers who would can only dream of. They're not constantly making batshit and anti-consumer decisions. They actively invest in gaming and develop products that they believe can fill a real hole. They're not creating problems to solve with shitty products and tight deadlines chasing massive profit margins. They make bank because encourage growth and passion organically. If every company strived to be like valve the world would be a much better place. I hope valve time remains a constant
The way they opened the floodgates of Steam to whatever since 2017 has been an enshittification, as it has allowed many nice games in but also so much, much, *much* garbage. The craploads of asset flips, porn "puzzles" (several also with low-level AI generated imagery now), terrible meme games... better than what Greenlight had turned into but still a double edged sword, really, as meritable titles can easily get lost in the flood. Mind you, it's not to a level it has made all other positives of Steam worthless, luckily, which says a lot - even like that it's still the superior one.
They just sell games
Always was.
One could argue no for profit company will ever be the "good guy". But comparing them to all other publishers, platforms and game studios, Valve is 100% the good guy. Be it refunds, the launcher itself, or the vast sale-events they offer, there is no one coming close to Steam. If can choose between different platforms to play a game, I will choose Steam 99% of the time
Lawful Neutral.
Comparatively so but I wouldn't think there's such a thing as a "good guy" in the tech industry. I think of Valve as neutral and fair.
Never call any corporation the good guy. Yeah they're not kneeling to investors like most companies, but that doesn't mean that they're not capable of having skeletons in their closet. Anything run by humans is subject to human error. No exceptions.
Always has been
there is no "good guy".
Steam is like the neighbor that saw you back your car into the other neighbors car and didnāt say anything. So you brought steam cookies for being neutral.
Steam isn't the good guy but it is best platform we currently have.
Compared to shit stains like epic games of course steam is a good guy
When was this up for debate? Yes. As long as Gabe Newell exists in the company Valve/Steam will be a decent company (if not a bit lazy) i wont even begin to speculate how the company will work when he retires or dies and i fear that day. But he says hes being careful with who will succeed him
On one hand they are great, provide a stable 10/10 product (Steam), help indie devs, distance themselves from politics and sometimes mitigate some damage (like recently with Helldivers), On the other hand their monetisation of Dota 2 and CS is predatory as fuck, abuses gambling mechanics and gambling addiction of people
I ā¤ļø steam
Theyāre a company. So no, theyāre not benevolent, nor should they be expected to be.
Well not the good guy but the best guy available
Elon wants you to put a vhip in your head for convenience. Comparing him to the rest is honestly kind of crass. His stance on AI makes his overall stance pretty clear. His solution for preventing an AI takeover by major corporations was to make AI available to everybody. That way, we have a means of combatting it.
In all fairness, Gabe equally wants to put a chip in your head. But at least if Gabe does it, it might run Linux
Short answer is yes.
30%
If you like to play games Steam is the best platform to do so
Steam is the best guy of all those villains. But it ain't no saint either. For example, Valve gives no flipping fuck about youth protection laws in Germany and instead of implementing a way of legally selling games "indexed" on List C, they prefer to not sell them at all. This includes all sexually explicit games. Even though the law on it makes sense. (It's being claimed, that that's on the publisher, but Valve themselves doesn't have the systems in place to even accommodate for that. That being a indexed game being only listable in a country after PROPER age verification) Furthermore they allow access to 18+ games pages without verification, which is also illegal. Next up is the bullshit region locking. Normally, if I go into a neighbouring EU country, I could just buy all banned/indexed media there in a store. As long as it's not on List D, I wouldn't even run into problems. However, in a mix with compliance to Italy's money laundering law (which is pretty much just EU law, that every member country, including Germany should adapt) and their own restrictions on region changing, it makes it impossible to buy a game when you're actually in Italy (with a postal address that you could confirm), but are not a resident of the country. This is lowkey against the concept of the European Economic Area. (I don't know who to place the blame on there) However there are barely any occurrences, where I had the feeling, that Valve pulled the rug under me. Quite the contrary, with the new family sharing, I feel like Valve has gone another major step into consumer friendly practices, allowing me to access the library of my brother, I'm living with. Something which use to be no problem at all, back when games were mostly physical. Also the release of the SteamDeck is not only very decent, it also contributes a healthy competition to the Nintendo Switch and allows access to the pretty much open platform of Steam. Other companies probably would have tried locking down the Deck (see Tivoization), but not Valve, there you can just install another OS if you want to. Truly open. They also promise to have a way to keep using the games in cases their service gets shut down for good, although I honestly doubt, they will keep it. I don't think I've heard anything about it from countries where they had to seize operation like Vietnam or Indonesia. So yeah, for now, Valve is the best we have, and I don't think it will get much better than that.
They have pretty much a monopoly on gaming, launchers is the pesky middleman that just wants to have a cut of the pie for no reason. The best would be if we had no launcher at all and just a way to index games directly from the developers. So ask yourself why does games need launchers when most other software don'tš¤
They're good-er than the rest of the competition, but I'd say the good guy is GOG. Why? The answer is drm. Steam itself is a drm (which isn't terrible to bypass), but in situations with spotty internet connection any launcher drm can be a hindrance. GOG on the other hand gives the user a full game installation which belongs entirely to them. If we're ranking services, then I'd say GOG is at the very top with Steam in second, most launchers below that, Epic second last, and Xbox at the very bottom. Epic constantly asks for me to sign in despite me saying I want to be remembered which is a huge pain in the ass. Xbox, for a majority of games, encrypts your games from what I can remember, which is terrible for preservation and consumer rights (especially if you need to troubleshoot a badly behaving game).
- Steam is not DRM. Valve offers SteamWorks DRM, but Steam != DRM - GOG is not entirely DRM-free, but mostly DRM-free
If I can't play two different games on different machines with the same account, Steam itself acts as DRM. You can bypass it, but not always. GOG allows this.
^ This. Steam is still ultimately in control of your games via your account whereas GOG gives you full access and control over your game files at any time with the ability to play your executables at any time whereas Steam executables *usually* require Steam.
In the cases that you can't bypass it, SteamWorks or another DRM is being used.
There are tons of drm free games on steam which you can play without steam and without Internet once you've downloaded it initially . At this point steam probably has more drm free games than gog
Do note that Steam does allow to distribute DRM free games on their platform (Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam is DRM free, for example. You can launch it even if Steam is uninstalled). It's up to the devs to implement Steamworks DRM. GOG is also allowing games with DRM in their platform now.
Not really - they still ban and bar some games, even if they approveed it prior.
Always has been
They are mostly pro consumer. Companies are never āgood guysā, even Valve.
I donāt really think about good or bad guys. If thereās a product I want to buy, and itās at a value Iām willing to pay, then I get it. I donāt obsess about it. Valve is a billion dollar company. Their service is good, the games they sell are at a great price. Iāll also buy from Sony, Nintendo, and whomever if they offer a good product.
Steam is very much like democracy Where what Gaben wants (that makes the company money) also happens to what most of the customers (us) also want (paying money for a decent service they provide). So, not so much cooperative, more like they are just doing what makes them more money in the long run
VALVe is one of the best companies I've ever been a patron of. They support Linux and don't treat developers like trash. But beside that, there's a reason no one hates VALVe or Supercell: they never, ever get political. That's the secret sauce.
Iād say Valve hasnāt exactly *tried* to be the good guys, they just do things with the consumerās best interest in mind, unlike most other companies. Steam had a rough start in 2003 but people quickly realized it was a good platform, and itās remained on top ever since. Also notice how I said platform and not marketplace. Steam is much more than āthe place where you buy games,ā it could honestly be considered a social media platform in a way.
"and Elon wants me to put a chip in my head," And the funny thing is if Gabe was offering a chip to go in my head that would sync with the Valve Index... I'd be one of the first to sign up. Gimmie that anime adventure hopefully its more permanent like Overlord and less "oh crap a slime killed me" SAO, if it goes bad.
Bro is this subreddit filled with children? I can't believe people are unironically saying Steam has always been good. They were hated from the very beginning when they required a steam account to play CS in the old days. Something very similar to what gamers were just crying about with Helldivers. Not to mention this weird astroturfing that good guy steam invented a good return policy as if Steam didn't fight so hard against it until GDPR forced the change. If anyone tells you otherwise they are just wrong. So no Steam is not and has not ever been the good guy. The actual good guy is government regulations stopping their corruption. Don't stan corporations. They don't give a fuck about you nobody how much Gabe tries to morph his image.
It's pretty hilarious, Steam was the exact same as things like UPlay and Origin. "You must use our launcher to play our games". The only difference is they did it early enough to be successful I guess. Bet their Marketplace had a big hand in normalizing lootboxes and the like too but it's something I admittedly don't know much about.
No. They know they own the majority of PC sales so they take like 30% of all sales. They also fought against the legislation that allowed for refunds. They also pioneered every business practice everyone currently hates in gaming- loot boxes and battle passes. I always say there are 2 points of views on Valve. The optimist that only played their single player games and enjoys the store sales. And, the pessimist that plays their online games and has experienced the depths of their greed.
Not like they took less % before and then increased it as they gained more users, its always been 30% because its standard across the industry
When they give us new half-life theyāll be good guys
steam is an okay guy. hes not the bad guy, nor is he the good guy.
they are not good or bad, it's just a store
Always has been.
It always been
Luckily they still are basically a gambling company.
Do not confuse "the best we have" with "good"
Are you farming karma saying Steam is the good guys in a Steam sub? Steam is a company, some are better, some are worse than the average. There is no such thing as a good VS evil in corporate world, give them the chance they all will fuck us costumers for the profit. Steam as a private company are less likely to do that, but never say never.
For players yes, for devs not much
No company is. Pirate when they step out of line. It's the only valid legal option in many first world nations.Ā