Gabe has kids?
I’m a big fan of Steam, but gog.com also exists, and people should always try to figure out how to preserve copies of their games and media in a self-hosted way wherever possible.
I know with some games it’s not possible because of requiring signons, etc, but even those sometimes get cracked (people run their own WoW servers, etc).
I always download and/or sideload everything I can. My e-books, my music, and my games.
I have been negligent about shows and movies because once I watch them I tend to not watch them again. But, I have friends with extensive video libraries that they built up over the years.
It’s harder now because storage is so fucking expensive. But don’t accept the default mode that your shit has to live in the cloud. The cloud is just somebody else’s storage.
I didn’t know it was called sideloading, I’ve been doing it for decades. Loaded my kids Kindle up with tons of books, he has an mp3 player I dumped a rip of all my favorited songs and ones he really likes, roughly 5,000 songs so far. My Plex is loaded up with newest movies immediately. We use stremio for tv series mostly.
I’m going to make a guide for how to get all this stuff for himself soon, no reason it needs to die with me. The legend will continue.
We’ve got a family steam group we all share games, but I do pirate some and download my purchases from GOG. I even go back and buy games after pirating them, Split Fiction was a great couch game we beat this summer and the developers deserved that money. Shit was smooth and fantastic.
With the direction things are going, it looks like GoG may get bought by someone else or just go bankrupt, sadly.
I buy GoG over Steam without exception, but sadly it seems most gamers are not that way.
I guess one way to prevent that would be to create a nonprofit org with a very clear set of rules on how to run Valve going forward. Kinda like Rolex works today.
“Nonprofit” and “Valve” don’t belong in the same universe. Valve is and has been 100/ about making money, and it’s been very, very good at it. They behave like they do because they aren’t publicly traded, so there aren’t short-term investors wanting to pump the stock and bail out, so they look at actual long-term investment and profit strategies.
People love Steam around here, but it was the beginning of modern enshittification of gaming. It was literally launched as a way to create an online activation requirement for a single-player game (Half Life 2), and they’ve fully-embraced lootbox mechanics for years.
Gabe is a billionaire yacht collector, not your buddy. Public companies exist to drive up share value at all times. Valve exists to make Gabe more money.
Just for the young’ns here, the image in the post is from a late 90s cartoon called Recess. Show is about a bunch of elementary schoolers and the one thing they look forward to at school: recess. They basically have roving kid gangs on the playground. Preschoolers are depicted as godless heathen barbarians not to be messed with. It’s a fantastic cartoon.
SCANDALOUS!
Yeah… that explanation was helpful to me because I’m… young…
I am also super young, fellow kids. 6-7 or whatever, right?
*dabs mournfully*
This is way funnier than my comment. Bravo
No, no. See Bravo was a different cartoon
paging Chris Hansen
I hat is paging?
I’m Juuuust old enough to remember this cartoon, but was too young to really watch it
Loved that show back in the day. Your link might be borked, tho
Whoops!! I thought I pasted an IMDB link.
My guy.
They already profit on loot boxes
Child gambling
unfinished products
AI slop
Extortionate DLC programs
Pre orders
Season passes
How else has GabeN been funding his son’s racing career. Those Aston Martins aren’t cheap.
AI slop
I’d like to be clear what you’re referring to, because I only know two things Valve is allowing in that regard
- Games using GenAI are allowed on steam, but disclosure is required, which is a position I appreciate.
- Steam hosts promotion events organized by third parties, where banners are displayed, a special page is available, and a lot of games go on sale - in those events (and AFAIK, none of Valve’s own events) promotional art is displayed that is submitted by those third parties, and sometimes has blatant GenAI use
Is there something else I’m unaware of? Because otherwise I guess it’s a matter of where you draw the line, because I’d still consider Steam the best platform available, and have to agree to disagree.
The ai tag is only required for assets made with ai. You can vibe code your entire game and as long as the assets weren’t ai generated you don’t have to disclose AI usage.
That is kinda true… I don’t think Valve actually says that, but I don’t think there’s a way to tell, so people can get away with not disclosing it.
They updated their guidelines explicitly to say this.
I think the forced distinction between ai code and GenAI art is harmful because it is meant to appease the anti ai crowd while also demeaning the act of writing software as not art and not representative of the artistic value of a video game, which I strongly disagree with.
it’s closed source how would anyone check anyway?
There are plenty of games using Midjourney to generate textures which are then heavily modified to look less AI generated. Should they opt to not disclose their ai usage?
Lying to your customers and audience about how your game was made is fucked up and I don’t plan on supporting developers who do this.
I’m an adamant AI hater, but I think this is fine. If the game runs smoothly and without bugs, I don’t care if the game was programmed with AI. If it’s a buggy mess, it gets filtered out with all the other asset flip garbage. Steam supports returns and you can pretty quickly determine if a game is garbage within that return window, and leave a review saying it’s a buggy mess. Sure, it’s an extra step but almost all of the buggy garbage on Steam is immediately apparent from the Steam page or a AAA game, both of which would never get my purchase to begin with.
My issue is that it’s misleading
You can advertise your game as no AI on steam despite heavily using it for everything that makes the game a game. I don’t just buy games because they’re fun I buy games to support a developer. I’d rather support a developer that still places value on the craft of game development.
They said the trending thing and got reflexive upvotes. That’s all it was.
It’s more complicated, because Valve absolutely isn’t perfect and contributes to problems, and most of that comment is valid. I still wouldn’t boycott them as it stands, because I do see them as the best option and don’t mind them getting some of my money.
The best alternatives have their own flaws, GOG using GenAI in official promotional material and no Linux launcher, itch barely having a launcher, which is valid, but is severely lacking compared to Steam.
The point is that it could be worse, considerably worse. Yes, I know, the standards are low nowadays. I try to stay with GOG where possible but with Linux, you sometimes have better compatibility with Steam versions and you have the steam DB reducing the risks even further, even if that is not from Valve itself.
As long as it stays private, it really doesn’t matter. Enshitification comes from public stockholdership, venture capital or private equity trying to get insane returns on overpriced assets.
They make 30% of the gross sales on their platform… nobody prints money like Valve does.
For reference, stores refuse Amex because they take 1%-2% more than Visa/Mastercard on gross sales. Steam takes 30% and nobody gives a shit. lol
I agree with the fact that 30% is a lot, but the way you’ve written it suggests no one but Valve takes a 30% cut. 30% is pretty standard for game platforms. Steam, GOG, Apple’s App Store, Google’s Play Store, PlayStation’s PSN, Microsoft’s Xbox Store, and Nintendo’s eShop all take 30%. The only reason why Epic Games takes less of a cut is because it’s the only way they might entice games to get published on their platform.
Steam is super problematic in so many ways, I just don’t think their 30% cut is as big a deal as everyone thinks it is.
Retail stores also take like 30% usually. People don’t give a shit because it’s not unusual and any option that takes less is worse in some way.
Retail stores make way less than that. Their margins are razor thin.
So his eldest son is a pro race car driver.
Pro suggests he’s getting paid.
His dad literally owns the team.
If your Dad pays you, it’s still a paycheck. Somebody has to come in 33rd after all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Newell
https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newells-son-thinks-valve-needs-to-try-something-scary/It’s more probably Doug Lombardi or Scott Lynch (COO?) that would take the reigns. Or it would probably turn into a co-op to be honest.
Have they ever said publicly their intention to become a cooperative?
Though the way Valve operates, being a cooperative does sound plausible.
nope. I am speculating, hence “probably”
multiplayer company ownership
funny but for reference : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative
FYI it’s “reins”, not “reigns”.
jokes on you
Rain it in there buddy
let’s hope they won’t turn it into an extraction shooter.
Employee owned (like John Lewis and Richer Sounds) or customer owned (like the supermarket)
Too many customers to be customer owned
Not with a Steam customer lottery democracy. Randomly selecting like 10,000 Steam users transparently (that can be figured out later) and then have them work together to help run the company better than Gabe ever could. Also they would be swapped out yearly.
…
So valve have spent their entire time carefully selecting co workers, empowering them to do whatever they want, and your idea is to give it to a random bunch of strangers?
Yes! It worked in Ancient Athens!
I think that would be best, like bobs red mill.
I’ve always pondered what should be the contingencies if, eventually, Steam enshittifies because Gabe is gone. I would need a huge storage data to locally store the installation files.
Support good competitors like GoG
Accept the impermanence of all things and repurchase your entire steam library like a bitch-ass consumer. Or find a cheaper hobby, like yacht racing
Would there be a lot of roadblocks to installing them without the steam client?
Then its back to black jack and hookers, atleast those will be cheaper
deleted by creator
You slut.
deleted by creator
SO POOINGIf it actually got bad - would physical media come back full-force? Or would GOG be the go too?
Probably GoG, itch.io, or just direct sales. A lot of companies aren’t set up for physical distribution, aren’t big enough to get their product into the retail channels, and/or would have a hard time selling internationally. Steam didn’t invent digital game sales, they just made it a little easier. I think the first game I bought online was around 2000 or 2001. It was DX-Ball 2 from Longbow Digital Arts (RIP Seumas McNally), along with a screensaver I loved that they’ve open sourced and I wish I could get it running on macOS and Linux. I was still in high school and didn’t have a credit card, so I paid using a postal money order. If developers were selling directly in the ’90s they can make it work again.
Forgive my ignorance, and I might come off as snobby.
I see itch.io referenced often as an alternate game store but all I see on there are games that are super amateurish like a few notches above 2000s flash games. Am I not looking hard enough or are people happy playing those kinds of games?
I really haven’t used it much myself, but as the other commenter mentioned, since anyone can upload I’m not surprised there’s a large amount of mediocre content. So far I’ve felt like that’s a platform where you need to go in knowing what you’re looking for. But, if Steam were ever to disappear out become irrelevant, they’d certainly be in a position to pick up some of the market.
Everyone can upload their game to itch, so there are a lot of bad games, and some very good ones.
GOG is always the go-to. Steam only if you can’t wait to play it or its multi-player.
Gog feels like it’s one step form becoming a enshittified corporate hellscape half the time. And only by virtue of not having a dominant market position keeping it in check enough to not let it self go to shit.
Oh yeah let me just pull entire factory tooling and logistical supply chains out of my hat.
deleted by creator
I can’t prove this post is AI, but if you told me it was I’d believe you.
I thought that reply format looked familiar. I swear I’ve seen a bunch of different accounts describe a meme plainly like this and fuck it all up.
I put my heart and soul into that comment for like 20 mins, and now I am called a bot!?
what
Very wrong.
Love,
TJ Detweiler
I seriously doubt his son would not care about gaming. I’d have to hope Gabe has raised his kids to be as non-greedy as he is. He is one of the most ethical billionaires - probably the most ethical billionaire - that I know of 🤣
Edit: also if you’re that rich in one industry you should be investing into others or setting up new businesses - no?
There’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire. Just because you like his monopoly does not mean he’s a good dude.
Never forget that Valve is single handedly responsible for Lootboxes being a thing having introduced them into TF2 and then CS:GO
