Love live Lord Gaben!
This is such a controversial person to discuss. On one hand, loot boxes, the steam market for trading, and a lot of gambling and profiteering going on. At the same time, all of the OP comments are also true.
Out of all the billionaires, I dislike gaben the least. The net good he’s done for gaming may not balance the scales entirely, but at least there’s a discussion to be had whether what gaben has done is for the better, or for the worse. Which is more than I can say about most billionaires I know of.
Hot take: …but it’s just fucking gaming tho… He’s not fucking with manifesting some bullshit ideology throughout the world, he’s not trying to leave his mark on history… And if he is, it’s as a chill dude who gave us all a better alternative to piracy.
he’s not trying to leave his mark on history
He kind of is, but in the way old-school millionaires did - he has purchased a MASSIVE yacht and turned it into an ocean-floor research laboratory, either donated it to a university, or just allows researchers to use it.
Gabe was already wealthy with Microsoft money when he founded Valve, so when his new private startup found success he didn’t feel the pressure to go public, expand, dilute, and cash out. He made the judgement call that they already had enough talent internally to keep playing the hits while keeping all the profit for themselves, and he was right. I’m sure a little bit a business ideology reinforces Gabe’s long-term outlook for Valve, but he’s ultimately enabled by a happy intersection of pre-existing wealth, great timing, and careful hiring choices.
I mean, he is developing the brain chip with his Starfish Neuroscience company but its supposed to be minimally invasive and let’s be real if its between his and Elon Musks (which is NOT minimally invasive and requires surgical implantation) I’m definitely going with his.
I wouldn’t say at this point its all about gaming though. Valve is, but not necessarily Gabe. Which I don’t mind but I could understand how some people wouldn’t like it.
You know, I think those are inevitable … any potentially evil technology shown in sci-fi will eventually be created irl; it’s like some kind of rule (trust me). Given this, the future is a duality: it’s either GabeN or a random billionaire. I want this potentially-abusive technology with devil that I know.
I remember back around 2010 period, maybe a bit after that, Valve and reddit were both hiring economists. We can see exactly why, now.
Steam refused to issue refunds for a long, long time. In the end they started allowing refunds for everyone because governments started requiring it and it was easier to just allow them for everyone than having to do the legal footwork to have different policies based on geography.
“gaymers”
intentional or not?
I was not given a refund when MH World launched on PC in a broken, framelocked, constantly disconnecting state.
I tried and I was not granted one.
The power vacuum this man will leave behind sucks.
They only began giving refunds when the European Union mandated it, back then only Origin (EA) gave refunds. Some times the EU is useful.
The EU definitely helped. I’ll add that this was actually kicked off by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in 2014. They took Valve to court over their insistence that they can ignore Australian Consumer Law rights - in particular that if a product is ‘not fit for purpose’ then the buyer is entitled to a full refund, with respect to games. Valve offered no possibility of refund at the time. The case dragged on, but Valve eventually lost and was told to pay several million in fines, they appealed it to the High Court of Australia in 2016 - and lost also on appeal.
The judge was pissed at Valve, and wrote in their ruling:
“Valve’s culture of compliance was, and is, very poor”. Valve’s evidence was ‘disturbing’ to the Court because Valve ‘formed a view …that it was not subject to Australian law…and with the view that even if [legal] advice had been obtained that Valve was required to comply with the Australian law the advice might have been ignored”. He also noted that Valve had ‘contested liability on almost every imaginable point’.
Valve are generally a very positive force in gaming, but they’re definitely not the saints that OP image text implies.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/australia-fines-valve-over-steam-refunds
I have a pro-Valve bias because I do like them. But I still do want to make a fair argument and would like to be corrected if I fail to do so.
So, yes, Valve’s refund policy in the past was bad, and yes, they were forced to change. But since then they have fixed their mistakes, and have arguably the most generous refund policy out there. Last time I bought digital content from Nintendo store I had to waive my refund rights.
They could have limited refunds to Australia but they didn’t. This has to count for something, right? Valve is a for profit company in a capitalist system, and yes they have bad practices. But surely we can agree they are one of the better ones?
Thanks for the info and sources!
As a fan of TF2, I’ll quote another greentext: “does nothing, competition keeps shooting themself in the foot.” It was about Overwatch vs TF2, but it’s mostly similar.
People saying that when Gabe dies so does Steam seem to be missing a piece of the puzzle.
From everything I’ve read and can tell they work using an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Program). Meaning each employee working there today is becoming partial owners in Valve. If you think they will allow some new face to show up when Gabe dies and flip the table you are missing the piece where the owners of this company are extremely well compensated today and a core part of making Valve successful today.
A ton of companies have ESOP, but that doesn’t stop enshitification because the employees generally don’t own enough shares to exert control.
Those shares are also generally for sale for a high enough price. Given the immense current value of the brand, when Gabe dies vultures of every variety will start circling. If they offer employees 2x their share price to sell, enough of them will do it to lose control to investors that just want to enshittify everything and milk it’s brand for every last penny as they drive it into the ground.
My company is an ESOP and shares don’t give us voting rights or any actual control, it’s just a monetary incentive. The C-suite/board still control everything and unilaterally makes all the executive decisions.
Gaben and steam are not perfect, but are monumentally better than what we would be stuck with on sony-soft
They’re succeeding by not actively running their platform into the ground, which is somehow inspiring and disappointing at the same time
That’s because they’re a privately owned company. They can decide when to prioritize long term profits over short term profits.
Most of their competition are publicity traded companies that have no such luxury. They have to make next quarter’s number higher no matter what.
The very core of pretty much every enshittification you can put a finger on
All that’s between you and success is a consistent and reasonable performance, but seemingly everyone else in the world is too greedy to pull this off.
That’s because they’re a privately owned company. They can decide when to prioritize long term profits over short term profits.
Most of their competition are publicity traded companies that have no such luxury. They have to make next quarter’s number higher no matter what.
STEAM- Give a reasonable good platform for gaming.
OTHER- Kill themselves with shitty optimization and spam policies.
STEAM - Sit enjoing the sunny day, drink a coffee. Improve a bit the navigator to find new game.
OTHER - Keep a their shitty platform and doble down on AI Slop.
STEAM - Doing some yoga. Walk the dog. Add an AI disclaimer for the games.
I’m sus on GabeN
Guys I know he is not perfect but it’s understandable that people like him in a world where the average CEO drinks the blood of newborns daily.
Huh, so that’s why they’re all so prolife. Need to keep the source of fresh babies going…
“Don’t get an abortion! Have that baby and dispose of it at your nearest “Leave your baby here for our coalition of friendly CEOs to take care of” location for a 25$ amazon gift card!”
That fully sounds like a program a literal vampire would implement with wild success. Parents selling their kids for money happened in the past, so not even that much of a stretch. It does sound like a potential cobra problem though.
Would watch a full length film of this
Never thought I’d see the day when Lemmy has nice things to say about a billionaire who owns multiple yachts!
There’s a story recently about how a huge percentage of people’s steam libraries are never played. People just spending money on steam sales and amassing huge backlogs of games they’ll never get to. Valve has mastered the art of using sales to create FOMO and drive unnecessary spending!
he just took ownership of a $500M megayacht. Yes, he’s a bit better than other billionaires, but he’s still a billionaire. While other people starve to death he’s sitting pretty on billions. He’s as unethical as the rest of the oligarchy.
So your position is a store should never have sales? Besides, pretty sure games need to willingly participate to be on sale. e.g. factorio has never been on sale.
I didn’t give my position.
I don’t participate in steam sales anymore. I don’t buy anything on steam because I’ve already got way more games than I’ll ever be able to play. If there’s a new game that I really want to play I’ll try to get it from outside steam if I can, or at the very least make sure it’s DRM-free so I can play it without launching the steam client (I hate the steam client but that’s just my opinion and I won’t tell anyone else what to feel about it).
Do I think they should be banned from having sales? No. I also don’t think gambling should be made illegal even though I’ll continue trying to warn people away from gambling.
so you yourself is an example of how sales don’t make you spend money…
personally i don’t really buy random games because they are on sale. like, i go through the list of games shown on the steam sale page and most of the time i will find nothing interesting. what usually happens is i would wishlist games i want to play, then wait until steam sales and see if i get a discount.
I’m not a compulsive gambler either, but I have friends who are. Am I not allowed to be opposed to gambling?
Imagine arguing that creating a service so much better than the competition available in that industry that it drives people to spend the most money on that platform is a bad thing.
It isn’t better though? GOG is a better service. DRM-free, web based downloads (galaxy is completely optional). They even invest development resources to get old games working better.
Steam is mostly the dominant platform due to first-mover advantage. They aren’t the best and most of the games on Steam aren’t even exclusives.
Here’s a blog post on GOG talking about how many developers abandon their games on there so they don’t get updates or DLC like they do on other platforms https://www.gog.com/forum/general/how_do_games_recieving_updates_work_on_gog
I like GOG and love DRM free games however another point is that many, many games are never even available on GOG to begin with. So what do you do then?
Would you rather buy them on Xbox, PlayStation, Epic or Steam?
Most people choose steam because it is the best out of all those options.
I agree having a DRM free game that you own forever is the best option but 7 times out of 10 a new game won’t even be listed on GOG in the first place and if it is refer back to the link about how they often get abandoned with no updates or DLC and therefore less features than on other platforms.
Also, talking about getting old games to work better I would refer you to the Proton compatibility layer that Valve develops.
Proton is built on the open source project Wine and private products from CodeWeavers. Yes, Valve has contributed a tremendous amount to the project but they aren’t deserving of sole credit for it.
I own neither an Xbox nor a PlayStation (nor a Switch, for that matter).
There are LOADS of other options besides AAA games on the big platforms. There are countless vintage games, freeware, shareware, and abandonware that can all be played on the Internet Archive. There are countless indie developers out there to support, including some that have been in business for more than 30 years.
It really bothers me when gamers act like the big publishers are the only game in town (while also complaining about how bad AAA games are now). I mean if you like AAA games, fine, no argument there from me. But if you also like games for their stories and gameplay and don’t need AAA graphics to have a good time then there are thousands and thousands of options out there. I just think most people are unaware of them.
Yes Proton is Valves own compatibility layer though. They built it in collaboration with Codeweavers but Valve built it with Steam money. Codeweavers needed that money to make it into what it is today and Valve provided it.
And that’s ok that you don’t own any of those systems but you are acting like Steam is unreasonable when the rest of the industry does the same thing.
There is sales on PlayStation and Xbox all the time too but why aren’t most of those games unplayed and more bought on Steam? Because the market decided that was the best platform to buy it on. Do you not think Xbox and PlayStation “create FOMO” by offering sales too or just Steam?
And sure if you want to play old games or Indie games lots of options exist Itch.io is a good one too in addition to GOG.
But that’s not really what’s being talked about is it? This was about which storefront is better for consumers and most gaming consumers are playing AAA titles and of the storefront options for those titles there exist Steam, Epic, Xbox, and PlayStation and on some games itch.io and GOG but like I said before out of all those options Steam is the best one for new games and even old games sometimes when the developers don’t give their GOG versions love like they should.
GOG gets shafted on updates and DLC and also doesn’t even usually have like 70% of new games as an option to buy on them at all. Yes, I too prefer to own games but like I mentioned that isn’t always the best option on GOG because of reasons stated above.
Also my abandonware and some others have had Malware problems in the past although so has Steam but it gets caught on steam usually quicker.
I don’t think Steam is unreasonable, I just think they get way more goodwill from their customers than they probably deserve. It’s like with Apple or the Catholic Church. A lot of people love them but they do have ugly sides.
I think convincing people to buy games they never play is a scuzzy thing to do. Is it as scuzzy as gambling? No. But it’s not up there with something like a co-op bakery or coffee shop that sells products (and a cozy environment) at a reasonable price that people actually enjoy.
People have been saying “well they support indie game developers” and sure, yes indie game developers sell a lot of games during Steam sales. But there’s a problem there too: if loads of people are buying indie games but not playing them then that distorts the indie game market. It takes revenue away from less-well-known developers and gives it to popular/viral flash sale developers whose games people aren’t playing. That’s bad for anyone who wants to reward developers for making better games that we actually want to play but otherwise haven’t heard about.
I just think they get way more goodwill from their customers than they probably deserve.
That’s fair. They do a few things I don’t appreciate but overall I like them a lot better than any alternative other than GOG but I do hate that developers don’t update stuff the way it deserves on there sometimes.
Its always good to be a little critical of any service.
But the thing about the sales is that the developers and publishers set the sale price, not Valve. Valve still takes the cut of course.
But the reason you are seeing that most people buy them and don’t play them on there specifically is because it’s just the most used service for gaming. They have a higher userbase than playstation and Xbox combined. And that really just ties in with them being the most customer friendly.
I’m not saying they arent without faults but they are better overall than any of the competition.
Also to add to this PlayStation has been known to limit and straight up restrict indie developers sales prices on their platform sometimes straight up not letting them do it at all. So that’s another reason it all ties together to Valve not being a shit company. I’m sure that Xbox probably does the same thing but haven’t researched it as I sold my Xbox when they did the gamepass price hike this last time.
In my opinion letting indie developers set their own sale prices is good for the industry. But not letting them certainly isn’t.
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/7/224446432324091426/
Many games on Steam don’t have any DRM enabled and will boot without it. You just need to check
Wait, why we should not argue? Steam is not perfect so we yap. Also not good enough considering it’s just a game listing library and still taking 30% cut from devs imo.
Never said not to argue.
I said imagine your argument being that because a service does sales all the time and consumer relations better than almost all the competition available in the industry that that’s a bad thing because people spend money on said sales.
Its a bit of a shit argument.
“They have so many sales all the time that they force people into spending money they shouldn’t spend! And that’s bad!!”
Also, all those devs are free to use any other platform that doesn’t take 30%.
Remind me again how much PlayStation and Xbox take? Oh yeah, 30% huh.
“Never said not to argue.” Ok.
Btw, PlayStation and Xbox provide whole console system, Apple store and Google play are also 30% and they provide iOS and Android. It’s not same as Valve.
Me saying “imagine arguing” is the same same as saying “your argument is stupid because” and that is not the same as saying not to argue.
I said imagine arguing the points they argued because they are silly. Lots of storefronts have sales shit epic even gives shit away for free every week and gives 20% back in points when you buy a game fron them but you don’t hear anyone talking about how they “create FOMO” by not participating in their storefront.
Its a dumb argument. That is what “imagine arguing” means in that context. Hope that helps.
And yeah they make the console that you have to pay a fee to use internet on. Valve doesn’t do that. If you stop paying their exorbitant fees to use the internet you pay for already to play their games online then you lose half the functionality of your game that you bought. (For multiplayer ones of course).
Valve also makes systems but yes it isn’t quite the same as how PS and Xbox do it I understand what you are saying. However, everyone acts like Steam is greedy dickheads for charging the exact same rate other platforms charge without also charging you some dumb online play fee which is the real greedy fuckery. Despite them having more users than PlayStation and Xbox combined.
I think its funny that no one calls out the other companies greedy fuckery though. Just the one that is the nicest to their consumers (being steam)
LIKE GOG THAT ALSO TAKES 30%
Where’s your hate for GOG though? I don’t see it.
I never said GOG is good either, chill.
You’re still defending Steam’s 30% fee for no good reason besides cherry-picking failed competitors.
Also if you think “sale is good” and “Steam is customer friendly” (I think so too), why are you so mad when I talked about Steam’s 30% fee? I just said 30% is too high for just a game launcher. Fee acts like tariff, if Steam lowers fee little bit, game price will go down too. Which is super customer friendly. Don’t you like it?
Look, I don’t care how much you fangirling Steam, but it certainly doesn’t help Steam any better.
cherry picking failed competitors
You mean all of them? PlayStation, Xbox, and GOG literally the only two that don’t do this is Itch.io and Epic and Epic games store hasn’t been profitable since it came out in 2018. And Itch is pretty much indie games only. Please name one other competitor that sells AAA titles that doesn’t do that besides epic which again hasn’t been profitable as a game store since 2018. They supplement it all with that fortnite money.
You want steam to be the only one that has AAA titles for sale that doesn’t take the same percentage cut every single other one takes?
Not fangirling either I’m pointing out that your hate is completely unwarranted. You should hate the gaming industry as a whole if you hate the pricing model it has set up.
The reason people put their games on PlayStation, Xbox, GOG and Steam is because that’s where all the players are. They could easily only sell it on Epic and not sell well if they wanted to do that. (The fee being so low on Epic is why they don’t make money BTW give it a search online)
These developers could even set up their own payment processing system and sell it directly on their own website which would take about, oh look at that 20 - 30% of profits without any of the exposure PS, Xbox, GOG, and Steam gives you. I wonder why they don’t do that if its such a bad deal for them?
What exactly should be done about that?
Done about what? I stopped using steam. I buy games directly from developers or from GOG or humble bundle as well as just supporting open source games.
Nothing I can do about GabeN’s yachts though!
Developers and publishers set the prices of sales like CD Projekt who makes Cyberpunk and has a 65% off sale right now.
So look at that, the company that owns GOG is one of the companies you’re upset about making all those sales and “taking money” from people.
Wheres the hate man? Why not boycott?
Or is that only for Steam and not really about who sets the sales?
I mean if you’re going to be outraged at least have some consistency about it.
Sounds like the only thing you’re upset about that Valve controls is more people use it and the CEO has a yacht. Due to those sales that your beloved owners of GOG set.
ALSO GOG ALSO TAKES A 30% CUT
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It’s not sales specifically that I have an issue with, it’s a business model based on selling people tons of games they don’t play. Is GOG doing that too? Well I don’t like that either, but at least I can take my games with me when I leave GOG because they’re DRM free downloads from a web browser.
Yeah the owners of GOG (CD Projekt) aren’t rich either?
Idk man the games you play are designed by groups of people (maybe except our Stardew Valleys and whatnot) and those people spend hours upon hours developing said games.
You know that takes money to make happen right?
About people buying more games then they need. you are acting like that is gabe’s fault.
Its even crazier when that dude realizes that Steam doesn’t even set the prices, the game developers and publishers do.
I feel like people don’t understand this a lot
I mean you can blame gamblers for losing all their money to Las Vegas too but that’s not a common opinion on Lemmy!
How are those the same?
A sale that happens every few months or even weeks is the same as gambling? Sure i buy more id a game is on sale… But not because of fomo but because i can save money?
No, it’s not the same as gambling, but it does exploit weaknesses in human psychology to get people to buy things they don’t need.
If you’re buying a game that you’ll never play just because it’s on sale, you’re not saving money.
You would be happy to know that Steam doesn’t set the sales prices, the developers and publishers of games do that.
So whether you buy their game on GOG or Steam, you are directly supporting the people that set those sales.
Best not to buy any games that go on sales to keep true to your values!
Step 1. Make a good product
Step 2. Corner the market
Step 3. Build up good will
Step 4. …?
Step 5. Keep building up good willStep 4 is “buy the company that builds the yachts you like”
Which is not great, but is a lot better than actively destroying the fabric of the society, like all other billionaires are doing.
Lol everyone always gets mad that dude has yachts.
Do you think that the CEOs of Microsoft and Sony don’t have yachts?
So that’s something they have in common. But consumer good will and overall happiness with the service isn’t. Only one of the companies have that distinction and you know which one it is.
