I think Steam might be the only private company in this.
Really says a lot.
It does.
Private companies are - often - not driven by pure greed. The people work hard for their company to be successful and they are much less likely to fuck it all over with a stupid move.
Public companies, however, are controlled by a bunch of money motivated monkeys that couldn’t give a rats ass about a company’s future. They’ll bleed it all dry and go to the next company.
I sometimes feel an anxiety when pondering what will happen when daddy Gabe isn’t here to keep the wolves at bay.
That’s my fear too , whoever gets their hand on valve will decide the future of pc gaming kinda , I just hope it won’t get sold to ea , riot , tencent or whatever
gabe is a very smart person, if he doesnt have a post death plan for steam i would be immensely surprised.
steam is just so based.
I dont think a single more based company has ever existed. It rivals the greats like linux, with a touch of gambling.
I dont think a single more based company has ever existed.
Hyperbole much? I like Steam as much as the next guy but lets not pretend the guy that owns 6 yachts is a good person just because he’s better than the next worst. Steam DRMs the shit out of games sold on their platform and if you’re an indie dev that wants to sell your game Steam is THE place to do it.
Steam made $10bn last year, they have about 100 employees (their parent company Valve has about 400). I used to be a bigger fan of GabeN but more recently really started considering him and looking into it and realized he’s just another unethical billionaire. This video by Coffeezilla is a good jumping off point. regarding the intentional targeting of youth with addictive gambling mechanics in loot crates and circumventing gambling laws. It’s all very purposeful and continues to this day.
Yeh plus they let neonazi groups usw their forums for recruiting and hate speech, because they don’t want to pay any mods.
Paying someone to do that kind of work is the opposite of Valve’s ideal, if I understand them correctly.
They prefer systems working well enough with as little human assistance as possible—see: review system with reactions and surge detection; user-defined game tags; front page recommendations completely based on trends; the market; and so on.
That’s not to say these are bad, but they could often be improved, if only Valve was willing to pay the human cost. But part of the reason Valve remains small is they try to automate as much as they can (and if it can’t be automated, it might never get done, specially considering their corporate structure).
N.B. I still prefer them over majority of companies in this space, but let’s not ignore their issues, e.g. gambling. As an aside, I also appreciate GOG’s “no DRM” stance, but I use Linux and sadly native support isn’t there. Kudos also to Itch.io.
While I wasn’t a mod for Steam proper, I was a mod for a popular game that routinely had its share of hate groups and 8ch mobs try to take over. The flagging system worked pretty well for keeping the worst of this stuff out. Plus, the publisher is permitted to make moderators for its own Steam forum. So if you are seeing shit get out of hand on a particular title, blame the publisher, not Steam.
Linux isn’t a company.
Man I love it when people glaze objectively bad companies just because it’s popular opinion to like them.
Remember steam started the business model of not actually owning your games.
Gabe has made billions by stealing profit from the workers that actually make games.
They had to be sued just to offer refunds.
They host tons of malware and shovelware and outright scam games and even protect them from “”““review bombing””"
They pushed “early access” into the mainstream.
And because of people like you that would literally suck Gabes dick for the meme, they get away with it.
Remember steam started the business model of not actually owning your games.
GOG exists, go use GOG. Steam is popular because they don’t fuck over buyers, and they run a good business model, people are ok not “owning” things if the service is reasonably well put together.
Gabe has made billions by stealing profit from the workers that actually make games.
steam takes a 30% cut, which isn’t all that high, especially when you consider that they develop things like proton at zero cost to anybody, including developers. You’re also getting the single largest and most widely used publishing platform, period. It’s really hard to beat something of that caliber, so it’s definitely a tradeoff. There are also cases of devs making games that become so popular they pull in millions of dollars worth of revenue.
They host tons of malware and shovelware and outright scam games and even protect them from “”““review bombing””"
in defense of steam, if they specifically curated high quality games people like you would accuse them of gate keeping the platform. Scams are definitely a thing, malware, technically is. I’ve not seen malware ever in my personal experience, and i doubt most people have, and whenever it does happen, steam responds accordingly so i’m not sure its a fair statement.
They pushed “early access” into the mainstream.
there’s nothing necessarily wrong with early access, i actually think it’s a really productive way to provide tons of play testing and development potential for smaller dev teams. Does it also incentivize shovelware? Sure, but it’s a platform you can make money on, that’s not abnormal. And again, it’s usually very well known when games are abandonware.
And because of people like you that would literally suck Gabes dick for the meme, they get away with it.
surprised you didn’t mention gambling, that’s probably the most significant argument against steam right now, they effectively run what can be considered an online casino.
While I think capitalism encourages unethical business practices, keep in mind that Valve actively supports the development and popularization of the kernel as well as other projects like Wine from their profits.
G*mers have been too Stockholmed by Steam’s monopoly to recognise that everything they complain about with EA or Ubisoft all started with Valve.
I love my Steam Deck and Proton, but it pisses me off how many Steam games are spyware / DRMware and won’t start without internet on this PORTABLE console, and especially that Valve allows this kind of toxic shit.
So, my Steam Deck stays blocked from the internet in my firewall and I buy from GOG when available or get them from other places.
Also, Gabe can STFU about piracy being a service problem until Steam bans DRM and spyware.
You can just not buy the games that have stuff like Denuvo etc. If you keep buying them, of course they’ll keep including the DRM etc.
Steam is the storefront, and they have plenty of games you can buy without that crap.
Steam also tells you beforehand, now
Correct, don’t buy them.
It’s crazy how it’s absolutely impossible to criticize steam without getting bashed to oblivion by so-called gamers. The amount of free balls sucking Steam gets is just ridiculous. They have sub 100 employees , take 30% of every god damn games sold on the platform and you don’t own you games. Yeah it’s a cool platform, but in the end it’s just another nasty capitalist business.
Steam ils not cool. Steam is a monopoly position. This egemony need to end. We need many actors not just one.
Both things are currently true, they are a monopoly which is not good, but they are also acting nicely for the most part and not fucking people over despite their position
they are a monopoly
They are not, they’re just a really good service so people use them more than the others
Epic, GOG, Itch, etc. still exist and are widely used
A company does not need total market share to be a monopoly even in legal terms
Yea, the same way youtube isn’t a monopoly… Except for all practical purposes it is.
Except for all practical purposes it is.
Except it’s not, because you can go to multiple other sources
More than YouTube, even, and even YouTube isn’t a full monopoly, though it’s a lot closer than Steam is
Monopolies aren’t just "big companies’ you know
You’re right - monopolies aren’t just big companies. But a lack of monopoly is also not simply having access to alternatives. You can have all kinds of alternative services - that notion alone does not disprove the claim that Steam is a monopoly.
Monopoly literally means that single entity has exclusive right to the market. Like for example in Finland VR (valtion rautatie, goverments railways) or Alko (only shop that can legally sell spirits for consumers).
There is also term called natural monopoly where getting in to the marked is impossible. Like railways in USA.
Steam is neither.
There is GoG, Epic, itch.io, Microsoft store and like ten smaller stores that are straight competitors for Steam.
Being market leader does not mean they have monopoly and if Steam somehow blunders the goodwill they have with gamers and devs there will be alternatives.
You are allowed to say Fuck on the Internet. Why are you following the self-censorship rules for Instagram and other social networks if you are making a joke about them?
You are even allowed to say fuck on the radio and TV in some countries (like The Netherlands)
Steam is still basically the only option AND they are actually helping Linux a lot with game compatibility. Altough, if I need games specifically on steam I’ll be buying the key from Greenmangaming (UK) or GamersGate (Sweden). If anybody has more alternatives feel free to let me know so I can add them to my list.
GOG sadly misses a majority of games atm so I just can’t replace steam with it yet.
Huge plus that they aren’t publicly traded and forced to chase profits above all. Plus their employees are far and wide the best paid in the industry, and they never do mass lay offs.
This is a somewhat naive view when you consider Gabe’s multiple super-yachts. And ofc all the gambling.
The guy could be more charitable, but aside from that, what do you want him to do? If he lowers the cost of steams cut per purchase he’ll get in trouble for monopolizing the industry. Yeah, he’s too rich, but he got there without exploiting or hurting anyone. Even after he passes away, the company is already employee owned.
You’re missing the part where they make the vast majority of their money from the gambling, not from the cut they take from sales. They don’t have to run the gambling service. But they do because it’s a money faucet.
Two things: First, they very likely don’t make most of their money off of their loot box sales from the few games they own that have them. (CS, Dota 2, TF2).
Secondly, you’re just full of shit and making up that “fact”. As a private company, none of their stuff is completely public record, but using various trackers and estimates and sales numbers from game studios, Steam sells north of 700,000,000 games a year and makes a $billion or so from cs and tf2 stuff.
Since the average game sale amount is around $15; $15 X 700,000,000 = 10,500,000,000 ÷ valves cut of 30% = $3,150,000,000
Now not all studios pay that 30%. Some have lower deals based on volume and notoriety, but it’s still safe to assume that their game sales make over two billion a year. AKA well over their loot box money.
I’m quite fond of Fanatical. They are based in the UK and also sometimes sell DRM free books/audiobooks
Ohh I’ve actually been on their website sometime. Good to know they’re UK based thanks!
Update:
Steam may be a very successful business, but they’re still the seed crystal for a whole ecosystem of gambling that preys on addicts and children with the whole CSGO loot box thing. Take a wild guess what forms of addiction have the highest suicide rates?
Fuck Valve. Fuck all Corps. No business has ever nor can ever, genuinely give a shit about anything other than increasing profit.
No business?
I work as a software developer for a small business and they do care about us and not just profits.
Recently we were all given a pay rise and a reduction in hours as they can afford to support that.
Correct, no business. That same business will lay you off in a heartbeat if they can. Businesses do not care about you.
What a myopic view of the world.
Anyone can start a business and treat their employees and customers fairly. It’s just that in our Stockholm Syndrome Society, the businesses who abuse us are the most successful.
I wish more companies took the approach like steam where it seems to be they are content with the amount of money they make and limitless profits are not the end goal
Gaben is a billionaire, Valve isn’t content with the amount of money they make, they just have good PR
Given the fact that they basically make infinite money so long as they don’t fuck it up id say they are very much content. They have a golden goose why would they slaughter it.
Then let’s stop acting like they’re the good guys, right?
Compared to damned near every company they may as well be, seriously imagine if fucking EA owned Steam. Ill take the neutral evil which just wants my money and giving me a decent product over the one actively trying to kick me in the balls as well.
They just have good PR, loot boxes, gambling, it’s stuff that Valve also makes profit off of.
We’re getting ripped off and some of us, like you, are saying that’s ok.
Nobody is forcing you to pay for the loot boxes, hell nobody is forcing you to play the games with them. You could play literally nothing but Rimworld, Baldurs Gate 3, and Crusader Kings 3 without ever looking at their live service shit. Regardless even on that front Valve is still better than most.
Also I don’t see profits off of gambling as immoral, I see it as stupid and weak willed by those who participate but not immoral.
I guess that’s one way to not feel bad about companies praying on kids and people with addiction issues 🤷
And now I’m sending you off to the blocklist because I don’t need people like you in my life, buhbye!
i wont delete my steam account, but lord gaben wont get my money anymore, even if hes awesome. :( sorry gabe.
I’m still gonna use American stuff that’s good if they keep DEI. brb checking up on Steam.
Edit: it’s not looking good tbh I think I’ll switch to GOG / physical media as much as feasible.
I wont use it if it has an extreme form of DEI in it. Im somewhat in the middle with this DEI Stuff, idk so much about it yet to really form my opinion.
I’ll bite. What’s a company with extreme DEI?
idk, must be a little one that isnt yet big enough to be in the news or whose product is not good enough so i didnt yet use or buy it. these small firms are often extreme-non-DEI/extreme-DEI. but as i have written, idk too much about this stuff. its not in the news in europa.
Okeh. Slightly weird to have an opinion with no examples. Propaganda, much?
proud boys is a weird thing, afaik they are extreme-non-DEI so i dont like them.
a bit DEI or anti-DEI is alright.
EDIT: explain the downvotes. am i to moderate for both farleft and farright??
As for the downvotes I don’t know I’m just talking here. I can’t speak for them. In America, this issue is often played to ‘both sides’ in bad faith, and far right ideas are given more than equal time in ways that have normalised fascist tendencies for decades, leading to the current situation (more or less a coup in progress). It’s a difficult needle you’re trying to thread at the best of times, and right now an “even handed” stance feels a lot like cities trying to solve traffic by adding “just one more lane” to their already massive highways.
As ever, this is just me talking.
