Valve getting praised for being a competent store chain owner while having so much love from the gamers tells more about the market than it says about Valve.
Yeah, like, they were clever about lots of things. But they don’t throw freebies. Even Deck and SteamOS are not a charity, these are timed bites at empty handhelds market and Win10 retirement. Sales are as predatory as they are in any other store, gambling is there although contained, AI-marking is a calculated effort to win shoppers’ gratitude and avoid another wave of oversaturation with slop products they’d need to work on refunding etc. It’s all just a healthy business with big margins and not being braindead.
Like every other media industry, it’s just too deeply fucked that we cheer on Valve alone for doing convinient services you want to unseal your mom’s credit card on. And the level of fuckedness is so gross that a money-printing machine like EPIC can’t get the same level of adoration by giving free games every other day. It’s almost surreal how deep Steam hardcoded itself into gaming by not being as sloppy as other takes on that idea, besides Sony\Xbox\Nintendo console-locked subs.
And while I’ve heard some users are afraid of losing Gabe as the head commander of Valve, I honestly find it utterly irrelevant. He is not a saint, and he’s completely capable of fucking up things like limiting family sharing because he may find it’s not a turning point for buying extra games anymore. He may introduce his own Steam+ subscription plans to bet big on future hits and showel in trash that doesn’t get the predicted number of sales (or getting bribes). He can make x64 Steam only accessible in SteamOS to hardline the Apple approach of providing the best UX under ultimately controlled conditions. It just doesn’t make money and is tried times again by his peers to various results he can see.
But anytime now, Valve can get a 180 turn, not because they are inherently evil or whatever, but because we delegated them that much power that Steam is PC gaming, and no other company has that power.
As different scriptures of the past tell us, don’t make an idol for yourself. It’s a build up for a disappointment. Get most of them as a consumer, but don’t be blind of the ways they don’t even act on the market, but how they shape it.
It’s all just a healthy business with big margins and not being braindead.
Exactly. When I was little, the most accepted and loved buisnesses weren’t the ones that mass produced shit and tried to push it down your throat, but the ones that were healthy both for themselves and the community. My country was a bick backwards back then, yes. Sad that it shows with this. Anyway, this is pretty much what Valve is doing. It bring back some value to community, works for it’s users while still not being idiotic and keeping profits on stable level.
You mention Deck and SteamOS - yes, these are exactly what you say, a bite into a niche that was filled with dissapointment by other people. But you omit that what they provided with these is a great product that people actually love and feel it’s price is justified. The quality, usefullness and price align, according to most with slight advantage in the first two.
Fuckedness of cheering on Valve and Valve vs Epic
Honestly, this is nonsensical. If you are bullied by five guys, and the sixth one pretty much ignores you, sometimes protecting you for money, of course you’re gonna see the sixth one as a savior,
And Epic is a no-go due to exclusives and hopeless UX. Steam does all it can to show you what users think about product. Epic does all it can to show you what companies think about product, cutting user reviews altogether. Steam is somewhat snappy, Epic loads forever. Honestly, Epic just feels hostile to me as a user. So yeah, their free games are nice, but that’s it, I am not gonna spend money on there. It’s not shilling for Steam if Steam actually just cares about the UX.
Gabe not being saint
Yeah, he’s not, but he has firm grip on reality and looks beyond the horizon. At this point, Gabe pretty much doesn’t say anything in terms of what gets done in Valve, just keeps the main ruleset in place - and that’s why people are afraid of his death. Will the next person upkeep them or will they become corporate shills? Will they go for IPO or whatever it’s called?
And useless fearmongering with what-if’s doesn’t work as long as there’s not a pattern you can fall on. We can expect Gaben to tolerate gambling further, this is an actual bad side to him. But there’s no trace of anything suggesting cash grabs.
As different scriptures of the past tell us, don’t make an idol for yourself. It’s a build up for a disappointment. Get most of them as a consumer, but don’t be blind of the ways they don’t even act on the market, but how they shape it.
This is true. Yet again, Valve mostly shapes the market for consumer, whereas other companies shape it against them. For now.
Valve getting praised for being a competent store chain owner while having so much love from the gamers tells more about the market than it says about Valve.
Yeah, like, they were clever about lots of things. But they don’t throw freebies. Even Deck and SteamOS are not a charity, these are timed bites at empty handhelds market and Win10 retirement. Sales are as predatory as they are in any other store, gambling is there although contained, AI-marking is a calculated effort to win shoppers’ gratitude and avoid another wave of oversaturation with slop products they’d need to work on refunding etc. It’s all just a healthy business with big margins and not being braindead.
Like every other media industry, it’s just too deeply fucked that we cheer on Valve alone for doing convinient services you want to unseal your mom’s credit card on. And the level of fuckedness is so gross that a money-printing machine like EPIC can’t get the same level of adoration by giving free games every other day. It’s almost surreal how deep Steam hardcoded itself into gaming by not being as sloppy as other takes on that idea, besides Sony\Xbox\Nintendo console-locked subs.
And while I’ve heard some users are afraid of losing Gabe as the head commander of Valve, I honestly find it utterly irrelevant. He is not a saint, and he’s completely capable of fucking up things like limiting family sharing because he may find it’s not a turning point for buying extra games anymore. He may introduce his own Steam+ subscription plans to bet big on future hits and showel in trash that doesn’t get the predicted number of sales (or getting bribes). He can make x64 Steam only accessible in SteamOS to hardline the Apple approach of providing the best UX under ultimately controlled conditions. It just doesn’t make money and is tried times again by his peers to various results he can see.
But anytime now, Valve can get a 180 turn, not because they are inherently evil or whatever, but because we delegated them that much power that Steam is PC gaming, and no other company has that power.
As different scriptures of the past tell us, don’t make an idol for yourself. It’s a build up for a disappointment. Get most of them as a consumer, but don’t be blind of the ways they don’t even act on the market, but how they shape it.
Overall I agree, but there are a few flaws.
Exactly. When I was little, the most accepted and loved buisnesses weren’t the ones that mass produced shit and tried to push it down your throat, but the ones that were healthy both for themselves and the community. My country was a bick backwards back then, yes. Sad that it shows with this. Anyway, this is pretty much what Valve is doing. It bring back some value to community, works for it’s users while still not being idiotic and keeping profits on stable level.
You mention Deck and SteamOS - yes, these are exactly what you say, a bite into a niche that was filled with dissapointment by other people. But you omit that what they provided with these is a great product that people actually love and feel it’s price is justified. The quality, usefullness and price align, according to most with slight advantage in the first two.
Honestly, this is nonsensical. If you are bullied by five guys, and the sixth one pretty much ignores you, sometimes protecting you for money, of course you’re gonna see the sixth one as a savior,
And Epic is a no-go due to exclusives and hopeless UX. Steam does all it can to show you what users think about product. Epic does all it can to show you what companies think about product, cutting user reviews altogether. Steam is somewhat snappy, Epic loads forever. Honestly, Epic just feels hostile to me as a user. So yeah, their free games are nice, but that’s it, I am not gonna spend money on there. It’s not shilling for Steam if Steam actually just cares about the UX.
Yeah, he’s not, but he has firm grip on reality and looks beyond the horizon. At this point, Gabe pretty much doesn’t say anything in terms of what gets done in Valve, just keeps the main ruleset in place - and that’s why people are afraid of his death. Will the next person upkeep them or will they become corporate shills? Will they go for IPO or whatever it’s called?
And useless fearmongering with what-if’s doesn’t work as long as there’s not a pattern you can fall on. We can expect Gaben to tolerate gambling further, this is an actual bad side to him. But there’s no trace of anything suggesting cash grabs.
This is true. Yet again, Valve mostly shapes the market for consumer, whereas other companies shape it against them. For now.
I mean yes, but every other platform is trying to weasel away shit you paid for and nuking your face with ads for no reason
And the only - ONLY - reason steam don’t do this is because they dont feel like it right now.