• makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Valve is an online store first and foremost. Apples and oranges. The rest are playing catchup, as they’ve seen gabe get rich and fat, and they want in on that.

  • JulesTheModest
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    5 months ago

    I think that is one reason why Valve has remained dominant in this space for over 20 years.

  • the post of tom joad
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    5 months ago

    I suspect wolfire is a useful idiot with a larger company funding this lawsuit. Whether or not the antitrust case has legs, this will cost valve money which is a win for whoever they may be.

    Just conjectue o course. I know though that if steam were destroyed tomorrow only terrible more expensive garbage would come in its place.

    So go go gaben

    • ozymandias117@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      If Wolfire kept up Humble Indie Bundle instead of it being sold to IGN and losing any semblance of “indie” I’d take the complaint more seriously

      I do really like Lugaru, but still

      • Spedwell@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I like Wolfire. Their head (David Rosen) had a really good procedural animation talk at GDC about a decade ago, their games are pretty good, and they started up Humble before it spun off on its own.

        Before tarnishing their reputation, I’d suggest reading up on the actual complaints put forth in the lawsuit. I’ve done so extensively, I think they have very solid grounds to go after Valve (Valve’s behaviour is comparable to Amazon’s in terms of anticompetitive practices).

        • quarterlife@lemmy.sdf.org
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          5 months ago

          I read the complaints and I lost all respect. I will not be spending another cent with that company, nor will I attend any of his future talks.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          5 months ago

          The entire complaint seems to be centered around the idea that you can’t sell the game for different price off platform. That’s demonstrably untrue. You can sell the game for a different price of platform as long as they’re not using steam keys. Which is hardly an unreasonable onus, It’s not hard to generate your own keys.

          The other complaint seems to be about the 30% but again you can just distribute yourself. Of course then you have to fund all your own server architecture, that’s what the 30% pays for.

            • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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              5 months ago

              This has already been raised in the European courts and has basically been beaten down that that there is no basis. Feel free to link to an actual court decision that proves otherwise.

              • Spedwell@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                It’s an ongoing case, so I don’t know what you expect of me here. My reply was to correct your misunderstanding about the focus of the case, which is not limited to the use of steam keys as you originally claimed.

                I am not aware of the european case you reference, would you mind pointing me to where I can learn more?

                • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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                  5 months ago

                  Why are you getting the idea that it extends to non-steam keys as well? That’s never been the case because that’s not actually true. They have no control over what price you sell a product at off the platform as long as it’s not using steam keys. So if they’re claiming that it also includes steam keys then that’s not true.

  • Kecessa
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    5 months ago

    Don’t need that many employees to run a store, programmers/IT and marketing and you’re good to go. Employees wouldn’t count contractors either so they probably have a lot more “employees” than that.

    • MudMan@fedia.io
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      5 months ago

      Not only that, Valve has done a TON of work to outsource as much of the process of running Steam off to the users and developers. Self-publishing, a minimum of manual moderation, automated greenlight processes, automated ratings, database tags, controller configs…

      Their entire business model is to make money with as little effort as possible. I’ve been saying for ages that people vastly underestimate how ruthlessly profitable their business is. We didn’t have the numbers, but we roughly knew this is what was going on.

      • Kecessa
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        5 months ago

        Gabe owns six yachts, people should always keep that in mind when praising him, he’s not the friend of the average Joe, he just realized there’s profit to be made by not pissing people off, but he’s still making enough profit from us to be a billionaire while the majority of people live paycheck to paycheck.

        • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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          5 months ago

          he just realized there’s profit to be made by not pissing people off

          It’s weird that I’m nostalgic for the good old days when the ultra rich understood that

        • otp
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          5 months ago

          he just realized there’s profit to be made by not pissing people off

          I’m okay with this. Same deal with Costco’s founders and CEOs. It’d be nice if billionaires didn’t exist, but they do, and most of them made their profits while pissing everyone off.

          I’ll praise the ones that at least try to do some “good” for people. Even if their “good” is “Let’s make obscene amounts of money by charging affordable prices and being the ‘good guy’ in the industry”.

          • john89@lemmy.ca
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            5 months ago

            I’m not okay with this because it incentivizes companies and influencers to work together to lower people’s standards.

            People are proud to accept garbage these days.

            • otp
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              5 months ago

              I ask genuinely – what alternative do we have?

              • daltotron@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                I mean, in this case, yarrrr. but in other cases, i think, probably also yarrrr. but like, physically.

                • otp
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                  5 months ago

                  Steam won our over piracy, as did Netflix when it first came around. And even Uber – people stopped downloading cars for years when Uber was in its heyday!

          • Kecessa
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            5 months ago

            That’s the thing though, they’re still overcharging you and 70$+ isn’t affordable prices for a game, you’ve just been brainwashed into thinking that your money is worth less than it is because a big chunk of it goes to enrich a few people.

            Valve gets 30% for distributing it, the publisher takes another 10 to 20%, add other fees and 50% of what you’re spending goes to the people doing the actual work, that means that Valve gets 60% of what the dev gets for doing barely anything.

            • otp
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              5 months ago

              overcharging you and 70$+ isn’t affordable prices for a game

              The last game I bought on Steam was less than $2 after tax.

              Most games I buy on Steam are less than $20. The most expensive game I’ve ever bought on Steam was probably about $40. And I’ve done that maybe once.

              And even at $70, games are cheaper now than they’ve ever been, adjusting for inflation. They’re also generally much more expensive to produce.

              • Kecessa
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                5 months ago

                Just because they’re cheaper doesn’t mean you don’t get overcharged at the end of the day, what kind of mentality is that?

                • otp
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                  5 months ago

                  I provided numerous reasons why I don’t think I’ve been overcharged.

                  I really don’t understand what your point is. What do you mean by “overcharged”?

          • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            The dude’s the CEO of the most successful online gaming platform ever. Yeah, he’s gonna be a billionaire.

          • Pleb@feddit.de
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            5 months ago

            What did you expect? He owns Valve who has the place to buy video games on PC with Steam.
            But you’ll be hard pressed to find a store front that is not owned by a billionaire or some publicly traded corporation.

              • Pleb@feddit.de
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                5 months ago

                GoG

                or some publicly traded corporation

                CD Projekt is a publicly traded corporation.

                • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Exactly. Even with their DRM-free practices and such and how people want to advertise so much for them here on Lemmy, they’re still a publicly traded multibillion dollar company.

        • Yamayo@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          people should always keep that in mind when praising him

          Why?? Good for him, stop being so envious. It’s thanks to Valve I started to buy games instead of pirate them anyway. Good prices and good practices.

          A billionaire from a game industry is not the same as a billionaire from a real state company or a bank. Games are not a basic need.

          • Nachorella@lemmy.sdf.org
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            5 months ago

            Nah, a billionaire is a billionaire. There’s still people being exploited to get that much money. I don’t completely disagree, though - at least Gaben didn’t make Valve completely evil and yeah, it’s better than fucking up the property market for generations of people.

          • Grimy@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Billionaires shouldn’t exist. The government should regulate all these stores and force a max of 5%. They are clearly colluding and aren’t competing in good faith.

            This is having a negative impact on the industry, a lot of indie studios would have an easier time surviving if they weren’t bled dry by what essentially is a soft monopoly.

            Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony and Steam are all guilty yet you would never defend any of the other ones. Steam spends a lot of money convincing everyone Gaben is just a really cool dude and not your average billionaire.

            • Yamayo@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Steam spends a lot of money convincing everyone Gaben is just a really cool dude and not your average billionaire.

              Or maybe he is a really cool dude…

              • Grimy@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Gaben owns 6 yatchs and spends between 70 million and 100 million a year maintaining them. He’s in the same club as Bezos and the rest.

                • Yamayo@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Stop it with the fucking yatchs already, seriously. Just look at the differences between Vale and the other companys you mention. If you can’t see any, you are just a troll.

                  You can’t say anything bad about Valve other than “they make a lot of money”. It gets boring.

    • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      Could use a few to develop a new linux distribution for entirely new markets and use cases, design and manufacture innovative cutting edge consumer hardware, and count to three.

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      I heard half life alyx was pretty good. I also heard rumors that they’re making a TF2 successor. Also, didn’t a new counter-strike just come out?

      Still, you have a point. Artifact was a disgusting trend-chasing cashgrab. They still haven’t commented on Half life 3, which is despicable behavior imo.

      • Charzard4261@programming.dev
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        5 months ago

        Don’t let any TF2 fan hear you call Deadlock its successor. It appears to be Overwatch gameplay mixed with Moba style map layouts.

        But yeah HL:A was indeed amazing.

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        5 months ago

        Alyx is great. Probably the closest thing to Half Life 3 we’re going to get. But even that’s four years old now.

      • Zetta@mander.xyz
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        5 months ago

        Half life alyx was great, and they are not making a TF2 successor. They are making an overwatch looking game, TF2 will be better still and I will continue to play TF2. (I’m the TF2 fan the comment below said not to let hear you, the only video game I play is TF2)

    • Murdoc
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      5 months ago

      I’m sure that he can perceive the depth that the shaft of that valve is drilling into his eye socket when you turn it. That should count for something.

  • john89@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    You legitimately don’t need a lot of employees to make a good product or have a successful company.

    I genuinely believe a lot of the bloat in modern companies comes from hiring people just to hire them, not because they add any significant value to either the company or customers.

    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      I want to add to this that valve is also very clearly an anomaly in todays business environment. They are not striving for infinite growth but methodical, strategic steady growth.

      • theitalianweeb@feddit.it
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        5 months ago

        That in my mind is how you grow a company, maximising returns for investors is a good idea only for the investors, it deviates the company from the objective which is providing a solution to a problem. It seems to me that Valve despite all the criticism it receives for the high fee on the sales of copies is doing a terrific job on resolving that problem. Also, extending the market to Linux is not a monetary driven decision at all, but it buys back the fidelity of many customers which gain a new feature without any repercussion on stock prices, which are non existent since there aren’t any investors to obey to. The hope is that Gabe will continue on this way and when the problem of passing the baton will present itself, it will be dealt with the future of the company and the industry at large in mind.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      5 months ago

      They’re not beholden to investors, so the company can be exactly as big as Gabe thinks he can manage.

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Prior to the mass layoffs of late, companies like Google and Facebook used to hire developers just so their competition could not.

    • ashok36@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The easiest way for a manager to justify a raise is to increase the headcount under them.

  • bitfucker@programming.dev
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    5 months ago

    I personally think that if valve with their size managed to make a game and maintain their infrastructure for other publishers to use, wtf did the competitor do this whole time?

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      wtf did the competitor do this whole time?

      It’s definitely a cultural problem. Companies like EA are completely clueless on the needs or desires of the average gamer. Their idea is to shape those needs and desires how they see fit. It’s why they spend so much on advertising and viral marketing rather than making good products.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      They hire 1/10th of Valves developer count and spend the entire budget on marketing.

      It appears to work really well seeing how people keep buying Ubitrash and EA games no matter how bad the previous one was.

  • AAA@feddit.org
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    5 months ago

    Well, they don’t develop any games. You don’t require a lot of people to run a store.

    “Their” last game, Counter Strike Global Offensive, is 12 years old, and was developed by a contractor: Hidden Path Entertainment. Ony then Valve took over to maintain it. And anyone familiar with the current situation around the game (CS2) knows how much “development” is going on there.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      ok well this is just wrong.

      HLA definitely counts, and CS2 IS the current game their working on and making.

      HLA was also an extrememly popular game.

      • AAA@feddit.org
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        5 months ago

        My bad with HLA. But CS2 is a glorified engine update, and is not even near the features CSGO had. In the current state the game is a mess.

        Sure they are working on it. All 3 three developers. Which is exactly my point. It’s impossible to compare valve to the other studios, because valve isn’t making games anymore. They just happen to own some eternal IPs where the fan base (myself included) eats their shit.

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 months ago

          its a little more than an engine update, and you’re forgetting that a game engine is like 80% of the game itself.

          It also updates maps, and map textures, which is another like 10% of the game, and the rest would be like, actual gameplay, which CS players don’t want to change, and uh, i believe they did.

          Even when they did make games (portal) for example, they literally contracted a uni team that was making it for a project.

          • AAA@feddit.org
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            5 months ago

            In another comment you say yourself they are not developing games. What’s your point? You’re just arguing to argue now.

            CS 2 and is missing key features, a working anticheat included, and is not getting any meaningful content for months (the missing features included).

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              5 months ago

              In another comment you say yourself they are not developing games.

              i did?

              If you’re talking about the comparison to a triple A game studio, yeah they aren’t a triple A game studio, they aren’t making a fucking witcher 4. This is like comparing fucking BMW to some guy who creates gokarts in his spare time because he thinks it’s fun.

              Regardless, an indie game team of about 3 people can produce a really good game. I’m surprised you seem to think valve isn’t more than a small indie team managing more than one game.

              Every game ever is missing a working anticheat. They’re probably not doing large content releases because their busy working on the fucking anticheat :)

      • cordlesslamp@lemmy.today
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        5 months ago

        The most polished VR game ever made.

        All the little attention to details, the design, the narrative, everything shows how much they care about that game.

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 months ago

    a non game development company not developing games is smaller than a game development company that develops games?

    That’s weird…

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    5 months ago

    Who on Earth is surprised by that. Primarily a store front most of their staff will be customer support.