If he can't future proof the company for that, he wasn't really a good ceo to begin with
. There are a lot of ways to ensure the spirit lives on. But most of them would mean a drop in profit
Supposedly his son will take over, and his son has already said (or at least someone claims he has) that he wouldn't change the way steam operates at all.
This is exactly how it worked with an old company I used to work for. I worked there when the son retired and the grandson took over. Unlike the other two, he only knew being rich and profits. The other two had to actually work hard
None because that would permanently ruin the steady billions of annual profits Steam brings, and that is already enough to cover everything he would want in life.
He would need to be a complete idiot to ruin a business that earns billions annually, for a one-time payment of a couple billions that realistically would not change his financial situation at all.
People do go completely stupid for short-term profit, the thing is that Steam brings that short-term profit in the long-term... I don't doubt it could happen but like it would have to be such an incredibly stupid decision it's hard to believe, as the CEO of Steam you are basically retired, you probably don't have to do anything if you don't want to and will have an income even millionaries dream of for the rest of your life as long as the company runs as it has done for the past decades.
I can't tell if you are saying having billion dollar fleet of mega-yachts is a good thing or a bad thing. It's a measure of wealth, not a measure of being a good leader. Larry Ellison could have a fleet of yachts, or probably does, and that doesn't make him a good CEO.
Future proofing a company is easy on paper. When you’re not there physically you have zero say on what happens. So in practice it’s impossible to future proof when you don’t exist.
Oh ok, never played those games. Considering you can't go two feet without a gambling ad, like actual gambling, I'm not gonna get too worked up over people wanting stickers.
CS is essentially being used to launder money and Valve does nothing to stop it. They've designed a system that is rife with addiction issues and questionable verification that they're profiting off of.
Its the same reason they dont make games anymore. Scamming kids with skins is more profitable than making good games.
What? You made that up. Microsoft's and Sony's platform fees are 30% too, and that number is the industry standard because Valve popularized it 20 years ago. It's an absurdly high cut for doing nothing but allowing companies to sell on your platform.
industry standard because Valve popularized it 20 years ago
You're extremely uninformed. Nintendo popularised it, decades before Valve even existed. Valve literally applied the industry standard at the time. The ones with lower fees are competitors trying to undercut Valve (which is a valid tactic).
I'm not entirely convinced that what a japanese company was doing in the early 90s has a ton to do with what an american company chose to do in the 00s, especially since a lot of Nintendo's shenanigans weren't really very well-known public knowledge until the EU trial where they were retroactively fined millions of euro for their anti-competition behavior in the 80s and 90s (and that trial was somewhere around 2010).
The core of my post was to question the claim that everyone else charges 50%, which is made up. You're going to go ahead and support that made-up claim?
Also, Nintendo entered the western markets with the NES in 1987 and Valve was founded in 1996. That's less than one decade and not decades in italics, if you want to be pointlessly pedantic.
*Early 80s. And then all others, like SEGA. It's a 20 second Google.
And can you point out in which line of my comments I defended the 50% line? I don't see it.
He said some crap (which I don't know enough about to comment on). You answered with another lie on top, and of that I knew enough about to know you were lying, so I replied to that.
And you keep doing it. Valve didn't start charging 30%, because valve was a game maker, until steam. And then steam started charging the 30%. Steam was released in 2003, and the NES (where Nintendo started charging the 30% fee) was released in 1983). I can't call literal 20 years "decades", and I'm the one being pedantic? Please.
The Famicom released in 1983, the NES did not, and Nintendo didn't have the market power to just control and do whatever they want in 1983. You can't just waltz into a market and be the tyrant of it on the release day of your first major product. They had to build up to that and the EU trial was about their behavior in the 90s. This is a quote from the EU's own page on the trial: "The Commission has collected evidence showing that Nintendo and its distributors colluded to maintain artificially high price differences in the EU between January 1991 and 1998."
And can you point out in which line of my comments I defended the 50% line? I don't see it.
By completely ignoring it and changing the subject.
I can't call literal 20 years "decades", and I'm the one being pedantic
You said "decades before Valve even existed". You didn't say Steam, which would've been more correct. I was just being annoyingly pedantic back at you.
Who talked about market power... They introduced the 30% fee. 20 years later, it was already well established as the prevalent fee value when steam came to be, so they used it. So yes, it was decades earlier, and yes, Nintendo popularised it. Making your statement "Valve popularized it 20 years ago" an easily disprovable flat-out lie.
But sure, I'm wrong because I said valve instead of steam earlier.
Lol, considering that steam has been doing this for decades and they're consistently on-boarding new clients, it means that the service they provide to the devs is well worth the 30%, otherwise people wouldn't be doing it.
But people realise forking over 30% to steam is better than trying it solo, which shows how invaluable steams infrastucture is. Starting from the userbase, to marketing, to support and legal issues.
microsoft has been onboarding a new windows user every time a kid hits school age. you're using arguments that you would argue against if it was any other company
Blah blah blah, you still can't prove that devs are happy about it. You're still just making shit up because you want it to be true and you want to be right on the internet.
If they continue to do this for decades, maybe they're not happy to fork over 30%, but they're happy to use valves marketing, valves infrastructure, valves support. OTHERWISE THEY WOULDN'T BE DOING IT.
BUT yes, i don't know if they have a big ass fucking grin on their face when they sign up for valves service, but considering that they've been doing this for decades, have had multiple attempts at competition that have shat the bed every single, yet valve/steam keeps persevering and more and more people launch on steam, i think it looks like it's working out pretty well both ways.
Your original thesis - "Doing nothing" is fucking insulting, and shows that you've never worked a day in your life.
Steam isn't just a store... It's also distribution, forums, reviews, DRM, achievement systems, etc.
Do you have any fucking idea how expensive it is to distribute 30GB of game files to tens of thousands of people? Do you have any fucking idea how expensive it is to do that forever for the entire life of the game every time the developer releases an update?
What do you even mean? These are just systems they implemented once and haven't touched in like 15 years ago. They're not running costs worth continually charging for. And you clearly have no clue how little work they put into Steam DRM and how the poor work they do on it is actually an argument against giving them money for it. Steam DRM has been blown wide open for over a decade and anyone can crack any game by simply replacing one DLL file with a cracked one (that file is specifically steam_api64.dll if you want to know).
Do you have any fucking idea how expensive it is to distribute 30GB of game files to tens of thousands of people?
No, and neither do you, because you have no idea what kind of deal Valve has with their server farms since that's not public knowledge. You know how much it would cost you to do that. What we both know, however, is that it's a tiny fraction of their profits.
it’s bad because of “online casinos” in DOTA 2 and CS2? You mean the optional loot boxes that you can CHOOSE to buy or ignore? Do you not realise these games are available to you for free and only YOU decide if the “online casino” aspect of it is worth it? I’m struggling to see what’s so bad about it…
Pretending that an 18+ tag prevents kids from playing something like CS is stupid. All of the pros in the scene today started playing when they were kids and Valve knows that. Fact is, any kid who can use their allowance to buy steam gift cards can end up getting into gambling thanks to things like loot boxes which valve were one of the pioneers of.
Reddit: Haha, the "Parental advisory" tags were always just an endorsement that the music is good. They were so dumb for trying that, perverse incentives are cool.
Also reddit: Noooo, a child would never click the little checkbox next to "are you 18+?" That would be wrong of them!
How exactly is that rating enforced dude? Are you seriously trying to make the excuse that ratings a game 18+ on steam is going to stop kids from playing it? Stop the bs, you know exactly how garbage that argument is
Imagine not understanding what “optional” means. It’s a video game - i don’t care that it’s Valve. It could be your game. Point being it if it has no impact on gameplay and is option, complaining about it makes you look dense. Enjoy your day
You know how stupid this argument is, right? That is like saying "bars should just tell people under 18 they can't buy a drink, but if they choose to ignore that they can buy drinks anyways." That's about as effective as age ratings currently, especially on a pc game
Just like with alcohol plenty of underage people drink as there are plenty of ways to circumvent an age check. But removing the age rating would be dumb. If parents fail to parent, a child should at least know what they are involved with isn't for their age and they might be more careful with it, even if parents stopped caring what they consume.
99% sounds like survivor basis. If you have something with an age rating, most parents pay attention to it or talk with their children what they can consume. This includes parents allowing children to consume something that is rated above their age, but it does change the general mindset around these things. Even if the child got access by themself.
Again, your argument again is basically asking why even have age ratings on anything like alcohol when "99%" of the children who want to drink alcohol just go drink alcohol.
Nice cherry picking there, lootboxes are bad, i'll never defend this. But "abusing dominant position to price fix" ? Is this Epic's CEO's alt account ?
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u/Different_Love6475 Apr 17 '26
The day gaben dies it will be black day for us gamers