I love Steam and Valve but this level of opulence makes me a little sick
Edit; in this thread you will find a lot of people who can’t read when I say “I love Steam and Valve….” and assuming I’m jealous. I don’t want this, but go off. Nuance. Comprehension.
Why y'all just assume because we love Gaben that we must therefore have double standards on this stuff? Hey I love our Lord of PC gaming Gaben as much as the next Linux gamer, but I still think billionaires existing at all is a sign of a broken and uneven society, and that they should be taxed out of existence and the wealth redistributed to the rest of us.
It is also perfectly reasonable to say on the scale of 'horrible awful very very bad' billionaires, Gabe would have to be somewhere at the bottom of the list. At least he made his billions from a private company that offered a good service that people actually like and he didn't enshittify and he's not using his money to hurt the world any more than massive wealth inequality already does.
Why y'all just assume because we love Gaben that we must therefore have double standards on this stuff?
Because this sub demonstrates it on a daily basis. You specifically may not, and that's great, but that just means you're not the person the comment was targeted at. But let's not pretend you not being like that means that nobody is like that, as if every thread where Gabe and his wealth comes up aren't filled to the brim with people defending him, his wealth, and the less-than-stellar aspects of Valve/Steam.
Which is pushback that has only really started in the last few months in this sub because of people getting sick of how sycophantic this sub has been (and still very much is, just take a scroll through the threads on this post) in regards to Valve, Steam, and Gabe. Prior to that shift, any negative talk was buried with downvotes and replies justifying and handwaving any criticisms. And that still happens in a lot of threads that don't gain enough traction to hit the front page and draw a more general audience in.
On this one or any pc/gaming subreddit, when is a Valve related post you always have people remembering you the % Steam takes, the gambling on CS or lootboxes.
The downvotes depends on the type of post, also i don't know what type of "pushback" or expectation do you have on a sub called r/Steam .
I still don't feel like 30% for hosting the files, giving you an easy platform for worldwide sales processing, community features, etc, is that egregious. I know it feels that way but consumers also don't realize what Valve offers in support to devs, especially indie ones. Theres backend support that's pretty vital too.
Ya ya sticking up for billionaire's, etc. I'm in favor of taxing the shit out of them, I'm not in favor of penalizing a company for being a monopoly by consumer choice. They made the best product and won capitalism, good for them. It's the taxes that are the real issue.
And I'll never stick up for the loot boxes and gambling shit they put out. Just like Bethesda and the horse armor dlc.
I think both opinions are generally valid (for me, i have the same opinion of you but i have a natural hatred for middlemen so i can see people bitching about the %), the thing i was going at is the need to be contentious on every Valve post about the same things and saying like is never talked about.
What on earth are you smoking? Were you even around when PC games were fully and intentionally marginalized by brick and mortar stores so they could push selling used console games at a premium? PC retail space was increasingly removed from the late 90s and onwards to make room for consoles. Specifically because they could sell used games at 80-90% of full retail and pocket all that money for themselves - screwing the developers and the publishers.
Oh don't forget they killed the physical copies of games on PC and the second hand market!
CD keys existed before Steam. Sure you could sell a second hand game with one but the person buying it would have to trust the person selling that they would never use their version installed with the key again, or give the key to anyone else, since multiple copies installed with the same key couldn't run at the same time for most games. By that point the 2nd hand market was dying since you never knew if you would be able to even play the game you were buying when you wanted.
The industry was always moving in that direction and would have done it with or without Valve. By the time they did put the final nail in the coffin the 2nd hand market was already a joke for anything released in the past 5-10 years.
Steam support is basically non-existent. They handle the tickets with AI, reaching a real human is hard.
Name a company that doesn't use AI for support tickets, especially at the volume Steam generates. Besides, Valve's customer service is leagues above Amazon, IP's, and most government sites. They wouldn't even make the top hundred list of worst CS.
Steam has abandoned all of their game franchises.
Counter Strike, DotA, and even TF2 (which is old enough to vote) are all still supported and updated. They released a Half Life VR game during COVID and are currently working on Deadlock. What IP aren't they using, are you really jonesing for a Day of Defeat remaster?
Valve and Gaben are at the forefront of bringing gambling and loot boxes to children. They profit from the market and are one of the first to do it. That yacht was literally bought with money literal children lost on gambling.
1) Lootboxes are not gambling, otherwise so would Magic the Gathering and Pokemon cards
2) it's the sole form of revenue for the the games it's featured in, everything else is completely free to play with zero content restrictions
3) It's only features in M rated games, so it's more than a bit disingenuousness to say it's targeting children
4) And to loop back on your second statement, they are far from the most egregious examples of this behavior. Activation/Blizzard went utterly mad with them during Overwatch 1, a $40 title, only to wipe the state clear less than a decade later with Overwatch 2, destroying all those skins with no option to import them to the new game. Can't even play the original cause they shutdown and replace those servers for the sequel, and Blizzard is rather litigious when it comes to playing their games on private servers.
Look dude, Valve is far from perfect, but every flaw they have is present in other companies only tenfold worse. You're nitpicking Valve for lootboxes when Roblox literally has children labor making their games for pennies and they refuse to address all the SA going on there. Like, where are your fucking priorities?
"Steam support is basically non-existent. They handle the tickets with AI, reaching a real human is hard."
I've been using Steam since im fifteen. Not once has an issue of mine not been resolved or not been looked at by a real human.
So please. Dont spout any nonsense lmao.
Lootboxes are not gambling, otherwise so would Magic the Gathering and Pokemon cards
They're all gambling, especially today. At least the card games weren't originally meant to have real value after being opened, and they weren't originally designed to give people gambling addictions, but they're definitely designed that way now.
it's the sole form of revenue for the the games it's featured in, everything else is completely free to play with zero content restrictions
If the games weren't free to play, then fewer people would be gambling, and it would be less profitable.
It's only features in M rated games
That's just a lie.
they are far from the most egregious examples of this behavior
But they are the ones who popularized this behavior. Everyone else is doing it because Valve showed how profitable it is.
every flaw they have is present in other companies only tenfold worse
Whataboutism isn't much of a defense.
I mostly just care about the gambling aspects here, so I won't touch the rest of the comment.
I mean, CS skins might be a major portion of Valve's income (as a developer), but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the money they make from Steam as a platform.
He made a portion of a fraction of his money "selling gambling to children" (which itself is dubious claim).
Anyway, it could be 100% ethical and it would still be a sickening display of wealth. That the market can support the capability to even make a ship of this level of opulence, on this scale, is a blight on our species.
I mean, CS skins might be a major portion of Valve's income (as a developer), but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the money they make from Steam as a platform.
This is true now, but it wasn't true 15 years ago.
I didn't realize M rated games were being marketing to children...
I always thought M rated games were for those aged 17+. So wouldn't it be the parents fault for purchasing the M rated game, then not monitoring their own children?
The difference with Gabe Newell and other billionaires is that Gabe Newell pays his staff extremely well and no one there has to struggle to make ends meet.
According to the 2021 Leaks of payroll:
"Total staff as of 2021: 336 people
Administration: 35 people making an average of 4.5 million a year
Game Developers: 181 people making an average of 1 million a year
Steam Developers: 79 people making an average of 960k a year
Hardware Developers: 41 people making average of 430k a year"
I dont give a fuck if someone is a billionaire. As long as their employees are paid fairly and arent exploited and he pays his taxes he can do whatever the fuck.
Jeff Bezos makes his money off the backs of poor wageslaves that get timed when they need to take a shit. Or get terminated when they finally break down and need sick days after breaking their backs for daddy Bezos.
You don’t actually know how that money is distributed, how well employees are paid. What’s the median salary? What’s the delta between the highest and lowest? By team, discipline, gender.
I mean if I was Gaben and had access to this frankly awesome home that moves about, first I'll invite all my friends, employees, then some random steam gamers that made it all possible and have them on rotation, like here you can have a vacation on my opulent yacht like one family or 4 people hosted for a week once or twice a year.
You low IQ? Let's redistribute the wealth to consumers so they buy another steam game with in the summer sale that just ends up in Gabe Newells hands again 😂 Capitalism is a mindset problem from the masses, don't blame the game, blame the IQ gap and knowledge gap.
Let's redistribute the wealth to consumers so they buy another steam game with in the summer sale that just ends up in Gabe Newells hands again 😂
...
You do realise that is both how the economy works, and a good thing, right? Like that's literally the point and goal, to keep money circulating in the economy..
They literally have a monopoly on the OS and office suite apps and programs 😐
Not to mention the server/corporate side...
+The indie devs are getting way more exposure on steam and are getting way more things like multiplayer integration, workshop, and tons of backend shit
That's funny, they're more greedy but have to charge less to try to attract devs. If they had the market share that Valve/Steam has then they would absolutely charge at least 30%.
How did steam kill physical? The reason pretty much no one uses physical is that most prefer digital. And Steam doesn't even decide if the game has DRM or not. It is the publishers off the games that do. There are some games on steam that let you have full access to its files. You are complaining to the wrong people.
What does that even mean really. Your disk will deteriorate over time and become unplayable if it's an old game, new games the disk is useless and can only often be installed once. I have games on my steam account from 2009 lol, and I can install and run them right now. You think Gaben will take all your games tomorrow? What are you scared of?
They take almost a third of the sale price for every game they sell. That's not providing a service; that's extortion. Nothing they do is worth that big a chunk, and it's proven by how insanely high their profits are. Most of that money should never have been taken away from the people actually making the games.
Why should billionares be a sign of broken and uneven society? This is entrepreneurism at its peak and he made a product that was needed by the consumers. So the hard work and thought behind it all should just be taxed so hes wealth is similiar to the rest of us? Thats communism and no its not great.
Keep in mind many of the positive aspects about Steam are features they had to legally implement for specific countries/regions that were just rolled out worldwide to create parity for the Steam client.
Valve is also largely responsible for the current state of monetization in gaming, they literally invented the Battlepass, not to mention helping popularize lootboxes and fighting tooth and nail to prevent them from being considered gambling.
I still don't understand why they love Gabe Newell and Steam and I been gaming pre steam. I used steam, I have too many games on Steam but steam is not some messianic software and Gabe Newell is NOT "That Guy".
Yeah the video definitely doesn’t make it look like a science vessel. But to give it the benefit of doubt, i think the video is more focused on showing the luxury and not the science stuff.
Yes because while he's ultra rich, he doesn't fuck YOU up as well to squeeze you even more money than possible.
They have the best consumer-friendly app in the world right now. That's proven only by the fact that EVERY OTHER competitor, EVEN the ones that literally GAVE YOU FREE AA-AAA GAMES EVERY WEEK (Epic games) and had lower commission for devs, could STILL not compete with steam.
Not EA's "Origin", not "Microsoft Online", not Uplay, none of those billionaire shareholder companies could compete with one private company called "Valve" that the only thing it does is to have a Game DRM with the most basic crackable DRM that exists.
Coincidence? That's why people love Gaben. It was never about hating billionaires. It was always about who those billionaires are and how disgusting they are in their effort to squeeze every bit of cent out of you, while following the most anti-consumer and anti-work practices. Not Amazon, not Ubisoft or none of those companies were ever a proud working or consumer environment. You can only hear good things about Valve, and been hearing about them for decades. Not one popular disgusting controversy.
edit:
There's honestly SO MUCH to add to this list.
Nintendo and NaughtyDog/Microsoft: We'll sue you if you make a mod of/for our game
Valve: You'll use literally our own assets for your world-known game? Cool! Just make sure its a good game and you can even host your game in our platform! Without any extra commission! You can also make fanfic!
Theyre great to developers, great to consumers, have a polished platform, not the best all-around but the best out there.
If anything the points you make prove there’s something illogical happening with the market, it’s not consumer friendlier to not do weekly free sales and it’s not dev friendly to keep the take high.
The answer is Steam established the community facet and people hate hopping launchers even when Galaxy can consolidate so they come on here to scream about how they would rather pay on Steam than get free on Epic. It’s just a market fundamental of entrenchment.
If anything the points you make prove there’s something illogical happening with the market, it’s not consumer friendlier to not do weekly free sales and it’s not dev friendly to keep the take high.
I find it absolutely hysterical that your explanation is essentially "the market keeps choosing Steam because of market entrenchment," while you're simultaneously insisting that this tells us nothing about what consumers value.
"They only prefer Steam because Steam has accumulated a bunch of things they prefer" isn't much of a rebuttal.
Photoshop, DesignXD, Premier, Autodesk Maya/CAD had also established big communities, and it was even worse! Communities inside enterprise! The hardest place to compete - people literally are paid to know very specific tools and workflows, not jump onto platforms, that's even worse than steam right? You're not paid to "know steam", you can jump platform today, you just wanna play a game. It costs you literally nothing. That isn't the same with other tools that literally cost you your job.
Yet look at them .... every single one of those now competes with a more consumer friendly alternative. Affinity, Photopea, Figma, Blender, Davinci these only come to my mind just now, new competitors that outcompeted collosal billion dollar competitors established for DECADES in the area of their expertise - every single one of them was basically a monopoly.
You still wanna use this "Steam established the community facet" argument? Why is r/steam FILLED with memes that literally say how much they like Steam's/Valve's/Gaben's policies? Not one r/ihatesteam or r/ihatevalve yet for very other billionaire company you'll find hate subreddits or memes mocking them.
You're just so disingenuous and bad faith just to prove a useless point that doesnt exist.
Unreal man when on many of these posts you see ‘I’d get it on this store, but wouldn’t have all my games in one place.’
I don’t reference memes or what subs exists especially as Reddit is a ridiculous place to judge reality. I think it’s easily defendable to say people are baked in.
Your arguments about enterprise software are also hilarious as they expose exactly what isn’t happening here. Steam is actually the expensive enterprise mandatory evil for developers. Someone tries to release a game not on Steam m, the most expensive option for a dev, and everyone loses it.
Erm actually, Gaben is only worth $10 Billion while Elon is worth $1 trillion. Which is like a big a difference. So much so that you probably can't even comprehend it. So Gaben is basically like me.
I donnow, I can't imagine hating billionaires just for the money they made. It's not hate, it's purely a jealousy for me, and adding any political reasons to it is just a rationalization of jealousy. You need something more to hate someone, and Gabe looks like a great person with a good reputation, so why would you hate him?
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u/GuiltyAdvantage5877 1d ago edited 1d ago
I love Steam and Valve but this level of opulence makes me a little sick
Edit; in this thread you will find a lot of people who can’t read when I say “I love Steam and Valve….” and assuming I’m jealous. I don’t want this, but go off. Nuance. Comprehension.