Encouraging customers to spend less money by having sales is certainly one interpretation
Lets pray valve never goes public
Why would they?
The fuck do they need investors for?
How does it taste? The cock of a Gabe?
I’d say Zuckerberg’s $77B disaster is not a forced mistake but a self-influcted wound. If anything, it’s the Cambridge Analytica scandal that pushed him towards the rebrand they would have been better off without.
I’m pretty reluctant to be this flattening towards Gabe Newell and Valve.
Once Google was seen as one of the good companies. “Googling” became synonimous with searching on the internet. Most if not all competitors went bankrupt. When Google was accused of monopolistic behavior, its fans treated it as an attack on “perfection”. Google Chrome was a fast browser requiring less memory than its competitors. People saw them owning YouTube as a good thing. The most common form of toxicity towards new users in the Linux community was only providing lmgtfy links to them (I did get the occasional custom WinXP ISO torrent link too). Even their motto was don’t be evil.
And then came the YouTube content ID system. And then they were reluctant to throw off the far-right from their platform for breaking their ToS during Gamergate. Then they dropped the motto. Then they put ads into the Google search results. Then they let the far-right control their platform before the 2024 elections. And also they’re pushing AI hard.
Will Gabe Newell stick to his ideas, or get an anyeurism and join the Trump oligarchs?
So, you are afraid to have an opinion in case future events make it invalid?
How do you support literally anything with this mindset?
Elon Musk might be haunted by the three spirits of not being racist this christmas and give away all his possessions. Nonetheless, I’m happy to call him wanker today, because it’s an accurate representation of reality at present.
How do you write all this and fail to mention that search doesn’t even fucking work anymore?
I’m not arguing with you. But internet searching aDOEA NOT WORK ANYMROE.
Thing is Valve is a private company with a flat structure and shared ownership that encourages moving between departments.
Basically, it’s just a club of people doing whatever they want and they happen to all love videogames.
It is fair to compare Google to Valve only in a category of “once been good”. Other than that, 2 different companies with 2 different mottos.
Ok GabeN junior
Also, steam deck and steam machines aren’t sold at a loss
The steam deck was sold at a loss
The steam machine doesn’t have a price yet
Got a source for that? Best I can find are “implications”, like Gaben saying the deck’s pricing is “very aggresive” and that the parts used sum up to roughly 1k dollars
You really need to learn how to learn about shit without people having to spoon feed you like a baby.
Newell said, “Price point was secondary and painful. But that was pretty clearly a critical aspect to it.”
The implication is that Valve would be selling the Steam Deck at a loss.
I mention “best I can find are implications”, I ask for a source and you paste the article bit that literally states "the implication "
Are you saying you want to harm these steam decks?!
Love live Lord Gaben!
This is such a controversial person to discuss. On one hand, loot boxes, the steam market for trading, and a lot of gambling and profiteering going on. At the same time, all of the OP comments are also true.
Out of all the billionaires, I dislike gaben the least. The net good he’s done for gaming may not balance the scales entirely, but at least there’s a discussion to be had whether what gaben has done is for the better, or for the worse. Which is more than I can say about most billionaires I know of.
Hot take: …but it’s just fucking gaming tho… He’s not fucking with manifesting some bullshit ideology throughout the world, he’s not trying to leave his mark on history… And if he is, it’s as a chill dude who gave us all a better alternative to piracy.
he’s not trying to leave his mark on history
He kind of is, but in the way old-school millionaires did - he has purchased a MASSIVE yacht and turned it into an ocean-floor research laboratory, either donated it to a university, or just allows researchers to use it.
Gabe was already wealthy with Microsoft money when he founded Valve, so when his new private startup found success he didn’t feel the pressure to go public, expand, dilute, and cash out. He made the judgement call that they already had enough talent internally to keep playing the hits while keeping all the profit for themselves, and he was right. I’m sure a little bit a business ideology reinforces Gabe’s long-term outlook for Valve, but he’s ultimately enabled by a happy intersection of pre-existing wealth, great timing, and careful hiring choices.
I mean, he is developing the brain chip with his Starfish Neuroscience company but its supposed to be minimally invasive and let’s be real if its between his and Elon Musks (which is NOT minimally invasive and requires surgical implantation) I’m definitely going with his.
I wouldn’t say at this point its all about gaming though. Valve is, but not necessarily Gabe. Which I don’t mind but I could understand how some people wouldn’t like it.
Hard pass
Fair. But its important to point out this won’t be one that goes inside you it will be one that you put on the outside of your head that interacts with brain impulses, at least according to them.
If I was someone with limited mobility or some other sort of handicap I would do that before I got the one that goes inside my skull. But that’s just me.
Can I put it on my dick instead?
You can put almost anything on your dick, its the secret the elite don’t want you to know about!
You know, I think those are inevitable … any potentially evil technology shown in sci-fi will eventually be created irl; it’s like some kind of rule (trust me). Given this, the future is a duality: it’s either GabeN or a random billionaire. I want this potentially-abusive technology with devil that I know.
I remember back around 2010 period, maybe a bit after that, Valve and reddit were both hiring economists. We can see exactly why, now.
Steam refused to issue refunds for a long, long time. In the end they started allowing refunds for everyone because governments started requiring it and it was easier to just allow them for everyone than having to do the legal footwork to have different policies based on geography.
I think they’ve even been forced to pay fines because they refused to give refunds in countries where it’s a legal right.
They only began giving refunds when the European Union mandated it, back then only Origin (EA) gave refunds. Some times the EU is useful.
The EU definitely helped. I’ll add that this was actually kicked off by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in 2014. They took Valve to court over their insistence that they can ignore Australian Consumer Law rights - in particular that if a product is ‘not fit for purpose’ then the buyer is entitled to a full refund, with respect to games. Valve offered no possibility of refund at the time. The case dragged on, but Valve eventually lost and was told to pay several million in fines, they appealed it to the High Court of Australia in 2016 - and lost also on appeal.
The judge was pissed at Valve, and wrote in their ruling:
“Valve’s culture of compliance was, and is, very poor”. Valve’s evidence was ‘disturbing’ to the Court because Valve ‘formed a view …that it was not subject to Australian law…and with the view that even if [legal] advice had been obtained that Valve was required to comply with the Australian law the advice might have been ignored”. He also noted that Valve had ‘contested liability on almost every imaginable point’.
Valve are generally a very positive force in gaming, but they’re definitely not the saints that OP image text implies.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/australia-fines-valve-over-steam-refunds
I have a pro-Valve bias because I do like them. But I still do want to make a fair argument and would like to be corrected if I fail to do so.
So, yes, Valve’s refund policy in the past was bad, and yes, they were forced to change. But since then they have fixed their mistakes, and have arguably the most generous refund policy out there. Last time I bought digital content from Nintendo store I had to waive my refund rights.
They could have limited refunds to Australia but they didn’t. This has to count for something, right? Valve is a for profit company in a capitalist system, and yes they have bad practices. But surely we can agree they are one of the better ones?
Thanks for the info and sources!
Gaben and steam are not perfect, but are monumentally better than what we would be stuck with on sony-soft
Nintendo too. look, I love their creative, but holy hell have they become exceptionally money grabby.
They’re succeeding by not actively running their platform into the ground, which is somehow inspiring and disappointing at the same time
succeeding by not actively running their platform into the ground
As someone who began to use Steam from 2007, and play their games since 2000 - they not only made their platform better over years, they also now branching out lately. Their hardware is either the best in price/performance or outright innovative.
They are not “succeeding by not actively running their platform into the ground”, they succeeding in actually providing a good service and getting better the more time passes. All that while all competition does is to attempt to expand their user base without actually providing a good service.
Just thought that if not Valve, we’d be stuck in the same shithole streaming services been lately.
That’s because they’re a privately owned company. They can decide when to prioritize long term profits over short term profits.
Most of their competition are publicity traded companies that have no such luxury. They have to make next quarter’s number higher no matter what.
The very core of pretty much every enshittification you can put a finger on
All that’s between you and success is a consistent and reasonable performance, but seemingly everyone else in the world is too greedy to pull this off.
That’s because they’re a privately owned company. They can decide when to prioritize long term profits over short term profits.
Most of their competition are publicity traded companies that have no such luxury. They have to make next quarter’s number higher no matter what.
People saying that when Gabe dies so does Steam seem to be missing a piece of the puzzle.
From everything I’ve read and can tell they work using an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Program). Meaning each employee working there today is becoming partial owners in Valve. If you think they will allow some new face to show up when Gabe dies and flip the table you are missing the piece where the owners of this company are extremely well compensated today and a core part of making Valve successful today.
A ton of companies have ESOP, but that doesn’t stop enshitification because the employees generally don’t own enough shares to exert control.
Those shares are also generally for sale for a high enough price. Given the immense current value of the brand, when Gabe dies vultures of every variety will start circling. If they offer employees 2x their share price to sell, enough of them will do it to lose control to investors that just want to enshittify everything and milk it’s brand for every last penny as they drive it into the ground.
My company is an ESOP and shares don’t give us voting rights or any actual control, it’s just a monetary incentive. The C-suite/board still control everything and unilaterally makes all the executive decisions.
Guys I know he is not perfect but it’s understandable that people like him in a world where the average CEO drinks the blood of newborns daily.
Huh, so that’s why they’re all so prolife. Need to keep the source of fresh babies going…
“Don’t get an abortion! Have that baby and dispose of it at your nearest “Leave your baby here for our coalition of friendly CEOs to take care of” location for a 25$ amazon gift card!”
That fully sounds like a program a literal vampire would implement with wild success. Parents selling their kids for money happened in the past, so not even that much of a stretch. It does sound like a potential cobra problem though.
very literal cobra problem as well
Would watch a full length film of this
STEAM- Give a reasonable good platform for gaming.
OTHERS- Kill themselves with shitty optimization and spam policies.
STEAM - Sit. Enjoy the sunny day. Drink a coffee. Improve a bit the navigator to help you find new games.
OTHERS - Keep their shitty platforms unoptimized and double down on AI Slops.
STEAM - Doing some yoga. Walk the dog. Add an AI disclaimer for the games.
As a fan of TF2, I’ll quote another greentext: “does nothing, competition keeps shooting themself in the foot.” It was about Overwatch vs TF2, but it’s mostly similar.
TF2 completely abandoned their whole design philosophy to cater to the gambling crowd…
They made multiple design documentary videos on their whole “recognizable unique sillouette” class design. Then they created loot boxes…
