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.
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.
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”.
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!
That’s the thing though, they’re still overcharging you and 70$+ isn’t affordable prices for a game, you’ve just been brainwashed into thinking that your money is worth less than it is because a big chunk of it goes to enrich a few people.
Valve gets 30% for distributing it, the publisher takes another 10 to 20%, add other fees and 50% of what you’re spending goes to the people doing the actual work, that means that Valve gets 60% of what the dev gets for doing barely anything.
If companies make billions in profit and company owners can spend in a day more than you’ll make in a lifetime without batting an eye that’s because people like you, me and the vast majority of humans on this planet are paying more than things are truly worth.
We might not feel like we’re paying too much for stuff, but in reality if the person at the top has billions to their name, that money comes from somewhere, we’ve just been convinced by them that that’s the cost of things and that’s it.
The truth is the 2$ game that you bought would have been 1$ in a system where there isn’t a billionaire at the top. The 40$ game that you bought would have been 20$ and AAA games would cost 35$. The only reason they cost double their value is because a bunch of guys rake in millions or billions a year, they artificially increase the price everything needs to be sold for in order for companies to be able to pay them.
Your see the exact same thing happening at the grocery store, people doing the work can’t afford the food they’re selling while the big boss owns a house on every continent, take them out of the equation and suddenly everything can be sold for much cheaper because that’s billions the company doesn’t need to generate every year.
So your definition of overcharged is that we’re being charged more than what we would in an alternate reality where billionaires don’t exist?
I don’t think imagination is a good basis of comparison. If one store is selling the game for $20 and another is selling it for $70 with nothing different between the two, then the one selling it for $70 is overcharging.
But if one real store is selling it for $70, and an imaginary store is selling it for $20, then I don’t think the real store is overcharging…lol
He early joined Microsoft and probably had some stock but he left by 1996 so I hardly doubt that made him a real billionaire, (especially given the time).
That doesn’t mean he wasn’t well off? Just as an example, there’s a media figure here in Brazil that has a whole ass “self made man” myth is surrounding him because at some point he was selling baubles in the street or other odd jobs like that. And it is indeed true that he did that, but his family owned a media network. So.
Oh and I don’t mean “well off” in the more “old money” sense, you are right, I’m not saying that he was billionaire level due to his family. I see why it seemed like that from what you were replying to, my bad. But I’m fairly sure I’ve read about his parent for the first time this year, and they had fairly comfortable money, to the point that him opening valve wasn’t a real financial risk for instance.
I’ll try to look for where I’ve read that, I didn’t pick it up immediately because I don’t have a pc at hand till Monday and searching for stuff on the phone is annoying. It’s not impossible that I’m mixing up with someone else, but in fairly sure that isn’t the case.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Billionaires exist because you and me and people like us overpay for stuff, they accumulate wealth by making sure we don’t. Gabe’s wealth comes from the surplus generated by Valve, if they make that much surplus then they could lower their cut by a fucking lot and so could publishers that also enrich multimillionaire and billionaires.
A lot of indie companies would still be around if it wasn’t for this clear cut collusion
Can you tell me how has Valve affected the indie industry? In a bad way of course. Most of my steam games are indie games that I assure you I have bought thanks to Steam’s shop visibility, review system, forums, easy refunds, cloud saves, and basically all the ease of use it gives. They don’t buy small teams and extinguish or terminate them, they don’t artificially inflate prices, they don’t install rootkits in your computer…
How is the indie games industry worse because of Valve?
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.
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.
It’s weird that I’m nostalgic for the good old days when the ultra rich understood that
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”.
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.
I ask genuinely – what alternative do we have?
I mean, in this case, yarrrr. but in other cases, i think, probably also yarrrr. but like, physically.
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!
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.
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 $70, games are cheaper now than they’ve ever been, adjusting for inflation. They’re also generally much more expensive to produce.
Just because they’re cheaper doesn’t mean you don’t get overcharged at the end of the day, what kind of mentality is that?
I provided numerous reasons why I don’t think I’ve been overcharged.
I really don’t understand what your point is. What do you mean by “overcharged”?
If companies make billions in profit and company owners can spend in a day more than you’ll make in a lifetime without batting an eye that’s because people like you, me and the vast majority of humans on this planet are paying more than things are truly worth.
We might not feel like we’re paying too much for stuff, but in reality if the person at the top has billions to their name, that money comes from somewhere, we’ve just been convinced by them that that’s the cost of things and that’s it.
The truth is the 2$ game that you bought would have been 1$ in a system where there isn’t a billionaire at the top. The 40$ game that you bought would have been 20$ and AAA games would cost 35$. The only reason they cost double their value is because a bunch of guys rake in millions or billions a year, they artificially increase the price everything needs to be sold for in order for companies to be able to pay them.
Your see the exact same thing happening at the grocery store, people doing the work can’t afford the food they’re selling while the big boss owns a house on every continent, take them out of the equation and suddenly everything can be sold for much cheaper because that’s billions the company doesn’t need to generate every year.
So your definition of overcharged is that we’re being charged more than what we would in an alternate reality where billionaires don’t exist?
I don’t think imagination is a good basis of comparison. If one store is selling the game for $20 and another is selling it for $70 with nothing different between the two, then the one selling it for $70 is overcharging.
But if one real store is selling it for $70, and an imaginary store is selling it for $20, then I don’t think the real store is overcharging…lol
Holy shit Gabe Newell is a billionaire (it’s just at the second paragraph). This does change my view of him and steam. So uncool.
The dude’s the CEO of the most successful online gaming platform ever. Yeah, he’s gonna be a billionaire.
He was a billionaire before valve even existed.
Where did you hear that?
He early joined Microsoft and probably had some stock but he left by 1996 so I hardly doubt that made him a real billionaire, (especially given the time).
Afaik his family was always very well off
He was a paperboy and a telegram messenger before college.
That doesn’t scream old money boy.
Aren’t you confusing him with someone else?
That doesn’t mean he wasn’t well off? Just as an example, there’s a media figure here in Brazil that has a whole ass “self made man” myth is surrounding him because at some point he was selling baubles in the street or other odd jobs like that. And it is indeed true that he did that, but his family owned a media network. So.
Oh and I don’t mean “well off” in the more “old money” sense, you are right, I’m not saying that he was billionaire level due to his family. I see why it seemed like that from what you were replying to, my bad. But I’m fairly sure I’ve read about his parent for the first time this year, and they had fairly comfortable money, to the point that him opening valve wasn’t a real financial risk for instance.
I’ll try to look for where I’ve read that, I didn’t pick it up immediately because I don’t have a pc at hand till Monday and searching for stuff on the phone is annoying. It’s not impossible that I’m mixing up with someone else, but in fairly sure that isn’t the case.
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.
cough GoG cough
I’m agreeing with you, btw.
CD Projekt is a publicly traded corporation.
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.
I expected him to be cool, I guess
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.
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.
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.
Or maybe he is a really cool dude…
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.
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.
Billionaires exist because you and me and people like us overpay for stuff, they accumulate wealth by making sure we don’t. Gabe’s wealth comes from the surplus generated by Valve, if they make that much surplus then they could lower their cut by a fucking lot and so could publishers that also enrich multimillionaire and billionaires.
There are no good rich people.
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Can you tell me how has Valve affected the indie industry? In a bad way of course. Most of my steam games are indie games that I assure you I have bought thanks to Steam’s shop visibility, review system, forums, easy refunds, cloud saves, and basically all the ease of use it gives. They don’t buy small teams and extinguish or terminate them, they don’t artificially inflate prices, they don’t install rootkits in your computer…
How is the indie games industry worse because of Valve?