alessandroCourt documents show that not only is Valve a fraction the size [only 336 employees in 2021] of companies like EA or Ubisoft, it's smaller than a lot of triple-A developers
KecessaDon’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.
MudManNot 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Then stop simping for Gaben as if him and valve are any different then the other platforms. Putting a limit like 5% would be a boon to the industry, there’s no negatives and Gaben would still get to own his yatchs.
Hoarding wealth is disgusting and It’s tiresome to see bootlicking on every steam thread just because valve has a good marketing team.
This is the equivalent of defending Mussolini because Hitler was worse. They all suck, Gaben sucks slightly less, and it’s a really slim slightly.
336 employees and 8500 million in revenue. There is simply no defending this. That profit is coming directly out of the industry and it’s he product we receive that ends up being gimped because of it. A lot of indie companies would still be around if it wasn’t for this clear cut collusion.
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?
The margins are thin in indie development, especially when they are usually offered at bargain prices. I’m going with the assumption that if these platforms had been regulated years ago, a good number of indie developers that shut their doors would have survived with the extra profit. It doesn’t seem like a wild assumption to make.
Steam doesn’t tell developers or publishers how much their games are worth. They only provide the tools for them to sell them, and they obliviously get a cut from it, but only if you sell, they don’t ask for money in advance, they don’t ask for any contract.
Valve is a store front, not a publisher. I’m thinking you are just confused about how they operate.
Valve is a store front in a soft monopoly with other similar products and colluding with them. We would have more and better quality games if the government did its job and regulated the store front industry.
Instead of regulating, you seem to imply these costs should be passed down to us instead and the indie industry should just bring up it’s prices, just so Gaben can keep his six yatchs. I think you are confused about your own self interests.
you seem to imply these costs should be passed down to us instead They already are.
I said this was costing us indie studios You said they chose what price they put up their game implying the best solution is us paying more instead of steam getting less I think this is a bad decision for us the consumers and the industry as a whole.
Reread the whole conversation and try to understand what I’m saying if you want me to continue conversing with you. You seem to be ignoring my points and we are going in circles.
It’s disgusting to see people defending the people that are exploiting them and preventing them from being more than average.
It sounds like they are parroting what that guy from Epic Games is saying. While that guy also is a millionaire.
Instead of circle jerking it with your buddy, why don’t you point out where I’m wrong.
To be clear these are my own opinions and I clearly think Epic Games should be regulated just like the other platforms.
I think all the platforms are predatory and taking advantage (except gog), it’s you guys that are giving steam a free pass when they are at best slightly better than the others but still shit. I guess bootlicking is easy if steams marketing team convinces you it’s in your best interest.
I haven’t seen any evidence backing up your claims. And I’m not here to convince you of anything. You’re the one making these bold claims. How about backing them up then?
Less than 400 employees with 8500 million in revenue while the indie industry struggles backs it up.
The fact that Gaben is a multi billionaire backs it up.
No one becomes a billionaire through hard work, it’s stolen wealth. Ask yourself if your arguments can be just as easily applied to bezos, it might give you some perspective on how insane it is to be defending Gaben and his ridiculously fat stack of cash.
“I haven’t seen any evidence”
Buddy, where do you think billionaires’ money comes from?
You think people have it against Gabe only? All multimillionaires billionaires exist at your expense buddy, none of them deserve to exist and their companies don’t deserve the profit that made them billionaires.
I was once in the room while a Valve rep told a bunch of indie developers to spend their own money localizing for the Chinese market or risk not getting store placement.
Valve is a big, big corpo and their MO is to make other people work for them. The software they do make is amazing, but please stop thinking they're a charity, they are extremely not.