Mastodawn

Phorm The Vixdjinn Nov 14

I know a lot of folks have been going on about it, but Steam's latest hardware announcement has been utterly insane for the day and age in which we live.

Consider that they didn't hype it up with a launch event. They didn't sell a bunch of hype and buzzwords. All they did was release a ~6 minute video that effectively described the hardware and what it would provide, and had a webpage with *actual specs on it*.

They invited a bunch of tech reporters/YouTubers to their HQ, but they let them talk to *engineers*, not marketing people. The discussions focused on real capabilities of the hardware, and actual demonstrations. No vapor and promises. Not glitz and glam.

They made it clear this is all SteamOS driven, and that they have a focus of getting *existing x86 Windows software* running not only on Linux, but on ARM and in VR!!

They aren't pitching a closed ecosystem. They said, outright, "This is your hardware, you can do whatever you want with it".

THEY DIDN'T MENTION AI ONCE.

And they're _already_ making a bigger splash than any competitor ever did, even though those competitors have gobs more money they've thrown at this stuff, and tremendously more staff.

It's flabbergasting. I hope they make enough of an impact with all this that people sit up and take notice.

Wolf480pl Nov 14

@Phorm I think the difference is, Valve makes money by doing nothing. So all the money that's left it can spend on working on a single product for years without launching anything in the meantime.

Natanox 🇺🇦🇵🇸Nov 14

@wolf480pl @Phorm I wouldn't call maintaining a service and community "doing nothing". They just don't be part of the whole tech hype bullshittery.

Wolf480pl Nov 14

@Natanox @Phorm
Yeah but like, it seems that maintaining that takes a small percentage of Valve's effort?

Idk, I haven't seen their books, but they seem to behave in a more secure and less desperate way...

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm Valve is not a public company dependent on stock manipulation and at the mercy of rich idiots voting for nonsense.

Their value/income is linked to actually providing something people at least nominally want.

@lispi314
I don't understand why people say things like that.
What difference does it make if a small number of rich people vote (private company) versus any rich person who cares to buy stock?
@Natanox @Phorm @wolf480pl

@light @lispi314 @Natanox @Phorm @wolf480pl in the case of Valve and any other company that stayed in the hands of its original founders, these rich owners are not just owners but usually actively involved in the company beyond just coming in every once and a while and demanding dumb shit or another fad thing that promises more growth.

Granted, it also helps that Gabe Newel and Valve broadly don't seem to really care for amassing pointless amounts of wealth as seen by how Valve blows a bunch of money on open source projects (like Wine, Gamescope, or DXVK), or years of hardware R&D without releasing anything to buy until they make the best thing they could. (this is in contrast to people like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk who already have more money than they could possibly spend in a lifetime yet still try to amass even more wealth)

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314

I don't think Valve's motives for helping Linux gaming and doing hardware R&D are entirely selfless.

When MS teased locking down software installation in Win8 to just Windows Store, that directly threatened Steam - one of Valve's key revenue sources. (And if they were to force in-app purchases to go through Windows Store - that'd also threaten lootboxes).

So Valve has been trying to become independent of MS

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314

What Valve can do that public companies can't, is slowly work towards that strategic goal for over a decade, without expecting immediate return on investment.

As long as gaming on general purpose computers is a major market, Valve can keep getting a cut on Steam game sales, and keep selling lootbox keys. And gaming on Linux is the best way to ensure that market survives long-term.

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314 the lootbox keys have nothing to do with Steam, tho. Call of Duty was selling lootboxes and cosmetics for years and years while being a guest on all platforms it was available on. Also, Valve *did* just crash the entire CS2 skins economy with an update a couple weeks ago so, y'know

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314

you mean this? https://www.thegamer.com/counter-strike-2-market-crash-explained/

TIL, that's... interesting

What Happened To The Counter-Strike 2 Market?

Last month, the CS2 market crashed, dropping in value by $2.5 billion; we'll be unpacking what happened and why it's already recovering.

TheGamer

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314 YUP!

I think this was at least partially to crack down on the skin gambling scene, but this is just uninformed speculation as I'm not familiar with the CS2 skins economy and I haven't seen any official statement from Valve about this

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314 also

> Valve changed that rule, signifying [...] they don’t really care about players' and investors’ inventory values

or maybe y'all degenerates should stop treating video game skins as financial assets and instead let people have fun in that game (directed at the guy saying that, ofc)

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314

read on

> “It is the Chinese people, especially rich Chinese people, who are putting their money into this because there are not enough alternatives,” [...] “The Chinese stock market has consistently been one of the worst-performing stock markets in the world, and there are restrictions on investing in foreign stock.

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314 China + investments is an equation that always leads to disaster.

Still, stocks and speculation in general are just complicated gambling and I really hate how they became normalized as a legitimate way to make money when they're really no different from trying to sell someone Tulips under the promise they can later sell them for more

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314

Yeah but I wouldn't blame the article's author for explaining in detail how that disaster happened.

Also, while I agree that speculation (so like, gold, CS skins, bitcoin) is pretty much gambling, I wouldn't say the same about stocks that pay dividends.

Either way I'm not surprised that people in China who have large savings are looking for ways to invest it.

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314 the quote wasn't from the author, it was from one of the degenerates gambling who lost money from Valve's changes

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314
oh, it's from that Nicholas guy...

(I should learn not to merge article author's and quoted "expert"'s opinions into one when reading)

Still, I couldn't find in the article that he lost money on skins.

And I don't read

"[Valve signalled it doesn't] really care about players' and investors’ inventory values"

as a "Valve bad",

so I don't see a reason to get upset at that Nicholas guy.

1/

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314 ok it doesn't say he lost money there, but I can only infer he did if he's this upset about it

Also, Valve is bad because they want their game to be a game and not a speculative market with a thriving gambling industry attached to it?

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314
No, Valve is not bad.

It seems they wanted a speculative market of skins when creating the game, and now they don't want that anymore.

And that's fine.

And the people who put their savings into that are freaking out. And that's fine, and expected.

And we can use that to learn a thing or two.

(unless you actually wanted to use the skins while playing the game, but why'd you want that?)

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314
(also I didn't get the impression Nicholas is upset about Valve, but I'm bad at reading social cues so idk...)

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314 to customize your character? Like, I know it's easy to forget these days, but that's the whole point of skins in video games

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314

It can be the purpose of skins... when they aren't rare and aren't tradable.

If Valve designed them to be rare and tradable, they knew exactly what they were doing.

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314 to me it feels more like it slowly snowballed since the skins stuff built up well before CSGO went F2P, while the game was selling rather well.

Then after it snowballed into the speculation and casinos mess that it turned into, it was kinda hard to get away from it since Valve was kinda committed to not upsetting their playerbase (which is partially why the game has fundamentally not changed since 1.6). Over time they've tried some less heavy handed tactics to stop the casinos, but pretty much all of them failed so I guess they just had enough and crashed the economy in a way that let the non-whales get access to previously rare skins as to make *someone* happy about the whole ordeal

Wolf480pl Nov 16

@Reiddragon
@Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314

maybe, but like

buying and selling in-game items for real money has been a known phenomenon since the early 2000s (see Tibia, WoW, Second Life)

Valve should've known this would happen.

Maybe they didn't predict it'd be that big though.

@wolf480pl @Natanox @Phorm @light @lispi314 WoW and Second Life didn't have a speculative market worth billions or casinos entangled in several high profile scandals

Valve wasn't the first to create a real money market for virtual items, but they're the first to make it *that* big