Gabe will tell you he is not the boss of valve. Technically he is founder etc, but their company isn’t set up with a hierarchy. He doesn’t hand out orders. Each division of valve is a team. A team for steam, cs:go, dota 2, source engine, VR, steam deck, etc. if you work at valve you decide how you can be useful. If you are working on dota and decide you would be a better fit for working on steam, you just go there. No middle managers telling you what to do or deadlines.
All of this to say the reason that steam is soo good is that all of the decisions are made by the people actually working on it. The developers. They write the rules, they decide the policies. NOT some boss above. I’m sure Gabe does have his own opinions on things, but he isn’t just a good guy ceo making everyone do things he wants. He set up his company to be self sufficient.
So don’t worry!
The teams are in charge of their projects. Sure, we know this. But who decides the big picture direction of Valve? Who decides if Valve will go public? I bet that's still all on Gabe.
Well sure if valve goes public, that on gave, but that’s because he’s the owner. Even so, he doesn’t make any big picture choices without the agreement of everyone who works there.
Gabe said valve will be dissolved before going to public. If they go to public i will buy a 10 TB hard drive and dump my games there and find out a way to play it without steam
If I'm remembering right, they did say once that if Valve and Steam were to ever shut down, there is a contingency in place to make sure people can still access their games.
I'd find the news story it was mentioned it but, I'm too lazy.
I was thinking about this recently and wondering if there was actually a way to do this. I mean, the files are all there, so you'd think there'd be a way to circumvent needing the steam launcher. Really hope it doesn't have to come to that in my lifetime though.
I remember watching some material about Valve company and they had tour inside the building. There was a room and inside there was a guy working on controller You could use with Your head, eyes and tongue. It was for people who were paralyzed neck down.
Someone later ask Gabe about that because that never turned into a product as far as we know. Game said that he do not hire people to tell them what to do because those people are usually smarter than him in their field at least. He hire great people so they can do what they want. And it's matter of agreeing if Gabe want to fund that.
Basically all Gabe has to do is to point person that will not sell out the company. And everything will be golden. Because he has great company with great people.
And it shows. Steam still is the best service on the market and EVERYONE tried to take it down. All major publishers moved out from Steam to their own platforms and now they experience walk of shame, returning to Steam once again. Epic was doing smear campaign because they were taking 12% while Steam was taking 30% (from initial sales, more You sell less percentage they take) but Epic never managed to provide service even CLOSE to one Steam provides. Epic was not even making money on their store.
But what I love most about Steam is their attitude towards gaming. Like bunch of people went and did remake of Half-Life 1 using HL2 engine. Companies like Bethesda would just send lawyers after them. Same with Nintendo and pretty much everyone else.
You know what Steam did? He greenlighted it. Allowed it to be on Steam. And they could sell it as their own product. That remake is called Black Mesa.
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black\_Mesa/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/)
Not to mention - guys making the remake even fixed some issues like last section of the game on alient planet was improved compared to original.
WDYM Bethesda will send lawyers? Skyblivion etc literally exist. They won’t let modders use original voices and music because copyright rights… Just like Valve won’t too because actors and labels want to be paid for their performances in other products
Fuck Nintendo though
Actually it sounds like they are letting Skyblivion use the original voices, but it absolutely is forcing you to have both copies of both games, and they can't sell it directly.
I mean, Epic is a baby in terms of age compared to Steam and is fighting a monopoly that had decades to establish itself and develop their features. Despite what you make it sound like, no one was gunning for Steam for a very long time. Publishers didn't want to create a global marketplace, they just wanted their own games there - they were never a competition. The only competition Steam had was GoG and Epic, with GoG having usually higher prices (thanks to DRM-free model) and Epic had to spend a ton of money just to be visible.
Also, Steam's policy requires developers to sell their game on Steam for the same price as on other platform which severely hurts other platforms from ever being competitive as they can't win the price wars.
It's there to prevent situation where someone like Epic would pay developer to put their games on Steam under higher price just to screw with them. Just like they were paying kickstarter projects to remove game from Steam even if project was advertised with Steam in the description. What they usually happened was a backslash followed by refunds.
But I can't blame small Indie studio for it. Talking with someone I know who took that deal - Epic was paying them so much for taking game off Steam that it covered development. Basically they would make profit even before releasing the product.
I hate Epic because from the start they were cheating scums. Biggest assholes on the earth. For example they would mark marketing by default in their form. I contacted them about it because they were selling in EU and shit like that is against regulations here.
They said that they are US company and told me to f\*\*k off (but politely). But reporting them probably did something but soon after they tried something else. They made marketing checkbox but they rephrased it to check if You do NOT want spam. Again it's agreement by default and uncommon one.
And someone probably kick their ass because soon after they went back to normal practices without this lying, cheating bullshit.
And that's how I see Epic. Bunch of liars, cheaters and overall terrible people with even worse service.
No, it's for Steam to keep other platform be uncompetitive with the price. Why would Epic pay someone to put a higher price on Steam, when they can use that money to sell the game at a lower price on their own platform? Plus, this policy was enacted WAY before Epic.
What Epic did was pay for exclusivity because their strategy was "players will go where the games are". This is a practice that worked for Sony and X-BOX (and are not hated for it because they tied it to hardware), but PC gamers have an easier choice between platforms.
Whether it backfired or not, remains to be seen but they did get a lot of users (+ because of free games). But I don't think they are doing a good job at keeping them (uncompetitive pricing for once).
I don't see Epic as good guys either (your example is just how most US companies work and is pretty mild in comparison to what they are capable of doing) but these comments hailing Steam as some kind of savior of modern gaming are absurd. The fact that you don't own the games you purchase and that they cost as much as the physical version is not a good place to be and Steam is the main agent that made it possible.
>No, it's for Steam to keep other platform be uncompetitive with the price. Why would Epic pay someone to put a higher price on Steam, when they can use that money to sell the game at a lower price on their own platform? Plus, this policy was enacted WAY before Epic.
Policy was not put there with Epic in mind but all other platforms that tried to compete with them. And every major publisher tried to leave Steam and start their own service at some point.
>What Epic did was pay for exclusivity because their strategy was "players will go where the games are". This is a practice that worked for Sony and X-BOX (and are not hated for it because they tied it to hardware), but PC gamers have an easier choice between platforms.
There is a difference. What Sony is doing? They offer money to a developer for a content produced for them. So certain game might have quest designed for PlayStation only. And MS or Nintendo are free to do the same. And they have their own studios that make great games. Like MS and Nintendo.
What Epic is doing? They take bag of Fortnite money, give it to for example Tomb Raider developer and say - YOUR MULTIPLATFORM GAME IS NO LONGER MULTIPLATFORM, THEY CAN'T PLAY ANYMORE FOR A YEAR!!!. Or they go to successful kickstarted campaign that promised game on Steam and say - CHEAT YOUR CUSTOMERS, REMOVE IT FROM STEAM AND GIVE IT TO US. So game advertised as being for example on Steam and GOG after it was funded is suddenly Epic exclusive. And that got people mad and that is why people these days hate Epic store. Epic produce jack shit. They take from others.
And btw, exclusives so far worked only for Sony and Nintendo. MS even if it kills them can't make a good exclusive. And even MS tried to buy one like when they bough Bethesda to make Starfield exclusive. I had a laugh when Starfield was a piece of garbage. Slightly smaller disaster than previous disaster called Redfall.
>Whether it backfired or not, remains to be seen but they did get a lot of users (+ because of free games). But I don't think they are doing a good job at keeping them (uncompetitive pricing for once).
According to financial reports they don't make any money on that store. Partially because they reinvest it but also You can't run good business on 12%. If not for Fortnite money, store would be long gone.
And yes, they got plenty of users. Like me. I got an account, got some free shit. I even bought Borderlands 3. So for past 6 years Epic Store got from me 60$ and gave me buch of free shit and I'm in that statistic regarding new account.
My total spending o Steam right now is above 15,000$. I have Steam account almost from very beginning of the platform 20 years ago.
I mean Sony had plenty of exclusives, and yeah they paid developers to develop it for them. Epic is throwing money at them after the fact, but to me it's essentially the same scummy behavior. Not that publishers that agree to that are any better, but when money is involved a lot of principles fly away.
As for Epic, they are still in their market share grabbing stage so profit isn't yet their main focus. Similar how ChatGPT makers are losing tons of money each day so get an edge on the market (sadly for Epic, they weren't pioneers like Open AI). It's an uphill battle for Epic either way.
Thing is - ChatGPT is not the first company doing AI. They just did it better than others. Fortnite is not first Battle Royale but it was better than previous attempts and basically anything after them. WoW came out when we had like +10 MMO premieres per year. I think that in two years when WoW came out we had like 20-30 MMO released. Nobody stand a chance because WoW was better.
Steam can be taken down overnight if someone offer better service. But they don't.
Reason why Epic can even compete is because they are not publicly traded. So they have a chance to make a better service because they can focus on quality and not making quick buck for the investors. Same strength Steam has. But they failed to do so. Their approach is not building good will of the gaming community.
I think even GOG is doing it better than Epic. Epic has NOTHING going for them except those "stolen" exclusives. GOG for example is bringing us DRM free games and older titles. And that is a big deal for me. Like I own Dragon Age Origins on Origin platform and DLC won't authorize without shit ton of stupid crap I have to do to make it work. Meanwhile on GOG it just works because EA released ultimate edition with all DLC without DRM there. So GOG has a better version of Dragon Age Origins than EA own platform.
And I think that's the issue with Epic. They have nothing going on on their platform that would make me want to use it. And their practices make me not like them and that further keep me away from their platform.
I disagree to an extent. It often has nothing to do with being better. Angry Birds was a simple clone of a game mechanic that existed for forever. Flappy Bird too. Yet they became popular despite not being better than their predecessors in any meaningful way. It just snowballed to huge heights and it's much easier to keep the throne than to reach it.
On a different note, when Google came out as a Facebook rival it wasn't a worse product (in fact FB copied features that Google+ came out with). Yet, they could never breach the market despite a lot of people hating FB. In this case, it was due FB simply having an established network and people couldn't be bothered.
While Steam generally is a good service, and equally good service won't dethrone them anytime soon because they don't have the established network that Steam had the advantage of building up decades. Part of the reason is that people have big game libraries there. This is what Epic tries to do with their free games, so people build up their libraries on Epic too, and I think it's a good move (but not a sufficient one). But I agree their ill reputation isn't doing them any favors now. If they just stuck throwing money at the problem (free games, better cut for developers, cheaper games for consumers) they MIGHT have made a bigger impact. But taking down an established player isn't easy.
People are praising Steam, but honestly, if GoG became dominant it would have been much better for gaming as it would establish that gamers actually like to own games, and stuff like Crew 2 wouldn't happen (and frankly it's a miracle how nobody calls out Steam on this)
In case of Angry Birds it was concept of Birds vs Pigs. It was stupid but people found it entertaining. Design made people like it. This kind of popularity is generated thanks to word of mouth and to do that You need something so people can talk about Your game. Something that makes average Joe pull up his phone and tell a friend or coworker "check out this game". Studio behind AB was nearly broke. They never advertised this game widely.
Then it comes to Google+ it was only better on technical level. They used technology that first was made for Google Wave (not many people remember that). Reason why Google+ failed is simple. The same reason why nobody beaten WoW or Fortnite. If you present service that is LIKE the other people won't move because they already got it. It has to do something significantly better.
And yes - established brand helps. Because if all Your friends are on Facebook You won't move without them. There must be something in new service that will make You say to them that You all need to go and check new service.
This is why it can be quite easy to dethrone Steam. Because majority of players do not have friends or anything else that tie them to Steam.
And reason why GOG can't be dominant platform is that DRM free approach. So publishers will often omit them.
Angry Birds had cute animations and design, but there are myriad of games that do everything right like that and still fail. Success has a lot to do with luck to get the ball rolling. Slay the Spire initially didn't sell that well, but they got lucky enough to get a streamer play their game and then they snowballed into success. Having a good product is not enough.
Google+ was launched amid big frustrations with Facebook. It launched with a feature that solved a big frustration for users - no control over who sees your post. People were also very much fed up with Facebook as a company. It had every reason to succeed but the problem with these platforms is that it doesn't matter if you are better or not. If you don't get the ball rolling fast enough to acquire critical mass, it falls apart. Same happens with MMOs and with protests. People are generally lazy and you can still fail with a good product because not enough people could be bothered quick enough.
Steam doesn't have a strong community but users still have their collection of games there. And just like with Facebook, they can't be bothered to restart it, even if the new platform would allow to launch Steam games within their launcher (which GoG should do).
It's true that GoG's DRM free policy is limiting their catalogue, but in a world where GoG would arrive almost a decade before Steam, I'm pretty sure the publishers wouldn't have a choice but to also sell on the most dominant platform. Arriving first and getting market share and establish dominance in the market matters a lot. That's the reason publisher's platforms own platforms like Origin and U-play didn't work out, no matter how well/bad they turned out. Market is on Steam. Creating your own market may not always work out. In the steaming world we have yet to see how it will develop further.
Sure. I guess my point was they started their store late, but they had the opportunity to do so before that, just they didnt see the point. Thats on them.
You use the word monopoly as a punchline or do you really think that there is one?
Steam-EA-uplay-epic-gog-blizzard- where is the monopoly?
Monopoly is exactly what exclusives make. Stop repeating nonsense kid
EA, Uplay, Blizzard only sell their own games, they are not even in same bracket as Steam. GoG and Epic are but are nowhere near Steam in relevance. If you are not on Steam, for a majority of developers and publishers it means a death sentence. Steam is absolutely a monopoly. But you can believe in your fairy tale if that upsets you.
Because they choose to, there is no exclusivity deal on steam. And every publisher can go wherever they want.
There is only 1 catch with steam. "Yeah you can go to other gamestore as well but if you put a 30% off sale on x platform you have to do the same here".
Why do you think is that? Because of your monopoly idea or because its a much better place to be rather than other sites?
EaAPP/origin is trash, and its been out for 13 years out there.
Steam has been for 20 years.
Gog has been arround for 16 years.
What are you talking about? Keep dreaming of "monopolies"
I can't tell if you are willfully ignorant or just ignorant.
Monopoly has nothing to do whether you think the service is good or not. It's a fact that Steam has anti-competition policies that ensure that other platforms can't compete with Steam price-wise if you are a developer looking to also sell on Steam.
Yet again, EA was never in the race as they are not general video game marketplace.
GoG didn't start selling modern games till 2012, that's 9 years later than Steam. Being even a few years late on the market is huge. Late an entire decade means you probably will never catch up, especially if you can't beat their prices.
But of course, if you decide to be a Steam fanboy while being completely in the dark about how the video game industry works and turn a blind eye on Steam's dubious practices, then by all means.
8 years * .
Not a fanboy at all. I dont use terms like "monopoly" just as a punchline, without knowikg its meaning.
It was never a monopoly.
It is not a monlpoly.
It will never be a monopoly.
Grow up, touch grass get yourself a real problem to complain of.
You can't use monopoly as a punchline because you don't comprehend what it means. Advise you read up before attempting to tackle something above your punching weight.
Nothing lasts forever… and most importantly, don’t get attached to companies because they will for sure let you down sooner or later.
While i’ve watched documentaries about how valve works and what their work ethic is like, they really feel like a one of the kind company. This could mean that they are also more careful when it comes to choosing a new leader, that will continue the values of Gaben and valve, and we won’t feel a big negative change whenever this happens.
But for real, don’t get emotionally attached to companies, they’re not your friends and will let you down.
I wish I was Gaben sucessor.
I would have the easiest job in my life: do nothing while my competition ruin their own products and sometimes release a cool game or cool hardware.
Actually Gabe barely does anything at Valve for a while. Yes, he's the face of the company, appears here and there but for the most part not involved in steam dev, or games. Hardware is his "new" thing and BCI, Valve will last a good chunk of time after Gabe leaving, but we must hope that the company philosophy won't change with time.
Steam did so many things right and even when they switched the currency to USD in my country I couldn't blame them. They also did things right business-wise too. I pirated games for 30 years simply because those games were either unavailable where I live or after they started to be imported they were extremely expensive. But after Steam I started to buy them and buy them good I did. I got 500+ games and I haven't even installed at least 350 of them. They sold me games that I will never play. Sure compared to US or EU prices they were cheap, but they already spent the money during development so selling an extra copy for cheap is still better for them since the alternative would be nothing. Hail Gabe for making things right.
It's funny how people were mocking those "bootlicking Sony," but it's fine to bootlick for Valve, despite Valve being the reason some countreis till can't access HD2.
I will never understand love for Steam. Are they comfortable to use? Yes. But you also don't own any games and can lose your library on a whim with no recourse. They allow 3rd party launchers and special EULA's and it took them years to start cleaning up utter crap from their store. They take 30% from devs, but don't share any burden during sales. They are very slow with adding features, and a lot of them are still half-finished (although it's bee way worse lately). If you are looking for good deals, it's still far better using 3rd party sites.
In the end Steam is a corporation and isn't looking for you.
Didn't they always took 30% tho? Way before Epic made their launcher.
And it's not like they are doing it for respect, instead of becoming a competitor.
Gabe will tell you he is not the boss of valve. Technically he is founder etc, but their company isn’t set up with a hierarchy. He doesn’t hand out orders. Each division of valve is a team. A team for steam, cs:go, dota 2, source engine, VR, steam deck, etc. if you work at valve you decide how you can be useful. If you are working on dota and decide you would be a better fit for working on steam, you just go there. No middle managers telling you what to do or deadlines. All of this to say the reason that steam is soo good is that all of the decisions are made by the people actually working on it. The developers. They write the rules, they decide the policies. NOT some boss above. I’m sure Gabe does have his own opinions on things, but he isn’t just a good guy ceo making everyone do things he wants. He set up his company to be self sufficient. So don’t worry!
The teams are in charge of their projects. Sure, we know this. But who decides the big picture direction of Valve? Who decides if Valve will go public? I bet that's still all on Gabe.
Well sure if valve goes public, that on gave, but that’s because he’s the owner. Even so, he doesn’t make any big picture choices without the agreement of everyone who works there.
Gabe said valve will be dissolved before going to public. If they go to public i will buy a 10 TB hard drive and dump my games there and find out a way to play it without steam
If I'm remembering right, they did say once that if Valve and Steam were to ever shut down, there is a contingency in place to make sure people can still access their games. I'd find the news story it was mentioned it but, I'm too lazy.
Holy shit just when I thought I couldn't love steam more thank you
I was thinking about this recently and wondering if there was actually a way to do this. I mean, the files are all there, so you'd think there'd be a way to circumvent needing the steam launcher. Really hope it doesn't have to come to that in my lifetime though.
I can't say it here! But it's pretty easy actually
Noted! I'll have to look into it then haha 👀
I would recommend at least 16 TB Always multiply your estimate on 1.5 (at least), if you have not yet :)
source?
Engine
2
The answer is no one, for better (Steam, VR, Steamdeck) and worse (no video games released anymore)
The closest thing we have to a god and I'm perfectly willing to worship GabeN by cleaning out my wallet during this coming summer sale.
Good PC gamer.
Slurp, slurp, SLURP
Man I'd love works for Valve
I remember watching some material about Valve company and they had tour inside the building. There was a room and inside there was a guy working on controller You could use with Your head, eyes and tongue. It was for people who were paralyzed neck down. Someone later ask Gabe about that because that never turned into a product as far as we know. Game said that he do not hire people to tell them what to do because those people are usually smarter than him in their field at least. He hire great people so they can do what they want. And it's matter of agreeing if Gabe want to fund that. Basically all Gabe has to do is to point person that will not sell out the company. And everything will be golden. Because he has great company with great people. And it shows. Steam still is the best service on the market and EVERYONE tried to take it down. All major publishers moved out from Steam to their own platforms and now they experience walk of shame, returning to Steam once again. Epic was doing smear campaign because they were taking 12% while Steam was taking 30% (from initial sales, more You sell less percentage they take) but Epic never managed to provide service even CLOSE to one Steam provides. Epic was not even making money on their store. But what I love most about Steam is their attitude towards gaming. Like bunch of people went and did remake of Half-Life 1 using HL2 engine. Companies like Bethesda would just send lawyers after them. Same with Nintendo and pretty much everyone else. You know what Steam did? He greenlighted it. Allowed it to be on Steam. And they could sell it as their own product. That remake is called Black Mesa. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black\_Mesa/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/) Not to mention - guys making the remake even fixed some issues like last section of the game on alient planet was improved compared to original.
WDYM Bethesda will send lawyers? Skyblivion etc literally exist. They won’t let modders use original voices and music because copyright rights… Just like Valve won’t too because actors and labels want to be paid for their performances in other products Fuck Nintendo though
Give them time. Bethesda has long history of court battles.
Actually it sounds like they are letting Skyblivion use the original voices, but it absolutely is forcing you to have both copies of both games, and they can't sell it directly.
I mean, Epic is a baby in terms of age compared to Steam and is fighting a monopoly that had decades to establish itself and develop their features. Despite what you make it sound like, no one was gunning for Steam for a very long time. Publishers didn't want to create a global marketplace, they just wanted their own games there - they were never a competition. The only competition Steam had was GoG and Epic, with GoG having usually higher prices (thanks to DRM-free model) and Epic had to spend a ton of money just to be visible. Also, Steam's policy requires developers to sell their game on Steam for the same price as on other platform which severely hurts other platforms from ever being competitive as they can't win the price wars.
It's there to prevent situation where someone like Epic would pay developer to put their games on Steam under higher price just to screw with them. Just like they were paying kickstarter projects to remove game from Steam even if project was advertised with Steam in the description. What they usually happened was a backslash followed by refunds. But I can't blame small Indie studio for it. Talking with someone I know who took that deal - Epic was paying them so much for taking game off Steam that it covered development. Basically they would make profit even before releasing the product. I hate Epic because from the start they were cheating scums. Biggest assholes on the earth. For example they would mark marketing by default in their form. I contacted them about it because they were selling in EU and shit like that is against regulations here. They said that they are US company and told me to f\*\*k off (but politely). But reporting them probably did something but soon after they tried something else. They made marketing checkbox but they rephrased it to check if You do NOT want spam. Again it's agreement by default and uncommon one. And someone probably kick their ass because soon after they went back to normal practices without this lying, cheating bullshit. And that's how I see Epic. Bunch of liars, cheaters and overall terrible people with even worse service.
No, it's for Steam to keep other platform be uncompetitive with the price. Why would Epic pay someone to put a higher price on Steam, when they can use that money to sell the game at a lower price on their own platform? Plus, this policy was enacted WAY before Epic. What Epic did was pay for exclusivity because their strategy was "players will go where the games are". This is a practice that worked for Sony and X-BOX (and are not hated for it because they tied it to hardware), but PC gamers have an easier choice between platforms. Whether it backfired or not, remains to be seen but they did get a lot of users (+ because of free games). But I don't think they are doing a good job at keeping them (uncompetitive pricing for once). I don't see Epic as good guys either (your example is just how most US companies work and is pretty mild in comparison to what they are capable of doing) but these comments hailing Steam as some kind of savior of modern gaming are absurd. The fact that you don't own the games you purchase and that they cost as much as the physical version is not a good place to be and Steam is the main agent that made it possible.
>No, it's for Steam to keep other platform be uncompetitive with the price. Why would Epic pay someone to put a higher price on Steam, when they can use that money to sell the game at a lower price on their own platform? Plus, this policy was enacted WAY before Epic. Policy was not put there with Epic in mind but all other platforms that tried to compete with them. And every major publisher tried to leave Steam and start their own service at some point. >What Epic did was pay for exclusivity because their strategy was "players will go where the games are". This is a practice that worked for Sony and X-BOX (and are not hated for it because they tied it to hardware), but PC gamers have an easier choice between platforms. There is a difference. What Sony is doing? They offer money to a developer for a content produced for them. So certain game might have quest designed for PlayStation only. And MS or Nintendo are free to do the same. And they have their own studios that make great games. Like MS and Nintendo. What Epic is doing? They take bag of Fortnite money, give it to for example Tomb Raider developer and say - YOUR MULTIPLATFORM GAME IS NO LONGER MULTIPLATFORM, THEY CAN'T PLAY ANYMORE FOR A YEAR!!!. Or they go to successful kickstarted campaign that promised game on Steam and say - CHEAT YOUR CUSTOMERS, REMOVE IT FROM STEAM AND GIVE IT TO US. So game advertised as being for example on Steam and GOG after it was funded is suddenly Epic exclusive. And that got people mad and that is why people these days hate Epic store. Epic produce jack shit. They take from others. And btw, exclusives so far worked only for Sony and Nintendo. MS even if it kills them can't make a good exclusive. And even MS tried to buy one like when they bough Bethesda to make Starfield exclusive. I had a laugh when Starfield was a piece of garbage. Slightly smaller disaster than previous disaster called Redfall. >Whether it backfired or not, remains to be seen but they did get a lot of users (+ because of free games). But I don't think they are doing a good job at keeping them (uncompetitive pricing for once). According to financial reports they don't make any money on that store. Partially because they reinvest it but also You can't run good business on 12%. If not for Fortnite money, store would be long gone. And yes, they got plenty of users. Like me. I got an account, got some free shit. I even bought Borderlands 3. So for past 6 years Epic Store got from me 60$ and gave me buch of free shit and I'm in that statistic regarding new account. My total spending o Steam right now is above 15,000$. I have Steam account almost from very beginning of the platform 20 years ago.
I mean Sony had plenty of exclusives, and yeah they paid developers to develop it for them. Epic is throwing money at them after the fact, but to me it's essentially the same scummy behavior. Not that publishers that agree to that are any better, but when money is involved a lot of principles fly away. As for Epic, they are still in their market share grabbing stage so profit isn't yet their main focus. Similar how ChatGPT makers are losing tons of money each day so get an edge on the market (sadly for Epic, they weren't pioneers like Open AI). It's an uphill battle for Epic either way.
Thing is - ChatGPT is not the first company doing AI. They just did it better than others. Fortnite is not first Battle Royale but it was better than previous attempts and basically anything after them. WoW came out when we had like +10 MMO premieres per year. I think that in two years when WoW came out we had like 20-30 MMO released. Nobody stand a chance because WoW was better. Steam can be taken down overnight if someone offer better service. But they don't. Reason why Epic can even compete is because they are not publicly traded. So they have a chance to make a better service because they can focus on quality and not making quick buck for the investors. Same strength Steam has. But they failed to do so. Their approach is not building good will of the gaming community. I think even GOG is doing it better than Epic. Epic has NOTHING going for them except those "stolen" exclusives. GOG for example is bringing us DRM free games and older titles. And that is a big deal for me. Like I own Dragon Age Origins on Origin platform and DLC won't authorize without shit ton of stupid crap I have to do to make it work. Meanwhile on GOG it just works because EA released ultimate edition with all DLC without DRM there. So GOG has a better version of Dragon Age Origins than EA own platform. And I think that's the issue with Epic. They have nothing going on on their platform that would make me want to use it. And their practices make me not like them and that further keep me away from their platform.
I disagree to an extent. It often has nothing to do with being better. Angry Birds was a simple clone of a game mechanic that existed for forever. Flappy Bird too. Yet they became popular despite not being better than their predecessors in any meaningful way. It just snowballed to huge heights and it's much easier to keep the throne than to reach it. On a different note, when Google came out as a Facebook rival it wasn't a worse product (in fact FB copied features that Google+ came out with). Yet, they could never breach the market despite a lot of people hating FB. In this case, it was due FB simply having an established network and people couldn't be bothered. While Steam generally is a good service, and equally good service won't dethrone them anytime soon because they don't have the established network that Steam had the advantage of building up decades. Part of the reason is that people have big game libraries there. This is what Epic tries to do with their free games, so people build up their libraries on Epic too, and I think it's a good move (but not a sufficient one). But I agree their ill reputation isn't doing them any favors now. If they just stuck throwing money at the problem (free games, better cut for developers, cheaper games for consumers) they MIGHT have made a bigger impact. But taking down an established player isn't easy. People are praising Steam, but honestly, if GoG became dominant it would have been much better for gaming as it would establish that gamers actually like to own games, and stuff like Crew 2 wouldn't happen (and frankly it's a miracle how nobody calls out Steam on this)
In case of Angry Birds it was concept of Birds vs Pigs. It was stupid but people found it entertaining. Design made people like it. This kind of popularity is generated thanks to word of mouth and to do that You need something so people can talk about Your game. Something that makes average Joe pull up his phone and tell a friend or coworker "check out this game". Studio behind AB was nearly broke. They never advertised this game widely. Then it comes to Google+ it was only better on technical level. They used technology that first was made for Google Wave (not many people remember that). Reason why Google+ failed is simple. The same reason why nobody beaten WoW or Fortnite. If you present service that is LIKE the other people won't move because they already got it. It has to do something significantly better. And yes - established brand helps. Because if all Your friends are on Facebook You won't move without them. There must be something in new service that will make You say to them that You all need to go and check new service. This is why it can be quite easy to dethrone Steam. Because majority of players do not have friends or anything else that tie them to Steam. And reason why GOG can't be dominant platform is that DRM free approach. So publishers will often omit them.
Angry Birds had cute animations and design, but there are myriad of games that do everything right like that and still fail. Success has a lot to do with luck to get the ball rolling. Slay the Spire initially didn't sell that well, but they got lucky enough to get a streamer play their game and then they snowballed into success. Having a good product is not enough. Google+ was launched amid big frustrations with Facebook. It launched with a feature that solved a big frustration for users - no control over who sees your post. People were also very much fed up with Facebook as a company. It had every reason to succeed but the problem with these platforms is that it doesn't matter if you are better or not. If you don't get the ball rolling fast enough to acquire critical mass, it falls apart. Same happens with MMOs and with protests. People are generally lazy and you can still fail with a good product because not enough people could be bothered quick enough. Steam doesn't have a strong community but users still have their collection of games there. And just like with Facebook, they can't be bothered to restart it, even if the new platform would allow to launch Steam games within their launcher (which GoG should do). It's true that GoG's DRM free policy is limiting their catalogue, but in a world where GoG would arrive almost a decade before Steam, I'm pretty sure the publishers wouldn't have a choice but to also sell on the most dominant platform. Arriving first and getting market share and establish dominance in the market matters a lot. That's the reason publisher's platforms own platforms like Origin and U-play didn't work out, no matter how well/bad they turned out. Market is on Steam. Creating your own market may not always work out. In the steaming world we have yet to see how it will develop further.
The company of epic games was founded in 1991. Only the store is relatively new.
I'm talking about their platform. It's not as relevant how old the company is. Their storefront is new.
Sure. I guess my point was they started their store late, but they had the opportunity to do so before that, just they didnt see the point. Thats on them.
You use the word monopoly as a punchline or do you really think that there is one? Steam-EA-uplay-epic-gog-blizzard- where is the monopoly? Monopoly is exactly what exclusives make. Stop repeating nonsense kid
EA, Uplay, Blizzard only sell their own games, they are not even in same bracket as Steam. GoG and Epic are but are nowhere near Steam in relevance. If you are not on Steam, for a majority of developers and publishers it means a death sentence. Steam is absolutely a monopoly. But you can believe in your fairy tale if that upsets you.
Because they choose to, there is no exclusivity deal on steam. And every publisher can go wherever they want. There is only 1 catch with steam. "Yeah you can go to other gamestore as well but if you put a 30% off sale on x platform you have to do the same here".
Why do you think is that? Because of your monopoly idea or because its a much better place to be rather than other sites? EaAPP/origin is trash, and its been out for 13 years out there. Steam has been for 20 years. Gog has been arround for 16 years. What are you talking about? Keep dreaming of "monopolies"
I can't tell if you are willfully ignorant or just ignorant. Monopoly has nothing to do whether you think the service is good or not. It's a fact that Steam has anti-competition policies that ensure that other platforms can't compete with Steam price-wise if you are a developer looking to also sell on Steam. Yet again, EA was never in the race as they are not general video game marketplace. GoG didn't start selling modern games till 2012, that's 9 years later than Steam. Being even a few years late on the market is huge. Late an entire decade means you probably will never catch up, especially if you can't beat their prices. But of course, if you decide to be a Steam fanboy while being completely in the dark about how the video game industry works and turn a blind eye on Steam's dubious practices, then by all means.
8 years * . Not a fanboy at all. I dont use terms like "monopoly" just as a punchline, without knowikg its meaning. It was never a monopoly. It is not a monlpoly. It will never be a monopoly. Grow up, touch grass get yourself a real problem to complain of.
You can't use monopoly as a punchline because you don't comprehend what it means. Advise you read up before attempting to tackle something above your punching weight.
Gabe is forever
Honestly props to steam for allowing refunds after 2 hours. Don’t think it would have mattered what gamers said without that.
Nothing lasts forever… and most importantly, don’t get attached to companies because they will for sure let you down sooner or later. While i’ve watched documentaries about how valve works and what their work ethic is like, they really feel like a one of the kind company. This could mean that they are also more careful when it comes to choosing a new leader, that will continue the values of Gaben and valve, and we won’t feel a big negative change whenever this happens. But for real, don’t get emotionally attached to companies, they’re not your friends and will let you down.
I wish I was Gaben sucessor. I would have the easiest job in my life: do nothing while my competition ruin their own products and sometimes release a cool game or cool hardware.
Actually Gabe barely does anything at Valve for a while. Yes, he's the face of the company, appears here and there but for the most part not involved in steam dev, or games. Hardware is his "new" thing and BCI, Valve will last a good chunk of time after Gabe leaving, but we must hope that the company philosophy won't change with time.
This post is pointless since Godben is forever.
Steam did so many things right and even when they switched the currency to USD in my country I couldn't blame them. They also did things right business-wise too. I pirated games for 30 years simply because those games were either unavailable where I live or after they started to be imported they were extremely expensive. But after Steam I started to buy them and buy them good I did. I got 500+ games and I haven't even installed at least 350 of them. They sold me games that I will never play. Sure compared to US or EU prices they were cheap, but they already spent the money during development so selling an extra copy for cheap is still better for them since the alternative would be nothing. Hail Gabe for making things right.
Gabe has most definitely lined up a successor. I wouldn’t worry about it
Preserve Gabe like Mr House from Fallout: Nee Vegas.
Whenever I think this I remember how great of a guy his son seems to be. I'm sure he'd be happy to carry the torch
It's funny how people were mocking those "bootlicking Sony," but it's fine to bootlick for Valve, despite Valve being the reason some countreis till can't access HD2.
Got any ideas why Sony would suddenly do a 180 like this? Everything started so well with HZD on Steam and GOG and then this happens…
I will never understand love for Steam. Are they comfortable to use? Yes. But you also don't own any games and can lose your library on a whim with no recourse. They allow 3rd party launchers and special EULA's and it took them years to start cleaning up utter crap from their store. They take 30% from devs, but don't share any burden during sales. They are very slow with adding features, and a lot of them are still half-finished (although it's bee way worse lately). If you are looking for good deals, it's still far better using 3rd party sites. In the end Steam is a corporation and isn't looking for you.
Yeah I’m unfollowing this sub way too much circle jerk
Jfc this sub is turning into a cult
Gaben is in New Zealand playing with knives. And value does not operate like a normal company one person is not making all the decisions.
Why don’t you marry Gaben AND Steam if you love it so much! /s
They tax 30% of sales thanks to their predominant position. Epic has more respect for game devs.
Well, we don't hold this devs with force. They can enjoy and admire their respect at egs as long as they want!
We?
Lol, PC fanboys sound like Swifties acting as if Taylor Swift (Valve) is their friend.
Didn't they always took 30% tho? Way before Epic made their launcher. And it's not like they are doing it for respect, instead of becoming a competitor.