Hearing those arguments for how many years now? Right …
The day Gabe is bo longer there things may get ugly, may.
But, Valve is not publicly traded, or has to cater to shareholders in any way. That is the reason they are still who they are.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
These comments…
Some day, Steam is going to enshittify fast, eat game devs for breakfast, and people will ask how they could have possibly seen this coming.
Kind of like a certain online bookstore named after a river.
vapeloki@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 13 hours ago
They run a good service platform and aren’t as greedy as they could be, but they’re still not safe.
Use them, but no fangirling. They’re a business.
Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
I’d be completely in agreement of what you are saying if it wasn’t for the fact that there are so many people acting like Steam is the worst platform in existence every time they get brought up. People are awfully quick to suck Tim Sweeney off for only charging 12% and fill up the comments with whatever the opposite of “fangirling” is.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Yeah, that’s going too far, but I understand the reaction to fanning over Valve.
There are a bazillion examples of why you should use, not trust, big businesses over centuries. They are transactions, not people. And if people look at the world in 2026 and somehow don’t see that, I honestly don’t know what to tell them.
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
They already take 30% on each game. It’s huge, considering they didn’t spent a dime on these games. That means they will take most of the profit margin on a game, if any, while a studio has to pay for dozens or hundreds of employees, tons of hardware, workspaces, etc.
vapeloki@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Do You have any idea what the hosting infrastructure, steam works, and traffic costs?
Also, valve is giving massive contributions to open source from those 30%
Serinus@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Do You have any idea what the hosting infrastructure, steam works, and traffic costs?
Yeah, not 30% of all PC games. It’s how they turn out absurd profit.
vapeloki@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Never said that. But what is better for the dev? Using those services or run their own?
And I am fine with Valve making absurd profits, after all, they have put at least 500.000.000 USD into open source (Around 100-200 external oss devs on payroll for projects like Mesa, SDL,…).
Will I leave steam and call valve out if they get toxic? Yes! Are they evil or the enemy right now? To the contrary.
garretble@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
So, Apple and other companies that charge 30% to host apps: BAD
Steam changes 30% to host games: GOOD
I’m not saying this is your argument, necessarily, but it’s funny to hear that “30% is good actually!” in the tech space because the last few years it’s been “Apple and others who charge 30% are taking too much! All they do is host and manage the traffic for apps!”
And I’m not trying to say Apple is good or anything. It’s just funny.
catsarebadpeople@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
So you’re not really saying anything at all then. Got it
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Valve is one of the most profitable company in the world.
itidings.com/…/valves-17-billion-revenue-projecti…
I mean, just look at this thread and see how much free propaganda they get from gamers. That’s a lot of free labour just to defend a billionaire that profits from gambling for kids.
vapeloki@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
What exactly is this the answer to?
Yes, they make a shit load of money. But assuming you want to distribute a game directly, how much of would that cost you, and let’s ignore the whole visibility shit for a second.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
They help market the game as well on their storefront.
They could just let you rot in obscurity.
carpelbridgesyndrome@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
There definitely is some amount of expenditure by valve. I don’t know if its 30% worth. For multiplayer games they provide a server/client DDOS protection and traffic optomization service though it is opt in by the developer through an api. The opther option for this tends to be a “contact sales” priced option from cloudflare. There is also some of proton’s development, some linux graphics driber work, and workshop support though I suspect hosting and content moderation expenditure there is fairly minimal.
ericwdhs@discuss.online 15 hours ago
30% is the industry standard though, and Valve’s contribution of distribution and discovery infrastructure, its audience, and expanding hardware initiatives are not nothing. If you’re not pricing a game to give yourself a healthy margin within the 70% or your development model doesn’t make that viable, that’s really on you.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
Industry standard doesn’t mean reasonable. It’s renter class bullshit, profiting off of other’s labor. Pretending creating a distribution and discovery platform is seriously deserving of 30% of the value of the hard work of game devs is not reasonable.
ericwdhs@discuss.online 13 hours ago
I never called it reasonable. I just don’t think it’s especially egregious. Honestly, I would price the value of Valve’s contribution (which is definitely not zero) at maybe 15% to 20%, but that’s just a gut feeling.
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
I mean, Spotify’s model is the industry standard, and it still suck big time and doesn’t give a shit about artists.
Anyway if I’ve learn anything over the past 10 years, it’s that it would probably be easier to convince a room full of maga to vote for Hillary Clinton than the average gamer to admit that steam sucks. So keep kissing this billionaire’s ass because he really does care about you, and remember Ubisoft and Epic (12% cut) bad.
Rose@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
The “30% is the industry standard” claim is not even true anymore. Epic currently takes 0% to expand its catalog, though from what I remember, it estimated that it needs to take 7% or so to be profitable. Microsoft takes 12%. Itch allows to adjust. GOG’s fee varies from deal to deal. Ubisoft (and EA) no longer sell third-party games, so they’re out of scope here.
The only way I’ve seen people try to counter this is by referring to the mobile and console store fees, but going by the Epic v. Google lawsuit where the jury was asked to define the market and defined it as Android, there’s just no way that argument would hold water. Still, console manufacturers produce at a loss, so they need to make up for that. In the mobile market, Google is already changing its fee to be 20% or less.
ericwdhs@discuss.online 13 hours ago
I’m not saying the standard doesn’t suck, just taking issue with the implication that anyone using it is uniquely bad to do so.
But yeah, you’re right that getting me to admit Steam (overall) sucks would be nigh impossible. I genuinely don’t believe it does, so there’s nothing to admit. Maybe you could convince me to lie about it though? Lol.
I do admit there’s a few places it sucks, the gambling stuff being the biggest, but their positives eclipse those for me. I also acknowledge I’m in a privileged position being able to enjoy Valve’s efforts in VR, Linux compatibility, etc. directly and that I might have different opinions if I was on the outside looking in. I imagine that’s not quite the admission you want though.
Serinus@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I’m not gonna say Steam sucks. It’s a nice organizational tool that enforces some standards.
I’d rather have a drm free game that’s 20% cheaper though. The devs can pocket the other 10%.
ClamDrinker@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Challenging biased views, half truths, or having your own opinions isn’t kissing some billionaire’s ass. I don’t want billionaire’s to exist. Gabe shouldn’t need to be a billionaire. But all of this is absofuckinglutely irrelevant to whether or not Steam is a good platform, unless Gabe was wielding Steam in a way that would promote a billionaire class, which he isn’t.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 14 hours ago
Brick and mortar stores take 50% of revenue usually. The profit margin for the manufacturer applies after that
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
You comparing a store with a digital storefront? Anyway enjoy the library you don’t own, at best it will die with you.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Those studios are paying Valve how much for tailored marketing throughout the game’s lifespan?
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 hours ago
30% of all revenue.
AeonFelis@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
So… what? Hate them in advance, so that if they ever turn evil we’d be prepared?
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Be prepared.
Don’t hate, but don’t trust Valve. Treat your Steam library like you don’t own it, and it could be enshittified at any time, because you don’t, and it could.
In practice, prioritize DRM-free stores when convenient. Or better yet, 1st party game dev stores. Archive any games or saves you actually want to go back to, just in case.
ClamDrinker@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Exactly. And unlike many other companies there isn’t even any indication they would want to enshittify anyways. Why would they destroy the foundation of their platform? They have actual paying customers paying the bills, not some force-feed ad slop machine.
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 hours ago
What do you think will happen when Gabe dies?
Other people will take his place. And you can be sure there are some greedy fucks pining for his role.
Companies do not have to indicate when they are going to enshitify. It can and has happened over night.
metakrakalaka@lemmychan.org 5 hours ago
It really puts into perspective the importance of supporting free software. Even after Valve goes to shit, their contributions to the ecosystem will live on.
It’s why the average sheep can never see the value in free software; it keeps them dependent on corporations.
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 12 hours ago
Amazon was toxic from day one, anticompetitive, borderline illegal, definitely corrupt as hell. It is what Epic Games Store would have been if it had been long before steam lol. The amount of shit that they bankrupted into the ground with cheap Chinese copies off the backs of VC funds while making tons of loss and then removing their storefronts…
But as soon as GabeN dies, steam will become shit probably as the vultures close in.
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Amazon enshittified with their one-click-shopping patent, though. They were never good.
ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 18 minutes ago
Amazon was always publicly traded, so it was always going to get worse. Steam is privately owned by Gabe, and is therefore more resistant to enshittification. Unless Gabe sells or dies, Steam’s pretty safe.