Pretty sure at this point valve just does things for the love of the game. They don’t need VR or handhelds and they certainly don’t need their own games, but they do it anyway.
And I don’t say that just cause 30% profit off their store is enough; Apple and Google both do that on mobile and they still stick their grubby hands on everything (their stores are probably a fraction of their profit anyway).
Nah, it’s cause Valve doesn’t have shareholders and doesn’t seem interested in the myth of infinite growth. They just want to tinker; Portal was self reflecting parody, haha.
They don’t need VR or handhelds and they certainly don’t need their own games, but they do it anyway.
Releasing a handheld was a fairly savvy marketing strategy, given how lucrative the console marketplace has proven to be. Idk if I’d call that “love of the game” so much as “optimal play at the production price point”.
Valve doesn’t have shareholders and doesn’t seem interested in the myth of infinite growth.
Plenty of Valve’s store content is absolute dogshit. I refuse to believe they are immune to the allure of infinite growth through the distribution of MOBAs and other FTP games. But they’re not munching on their seed corn in pursuit of stratospheric growth, like Apple and Microsoft. They’re also coasting on an environment where things are getting worse and they’re just kinda treading water.
Not getting worse is the new getting better.
You don’t seem to have the billionaire monopolist mindset, when you reach the level steam is at you are no longer competing for money but power, steam could be making all the money in the world but that won’t stop Microsoft from shutting them down as they have already tried to do with windows store, if steam doesn’t have its own platform they are vulnerable and beholden to Microsoft, it’s true Gabe Newell could retire anytime he wants but that only applies to him not his countless employees, if steam can’t make enough money to pay a competitive wage to hire people from Microsoft, Nintendo, Apple or Sony then they will just work for them for more money so they have to charge the %30 Steam isn’t a public company but I guarantee the vast vast majority of its profits are poured directly back into the company its always that way or other companies will outcompete and they will die.
That’s what you get when the Company CEO is also the original (or at least one of) Founder
Every time the founder CEO steps down and is replaced (Unless the founder directly, hand picks their successor (and even then sometimes not)) the company goes to shit soon after
It happened with Google, it happened with Apple, it happened with Reddit (Little more complicated, but there were multiple founders, the one with the vision and the one with only money on the mind, you can guess which one is currently at the helm) and it’ll happen with Valve too
I doubt Gabe actually steers anything these days. Valve as a company might already be on autopilot. Their culture permeates through every employee who works there. I am not looking forward to the day Gabe dies but I don’t think vavle is gonna change much when he does. They are already winning without trying. And if they keep the company private they have no incentive to fuck it up.
If valve goes public that’s the day we panic.
I’m terrified when Gabe dies that my library of temporarily licensed software will be stripped away.
We really need to find a fountain of youth for Gabe like, yesterday. I genuinely dread his passing.
Yep, as soon as you’re beholden to shareholders, you’re forced to take the short term view on everything, at the expense of long term returns.
I’m glad they do these things.
It also makes me more likely to put time into Deadlock, because I know they’ll support it for a while.
I was talking to my friend about it today. The jury is out on whether Deadlock will be free to play or not, but I expect it will and I expect them to set it up as the new generation’s TF2 - i.e. Valve’s home cooked free to play game, and this thing might have a tail of 15 years or more.
I might be wrong, but I hope I’m not. I like Deadlock so far.
The problem is, if Deadlock goes free to play, then they will have so many problems with cheaters and bots, as any other free to play game.