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The long game (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/memes@lemmy.world
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[–] 47 points 9 months ago (17 children)

look, im very grateful for valve employee’s work on proton (& other technologies), and i recognize that out of the major gaming companies, valve is one of the least bad…

but they’re still a corporation. they’re still unethical. they popularized gambling mechanics and they basically have a monopoly on PC gaming distribution.

don’t worship companies. they don’t care about you. need i remind you, in the late 2000s/early 2010s, nintendo was the good guy. just making good games and innovating, while everyone else was busy making yearly slop, day one DLCs, paid online, microtransactions, broken games on release… and now, look at them.

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  • [–] 28 points 9 months ago* (3 children)

    what were you smoking? nintendo has never been the good guy...they successfully patented the "digital representation of water" back in the day

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    sorry, i should’ve said "was seen as the good guys". nintendo’s been doing shitty stuff since at least the 80s

    but that wasn’t the popular narrative back in the 2000s/2010s! just like valve now, people were more than willing to gloss over their shitty stuff because everyone else was worse. people worshipped iwata & reggie just like people worship gabe newell now.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago*

    I think that more in general, from the change in the image of Elon Musk over the last 5 to 10 years the younger generations of Techies should've learned the vast chasm that is possible between perception and reality when it comes to those people who manage/own the companies making the Technology we love.

    Maybe Gabe is a good guy, maybe he's neither good nor bad, maybe he's a bad guy - if you don't know the guy personally and well as a person, all you have to go by is the tightly managed public image you see, and as Musk so painfully demonstrated not that long ago, you can wrap an Nazi in a "nice techie pushing the world forward" managed public image which for decades the overwhelming majority of Techies (especially young ones) believes is real.

    So, yeah, going back to your original post, its safer "not to worship companies" or the people who lead them.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago*

    nintendo has always had it's weird fanboys, say what you want but their business strategy of re-releasing the same old shit for next generation of kids works.

    plenty of people out there more than happy to consume mindlessly it seems

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Valve is worker-run and largely worker owned, it's literally 350 people who just work on whatever they think is a good idea

    They're technically a corporation, but also an amazing argument for collective ownership

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    they popularized gambling mechanics

    Probably their biggest sin. Gab's mega-yacht was paid for with neurodivergent teenagers sucked into anime-themed slot machines.

    That's before you get into how modern online gaming has become this nightmare of bigotry and misogyny. Not a Valve specific problem, but one they've turned a blind eye to in the name of laissez-faire business.

    need i remind you, in the late 2000s/early 2010s, nintendo was the good guy.

    Well... tap the brakes there. Nintendo had a very different business model, but their Disney-eque sadistic defense of IP was its own kind of problem.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago*

    All it would take for Valve to lose their effective monopoly on PC game distribution would be for someone else to make a better product.

    Every other major PC game distribution platform (besides GOG, and they're far more niche than Valve) has essentially started their attempt to unseat Valve with enshittification baked in, and it was obvious.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago*

    As I wrote elsewhere, their support for Windows-Linux adapter technologies and even their games machines with Linux, are things which make total business sense as part of a strategy to try and move gamers away from Windows to manage the risk that Microsoft might use their control of Windows and ability to remotely update pretty much all consumer Window machines, to squeeze Steam as a games store for Windows games, for example via enforcing a requirement for Microsoft-signed applications and even a for usage of a Microsoft-store (no doubt justified as a consumer protection measure) like Apple does with iOS.

    Steam isn't doing this because they're "nice guys", they're doing this because they're managed by competent managers with an outlook which is much longer term than the typical "next quarter" of publicly traded company and if you're looking at a 5 or 10 years period Microsoft doing this kind of thing is a real risk.

    This doesn't mean that they're bad guys, it just means that from their support for gaming in Linux alone we cannot deduce that they're good guys since being managed by competent people who are trying to manage the risk of Microsoft turning Windows into what iOS is for Apple is an equally good explanation (probably an even better explanation, since "good guy" actions in business is a rare exception) for their support for Linux.

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  • [+] -21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Is it a brigade of worshippers or just pointing out a bad take is bad?

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Why is it a bad take? Valve is indeed a corporation. I'm also someone who has grown irritated by their ways of screwing up good games for profit (you know, hat simulator, gambling, push for centralization, etc.). There is also a history of really sketchy anti-consumer choices basically no one is aware of, like them getting sued for not issuing refunds and being forced to implement refund system or accepting money from Microsoft to not release a free DLC to L4D, but rather as a new game (just so they don't set a good example), paid mods fiasco, barely fighting back against adult content purge, etc

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    screwing up good games for profit (you know, hat simulator, gambling, push for centralization, etc.)

    I actually don't know what you're talking about. To me adding cosmetic purchases to free games doesn't count as "screwing up good games for profit".

    There is also a history of really sketchy anti-consumer choices basically no one is aware of, like them getting sued for not issuing refunds and being forced to implement refund system to

    This is incredibly misleading. Valve always have refunds, it's just that they did not have a written policy at first and it was administered case-by-case. In 2014 they got sued by an Australian in a case that was more about jurisdiction and whether Australian consumer protection laws could apply to digital goods sold by a US company. That was the impetus for Valve to publicly release a written policy, which is widely considered to be one of the most consumer-friendly on the industry.

    accepting money from Microsoft to not release a free DLC to L4D, but rather as a new game (just so they don't set a good example),

    Do you have any more info on this? I think you're getting this confused with the controversy around Crash Course, the 2nd DLC for the first game.

    Valve released Left4Dead 1 and an ounces their plans for free updates. The first update released for free everywhere. Crash Course released for free on PC, but cost money on Xbox Live. Valve claimed that it was Microsoft's decision, not theirs. Afaik Microsoft has neither confirmed nor denied this, but it seems pretty plausible to me. It also lines up with what Todd Howard has said in interviews about the infamous Horse Armor. Microsoft has a history of pressuring DLC prices up on Xbox- i don't blame Valve for that.

    paid mods fiasco

    This always seemed to me like a very complicated and nuanced discussion that always gets described as a "fiasco" or "catastrophe", whether it's Valve or Bethesda or whoever else. I always thought it was an incredibly cool idea to have a framework for monetization, which could lead to bigger and better mods. I think it's reasonable for the original publishers/developers to get a cut since they made the game. I think it's reasonable for Valve to get a cut if it is done through the Steam Workshop and Valve is handling the payyment processing.

    Heck, Valve in particular has a history of supporting mod makers. DOTA was a mod of Warcraft. Counter-Strike was a mod of Half Life.

    barely fighting back against adult content purge

    We're at the point of literal victim blaming. Blame Collective Shout. Blame Visa and PayPal. Blame governments for not having (or enforcing) legislation forcing these payment processors to be neutral. What do you want Valve to do here? The payment processors are orders of magnitude larger and can destroy Valve overnight if they wanted to.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (1 child)

    I actually don't know what you're talking about.

    The whole lootboxes thing has been in high focus for the past decade, but you're the first gamer who doesn't know what are people talking about and it's just cosmetics? I'm sorry, WHAT?

    This is incredibly misleading.

    Please learn why they were sued and stop spreading lies like they were easily issuing refunds. Your argument suddenly starts falling apart when you learn the facts and remove the gabe-glasses.

    Do you have any more info on this?

    Actually, I likely don't. This comes from era of forums, constant leaks and insider info. You might be able to find more after terms like "L4D and Xbox dlc pricing"

    Here is one article that touches on the topic of why this happened: https://www.xboxachievements.com/news/news-3496-l4d-1-dlc-pricing-down-to-ms-not-valve.html

    Note that this was a problem for Xbox, but valve for whatever "mysterious" reason decided to do that for PC too.

    Rest of your comment is basically downplaying shitty things. Yeah, no, sorry, you did not convince me yet to join this religion

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