Maybe this is what we need in a way. So many governments are jumping down valves throat specifically that they might actually cause valve to go bankrupt, deleting all of our multiple thousands of dollar libraries, and then (hopefully) causing riots. Which will (hopefully) cause the laws to be changed forcing these companies to SELL GAMES not fucking licenses for the temporary use of a game…
Battle.net, with the feature to run partially- downloaded games and stream missing assets in on demand.
This just brought back a wonderful memory of playing original Overwatch and my hard drive failing in the middle of a match. Out of nowhere character models were being replaced with floating blue orbs and sounds were missing, but I could still finish the match with what was loaded into RAM!
I’m not sure where I stand there. Steam is a great platform, but for purely capitalistic reasons. The only reason they aren’t as bad as other platforms is because they’re privately-owned and take the long view because they don’t have to worry about the day-to-day fluctuations on stock value.
Gabe isn’t your friend. He’s a billionaire yacht-collector who makes the vast majority of his money by taking a massive cut from other company’s products because of their virtual monopoly that exists because they launched an online marketplace in 2004.
Let’s be a bit fair, your local store selling a physical copy is also taking a cut of the other companies profits. The 30% valve charges would be just the same as GameStop/other store would be marking up the game from wholesale prices. (I still would rather have physical copies, but valve charging a percentage on each sale has always been a bs argument against them)
I’m just talking about the talking point of them taking a cut of sales, it’s the exact same as a store adding markup. A store is adding way more than 30% on most physical goods. Data storage and bandwidth are fucking expensive and 30% honestly isn’t that much.
Gacha trash. Let me know when they’re making Portal 3 or Half-Life 3. And really, it doesn’t even have to be those franchises, but I mean, a single-player game that you pay for once and that’s it, and it has puzzles that make you think. What they were known for before they started making money off other people’s work and stopped creating wonderful things.
I mean, I know they still work on their gacha games.
Might seem like I’m moving goalposts and maybe I did, but I’m just nostalgic for when they made unforgettable games like Portal and Half-Life 2.
Open steam settings > Downloads, click the dropdown at the top. That whole dropdown menu? That’s what their cut pays for. Rack space, network capacity, and storage, to deliver ALL games on steam efficiently, across the planet. That ain’t cheap. And that’s only part of what it pays for.
I mean, sure. But I think you might be underestimating the infrastructure costs. They aren’t just using a few 10GB switches. They also aren’t just using a single data center to store and deliver games. Then, you have to consider all of the redundancies involved, the contractors, the data center contracts, etc. Even if they don’t have their own DCs, AWS or Azure at this level is $$$$$$.
Storing, transferring, and hosting at this scale is not cheap by any means. It makes GameStop’s tech infrastructure look like peanuts in comparison.
It varies depending on the product, the profit margin on soda for example is often over 100%, other products such as milk would be negative (loss leaders), but in general, most non-junk food groceries usually have a single digit profit margin
Agreed, Steam is the only website I can buy video games from(GOG, i dont like their usage of GenAI and the current people behind it,and they dont have giftcards ),Epic games, subpar features and the company behind it),i appreciate Valve’s contributions to Linux,and i like their philosophy of no cutscenes and extensive playtesting.
Though I cannot defend them for: Loot boxes,Tf2 neglect.
The actual lawsuit mentions only ten of millions of dollars in sales that Valve has made from lootbox keys and steam market transaction fees… for all the citizens of New York… for over a decade of running the lootbox system.
Valve is estimated to have yearly revenues of around $20 billion dollars a year, est net worth of about $10 billion.
This is a rough guess napkin math that may be wrong, but untill this lawsuit proceedes, we don’t have numbers about how much money Valve makes specifically from lootboxes, because they’re a private company and don’t have to disclose that.
If its only tens of millions of dollars, for a decade, from everyone in New York…
Even if Valve had to shit-can all lootboxes going forward, pay fines and restitution, I think they’d survive fairly ok.
Only Valve? I can name a few more companies.
I seem to remember a company that thought this sort of thing gave users “a sense of pride and accomplishment”
Ah yes, Saudi EAco. Because they weren’t scummy enough already.
RS has a similar thing, but recently they have gotten rid of most of thier lootbox(keys) MTX, and decided to nerf the game as well as a vendetta.
Maybe since they own Steam, they’d cascade the ruling to games sold on their platform.
Maybe this is what we need in a way. So many governments are jumping down valves throat specifically that they might actually cause valve to go bankrupt, deleting all of our multiple thousands of dollar libraries, and then (hopefully) causing riots. Which will (hopefully) cause the laws to be changed forcing these companies to SELL GAMES not fucking licenses for the temporary use of a game…
Idk. I don’t want Valve to fail. I think that’d overall make things worse for gamers. I just want them to stop operating a casino.
If Valve fails, we’ll have so many great alternatives, though!
Who needs a forum, mod portal, user reviews, or Linux support anyways?
This one is actually a game changer if you play WoW for a bit every few years lol
Game’s like 100 gigs by now, but you can get started after just a few gigabytes downloaded. Like 5 minutes on even my mediocre 150 mbps downlink.
In contrast, it used to take me several hours to get into it on a slower connection before this feature.
This just brought back a wonderful memory of playing original Overwatch and my hard drive failing in the middle of a match. Out of nowhere character models were being replaced with floating blue orbs and sounds were missing, but I could still finish the match with what was loaded into RAM!
I’m not sure where I stand there. Steam is a great platform, but for purely capitalistic reasons. The only reason they aren’t as bad as other platforms is because they’re privately-owned and take the long view because they don’t have to worry about the day-to-day fluctuations on stock value.
Gabe isn’t your friend. He’s a billionaire yacht-collector who makes the vast majority of his money by taking a massive cut from other company’s products because of their virtual monopoly that exists because they launched an online marketplace in 2004.
Let’s be a bit fair, your local store selling a physical copy is also taking a cut of the other companies profits. The 30% valve charges would be just the same as GameStop/other store would be marking up the game from wholesale prices. (I still would rather have physical copies, but valve charging a percentage on each sale has always been a bs argument against them)
The store isn’t also making games.
Like how Apple gets to take 30% of Spotify subscriptions and they operate a competing music service. That’s where it becomes wrong.
Of course, Valve doesn’t make games either now, so maybe it’s a moot point.
I’m just talking about the talking point of them taking a cut of sales, it’s the exact same as a store adding markup. A store is adding way more than 30% on most physical goods. Data storage and bandwidth are fucking expensive and 30% honestly isn’t that much.
Deadlock would like a word
Gacha trash. Let me know when they’re making Portal 3 or Half-Life 3. And really, it doesn’t even have to be those franchises, but I mean, a single-player game that you pay for once and that’s it, and it has puzzles that make you think. What they were known for before they started making money off other people’s work and stopped creating wonderful things.
I mean, I know they still work on their gacha games.
Might seem like I’m moving goalposts and maybe I did, but I’m just nostalgic for when they made unforgettable games like Portal and Half-Life 2.
Okay, so you’re just a nostalgic hater. Deadlock is a masterpiece.
30% makes sense for a physical store with high overhead, inventory, staffing, and other expenses.
Valve could take a 5% cut and still make a ton more than a retail store for the same product.
Open steam settings > Downloads, click the dropdown at the top. That whole dropdown menu? That’s what their cut pays for. Rack space, network capacity, and storage, to deliver ALL games on steam efficiently, across the planet. That ain’t cheap. And that’s only part of what it pays for.
Relative to the money being spent on games it is incredibly cheap.
You know what it costs to run a retail store? And even in 2025 GameStop had 10 times as many retail store locations as Valve had employees.
And it’s not like retail has no tech infrastructure expenses.
Each Valve employee also makes about what 10 GameStop employees do, salaries at Valve are often mid to high 6 digits.
Which is not to say that GameStop is cheap to run, but hey, neither is Steam.
I mean, sure. But I think you might be underestimating the infrastructure costs. They aren’t just using a few 10GB switches. They also aren’t just using a single data center to store and deliver games. Then, you have to consider all of the redundancies involved, the contractors, the data center contracts, etc. Even if they don’t have their own DCs, AWS or Azure at this level is $$$$$$.
Storing, transferring, and hosting at this scale is not cheap by any means. It makes GameStop’s tech infrastructure look like peanuts in comparison.
Grocery stores in my experience take on average 30-50% of the cut of anything they sell.
From working at one and managing orders/invoices.
It varies depending on the product, the profit margin on soda for example is often over 100%, other products such as milk would be negative (loss leaders), but in general, most non-junk food groceries usually have a single digit profit margin
Agreed, Steam is the only website I can buy video games from(GOG, i dont like their usage of GenAI and the current people behind it,and they dont have giftcards ),Epic games, subpar features and the company behind it),i appreciate Valve’s contributions to Linux,and i like their philosophy of no cutscenes and extensive playtesting.
Though I cannot defend them for: Loot boxes,Tf2 neglect.
The actual lawsuit mentions only ten of millions of dollars in sales that Valve has made from lootbox keys and steam market transaction fees… for all the citizens of New York… for over a decade of running the lootbox system.
Not hundreds of millions, not billions.
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/court-filings/new-york-v-valve-corporation-complaint-2026.pdf
Page 3, point 13.
Valve is estimated to have yearly revenues of around $20 billion dollars a year, est net worth of about $10 billion.
This is a rough guess napkin math that may be wrong, but untill this lawsuit proceedes, we don’t have numbers about how much money Valve makes specifically from lootboxes, because they’re a private company and don’t have to disclose that.
If its only tens of millions of dollars, for a decade, from everyone in New York…
Even if Valve had to shit-can all lootboxes going forward, pay fines and restitution, I think they’d survive fairly ok.
I’m not just referring to this one lawsuit, the EU also sued them for quite a bit.