copygirl

I’d say start with Apple’s and Google’s app stores.

I don’t think I disagree with you, I just think Valve should be the last company that should be under fire for the 30% cut. As in, it should come after plenty of other companies, because they actually do offer many valuable services in return. I’m all for lowering the cut Valve takes, just make sure every other storefront that does objectively less is required to do the same.

It also feels like complaining about the food from one store being expensive, while you get larger potion sizes than other places for the same price. Yes, food should be affordable. Shouldn’t the complaint be made towards the industry as a whole rather than the store that is (for now) objectively better than the alternatives?

It matters because they are not forced by law to maximize profit. They can and do make decisions that are good for the future health of the company, such as making sure developers and customers are happy, and unlike other companies they put that 30% cut toward at least some things.

Regarding worker coöps, I wanted to respond to the other commenter and didn’t know how to phrase it. I’m currently leaning towards describing myself as an anarcho-communist, though I’m not well-read at all. However I question a coöp could grow to a size comparable to Valve. From some things I’ve read about the company, their internal structure might not even be THAT far off from that, allowing employees to choose what to work on and such, even if it’s far from ideal.

Finally, Valve has done much more than any other company considering they push gaming on Linux. Also their handheld is dope.

They’re a capitalist company trying to make as much money as they can.

Unlike publicly traded companies, Valve is not beholden to shareholders, so they, unlike most others, are in a unique position to not JUST maximize profits. I think it’s okay to point at Valve as an example for other companies to be more like, because most are still worse. But obviously we can always strive for better, as well.

(Also, out of curiosity: Under a capitalist system, can you have anything BUT a capitalist company?)

I’ve looked into Wolfire’s claims multiple times in the past, but it was never confirmed elsewhere, so I don’t know what to think. Maybe this was a thing Valve did in the past (in which case, yes, boo!), but they couldn’t get away with it anymore, with the volume of developers that are now on their platform.

As a counter example, Vintage Story seems to be doing okay regardless.

They delibarately decided to not be on Steam.

edit 2: They do run their own store, but it’s a bit janky, has less payment options if I recall, and no regional pricing.

edit: Besides, one of the reasons indies like to be on Steam is because Steam basically does free advertising for you, with Discovery Queue and just generally pushing games that do well to more people (beneficial for Steam also, of course). But that’s a service that’s paid for by that 30% cut (among other things).

Valve is not publicly traded. We don’t know. (Unless it became public information through a lawsuit or was leaked. In which case: Source pls.)

Why are you making it my responsibility to explain why companies are not passing on their savings to consumers?

Because that’s not beneficial for companies. They want to make (more) money.

The only option most developers and publishers would have is to move to another store, where the cut is usually the same, with the exception of Epic Games Store. And as pointed out elsewhere, setting up and managing your own store ends up being more expensive than a 30% cut. And then you still don’t have the same features as Steam.

That requirement only exists when you also offer a Steam key for the game that’s being sold. So Valve is actually the good guy here: You can sell on another store, where Steam doesn’t get any money, and give the user a Steam key, provided by Steam for free, and the only thing they ask is to match the price on Steam.

Don’t offer a Steam key, and you can pick any price.

That is my understanding of the issue.

There is a claim by some developers that Valve was pressuring them behind the scenes (“don’t offer your game for cheaper elsewhere or else we’ll take it down from our store”) a while ago, but I’ve never seen appropriate proof of it, and that was part of (an earlier?) lawsuit.

30% is the industry standard across the board, with the exception of Epic which takes 12%. However, Epic has already shown that it’s ready to dump loads of money into store exclusivity deals and tons of free games, so I will argue it’s for the sake of growing the number of users and developers using their platform.

But do they, or any other competitor or similar store, offer the same functionality as Steam? rtxn already mentioned some. And there’s more. And then there’s the fact that Valve is using all that money not only to stuff the pockets of alread rich people (not that Gabe isn’t a multi-millionaire if not billionaire, idk), but actually puts it back into the industry: Their own store, Linux/Proton (you may not care, but Microsoft becoming a monopoly in PC gaming is no good), and hardware (with their Steam Deck handheld, and VR stuffs).

Steam might be the biggest player when it comes to storefronts, but it’s because they’ve actually earned it. And they’re not actively preventing other competitors from entering the scene (other than existing). In fact, they keep trying, and keep failing, and then going back to Steam.

I’m not opposed to more money going to developers, but let’s not single out Steam, who (perhaps besides GOG? I am not familiar enough with it) is doing the most for users and develpers.

I understand Steam not wanting to moderate the absolute flood of user-created content of its thousands of games (on their own), but then, it probably shouldn’t force community forums on every single one of its games when the developers can’t or don’t want to moderate them.

(Also, the ADL doesn’t recognize the ongoing genocide of Palestinians so maybe we should just ignore what they think.)

I was editing my comment as you were responding. Check the issue on GitHub I linked in the edit, and maybe thumbs it up for visibility. One of the commenters mentions using a third-party tool but I’m not sure the one they linked to can grab posts. In theory another one might exist to dump your post data.

Which service? Mastodon has a built-in export functionality in preferences.

I can’t find such an option on Lemmy, but you should be able to do a GDPR request for your information as a last resort.

edit: Non-post data / user settings can be exported (and imported!) but posts are a separate issue. See this open issue.

The idea is that “roguelike” = a game like Rogue, which according to some people, requires checking most if not all of the boxes including ASCII, proc-gen, perma-death, turn-based, … while the term “rougelite” is less strict. But I think we’re past the point of that distinction being adopted into mainstream.

Taming animals so you can ride them, or let them pull carriages? Building roads for vehicles? Train tracks with functional trains? Cool airships? All made obsolete with this one-kills-all glider feature! Don’t let good game design get in the way of convenience! /s