[nas]

Valve's revenue models are going to kill it. At least, kill it as a studio that can create high quality games. I not opposed to them making money and getting compensated for hard work but the level of greed is getting insane. For the Dota TI prize pool, they take 75% of the revenue from Battle Pass related sales (i.e. digital in-game items, like DLCs). Its not hard to understand why they do it, the profit is insane:

https://dotesports.com/dota-2/news/the-international-2019-pr...

However, why should the company ever spend the effort to build games? Making the Battle Pass content is vastly easier. I don't see how they are going to be able to wean themselves off such a juicy revenue stream.

Artifact was a result of this new reality. The game was designed from the get-go to optimize revenue from in-game digital items. Why should a digital card in a computer game cost $100? A rational person would realize it is an insane idea. I'm glad that Artifact crashed and burned.

I don't think Valve learned their lesson. The whole game industry is moving that way. E.g. free to play games with paid in-game items. I wish they could figure out a more healthy way to fund game development. Human nature being what it is, I'm not holding my breath.