[buran77]

> Apart from steam, I don't think I've heard anything but bad news from modern consoles.

Gabe is in his mid 60s, I'm prepared that in the next decade or so there will be a change of guard at Valve and the slow train of enshittification will get moving.

P.S. There's been a lot of groupthink and bandwagoning for Valve, ignoring all the dirt under the rug. But at the end of the day, by comparison, they are the best behaving in the field.

[Ferret7446]

Gabe has been hands off managing Valve for precisely this reason, so that at least management wise nothing would change when he goes.

He's been scuba diving and IIRC even discovered new species and doing marine biology. Very impressive as far as CEOs/presidents go.

[buran77]

> hands off managing Valve for precisely this reason

Remember that this means he's not the "hands" but he's still very much the head. You'll only know what Valve really is without him when he's no longer around.

[add-sub-mul-div]

The company that gave up making games because there was more money to be had from inserting itself as a middleman into a previously open platform does not deserve any adoration.

[r053bud]

This is categorically untrue. In addition to the games listed below, they are actively developing "Deadlock" which is a pretty rad game in my opinion.

[NamlchakKhandro]

What do you think it means to say "categorically untrue"?

[derideor]

Then don't buy it through steam. Just buy it through a third party like greenmangaming. Valve gets zero cut there.

[CamperBob2]

The market demanded a middleman. Would you prefer an Epic or Microsoft monopoly?

[Forgeties79]

> The market demanded a middleman

Says who?

[CamperBob2]

The market.

If you're an indy game developer, it turns out that just posting .exes on your website gets you a limited reach.

[Forgeties79]

I understand my question was a bit flippant but truly, this doesn’t answer it.

[johnnyanmac]

The true answer here is that people went where the games went. And those AAA distributors preferred a middleman doing everything for them in exchange for getting a cut. From there, AA and indies went to the middleman because they more or less had to to compete. Whether or not you consider market capture the whims of the consumer or a natural consequence of capitalism is a more philosophical question to ask.

On a more fundamental level, it seems like people will pick convenience over security and freedom every time the choice pops up. In the land of media, this comes down to choosing to put all your eggs in one basket in exchange for having less control over the products you bought. We've seen this across Netflix, Steam, and Spotify as the largest modern examples.

[rvba]

The results?

By random googling I found that they have 200 million active users, who bought 16 billion in gross merchandising value?

18 thousands of games launched there per yer?

Arguably if someone is in PC gaming, they at least know what Steam is?

[Forgeties79]

>the results?

Would you say the market demanded Ticketmaster based on the results?

[rvba]

That is actually a really good point.

However Ticketmaster is a monopoly. There are (still) alternatives to Steam.

But yes, it is getting into a monopoly, or oligopoly position.

[ecshafer]

Counter Strike and DOTA aren't games?

[Forgeties79]

DOTA 2 came out 13 years ago. Counter Strike is more valid

[swat535]

Also Half-Life: Alyx!

[johnnyanmac]

One day I will be able to afford the hardware to play that game.

[Ntrails]

They still make and support games :)

[citizenpaul]

Gabe is off forming a cult which I assume will consume his focus for the remainder of his life. I'm dead serious he is basically straight up copying Ron L Hubbards, cult on a boat playbook. (related but kinda mean, he is not really health conscious so he is not gonna live to be 90 or anything.)

IDK what this means for the steam platform but I'm guessing it will mean change of some sort.