My unpopular opinion: Valve is basically a parasite or a landlord. They've been so successful it's hard to imagine a world without them, and they say "you gotta give the parasite its due" and we believe them and comply.

It's been kept around because they treat their customers ok, but they absolutely exsanguinate their developers.

And their engineering culture is... odd. They hire senior people and then let them all fuck sound aimlessly. Their APIs are terrible, their infrastructure is all over the place, they still have patch Tuesdays. But because they are the landlord that owns every house in town, what are you going to do, not pay rent?

Gabe is out there cruising the world in a billion dollar yacht, eating thousand dollar meals. All that came off the backs of developers who actually make the games.

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usea 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It's been kept around because they treat their customers ok, but they absolutely exsanguinate their developers.

This is true, but "treat their customers ok" goes a long way. When everybody else severely abuses their customers, the one company that doesn't generates a lot of goodwill.

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faidit 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Eh, Steam is kind of like the liberal democratic US empire. It may be evil in a lot of ways but it could actually be a LOT worse. We may actually historically be very lucky to have had a non-shittificationmaxxing games platform for a couple decades, just like we were lowkey lucky that the world was briefly ruled by a somewhat democratic country.. Enjoy both while they last, may not be around long.

	▲	applfanboysbgon 7 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> just like we were lowkey lucky that the world was briefly ruled by a somewhat democratic country This is just what you tell yourself to feel comfortable about living as a beneficiary of the empire. From the perspective of those invaded, there is no difference. Do you think in Vietnam they thought "I'm glad it is a democratic nation dropping dropping 7.5 million tons of bombs on us and raping our villagers, it would be so much worse if they were authoritarian!". Do you think in Cuba they think, "I'm glad it is a democratic nation that is blockading our entire economy, condemning us into poverty". Do you think in Iran they think "I am glad it is a democratic nation that assassinated our leader and bombed our school"?

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CursedSilicon 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd question the idea that they treat developers poorly. Epic Games Store exists and Famously beats Steam (and others) over the head by charging only a 12% fee

Hell, they even buy timed exclusive access to certain games

And yet. Steam persists

	▲	fc417fc802 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I lack an informed opinion on the matter but I have to wonder what you think the one thing has to do with the other? Developers have very little choice but to go where the customers are.

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astlouis44 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Totally agreed. I'm building a Steam competitor, that's web-based (WebGPU/WASM) as well as cross-platform. Light on games atm, but the goal is to replicate over time virtually every feature Steam has to offer, as well as more. You can check out a preview of the portal here:

https://gameselect-knvxf8av.manus.space/

	▲	koolala an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		What lets you host Monkeyball like that. Are you going to port Xonotic to WASM?
	▲	an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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