Katcrawler
Banned
Can someone right a tl:dr version? what's wrong with Valve now?
According to the author of the story? Valve is the devil i guess or something.
Can someone right a tl:dr version? what's wrong with Valve now?
Covered in the second page of this thread. Basically, the only thing that changed is that workshop creators no longer get a cut off the Battle Pass specifically.Any workshop content creators here? Some of the claims made on that front are disturbing. If valve promised to give a cut of reselling, what happened to it? They should stick to their word.
Any workshop content creators here? Some of the claims made on that front are disturbing. If valve promised to give a cut of reselling, what happened to it? They should stick to their word.
I don't really think there's much meat here, mostly grist.
The individual arguments are the following:
- Valve has a monopoly
- Some people like Steam and not Origin and they're hypocrites
- Valve let people make money off selling content, but don't pay them enough
- Valve wasn't proactive enough in establishing an EU/AU-compliant digital refunds policy
- Some ex-employees of Valve didn't like the culture.
- Reddit memes are bad
If the point here is "Some People ThinK Valve Is Based And Lord GFaben Dot Meme Dot Bmp!!!", then, like, why would any right-minded adult spend time trying to refute idiot teenagers on the internet.
But if the point here is that this is an indictment of Valve generally, I don't see it. In order:
- Steam has a lower share of PC gaming than ever before. With Twitch, Itch, Gog, Humble, Origin, Uplay, Epic Games Launcher, Windows 10 App Store, Amazon, Battle.net, the Mac App Store, Beth.net, and others there are more clients than ever before. WePlay is about to be an 800 pound gorilla. More games are being sold DRM-free than ever before. Many of the most popular games on the internet are not on Steam. And Valve allows people to sell Steam games on any store with Valve taking a 0% cut, so also Steam the Client and Steam the Store are not connected at all. Moreover, with Greenlight and now Direct, Steam is using what clout it does have less than ever before to constrain winners and losers on their own platform.
- When Steam came out, I didn't want Steam because it was an annoying inconvenience. Then it killed FilePlanet, made patching easy, and then later it solved the 10 foot UI problem for PC, so it is convenient. By comparison, Origin is worse. It's not intrinsically against the rules for people to want their 30%, but they need to earn it. Valve earned it for me. EA didn't. Ubisoft didn't. GOG did. Humble did. Microsoft didn't. This isn't because I'm a hypocrite, it's because I'd generally prefer fewer better clients.
- It sounds to me like Valve is making an error reducing the payout for DOTA2 cosmetic makers. But in general, there's a difference between starting with a status quo where everyone makes money and clawing it back, versus starting with a status quo where no one makes money and giving them a little bit. The alternative to paying community content makers is not paying community content makers. That's bad. Moving to a world where they do get paid, even if it's only the top earners and even if they aren't paid enough, is an improvement. Let's keep improving it by improving what they get paid, allowing paid mods, and reducing gatekeeping.
- I agree with the AU court decisions and support giving consumers additional rights for refunds. Also, no one had a systematic digital refund policy. This was a case where tech got ahead of law. I am glad law is constraining tech. But let's not pretend Bad Actor Valve departed from the tradition of digital refunds to screw people. And their current refund policy is more automated and generous than most other actors.
- if the point here is to point out that Valve's flat hierarchy has strengths and weaknesses, and one weakness is cliquishness and dysfunctionality when it comes to major projects, sure. I think the presentation of digging up all the ex-employees that say bad things and none of the people who feel it is functional makes it difficult to say whether these experiences are the rule or the exception. It also isn't a consumer-facing issue; the bizarre thing is that reddit people care about Valve's corporate structure to begin with.
- Reddit memes are bad.
I think the lack of a through line or coherence to the structure of the essay means that it mostly seems like a stream of consciousness, and the fact that all of these arguments have been made before mostly makes it seem like someone muckracking rather than an original contribution.
But, finally, a lot of this kinda seems Lady MacBeth-y. Like, venting grievances is of course always allowed and fine, but then what? In the end you can basically choose to buy from Steam or not. If you don't, then you give up Steam's value adds. If that bothers you, then Valve has justified their 30%. If it doesn't bother you, life goes on. If you do buy from Steam then it's a tacit consent that, despite your issues, Steam's the best option. Doesn't mean we can't demand better, but it does mean that maybe some of the apocalyptic language is a bit much.
The one line I would want people to take from this post is that Steam never than a monopoly and has less control than ever, so I particularly object to the idea that Bad Guy Valve is Ruining It For The Rest of Us.
Valve is no one's friend but it's basically the best alternative available as of right now. I see a lot of "Why is Origin seen as the bad guy" as if people forgot. Maybe they should remember that EA forced exclusivity on Origin. Maybe they should remember who EA was back then. That company with Sim City. That company that was closing servers of games that were barely 2-3 years old.That company that was AGAINST sales, claiming it's devaluing the industry. EA at this moment was the anti-consumer company that was pushing for their own platform.
And most importantly, Origin is a client that is YEARS behind in term of fonctionnality. A lot of people gives a lot of shit to the Steam client but:
-You can change the skin
-You can add non-Steam games to your library
-You can customise a lot of things, like the game icons
And despite that monopoly, Valve kept improving themselves and offering more freedom and customisation on their client. Despite having a monopoly, Valve didn't force their own API for VR and kept pushing for openVR. They kept pushing for Linux/SteamOS/OpenGL/Vulkan. They brought that amazing universal controller customisation, allowing you to customise to an amazing degree your controller. Deadzones, triggers sensitivity, remapping and such.
Despite that monopoly, they pushed and allowed for developpers to sell their games outside of their store for 100% revenue, without any fee, while still using the Steamworks API. Despite that monopoly, they never made DRM mandatory on Steam. Yes, your game can be DRM free on Steam.
So yes, while it's not necessary healthy to give all the control to one company that MAY turn bad, the thinking that they should be a monopoly for the profit of anti-consumer companies (EA, Microsoft) is totally fucked up.
As for GOG, while it's a neat alternative, for me it's also lagging behind because of their dumb curation system.
I haven't visited Polygon since they laid off their Features crew.. but even then I'm struggling to remember a single example of clickbait from the site.Corporations aren't your friend, and neither are "journalism" sites driven by click-bait practices.
Feature for feature, Steam has no credible competition in any market.Valve is not perfect in any way. I would call it at best an average store... unfortunately it has no real competition on the PC market.
I don't really think there's much meat here, mostly grist.
The individual arguments are the following:
- Valve has a monopoly
- Some people like Steam and not Origin and they're hypocrites
- Valve let people make money off selling content, but don't pay them enough
- Valve wasn't proactive enough in establishing an EU/AU-compliant digital refunds policy
- Some ex-employees of Valve didn't like the culture.
- Reddit memes are bad
Players began noting that was Valve was doing was wildly illegal, pointing out quite accurately that under European Union law, consumers were entitled to a refund on all purchases — even for something as simple as changing their mind.
"Valve used every trick in the book to stall the ongoing, inevitably damning case against it"
Never one to shy away from a little thing like "breaking the law," Good Guy Valve quickly came up with a solution: an entirely new EULA custom made for the good gamers of the European Union, which specifically acknowledges that they have a legal right to a refund ... and then immediately forces them to waive it if they want to purchase the game.
Feature for feature, Steam has no credible competition in any market.
Maybe that could be part of why it's so successful, I don't know.
Covered in the second page of this thread. Basically, the only thing that changed is that workshop creators no longer get a cut off the Battle Pass specifically.
He also claims Steam is "surveillance and control software"...maybe i just missed it, but where is the evidence for that claim?
Considering it seems he didn't actually do any proper research for certain parts beyond putting in whatever "Valve is bad!" nonsense he could find without analyzing it first, i don't really see much of this as valid, other than perhaps the Workshop part. The refund part is especially bad as it's an outright false claim he makes unless i've got something wrong, if he had actually read what he uses as a source he would have known that his claims are entirely wrong. I've had a look into what he said and unless i'm the one that's misunderstood something, he accuses Valve of breaking the law when what he claims was illegal and them acting scummy was them outright complying with the law exactly and the source he uses as 'evidence' (the EU law) that they did something illegal says the exact opposite of his claims...so it seems he didn't actually bother with simple journalistic integrity and check his claims first before saying Valve were breaking the law. How can anyone take this seriously as a whole after that?
I'm talking about this part here, i've not seen anyone else actually mention it:
I don't know much about the subject, but is that Slander/Libel? - Making a false claim about Valve doing something illegal (when what they're doing is exactly what the law says) in order to try to make them look bad?
Feature for feature, Steam has no credible competition in any market.
Maybe that could be part of why it's so successful, I don't know.
Having customers waive their right to a refund and class-action are pretty bad imo, and if the EULA is updated and you don't want to accept, there's not really anything to do other than close your account, and any account closure just results in you losing your licences without any sort of refund.
They weren't doing what the law says, so no it's not slander. Their refund policy, as it stood at the time was not compliant with EU law.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2587...d_software_licenses_is_legal_even_online.html
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015...ant-get-refunds-on-your-steam-game-purchases/
But section 19 of that EU directive explicitly allows sellers of digital goods to ask users to waive that right before they make the purchase, provided the digital goods are delivered immediately.
For such contracts, the consumer should have a right of withdrawal unless he has consented to the beginning of the performance of the contract during the withdrawal period and has acknowledged that he will consequently lose the right to withdraw from the contract.
I have no idea why some people, even on this forum, act like the "community funded" tournament prizes are a bad thing. Like, do people think that they display a huge red button with "DONATE HERE TO INCREASE THE PRIZE POOL. WHOOPS, BUT ONLY25% GOES TO THE ACTUAL POOL, THE REST IS STRAIGHT TO OUR POCKETS, TEEHEE"?
Because a fan funded private tournament doesn't need to pay 75% of their fees to valve? Imagine Nintendo was going to throw a cash prize Smash tournament based on donations. But then told you 75% of every dollar donated just goes into Nintendo's bank account for the privledge of Nintendo offering a cash prize that they aren't putting anything into. You can get away with that if it was for charity of course, but that's not the case here. Who milks their consumers donation dollars like that for an event created by and essentially ran by the community?
It's like hey here's a good idea - we're going to throw a Dota 2 tournament with a cash prize determined by the donation dollars from our fans (which is weird to see happen from a multi billion dollar company. Even EA just straight up fronts the cash for their Madden tournaments and doesn't make their fanbase donate to create a prize pool), but we're going to pocket most of the donations and act like we're the good guys for offering a prize for a tournament.
Seriously, what other tournament "supported and ran by" a billion dollar company not only makes the entire community pay for it to exist, but then pockets most of that. People are paying valve for the privledge of
Having a prize pool they provide. At least when folks pay entrance fees into big videogame tournaments, usually 80% or more of that fee actually goes back into the tournament prize pool - with company hosted or sponsored tournaments often being free... with real cash prizes that the consumer base didn't donate to create.
Basically, Vavle is doing something no one else is doing. People are just wittingly giving valve money for the privledge of have a cash prize exist. This isn't some struggling company raising capital to survive like a gofundme or Patreon. It's a billion dollar company making consumers pay for the privledge of having a small percentage go towards a tournament. Seriously.
Nobody does this when they are a company as lucrative as valve. The backlash from the community would be astronomical. Except for valve. Most
Don't say a word and continue to just give valve money for no benefit. Your really just donating to valve masked as something more.
Because a fan funded private tournament doesn't need to pay 75% of their fees to valve? Imagine Nintendo was going to throw a cash prize Smash tournament based on donations. But then told you 75% of every dollar donated just goes into Nintendo's bank account for the privledge of Nintendo offering a cash prize that they aren't putting anything into. You can get away with that if it was for charity of course, but that's not the case here. Who milks their consumers donation dollars like that for an event created by and essentially ran by the community?
It's like hey here's a good idea - we're going to throw a Dota 2 tournament with a cash prize determined by the donation dollars from our fans (which is weird to see happen from a multi billion dollar company. Even EA just straight up fronts the cash for their Madden tournaments and doesn't make their fanbase donate to create a prize pool), but we're going to pocket most of the donations and act like we're the good guys for offering a prize for a tournament.
Seriously, what other tournament "supported and ran by" a billion dollar company not only makes the entire community pay for it to exist, but then pockets most of that. People are paying valve for the privledge of
Having a prize pool they provide. At least when folks pay entrance fees into big videogame tournaments, usually 80% or more of that fee actually goes back into the tournament prize pool - with company hosted or sponsored tournaments often being free... with real cash prizes that the consumer base didn't donate to create.
Basically, Vavle is doing something no one else is doing. People are just wittingly giving valve money for the privledge of have a cash prize exist. This isn't some struggling company raising capital to survive like a gofundme or Patreon. It's a billion dollar company making consumers pay for the privledge of having a small percentage go towards a tournament. Seriously.
Nobody does this when they are a company as lucrative as valve. The backlash from the community would be astronomical. Except for valve. Most
Don't say a word and continue to just give valve money for no benefit. Your really just donating to valve masked as something more.
Because a fan funded private tournament doesn't need to pay 75% of their fees to valve? Imagine Nintendo was going to throw a cash prize Smash tournament based on donations. But then told you 75% of every dollar donated just goes into Nintendo's bank account for the privledge of Nintendo offering a cash prize that they aren't putting anything into. You can get away with that if it was for charity of course, but that's not the case here. Who milks their consumers donation dollars like that for an event created by and essentially ran by the community?
It's like hey here's a good idea - we're going to throw a Dota 2 tournament with a cash prize determined by the donation dollars from our fans (which is weird to see happen from a multi billion dollar company. Even EA just straight up fronts the cash for their Madden tournaments and doesn't make their fanbase donate to create a prize pool), but we're going to pocket most of the donations and act like we're the good guys for offering a prize for a tournament.
Seriously, what other tournament "supported and ran by" a billion dollar company not only makes the entire community pay for it to exist, but then pockets most of that. People are paying valve for the privledge of
Having a prize pool they provide. At least when folks pay entrance fees into big videogame tournaments, usually 80% or more of that fee actually goes back into the tournament prize pool - with company hosted or sponsored tournaments often being free... with real cash prizes that the consumer base didn't donate to create.
Basically, Vavle is doing something no one else is doing. People are just wittingly giving valve money for the privledge of have a cash prize exist. This isn't some struggling company raising capital to survive like a gofundme or Patreon. It's a billion dollar company making consumers pay for the privledge of having a small percentage go towards a tournament. Seriously.
Nobody does this when they are a company as lucrative as valve. The backlash from the community would be astronomical. Except for valve. Most
Don't say a word and continue to just give valve money for no benefit. Your really just donating to valve masked as something more.
If not Steam then who? MS? My experience with their deplorable game store makes me much prefer the devil I know.
My only real problem with Steam is the horrible return policy. I've played STFU 2 for less than two hours and could never get it to run properly on my 6600k and 1070 but Valve denied my refund request because too much time had passed since my purchase. I purchase a lot of games during Steam sales and often won't even download one until months later. If a game they sold me doesn't work and it's not because my hardware is too weak and I've clearly played less than 2 hrs, they should refund me.
I think one of the main reasons why Valve got so big and now have a quasi monopoly is probably because its competition is so clueless. Origin and Uplay lag way behind on most of its features.
Wait what? Have you seen these tournaments?Because a fan funded private tournament doesn't need to pay 75% of their fees to valve? Imagine Nintendo was going to throw a cash prize Smash tournament based on donations. But then told you 75% of every dollar donated just goes into Nintendo's bank account for the privledge of Nintendo offering a cash prize that they aren't putting anything into. You can get away with that if it was for charity of course, but that's not the case here. Who milks their consumers donation dollars like that for an event created by and essentially ran by the community?
You can write an article like this without the weird ass adversarial angle that it takes on. I don't get it.Why is Polygon SOOO bad at writing articles like this?
Because a fan funded private tournament doesn't need to pay 75% of their fees to valve? Imagine Nintendo was going to throw a cash prize Smash tournament based on donations. But then told you 75% of every dollar donated just goes into Nintendo's bank account for the privledge of Nintendo offering a cash prize that they aren't putting anything into. You can get away with that if it was for charity of course, but that's not the case here. Who milks their consumers donation dollars like that for an event created by and essentially ran by the community?
It's like hey here's a good idea - we're going to throw a Dota 2 tournament with a cash prize determined by the donation dollars from our fans (which is weird to see happen from a multi billion dollar company. Even EA just straight up fronts the cash for their Madden tournaments and doesn't make their fanbase donate to create a prize pool), but we're going to pocket most of the donations and act like we're the good guys for offering a prize for a tournament.
Seriously, what other tournament "supported and ran by" a billion dollar company not only makes the entire community pay for it to exist, but then pockets most of that. People are paying valve for the privledge of
Having a prize pool they provide. At least when folks pay entrance fees into big videogame tournaments, usually 80% or more of that fee actually goes back into the tournament prize pool - with company hosted or sponsored tournaments often being free... with real cash prizes that the consumer base didn't donate to create.
Basically, Vavle is doing something no one else is doing. People are just wittingly giving valve money for the privledge of have a cash prize exist. This isn't some struggling company raising capital to survive like a gofundme or Patreon. It's a billion dollar company making consumers pay for the privledge of having a small percentage go towards a tournament. Seriously.
Nobody does this when they are a company as lucrative as valve. The backlash from the community would be astronomical. Except for valve. Most
Don't say a word and continue to just give valve money for no benefit. Your really just donating to valve masked as something more.
You can write an article like this without the weird ass adversarial angle that it takes on. I don't get it.
I agree that we're not friends with Steam, but as a consumer I've benefited massively from Steams/Valve's influence. Not friends, but a mutually beneficial relationship. Article seems a tad dramatic.
Valve made PC gaming viable again. Piracy is much less rempant among avid gamers thanks to their sale concept.
I remember that time before Steam came along, PC was pronounced dead by most publishers and it was a lot less vibrant than today.
I think there was a point where this so-called "Good Guy Valve" (as the article calls it) did in fact exist, and Valve has done a lot of good in a lot of good ways
But absolute power also corrupts absolutely. 2017 Valve is not 2005 Valve.
I think there was a point where this so-called "Good Guy Valve" (as the article calls it) did in fact exist, and Valve has done a lot of good in a lot of good ways
But absolute power also corrupts absolutely. 2017 Valve is not 2005 Valve.
Because a fan funded private tournament doesn't need to pay 75% of their fees to valve? Imagine Nintendo was going to throw a cash prize Smash tournament based on donations. But then told you 75% of every dollar donated just goes into Nintendo's bank account for the privledge of Nintendo offering a cash prize that they aren't putting anything into. You can get away with that if it was for charity of course, but that's not the case here. Who milks their consumers donation dollars like that for an event created by and essentially ran by the community?
It's like hey here's a good idea - we're going to throw a Dota 2 tournament with a cash prize determined by the donation dollars from our fans (which is weird to see happen from a multi billion dollar company. Even EA just straight up fronts the cash for their Madden tournaments and doesn't make their fanbase donate to create a prize pool), but we're going to pocket most of the donations and act like we're the good guys for offering a prize for a tournament.
Seriously, what other tournament "supported and ran by" a billion dollar company not only makes the entire community pay for it to exist, but then pockets most of that. People are paying valve for the privledge of
Having a prize pool they provide. At least when folks pay entrance fees into big videogame tournaments, usually 80% or more of that fee actually goes back into the tournament prize pool - with company hosted or sponsored tournaments often being free... with real cash prizes that the consumer base didn't donate to create.
Basically, Vavle is doing something no one else is doing. People are just wittingly giving valve money for the privledge of have a cash prize exist. This isn't some struggling company raising capital to survive like a gofundme or Patreon. It's a billion dollar company making consumers pay for the privledge of having a small percentage go towards a tournament. Seriously.
Nobody does this when they are a company as lucrative as valve. The backlash from the community would be astronomical. Except for valve. Most
Don't say a word and continue to just give valve money for no benefit. Your really just donating to valve masked as something more.
Better throw your ps4 in the bin too.Absolutely fantastic article. I've been thinking of uninstalling steam for a while now after reading up on it's practices over the years. This article has cemented that decision. As a strong supporter of consumer and workers rights when a mega corporation is so blatantly saying fuck yourself it would be pretty sad not to. Sure I'll lose a load of games but fuck it. Other things are more Important.
Absolutely fantastic article. I've been thinking of uninstalling steam for a while now after reading up on it's practices over the years. This article has cemented that decision. As a strong supporter of consumer and workers rights when a mega corporation is so blatantly saying fuck yourself it would be pretty sad not to. Sure I'll lose a load of games but fuck it. Other things are more Important.
Absolutely fantastic article. I've been thinking of uninstalling steam for a while now after reading up on it's practices over the years. This article has cemented that decision. As a strong supporter of consumer and workers rights when a mega corporation is so blatantly saying fuck yourself it would be pretty sad not to. Sure I'll lose a load of games but fuck it. Other things are more Important.
I think that's the point here. Somebody said "Valve isn't adding anything" at this point, and this stance was shouted down.
Nobody said they NEVER added anything. They've added a TON. But how about right now? Agreed; 2017 Valve is not 2005 Valve.