- cross-posted to:
- pcgaming@lemmy.ca
- gaming@lemmy.zip
- technology@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- pcgaming@lemmy.ca
- gaming@lemmy.zip
- technology@lemmit.online
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boss makes
50 million dollars i make a dime thats why i 
have a 5 course meal in the bathroom on company time? idk whats x5000 better than taking a shit on company time tbhmediating a network/marketplace is very valueable
$50M per employee? Explains GabeN’s gamer yacht.
Is that enough money to make a non VR half life game yet?
Supposedly they’re going to announce one before the end of the year
They say efficient, all I hear is stolen value
Personally I think taking a 30 % cut from games sold on Steam is the reason, but their corporate structure is pretty cool too I guess
It’s not an unreasonable cut, the reason they’re successful is they provide such a good service that any time someone thinks “well I don’t wanna pay that 30% cut, I’ll just do it myself” they fail. That 30% is for all the million features that benefit both devs and players which nobody wants to build an alternative for.
Come on, I’m sure you understand that just because they provide a real service does not mean we can’t be critical of rent-extracting bullshit, and the failure of other attempts does not simply happen in a vacuum of perfect meritocracy but instead in the smothering shadow of a pre-existing monopoly.
I was doubtful of people complaining about g*mer communists becoming capitalist apologists when it’s their preferred monopolistic extraction operation, but people really do forget everything they know better than sometimes.
There’s a very important detail that is missing here, namely that Steam has a clause where you cannot list your game elsewhere for less than you list it on Steam. Many indie games are published to Itch.io and Steam, but Valve forces them to list both at the same price, meaning thay since most gamers use Steam they will automatically choose the version that invisibly only gives the devs 70% of the revenue. Sure Valve does have lots of nice features, but those features could be duplicated over time by one of Valve’s competitors. The problem is that to get a competing platform off of the ground, you need to entice people with lower prices since you can’t compete on features. Valve uses its monopoly status to make this impossible.
My understanding is that you cannot sell steam keys to your game at lower than steam prices (since they can’t/don’t take their cut from directly selling those keys). If you had a direct download from your website or from itch you’d be fine to sell that cheaper.
It’s been a little while since I’ve read in detail about this so I’m open to being wrong about it.
How is that not unreasonable? Your justification is literally just supply and demand.
The exact same justification an employer uses to exploit workers, your argument is “if game devs want better pay, why don’t they go set up their OWN company???”. Actual upbeared justification of technofeudalism.
Massively overcharging on commission, with anti-competitive practices, is kind of the definition of unreasonable in my books. Absolute HONKTONS of people - I’m amazed you emphasise ‘nobody’ in that sentence - want to build alternatives for it, but struggle because Steam has users locked in and deliberately have made it massively inconvenient to ever leave.
All the more reason to nationalize Valve and make it better for players and devs.
What does nationalizing an internationally-used online service mean? Genuine question
It becomes sole ownership of the DPRK, I assumed
These would be interesting challenges in a world where capitalism still exists in half of countries, and socialism exists in a variety of progressed stages, but,
I imagine the company is nationalised by the country it’s headquartered/mostly managed in. Nationals/Allied socialist states get free/subsidised service (ie commissions and purchases), everyone else pays as usual. Efficiency savings for the socialist nations is a net benefit anyway, with the bonus that capitalist states subsidise it, job done.
I hated steam when it first rolled out because I knew it was going to become a monopoly once they ironed out the kinks. Not only was I right it paved the way for a bunch of garbage imitators. Anyway as always the answer is socialism.
