Perhaps, but on the other side of that coin: Because valve doesn’t have legal obligations to make money snd increase shareholder value, they put a lot of money elsewhere. The products they create are awesome (literally the best launcher on PC, Tim Sweeney is probably upset because his is ass) and invest heavily in things better for gamers:
digital returns were huge when they first rolled out
(IMO) spearheading game streaming with steam in home streaming & the steam link
creating awesome games and not milking them for perpetual profit (other than maybe in game items but i don’t want to have this discussion)
investing heavily in alternative ways to play (steam machines, aforementioned steam link, VR/index, steam controller, steam deck)
legitimately spending money to make it possible to game on Linux, reducing gamers reliance on Microsoft/Windows
The Epic launcher could actually be so much better if they bothered to put any effort into it. Obviously they’re going to have fewer games and stuff but they could still make a decent launcher that isn’t so annoying to use and actually has additional features.
Part of the problem they have is that it’s actually difficult for game developers to put their games on both platforms so i’ve got to pick one and obviously i’m going to pick Steam.
Valve also allowed most of their employees to work on whatever they wanted for a decade, an initiative that produced almost nothing, and during that time they still made close to a million dollars per year per employee.
I’m not saying I’m unhappy with Valve being private or with Valve making enough money to give itself a nice cushion, but the scale of the money they’re making is absurd when independent game devs often still struggle to make money.
No it doesn’t. It leads to Valve wasting money enriching themselves to the tune of millions of dollars per employee per year while independent game developers making normal salaries continue to have to lay people off and be underfunded.
“… employing Linux developers and finally making actual cracks in the true monopoly of Windows.”
FTFY.
while independent game developers making normal salaries continue to have to lay people off and be underfunded.
Funny, it’s not the indies with the huge layoffs but the megacorps that have enough money to buy fucking Activision-Blizard-King and then shed crocodile tears about the hard economy.
“… employing Linux developers and finally making actual cracks in the true monopoly of Windows.”
Again, Valve has made close to a million dollars per employee per year. No they have not spent anywhere remotely close to that on Linux developers. You’re equating a trinket they tossed you in the last couple of years with the giant horde they robbed from developers.
Funny, it’s not the indies with the huge layoffs
It is, independent studios lay people off and have to close up shop all the time, on top of just not making that much money to begin with, they just don’t make headline news the way that big companies do.
It wasn’t their money to spend. Devs lost their jobs because Valve kept taking more than they needed.
Again, 1 Million dollars. Per Year. Per Employee. That means per every single Linux dev they employed, they still made a million dollars per employee.
That’s indefensible and it’s really weird to see lemmy get their dicks hard about excess greedy capitalism just cause this time it’s behind a service that they like. Facebook gave back a huge amount of open source projects but that doesn’t make up for the harm they’ve caused, even just the harm caused by them sucking up an inordinate amount of societal resources, and Facebook “only” makes ~$750k per employee per year.
Sure it is. That’s how a free market works. You are free to engage directly with indie developers on itch.io etc. It’s not your call to make what others do with their money. You don’t see me fuming with rage just because you spend your money on different games market places.
Perhaps, but on the other side of that coin: Because valve doesn’t have legal obligations to make money snd increase shareholder value, they put a lot of money elsewhere. The products they create are awesome (literally the best launcher on PC, Tim Sweeney is probably upset because his is ass) and invest heavily in things better for gamers:
The Epic launcher could actually be so much better if they bothered to put any effort into it. Obviously they’re going to have fewer games and stuff but they could still make a decent launcher that isn’t so annoying to use and actually has additional features.
Part of the problem they have is that it’s actually difficult for game developers to put their games on both platforms so i’ve got to pick one and obviously i’m going to pick Steam.
Valve also allowed most of their employees to work on whatever they wanted for a decade, an initiative that produced almost nothing, and during that time they still made close to a million dollars per year per employee.
I’m not saying I’m unhappy with Valve being private or with Valve making enough money to give itself a nice cushion, but the scale of the money they’re making is absurd when independent game devs often still struggle to make money.
Source on producing almost nothing for a decade because the employees had freedom of work projects?
Yeah, I’ve been with Steam since 2013 when they came to Linux, and Steam has gotten better every year since then. For example:
And so on. I don’t know which decade OP is talking about, but at least the last decade has been fantastic for me.
So 30% cut leads to employee well being? Great!
No it doesn’t. It leads to Valve wasting money enriching themselves to the tune of millions of dollars per employee per year while independent game developers making normal salaries continue to have to lay people off and be underfunded.
“… employing Linux developers and finally making actual cracks in the true monopoly of Windows.”
FTFY.
Funny, it’s not the indies with the huge layoffs but the megacorps that have enough money to buy fucking Activision-Blizard-King and then shed crocodile tears about the hard economy.
Again, Valve has made close to a million dollars per employee per year. No they have not spent anywhere remotely close to that on Linux developers. You’re equating a trinket they tossed you in the last couple of years with the giant horde they robbed from developers.
It is, independent studios lay people off and have to close up shop all the time, on top of just not making that much money to begin with, they just don’t make headline news the way that big companies do.
More than any other games company.
[citation needed]
Doesn’t affect me. Improved Linux technologies affect me. Improvements to widely used open source software is public service.
It wasn’t their money to spend. Devs lost their jobs because Valve kept taking more than they needed.
Again, 1 Million dollars. Per Year. Per Employee. That means per every single Linux dev they employed, they still made a million dollars per employee.
That’s indefensible and it’s really weird to see lemmy get their dicks hard about excess greedy capitalism just cause this time it’s behind a service that they like. Facebook gave back a huge amount of open source projects but that doesn’t make up for the harm they’ve caused, even just the harm caused by them sucking up an inordinate amount of societal resources, and Facebook “only” makes ~$750k per employee per year.
Sure it is. That’s how a free market works. You are free to engage directly with indie developers on itch.io etc. It’s not your call to make what others do with their money. You don’t see me fuming with rage just because you spend your money on different games market places.