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Valve makes almost $50 million per employee, raking in more cash per person than Google, Amazon, or Microsoft — gaming giant's 350 employees on track to generate $17 billion this year (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] 19 points 8 months ago (2 children)

This is the key point people are missing.

Valve arent paying for exclusives or anything, they are just delivering a far better product than anyone else. GOG has it's DRM-free market, but outside of that, there's nothing close. Even if Epic Games had feature parity, fuck that company.

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Amazon doesn't either. Most of the arguments defending Steam can easily apply to every other "bad" company.

    The only thing that differentiates steam is their marketing budget targeting small forums and Reddit.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I never mentioned Amazon, but it's really no comparison, even the FTC in the USA has filed suits against them for monopolistic and illegal behaviour.

    Ive never seen an advert for Steam myself, outside of on their own platform or a video on their own YouTube channel. They sell largely through word of mouth. I suppose recently they offered journalists to visit their HQ to show off their new hardware.

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  • [–] -4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

    Valve has lawsuits in the work, although not from the FTC. The fact is Valve is just slightly above the other companies, but it's a very low bar and that doesn't negate their very real effect on the industry.

    I bring up Amazon because your arguments apply to them. If I told you Bezos deserves all his wealth because he has a better platform then his competitors (all three of them) and offers an easy to use website with cheap delivery, you would probably call me a bootlicker.

    All billionaires and their profit making machines are bad, no exceptions imo.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Valve employees aren't pissing in bottles. Amazon also does a bunch of shitty things on their marketplace (Amazon basics) and killed all the competition.

    There's a huge difference in ethics here.

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  • [–] -3 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    There is a difference in the problematic being caused, not the ethics. The soft monopoly they all enjoy together as a group (Valve, Microsoft, etc) is having an effect on the industry. We as consumers get worst quality games in the end, because 30% of profits go directly to a few hosting companies. A lot of indie companies would still be around if the game store club wasn't insanely greedy and artificially keeping such a huge part of the pie.

    If it wasn't the same, Gaben wouldn't own a handful of boats worth a combined 1 000 000 000 $. That is 9 zeros for boats.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    A lot of indie companies would not exists if there wasn't a storefront like Steam that handles worldwide transactions, distributes the game and increases their discoverability.

    There are other options, such as itch.io.

    If you think Valve's cut should be lower, you're free to make your own marketplace and compete.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    You are arguing something different. We all agree billionaires shouldn't exist. You don't need to try to topic flip to try and let us know. This was simply a discussion about the term monopoly and it's definition.

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago*

    The conversation is longer then two comments. It's highly debatable if valve has a monopoly per the FTC definition, not being sued by them isn't the bar. You don't need to have 100% market share. You can have legal monopolies, but that wouldn't make the gross hoarding of wealth (which is the underlining thread) defendable.

    There is no doubt in my mind that they have, in common talk, a soft monopoly at minimum and are colluding and keeping the percentage taken high. If they were actually competing, he wouldn't be able to afford all the boats.

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