this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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[–] RunJun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 200 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Made large contributions to Linux gaming compatibility

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 98 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Also platformed independent game developers.

[–] rainwall@piefed.social 41 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Monopolized a market by offer good services to both end users and buisness clients.

Lets not forget the evil though : helped set the 30% cut for apps/games that became the standard across all digital spaces, arguably started online gambling and microtranactions in gaming.

[–] flamiera@kbin.melroy.org 29 points 2 days ago (3 children)

The very first instance of microtransaction began with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. You know the one, the horse armor for $2.50. That was in 2006.

Team Fortress 2 didn't come out until 2007.

Online Gambling has been a thing for quite a while beforehand. You can't entirely blame Valve, here. Inspired? Perhaps, but it took them quite a time to even start giving in.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yep.

This is, at least initially, Todd's fucking fault, and I am never going to forget, nor forgive that.

I can still remember seeing that pop up on Steam and being baffled, thinking it was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen.

Then, within a few years, as I'm getting a degree in Econ, (during the GFC, lol) I realized....oh no... this is going to become the new paradigm for funding game dev, making money off of games, and that there need to be proactive pushes and discussions now to figure out how to manage and regulate this before it gets out of hand.

Unfortunately, most gamers are fucking idiots, so that discussion did not even start at a wider scale untill the paradigm was well established, and I had the same idiots who 5 to 10 years prior were telling me 'methinks the lady doth protest too much', well, now they're just telling me 'pff, bro, what are you gonna do about it? just shut up'.

Ross Scott from Stop Killing Games had been saying the kind of stuff he'd been saying about games preservation and DRM bullshit for a solid decade before he got any large amount of attention.

I know because I'd been following him since even before his Mind Of Freeman days, back when he was basically just making skits in either GMod from before Gmod was sold for money, or he was just basically writing his own HL2 mods eseentially, to set up and block out and film the skits.

People just fundamentally do not seem to understand that preventing an egg from falling off of a table is much easier than unbreaking an egg.

See also: Climate change, current US tariff policy.

[–] imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 2 days ago

Just a side note:

TF2, released in 2007, hasn't had lootboxes till 2010. Valve was not even the first game to have them.

spoilerFIFA was 1 year ahead, but not the first one either.

Also, TF2's lootboxes are not the same as Dota2 and CSGO/CS2. TF2 weapons have an actual change of gameplay to them while Dota/CS has just skins. Not to mention, you can get all weps in TF2 by just playing the game.

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

I agree with your sentiment, but you're wrong.

Horse armor was nowhere close to the first microtransaction. Maple Story released in 2003 and is widely considered to be the first videogame with micro transactions. You could make a strong argument that arcade games were the origin of micro transactions even.

Part of what made the horse armor so egregious was that it was for a full-priced game. And it's also worth pointing out that Microsoft was involved in that mess too. They had purchased times exclusivity for Oblivion on Windows and Xbox. An unnamed Microsoft executive allegedly went to Todd Howard and compared the pricing to things like Xbox system themes or iPhone ringtones, when at the time a 30s crappy quality version of your favorite song might cost $5.

Gambling has existed for thousands of years. I don't blame Valve. I don't really play their FtP games much, but my understanding is that the micro transactions are mostly cosmetic and not pay-to-win. There were times in my life when FtP games were a great boon and I had the discipline to not buy micro transactions, but today I prefer games that are just one purchase. Still, just because I don't like FtP games doesn't mean they shouldn't exist or that I hate Valve for having some.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Online gambling existed well before Steam.

How did they start microtransactions?

[–] okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Selling loot boxes, where you pay 2-3 currency units to "unlock" a box that definitely won't have something of value the vast majority of the time. TF2 cosmetics, CS:GO gun/knife/glove/player model skins

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[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is what you can accomplish when you don't have shareholders forcing you to be an idiot.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Private companies are perfectly capable of self sabotage through growth drivers without shareholders unfortunately...

Execs chasing bonuses and chasing w/e 3rd party "consultancy groups" say they need to do.

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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 days ago

... They're like the opposite of doing nothing.

MSFT in particular has been essentially utterly out manuevered by Valve and their developements.

Its... its actually rumored (by Moore's Law Is Dead) that the specific weird custom chip the Steam Machine is using...

... was originally going to be used in something like like a planned Surface Super Duper Pro tablet.

But MSFT cancelled it.

After AMD had already made a bunch of the chips.

... And... then Valve comes along, figures out how to build a PC/Console out of MSFT's abandoned scraps, which also functionally hammers the final nail into the coffin of Xbox as an actual hardware device.

Valve beat MSFT at large segments of literally their own game.

Proton and Vulkan, both largely funded by Valve, flipped the fucking game table into another dimension, but MSFT did not notice untill it was beyond too late.

... Thinking with portals, you might say.

[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 31 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Fostering developers to go ham on windows to Linux comparability and now the same for X86/64 to ARM is much more than nothing. Valve have actually been the ones doing the most to pave the way for theirs and anyone who follows' future.

I'm not too jazzed about their virtual monopoly but that's sadly because they've just been working for consumers in more ways than the others. They're not the best at everything like GOG trumps then when it comes to actual ownership but it's sum of all of their parts that puts them head and shoulders above the rest.

They've done so much that they've paved the way for non gamers to be able to switch over to Linux much easier (I wouldn't say it's all on them but they've helped foster cross compatible development on Linux in general). I don't think you could say the others have done as much to affect the space outside of gaming as valve either. Except Microsoft, but their decisions have been much more controversial.

I hate to see myself glazing valve as much as I have here but it is what it is. I'll criticise them when the context allows and praise them like this in other times.

[–] Xenny@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Stop giving credence to valve being a monopoly. That's tech bro propaganda. They are literally not a monopoly. There is multiple digital storefronts for PC gaming. There is options. There is choice. Do not further the narrative and get fucking valve antitrusted for no goddamn reason other than Microsoft wants them dead.

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[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 46 points 2 days ago (12 children)

look, im very grateful for valve employee’s work on proton (& other technologies), and i recognize that out of the major gaming companies, valve is one of the least bad…

but they’re still a corporation. they’re still unethical. they popularized gambling mechanics and they basically have a monopoly on PC gaming distribution.

don’t worship companies. they don’t care about you. need i remind you, in the late 2000s/early 2010s, nintendo was the good guy. just making good games and innovating, while everyone else was busy making yearly slop, day one DLCs, paid online, microtransactions, broken games on release… and now, look at them.

[–] IronBird@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

what were you smoking? nintendo has never been the good guy...they successfully patented the "digital representation of water" back in the day

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

sorry, i should’ve said "was seen as the good guys". nintendo’s been doing shitty stuff since at least the 80s

but that wasn’t the popular narrative back in the 2000s/2010s! just like valve now, people were more than willing to gloss over their shitty stuff because everyone else was worse. people worshipped iwata & reggie just like people worship gabe newell now.

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[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Valve is worker-run and largely worker owned, it's literally 350 people who just work on whatever they think is a good idea

They're technically a corporation, but also an amazing argument for collective ownership

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[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 91 points 3 days ago (1 children)

>made their own linux distro

>develop Proton and Lepton

>all that in Valve-Time™

>Windows gave up

[–] witty_username@feddit.nl 32 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Microsoft practically handed it to Valve. Microsoft wanted gamers off the PC and on to the xbox so they ignored the PC platform they were already dominant on. This gave free reign to Valve. One of the biggest mistakes in PC history if you ask me.

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yeah. I wanted to play Midtown Madness 3, after loving and modding the first two. But it was Xbox exclusive. I refused to save up for one, or ask for one as a gift. I was eventually gifted one, with MM3, and it is the only game I have for the Xbox.

When Halo 2 for Vista dropped, and they tried to force players to Live Gold bullshit for voice chat, but we were all using Xfire. Eat shit, I'm not paying $10 a month to do something I can for free that my friends all have already. And I wouldn't play another Halo title until the MCC dropped on steam - fuck locked down hardware and arbitrary limitations on the software and os. And they want money for that shit? Lmfao.

My deep... 'loathing'? For the dumbass decisions ms made regarding gaming for windows from 00 to 16, arguably longer. With ms driven by greed, and most folded for the games and series they loved... but I'm an absolute pain in the ass, never forget, never forgive kinda guy. I have a couple series of ms titles I like and buy, but they can fuck off with trying to get another red cent from me. Their slow sinking into stagnation and failure is... closure, for all the debates and arguments about how fucking stupid it is to pay for the ability to play with others, after already buying their box, and after already paying for internet. And then they can kill the servers at any time, and nobody seems to bat at eye. Yet I have games that are 20+ years old that I can run a server for and boom, me and friends can play. No money, no limitations, no bullshit.

They fucked themselves. I'm just watching the ship sink. 🍿

[–] Rhoeri@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Remember when we all loved Google?? No? How about Firefox? Or maybe some of you might remember when Elon was our real-world Tony Stark?

Yeah. So…. There are two types of tech companies:

Those that suck, and those that have yet to reveal how they suck.

[–] frigge@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

well valve does the whole gambling for children shit so they aren't exactly saints. They are just the least shitty. Also it helps that they are still private so they don't have to answer to investors. But still, the whole skin trading, steam market stuff isn't great

[–] Rhoeri@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Just wait. They’ll get so much worse.

[–] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 82 points 3 days ago (11 children)

Valve could've legitimately done nothing and still be winning in comparison to the big three, but instead they've slowly and steadily been helping the gaming community to give Windows the middle finger by making huge contributions to Linux gaming.

Honestly, its downright shameful how many companies have forgotten that a good way to make money from customers is simply to treat them nicely while they're buying your goods.

[–] ttyybb@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago

Valve's big business strategy seems to be just wait for your competition to shoot themselves in the foot

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Playstation isn't lazy. They happily shoot themselves in the foot every other week. For every 1 good thing Sony does with the brand, they do 3 or 4 fucked up things.

[–] flamiera@kbin.melroy.org 34 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It's going to be a very, very interesting series of events once Gabe passes away.

Enjoy him while we're able.

[–] GaryGhost@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That scares me. I've been a huge steam fan boy since it was in beta. Lots of nostalgia. When the OGs pass away and valve is sold off to Amazon.. the end

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[–] ragas@lemmy.ml 40 points 3 days ago (8 children)

Actually the trigger for Valve to build a focus on Linux was that Microsoft was planning to lock down Windows so that only apps from the Microsoft Store could be installed. If Microsoft woul have went through with that, it would have killed Steam.

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[–] angband@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Look, failing at selling video games people want to buy, is like failing at selling porn, or running a casino full of machines that tabulate a set amount of winnings before giving back a predetermined amount.

Doing nothing is sometimes the smartest way to make money.

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But what if I want to confirm I am rich for being smart and thinking out the box instead of having rich parents and exploiting people like half of those poors think I am?

[–] angband@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well they apparently have people you can pay to whisper such in your ear.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

Remember, you are mortal.

[–] Zoabrown@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

They ship one thing every decade and it somehow changes the whole industry.

[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Valve was responsible for creating the gambling mania in gaming. Remember that!

[–] commander@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Fifa ultimate team. Magic the Gathering cards. Both older

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[–] yyyesss@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago (3 children)

i guess i'm the only one excited as hell to buy a steam machine.

[–] imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I am not gonna buy it. But fuck man, I am exited as hell for what is going to happen with PC gaming and OSes. I feel that thanks to Valve we going to finally break MS' iron grip on OS market.

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[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

A few years ago? I would have said "oh that's near for laypeople, but I am better off building my own PC".

With the prices of GPU's, RAM, and SSD's.... The Steam Machine might legit be a better value than building it myself.

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[–] commander@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Other companies running game stores/platforms must think like this which is why their stores end up competing with a 2008 Steam. Does nothing is incredibly incorrect

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