memes

Whilst I'm on the other side of the fence, I can very much understand this.
I figure this is the sort of market Valve are gearing towards, with the Steam Deck and soon the GabeCube.

Yeah, this and physical media collection are the biggest arguments for console ownership. But I do see this gap closing with designated operating systems for gaming hitting the market. Steam Deck and the new steam box are amplifying interest in this. I'm thinking eventually, other than Nintendo and their walled garden, the console landscape is going to shift to a more open ecosystem of prebuilt PC boxes marketed as plug-and-play, just as consoles. And the industry ruined physical media collection when they allowed game discs to just be an insertable download card. Point is, I think the wall for you and many other console players is shrinking, and quickly at that.

They are responsible for some of the worst practices in modern video games

Such as? They didn't invent micro transactions or DLC or DRM. They allow publishers to do that on their platform but do a better job than any other store at communicating those things to consumers.

not a consumer focused company

The reason Valve gets glazed is that they BALANCE the needs of their stakeholders better.

Microsoft has been laying off workers and increasing the price of their crappy hardware no one wants, trying to push Xbox Live so that consumers own nothing and just rent acces to games. They buy up studios and force them to make soulless games stuffed with micro transactions or just close them down. Even the famous horse armor debacle from Bethesda was because Microsoft pushed them to do it (the game was a timed exclusive for Windows and Xbox).

Nintendo insists on charging ridiculous amount for underpowered hardware, forcing their own proprietary cartridge formats that don't even have the game on it. Lockig. Their old library in a disney-like vault of either not publishing those old games, locking them behind a subscription, or charging ridiculous prices for ports to modern hardware. Refusing to publish on PC. To their credit, Nintendo seems to treat their employees well at least, with the executives taking significant pay cuts during the WiiU era in order to avoid layoffs or pay cuts for the rest of their employees.

Sony is... Mostly fine. They have had some layoffs, but nowhere near Xbox levels. Their hardware is expensive, but it's also the most capable (maybe some debate with the Series X but that's also more expensive)- they're just targeting a premium demographic and leaving the budget tier behind. Sony has been dominating hardware sales this generation simply by sucking less than the others. The biggest criticism is probably that all of their 1st party games are starting to feel the same: 3rd person over-the-shoulder cinematic experiences. It's also fair to criticize failed projects like PSVR2 I suppose, but I would say part of why that failed is that Sony didn't try to shove it down consumers throats and instead just made it available and let consumers tell them how much they want it (which was not much). In contrast to things like the Xbox Kinect or the WiiU Gamepad.

Epic games... I mean Tim Sweeney is just plain shitty. Their whole business model is to throw Fortnight money at everything and hope. Throw money at publishers for times exclusivity. Throw free games at consumers hoping they don't realize how terrible the platform is. Taking a lower cut of sales than Steam or physical retailers do is cool for the publishers, but that isn't enough to make me want to set up an account.

GOG is a fine niche. On paper I love the idea of changing the way games are sold so that people own games. Except you still don't. The publishers are still selling the exact same licenses they sell everywhere else. I can't copy or modify or re-sell my games, I can't leave them to my estate when I die, so I don't call that 'owning' my games. It's really hard to take them seriously when they don't support Linux too. Plus the launcher and the platform just don't have the features that Steam does.

In contrast... Searching for Valve layoffs on the internet I can only see that they laid off 13 people back in 2019. The Steam Store does a better job than any other of providing information for consumers to make informed decisions: what control options are available, what DRM and EULA's the publisher requires, what DLC and bundles are available, the use of AI in game creation, and a ton more. And as for price... You might occasionally find games cheaper elsewhere, but it's rare. Then the hardware... The Steam Deck is the best value anyone has put out since... Honestly I can't think of a better value in history. It's better than the PS2, the Wii, the GBA, everything else i can think of. The Valve Index was a competitive high-end VR system and the first steam controller has issues, but filled a specific niche and was a cult classic. The new hardware looks like it will be great, though of course we will need to see how it goes and what the prices are.

I would love it if Valve could stand up to payment processors to fight censorship, but I also understand they're over a barrel there. I would love it if Valve could convince publishers to get rid of DRM but that does not seem like a reasonable expectation (especially as long as people are willing to buy games with DRM anyways- I blame consumers for not caring more than I blame Valve). I might even be cool if Valve reduced their cut, but... Is that really what the games industry needs?

It's really bizarre to me how on Lemmy any time Valve does anything good there's a bunch of comments chastising people for "glazing" them or being "fanboys". Sometimes companies (especially ones that are not publicly traded) stumble into making decent decisions. There are still a few corporations that act like they are in mid-stage capitalism instead of late-stage capitalism. Costco would be another example in the grocery industry- I don't love them or everything they do, but they at least make some effort to balance the interest of ownership, employees, consumers, and suppliers so that they can sustain long-term business relationships instead of chasing quarterly profit increases.

If it doesn't, yo ho ☠️