Valve/Steam made 4.3 billion in Revenue for 2017 as a launcher. Are they worthy?

No wonder everyone and their grandma wants their own PC launcher.

Bu bu bu that steam money.

Steam control configs is pretty great. It's probably the best new feature. Doesn't matter how bad a PC port is, I can have my game auto-set up to work on my pad or fight-stick without a fuss.

Even shit like Dotemu, the worst of the worst, that doesn't even allow button mapping works.

What does steam do?

Valve released a game like 3 months ago

Never heard of her

Actually portal 2 was last full SP game made by valve. But it was puzzle spin off to HL.

The last full fledged SP game they made in 2004 that was HL2. Its thier fault why dev are moving from steam. They abandoned us.

her is a film from 2013, but that's not important right now

@drlostrib: if you can't remember its name is it worth bringing up?

I appreciate what Valve has done for PC gaming as a whole, but they have a lot of game development talent that they have wasted for many years. They are supposedly working on more games now, but it definitely seems like greed took over.

Why didn't valve money hat metro exodus look at all this money they have they shoulda been like be exclusive on our platform heres a check or something

@BassMan: Valve aren't greedy. Just successful. They may not have made many original games themselves recently but have facilitated real invention with Greenlight, low publishing fees and soon, rented servers.

They are an asset. Just filthy, filthy rich.

If they were greedy they would have floated on the stock exchange years ago and be ruled over by faceless truly greedy shareholders and professional investors who do not care about games at all.

Well done Gabe. You have another pie. You earned it.

FYI. Portal was a student project and Valve just funded the completion of the concept into a full product.

i can remember the name

Don't care about steam, I don't use it on my PC. I just wish the continued with games.

They are a smart company and they know how to make money. However, they are also a private company that doesn't have to answer to shareholders or be driven purely by profits. It has gotten to the point where they have more money than they need (Gabe is worth around 4 Billion dollars) and what they are doing is just growing the pile. They are in a position where they can make any kind of game they can dream of. However, they choose not to make it because they are too focused on making more money. I call that greed. If they were truly super passionate about making games, we would be seeing the most amazing games from them. However, their priorities have changed. They can do what they like, but I would love to see them making industry leading games again that are driven by passion and not maximizing profits.

@BassMan: I have no loyalty to store fronts / launchers. I liked valve back when they made games, as far a valve/steam the store, I really dont get peoples loyalty to it. This really just surprised me with the backlash metro got for not using steam.

Its like people will litteraly boycott your game if Gabe doesnt get his bag first, what is this? some kind of nerd mafia, why is it such a requirement from pc gamers to pay gabe. Is it really worth it to not have to double click a different launcher.

I have no issue using different launchers either. There have been uproars and boycotts in the past with EA and others using their own stores. However, a high profile third party developer is now making their game a timed exclusive on a competing storefront that they are not running themselves. People are also upset there are no other resellers for Epic Store keys. They are setting the price with no competition from an open market. So, it makes it difficult to buy cheap keys for the game and you have to wait for an official sale on the Epic Store.

Personally, I think things will be just fine. Epic is making some moves for exclusivity deals and are shaking things up. Eventually, this will lead to competing stores offering more competitive splits between developer and distributor. Discord's new store has also offered the same split as Epic. It is only a matter of time before Steam adjusts their split. Then you will see things normalize and these exclusivity deals will not be the norm. Valve has been taking too big of a cut for too long and now power is shifting to developers. I think this will be a good thing in the end for both developers and gamers.

@BassMan: agree

They support the Linux platform, they have my vote and money.

Artiflop I think it was called.

Because metro needs steam more then steam metro.

This is something people have trouble comprehending. Success by default doesn't mean greed.

The amount of features Valve offer for free compared to paid, console services is positively embarrassing.

Greed is not necessary evil. Valve's focus has been to develop the Steam platform and investing in lucrative ventures as opposed to making great games. Heck, they even hired an economist before. Their desire for money and power is what drives them. It is no longer the passion for making great games. Valve is indeed greedy.

If you actually look at Valves history, even before the incarnation of Steam, they've spend years rebuilding and canceling games. Team Fortress 2 was in development when 56k was standard, and imagine some of you weren't even conceived.

This isn't something that suddenly came about when Valve created Steam. The only time they consistently released a quick sequel to a game was Left4dead 2, which ironically everyone accused them of selling out and becoming lazy lol

Generally speaking, i'd rather have that than Valve shitting crap out until the IP's value goes into the gutter.

Unrelated -

In the past, they focused on making great games. Now it is about Steam. They changed. They haven't made shit in forever and the games that they do focus on are about greedy bullshit micro-transactions. TF2, CS:GO, DOTA2, etc... They said that they are now making a few new games. I don't know if they are VR projects or what, but that is at least something positive.

Valve makes big money, with all that power doesn't censor games. Sony makes big money, censors all their games to high hell. Valve with that money doesn't make games cause service sells itself, Sony makes that money and all they do is make games so people will actually use it.

Basically anyone with power doesn't know how to use it, and every time someone thinks they have control over consumers they usually don't, cause the tighter they squeeze, the more power slips between their fingers.

All of these games are sitting with high reviews and great sales, with a ton of free post support content.

In fact i'm fairly certain Team Fortress 2 is the most freely supported FPS ever created.

I'd agree about random chance basically being gambling, and Valve helped push that, along with EA, their hands certainly are dirty in the respect.

With an underlying game asset market which they control and make many millions of dollars off of. Let's not sugar coat things.

There's nothing to sugar-coat, if you're a person who acquired these games you get free content with long term support.

The economy around it is optional with the only game having any direct effect Team Fortress 2, which went free2play, had support prior and is itself intrinsically a casual game.

Valve also rewarded the community, realizing rightly the community output far exceeds the actual developers they harnessed it. Alot of the content for TF2 is user created.

The problem here arise when it's something like Skyrim, where optional goes out the window.

What do they do? Wait until the heat has cooled down, move it off Steam where users have no input and pimp it to docile console gamers.

This is what Epic supports by the way. A controlled environment completely in favor of the Publisher/developers, because history has proven these are actually the good guys who only have your well being in mind lol

You know what else is free to play? League of Legends! Riot Games are greedy fucks that make billions of dollars off that shit. Same thing with World Of Tanks, Mobile games, etc... Those games are designed to exploit consumers and make money. Valve does the same shit. Post launch support used to be legit free back in the day with Quake, Unreal, etc.. Things have changed for the worse. It is all about greed.

I haven't played these so can't comment.

I've played Dota 2 though, all the purchasable stuff doesn't effect the gameplay and the game itself completely playable without dropping a dime. Same with CS:GO, although I haven't checked since it went free2play as I became burnt out many years back.

If you're talking about loot box/chance then I completely agree. It's a shitty practice. Valve were at the forefront of that, although EA was actually the originator.

The original argument of Valve changing an attitude of slow development process, is something that was there from a start. The main difference now is more of a focus towards multiplayer.

Which, even at the time back then made sense, alot of people were buying Halflife for Counterstrike. Even though Halflife is GOAT.

Cool, they deserve it. I'm a bbit disappointed they don't make any more games however they still indirectly supports it with their R&D.

They did actually release Artifact only a few months ago.

Dota 2 is still being supported as it grows as an esport.

World of Tanks is a little bit pay to win with 'gold' amm. You can use earned (free) silver to buy premium ammo too. But I regularly get top of the leaderboard in WoT and never use premium ammo.

I spent money on it but only because I was too dumb to figure out how to sell a bloody tank to free up a garage slot at first. I've put down £15 on it and just consider that tribute for all the fun I've had. I actually felt guilty for playing a f2p game because I thought it was so good. Such a good game. I love you Wargaming!

Also, do they still support the source engine? I prefer that engine to idtech and UT4 engine.

Valve are driving the industry and not milking it. They are stockpiling money for lean times which is what Nintendo do and is prudent in a volatile industry/business in general if you want to last leaner times.

Where is the money going? Lets make a shitty card game with tons of microtransactions that nobody asked for.

The Valve who made great games is gone. Thanks to the success of Steam it's just a company on autopilot with no passion for games left. If they still had that passion we'd have Half Life 3 by now. Still no decrease in 30% cut of sales. Valve got way too greedy.