Thus, they can afford to set themselves apart from the likes of Apple and tell their customers to have fun.
Pessimistically, I imagine that if their hardware business boomed exponentially, their support costs would rise and the hardware designers would be pressured to reduce PEBKAC risks...
Unlike most companies we discuss here, Valve is not publicly held, and doesn’t seem particularly interested in being so. That, combined with their dominance of the PC gaming market, means their culture is more free to let them target things orthogonal to making money, when the whim strikes them.
The public aim to make as much money as possible or at least increase valuation. The private however can be content with making enough of it. Which can really change the long term plans.
Also being public company and not increase enough valuation always runs the risk of being acquired and someone else doing it.
Speaking of which, there’s a lot of negative sentiment around these parts for Apple and Google taking 30% of their stores (“rent seeking”), but not so much around Valve for doing the same. Possibly because HN skews more towards app developers who pay fees to the former and less towards game developers.
That alone makes a huge difference and is nothing that either Apple or Google offer.
As an existing Steam user though, this is great for me! It means one less third party DRM platform I need installed.
And regarding DRM: People often forget that the use of DRM with Steam is in the hands of the Devs/Publisher. There are DRM-free games on steam. Now, how convenient it is to back up those games is another thing, but it’s often possible.
The PC remains an open platform, even MacOS to a degree (albeit apparently less so as of late...) and Valve have aggressively campaigned for it to stay that way. Competition there is possible.
I remember the debates from ~10 years ago around Microsoft's moves towards a more AppStore-like experience on Windows, where Valve really led the charge against it. The move towards SteamOS and Steam Machines seemed to be part of their reaction at the time. And it seems to pay off big-time now, not just for them but also for users, Linux users especially of course. :)
That said, negative sentiment about Steam has been a heavy subject in years past. There's a reason Epic came in swinging with super low fees.
The other part is that you have many actually useful alternative avenues to selling PC games. Yes, Steam is far and away #1, but lots of devs go direct to consumer themselves, and some use alternate stores like Epic, GOG, or Itch.
Having a mature linux support helps with that.
In the case of SteamDeck the lack of Microsoft tax also helps the price.
Its tool for doing that is consumer sentiment.
This all plays into Valve's business strategy. They're fighting to justify ye ole 30% cut.
That is the tool for basically doing anything productive as a business... it isn't as if they've done some about face at the emergence of genuine competition - they've always been unusually well liked (especially considering the industry).
And fortunately for Valve even 3 years after release Epic Games Store don't even have half of Steam features. Also Epic is so consumer-hostile (or as they call it pro-developer) that they won't ever implement player-reviews into their system.
So it's not that hard for Valve for keep their mindshare. Far larger danger for them is Microsoft with it's Xbox game subscription model and unlimited amount of money.
Meanwhile the large developers, the ones who are making $50M+, those developers have enough pull to make the user install a custom client like Origin. That’s why Valve cuts them a better deal.
Disclosure: I work at small indie PC gamedev studio.
I just point out how Valve changed rules for big companies back in 2018. So they have different revenue share compared to both Apple / Google and consoles.
However, there are many times more small indie titles than there are big successes, and it's the big titles that draw users to your platform and bring in the money.
If Valve flipped their model, those indie titles would be even more of a net drain on their profitability, while there would be more incentive for the big titles to release on their own platforms.
> Furthermore, please be aware that opening the outside enclosure of your Steam hardware will void a warranty you may otherwise enjoy (https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4577-TUJ...).
I'd say that significantly diminishes the good will statements like "you have every right to open up your Steam Deck and do what you want with it." buys them though.
Allowing you to make the choice between hacking or not seems like perfectly good will to me. You can't have your cake and eat it too, as they say.
I don't expect a warranty from that, but I very much do expect a warranty if I crack it open and don't break something while messing around.
Thankfully the actual warranty doesn't say it's voided by opening.
Some of the exclusions on there are worrying, though. Improper cleaning? Refurbs have no warranty? "Commercial use" is much too vague.
So yes, opening it up and improperly cleaning it (for example, you take a q-tip with rubbing alcohol to clean off some gunk and accidentally dislodge a capacitor) could void your warranty.
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[0] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2018/04/ftc-s...
My complaint is that the warranty page only talks about whether you caused the damage for the clause about opening it up or making modifications. The clause about warranty loss for cleaning "in any manner other than as specified in the Hardware manual" is unconditional.
But when the put a screw back too tight, which then a year later cracks the plastic support its screwed into, falls out, and shorts some terminals on the voltage regulator, and the whole thing goes up in smoke...
I’m sure that if people opening their devices, breaking them, and expecting warranty to cover it is such a big problem, then there is enough financial incentive to find an actual solution.
> you have every right to open up your Steam Deck and do what you want with it.
We already have this right for things we own, on exactly the same terms, which is it voids warranty.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/11748/warranty-stickers-are-ille...
"Any damage you do will not be covered by your warranty – but more importantly, you might break your Steam Deck, or even get hurt!"
My point is that you're probably better off being repulsed at someone else because in the scheme of things Valve really isn't that bad, IMHO.
I have no doubt that some people spend money they can’t afford to even in Dota 2/CS GO, but that feels more of a choice than other games.
You must be kidding. I mean at that point you'd hope some preservation instinct kicks in and you realize you are trading real dollars for a few bits on a server, and you go buy a chess set and play it down at the park.
It is amazing to me that people will just walk in with their pay check and leave drunk with pennies. Some serious neurochemistry going on there.
It also does not account for the presence of microtransactions influencing the design of the rest of the game towards selling more microtransactions which affects you even if you never buy anything. Granted, this could be considered as "payment" for a free game but once microtransactions/lootboxes/NFTs/whatever have or will become acceptable there, they spread to paid games too.
...which is a pretty fair business in my opinion.
And beyond that, the rest of the game is not being designed independently of microtransactions and that affects you even if you never buy any.
They certainly weren't on a blockchain though, or give the user exclusive ownership over them.
That being said... it was a lot of fun until I got frustrated with it! It's on the PC game pass.
The fact that they wrote this into the readme, even though strictly speaking it's unrelated to the outside topology, makes me wanna work for valve.
They're seriously one of only a few tech companies I really admire, and that's despite the fact that I don't have much inclination towards gaming.