Support NeoGAF

[SomeNorseGuy]

Article:

Financial Times: Valve conquered PC gaming. What comes next? Peering inside one of the tech world's strangest companies

Source: https://www.ft.com/content/f4a13716-838a-43da-853b-7c31ac17192c

An interesting, if long, up to date overview of current day Valve. Nothing groundbreaking but competently written.

A few tidbits:

There aren't many places quite like Valve Corporation, with its bizarre corporate structure, revenue-per-head figures that would make Silicon Valley or Wall Street giants hot and bothered, a product that seems to basically print money, and a seldom-seen leader deified in some corners of the internet — all without ever taking outside investment.

Valve has even managed to find some success in the notoriously tricky hardware market. Its handheld console — which looks roughly like a military-grade Nintendo Switch — has sold "multiple millions", the company claimed in late 2023, with market research firm IDC estimating it hit 6mn sales by early this year. But its financial engine, powering almost all its other achievements, is Steam. For a generation of gamers, Steam needs no introduction — such is its dominance. But for those blissfully unaware, Steam is a storefront, distribution service and social media network for PC gamers that launched in 2003. And it basically prints money.

Steam's concurrent player figures hit a record high earlier this year following double-digit annual growth, prompting Goodbody analyst Patrick O'Donnell to tell clients that Steam "now owns the PC distribution channel" — if it didn't already — with "significant advantages" in engagement against its rivals. Based on Steam users' language choices, much of the growth comes from China. Advisory firm Ampere Analysis estimates that Steam had 170mn global active monthly users in May, up from 153mn the year before. Remarkably, average concurrent users are about three times the number who are actually playing games.

Much more info, insights, graphs and references to analytical data in the article.

 

[analog_future]

The beauty of Valve not being publicly traded is that nothing has to come next. They can just continue to lean on their very successful and sustainable business model that pleases both staff/executives and customers. They don't have to worry about being forced into some greedy, ridiculous, unsustainable "endless growth" model.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Next up: a true competitor to OnlyFans.

 

[Naz93]

Hopefully releasing HL3

 

[Syphon Filter]

Steam is drm, they sort of ruined pc gaming.

 

[Topher]

The beauty of Valve not being publicly traded is that nothing has to come next. They can just continue to lean on their very successful and sustainable business model that pleases both staff/executives and customers. Not have to be forced into some greedy, ridiculous endless unsustainable "growth" model.

Yep. Hopefully Valve remains a privately own company. Lots of freedom not having to answer to stockholders

Steam is drm, they sort of saved pc gaming.

ftfy

 

[SomeNorseGuy]

The beauty of Valve not being publicly traded is that nothing has to come next. They can just continue to lean on their very successful and sustainable business model that pleases both staff/executives and customers. Not have to be forced into some greedy, ridiculous endless unsustainable "growth" model.

Yep. Hopefully Valve remains a privately own company. Lots of freedom not having to answer to stockholders

They truly are the joker/wild card of the tech-industry deck. Let's hope Gabe has some 4-D contingency plans to keep the company independent in case he needs to retire.

...or just achieve immortality.

 

[Topher]

They truly are the joker/wild card of the tech-industry deck. Let's hope Gabe has some 4-D contingency plans to keep the company independent in case he needs to retire.

...or just achieve immortality.

Yeah, he's not going to keep doing this forever. Anything can happen in a post-Game Valve. Someone said his son is involved with the company so maybe he will take over at some point and keep it going like it is.

 

[SomeNorseGuy]

Yeah, he's not going to keep doing this forever. Anything can happen in a post-Game Valve. Someone said his son is involved with the company so maybe he will take over at some point and keep it going like it is.

Whoever takes over the mantle needs to be cut of the same cloth as him, so his son should hopefully be a good choice.

 

[IFireflyl]

Next up: a true competitor to OnlyFans.

Oh yeah, Gabe. You're all sweaty at that keyboard... Code for me, daddy.

Sorry, autocorrect. I was trying to say, "Ew."

 

[Skifi28]

The next long-term goal is being able to count to three.

 

[SneakersSO]

Valve is poised to turn SteamOS into something that basically upends the WindowsOS gaming paradigm overnight.

 

[reinking]

Steam is drm, they sort of ruined pc gaming.

We lost this fight back in the mid 2000's. In retrospect, glad we did. The PC market could be in much worse hands...

 

[clappedcheeks]

I think Valve and steam OS are the best thing for PC gaming, especially if they can get the anticheat side of things sorted. MS are not good for gaming and the sooner they are replaced as the default PC gaming OS the better. MS should just stick to the corporate shit they've managed to monopolise all these years. Windows is shit for gaming and they have been coasting on the fact it's the defacto OS for years.

 

[Topher]

We lost this fight back in the mid 2000's. In retrospect, glad we did. The PC market could be in much worse hands...

Exactly. If not for Valve, then it would be some other corporation. DRM was going to happen regardless, but Valve has been the best thing that ever happened to PC gaming, imo.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I'm not a big PC gamer, but Steam is awesome. I just do Steam and GOG. I dont bother with CD keys or any of those resellers even though I know they can be cheaper. But the kinds of games I like buying (often indie card and board games or weird strategy games, those reseller sites might not even have any special keys that are cheaper. Its' the same price as Steam).

I bounce back and forth between Steam/GOG and pick the one with the lowest price.

And amazingly Steam is still sometimes cheaper. Being so dominant you'd think they edge up the prices, but Gabe keeps prices low.

 

[SomeNorseGuy]

Valve is poised to turn SteamOS into something that basically upends the WindowsOS gaming paradigm overnight.

It does feel like we're almost on the brink of this reality. But seeing how free-form their development structure and focus is, it's anyone's guess what comes next.

I do really hope it's all hands in deck to realise SteamOS's potential.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Mods hosting
Right in the library games page next to DLC.

 

[SamuraiEdge]

The beauty of Valve not being publicly traded is that nothing has to come next. They can just continue to lean on their very successful and sustainable business model that pleases both staff/executives and customers. They don't have to worry about being forced into some greedy, ridiculous, unsustainable "endless growth" model.

Yup, Valve has avoided some of the fuckery we see today by being privately owned with great talent.

They are literally the face of defacto PC gaming and nothing will ever top it it's the best place for gaming for me personally after all these years.

 

[Hudo]

What should come next: Make Steam better (there is still a lot of work that can be done there), focus on Linux even more. Make Half-Life 3.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Will be hilarious after losing the console war Microsoft will start losing on the PC gaming front. I am sure the "improved Windows" they keep hyping for Xbox handheld will be exactly the same POS as always.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

The beauty of Valve not being publicly traded is that nothing has to come next. They can just continue to lean on their very successful and sustainable business model that pleases both staff/executives and customers. They don't have to worry about being forced into some greedy, ridiculous, unsustainable "endless growth" model.

That's really all that needs to be said. Shareholders just ruin companies in certain industries. Unfortunately, they don't give these businesses a quick and nice death. Instead, it's painful and slow. Quality of output degenerates slowly, squeezing out the most money possible in the process. Long time customers don't see what's happening for quite some time, same as the employees.

 

[LazyParrot]

The fact that simply giving your customers what they want is considered such an unusual business model that it'll get your company labeled "strange" really shows how utterly fucked the business world has become.

 

[Wildebeest]

Valve isn't an especially well run company but it is privately owned so it isn't absolutely terribly run, deliberately making the worst move at every step, like publicly traded tech companies

 

[Sentenza]

We lost this fight back in the mid 2000's. In retrospect, glad we did. The PC market could be in much worse hands...

His claim is bullshit even considering the "humble beginnings".
Because even in its early days Steam didn't exactly invented or popularised DRM.
On the contrary it basically REPLACED some of the most annoying ones that were getting traction on the PC space at the time.

 

[Wildebeest]

His claim is bullshit even considering the "humble beginnings".
Because even in its early days Steam didn't exactly invented or popularised DRM.
On the contrary it basically REPLACED some of the most annoying ones that were getting traction on the PC space at the time.

The point of Steam DRM was to crack down on cyber cafes who were using ancient Half Life key gens to run Counter Strike for free. Valve has never had any ethical problem hosting games that have way worse DRM than anything that existed when Steam released.

 

[Kumomeme]

Financial Times: Valve conquered PC gaming. What comes next? Peering inside one of the tech world's strangest companies

microsoft reading this statement :

 

[Jesb]

Start making games again.

 

[Sentenza]

The point of Steam DRM was to crack down on cyber cafes who were using ancient Half Life key gens to run Counter Strike for free. Valve has never had any ethical problem hosting games that have way worse DRM than anything that existed when Steam released.

That's fucking irrelevant and the result remains the same.

Steam factually marked the decline and disappearance of several invasive DRM solutions like Starforce and all the other "disc checkers".

Not to mention that it replaced a lot of worse bloatware like the infamous and often forgotten Sierra (in)Utilities.

 

[Dr.D00p]

Wow.

A newspaper article on PC Gaming that reads as if the author actually knows what they're talking about.

 

[Wildebeest]

That's fucking irrelevant and the result remains the same.

Steam factually marked the decline and disappearance of several invasive DRM solutions like Starforce and all the other "disc checkers".

Not to mention that it replaced a lot of worse bloatware like the infamous and often forgotten Sierra (in)Utilities.

Yes the disk checks go but the rootkit level system access DRM and Anti-Cheat stays the same even if Valve themselves don't implement it in their games or provide it.

 

[calico]

It was the deep knowledge -and pray God we have not lost it- that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of DRM for liberation and the use of DRM for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

 

[Durin]

That's fucking irrelevant and the result remains the same.

Steam factually marked the decline and disappearance of several invasive DRM solutions like Starforce and all the other "disc checkers".

Not to mention that it replaced a lot of worse bloatware like the infamous and often forgotten Sierra (in)Utilities.

FACTS! I remember the 2000s with stuff like SecureROM, and DRM with finite installs (even if I'm reinstalling on the same PC with a fresh OS) of games where if you pass the allotted amount "FU, buy the game again". We still have annoying DRM that is kernal-level, but many devs will just opt for the basic SteamOS stuff that is fairly unobtrusive.

I just want more devs after a game hits 5 years of sales to just release all DRM or go on GoG.

What's next for Valve is to improve Proton for Linux, make it work with Arm-based chips...then they can go conquer MacOS, Android and/or iOS gaming.

 

[Shockwave_Fox]

I want to see and hear more on SteamOS as someone on the precipice of jumping into PC gaming and not wanting anything to do with windows.

 

[Ziglax]

My only wish is Valve to go all out on a gaming OS, and leave Windows and Microsoft forever for personal use.

 

[Paasei]

No DRM is still better than any DRM. Everything else about Steam is great, but if there's GoG version, I know what I'm going for.

Maybe get a proper OS going with full hardware and software support so idiots like myself don't have to run games on specific plugin versions and the likes.

 

[Astray]

Wow.

A newspaper article on PC Gaming that reads as if the author actually knows what they're talking about.

Alphaville is an excellent blog and frequently publishes fun and very well-researched investigations and analysis.

 

[winjer]

The funny thing is that Valve didn't even do anything, asides from treating their costumers right and watch every other company screw up.
Microsoft screwed up big time with GFWL. And now, Windows 11, the Microsoft store and the Xbox apps are almost as bad.
Ubisoft and EA's launcher and stores are prices of crap.
The only reason why people use the Epic launcher is because of Fortnite and free games. But their launcher is barebones.
2K is now using rootkits in their PC games.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Valve is poised to turn SteamOS into something that basically upends the WindowsOS gaming paradigm overnight.

Which explains why we've seen such a rapid decline of Xbox and, in turn, a rapid focus on Windows.

Priorities for Microsoft have almost changed overnight.

With iOS and Android growing their share of "home computing", a move of PC gamers to SteamOS would be devestating.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Will be hilarious after losing the console war Microsoft will start losing on the PC gaming front. I am sure the "improved Windows" they keep hyping for Xbox handheld will be exactly the same POS as always.

Microsoft has absolutely 0 chance if they ever go on war with Valve. Valve is a beloved company that consumers fully trust. Microsoft is, well, very much not that.

 

[StereoVsn]

Yeah, he's not going to keep doing this forever. Anything can happen in a post-Game Valve. Someone said his son is involved with the company so maybe he will take over at some point and keep it going like it is.

We can only hope that is correct. If some Wall Street MBA becomes CEO and takes Valve public, enshitification will rapidly occur.

 

[Parazels]

You are never a top league platform holder without a console. No doubt it's Valve's sweet dream.

 

[simpatico]

"Next"

Infinite growth brain rot.

 

[Topher]

You are never a top league platform holder without a console.

I'd say Valve has proved that isn't true.

 

[Wonko_C]

With the Asus Rog Xbox Ally thing having the ability to play Steam games (it's a Windows PC after all), rumor has started that Microsoft is going to buy Steam. I know with Gabe Newell around this doesn't hold water, but what about when Gabe isn't around anymore? Could Valve's next head honcho let themselves get bought by Microsoft? Or can there be measures put in place for this to be avoided?

 

[Parazels]

I'd say Valve has proved that isn't true.

Top status of the console market is an axiom.
It doesn't need proofs.

 

[IDKFA]

I want to see and hear more on SteamOS as someone on the precipice of jumping into PC gaming and not wanting anything to do with windows.

What are the benefits to SteamOS over Windows?

With Windows, I can do a lot more than play games. I can run office applications, do some Python coding, browse the net, pull up Porn hub, play music on Spotify, etc. Can SteamOS do the above?

Serious question as well.

 

[Topher]

Top status of the console market is an axiom.
It doesn't need proofs.

Steam as a platform doesn't need a console to boost its status. That may be an "axiom" for console gamers but it means diddly to PC gamers.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Top status of the console market is an axiom.
It doesn't need proofs.

Tencent makes more money from games than Sony, MS, and Nintendo.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

You are never a top league platform holder without a console. No doubt it's Valve's sweet dream.

They have the software platform, but to suggest they could go toe to toe globally with Sony and Nintendo in terms of hardware is ludicrous.