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[Topher]

NeoGAF is an echo chamber where the majority agrees that Sony makes the best products since sliced bread.

You see what you want to see then. In your very next post you are assuming folks who are not favorable towards Valve are Sony fans. Probably should look into those folks a bit more or just cut out the silly tribalism altogether.

 

[grvg]

I found this last night. Gaben talks about economics and valves origin story. Not for everyone, but extremely interesting if this kinda stuff floats your boat.

 

[MayauMiao]

If Sony makes their PC store a seamless expansion of their console PSN, it will be bigger than Steam.

 

[Sorcerer]

If Sony wants to bring their store in PC, they will do it. If Valve wants to bring their store to PlayStation, they can't because Sony doesn't allows them to do so. Sony has the monopoly of game sales in PS, Steam doesn't have it in PC.

Steam isn't a monopoly, because anybody can create their own gaming store in PC, there are dozens. League or Legends and the other Riot games, Fortnite and the other Epic games, Roblox, the chinese, lus CD Projekt/EA/Ubi/MS/etc stores. There's a ton outside Steam. I mean, Roblox even happens to haev more players than Steam.

If Sony makes their PC store a seamless expansion of their console PSN, it will be bigger than Steam.


The difference is that Valve mostly just runs a store. The other two make consoles and have a ton of game development teams


No, the popularity of PS/home consoles and PC is very different per country. Same goes with top game genres and even if less different, there's a notable difference in age ranges and gender distribution.

They are pretty different markets with pretty different behavior. Not just in how big GaaS percentually are in each place.

If Sony makes their PC store a seamless expansion of their console PSN, it will be bigger than Steam.

How so?

They will only divide the fanbase they already have. They might not lose anyone, but they won't gain anyone either most likely. The console players might migrate to PC but at the risk of not needing the console aspect any longer. PC players probably never cared about the console anyway, but certain games might appeal to them, but they are pretty much getting the best Sony has to offer eventually now anyway.

 

[ReasonBeing]

ok so it is okay to console war about steambox rumoured price but if I reply with a quote from a reliable leaker like Kepler on the rumored price of Magnus its wrong? You fanboys are something else.

SMH, you are still doing it. What am I a fanboy of?

 

[yurinka]

If Sony makes their PC store a seamless expansion of their console PSN, it will be bigger than Steam.

How so?

They will only divide the fanbase they already have. They might not lose anyone, but they won't gain anyone either most likely. The console players might migrate to PC but at the risk of not needing the console aspect any longer. PC players probably never cared about the console anyway, but certain games might appeal to them, but they are pretty much getting the best Sony has to offer eventually now anyway.

Console PSN already has MAU yearly peaks of 129M, growing every year, partly thanks to the new users they already are adding from PC.

If the PC PSN would be a seamless expansion of the console PSN (meaning same user, crossbuy, crossplay, shared trophies/friendlist/cloud saves etc and same games than in PS6, but pretty likely just a small portion of the PS4 and PS5 ones) they would add to their existing console PSN MAU the new MAU they'd put on top from PC PSN.

Which would mean that day one would have somewhat similar MAU than Steam, wouldn't start from zero. The PC+consoles PSN would compete against the PC+'consoles' Steam.

If PC games have crossbuy with PS in PC PSN but not in Steam, means many users who now buy on Steam and PS would move from Steam to PSN to avoid having to buy the game twice. And would make PC players more appealing to get a PS because they'd be building a PS catalog by buying games on PC PSN, so if later they buy a PS they already would have their catalog there.

That would mean that the current influx of PC players who get PS consoles would become bigger than the current one that is helping PS reach its all time biggest active userbase.

That also would mean that if PS players want to play their PS games on a portable wouldn't need to buy a Switch 2 and buy these games again: getting a PC handheld they'd already have their PS6/PC PSN catalog there. Meaning, a potential seamless consoles+PC PSN would also steal a bit of Nintendo market share, not only Steam one.

 

[Gamer79]

Wow. Steam is by far the best game platform.

 

[Liopleurodon]

They gonna make HL3 when they run out of money.

 

[DeVeAn]

LMAO, We taking a break from Xbox to shame Valve. Welcome!

 

[Insane Metal]

Damn this is fucking epic.

 

[Gamer79]

Its called a cult. People probably laundering money through sales of cosmetics.

There are cults everywhere or at the least cult like think

Sony ponies
Xbots
Nintendo dorks
Apple crazies
Nike bots

Etc etc

 

[BlackTron]

Jesus Christ some of y'all lmao. So salty with Valve, and for what? About a speculated price? At least wait until things are confirmed to get in a tizzy, lmao.

This is like their only opening to get pissy at Valve beyond constantly reminding everyone that it's DRM.

It's all that they have, there is never bad news. Not long ago, there wasn't even a Steam Machine to get upset over. Let them have some crumbs.

I don't know what the price will be, but even if it's $1k, which is a terrible deal, I find the sarcastic comments about Gabe's yacht uncalled for. The implication is he owes you something. If you don't like the price you can use a different PC. Gabe gets his yacht no matter what. The company made 17bn, get over it...

 

[Topher]

LMAO, We taking a break from Xbox to shame Valve. Welcome!

You would think Valve was the one laying off thousands. Apparently not hiring thousands is the same thing in this bizarre thread.

 

[BlackTron]

Yes and the biggest sign of respect they showed and still do these days is not going public.

It's going to be a shitshow when Gabe kicks it. We should all be rooting for the most stress-free luxury life he can get for the sake of our Steam clients.

 

[Senua]

You would think Valve was the one laying off thousands. Apparently not hiring thousands is the same thing in this bizarre thread.

Some people hate success of things they don't understand/enjoy

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

So let's fuck our loyal customers and charge the $750+ for a 5 years old specs PC

 

[_Ex_]

The vibes that bitter haters like @DR3AM , _Ex_ , @Crunchbox , @EverydayBeast brings into this thread:

There's a reason valve has this popularity.

Theres no denying that it is thanks to them being first on pc to have their own store.
Because people were there day one, they have their entire library on Steam.
Plenty of other stores have tried to compete, and they have all failed.

Epic Games have even tried to use their Fortnite money to gain customers by giving out new games, and 99 percent of people who uses the epic Games store are using the launcher to launch Fortnite, and to log in and claim free games every Thursday.

The main reason gog can compete with Steam is because they cater to different markets.
Steam is where you go to play modern games, and gog are for old games, or Indies. At least that is my preference, and I feel like I see the pattern of plenty of other people does as well.

Ubisoft and EA had their own stores for years after pulling their franchises from Steam, and after many years they now brought them back, because they just sell alot better on steam.

Microsoft always had a horrendous store on pc which is crazy since it's their own OS.
The only reason it's being used on pc is because of game Pass and play anywhere titles.

There's a huge player base that completely ignores big games if they don't arrive on steam. Alan Wake 2 allegedly suffered alot from being an epic exclusive.

Steamcel cope

 

[Kokoloko85]

No, your loyal customers are not idiots and can make decisions for themselves. If they don't like the offer, they don't need to buy it.

Funny how 10 minutes after PS5 Pro came out the whole internet decided customers cant make their own decisions to that purchase….
I wonder if those same people will act the same

 

[Karim]

50M revenue per employee is insane. Sounds like the employees are making bank too.

I ....really don't understand what exactly is it positive about that. I think have to pay more employers is better than pay more a lot less people and I'm not that sure is so ethic to celebrate as it was a good thing make work less people possible; or at least that's what I perceive reading behind the lines of such message. But imo eh, maybe I'm too much idealistic or rethoric.

 

[Topher]

Some people hate success of things they don't understand/enjoy

If anything this highlights the lack of effort from the competition in the PC space. Valve keeps making Steam better and better for their community while the others are mostly standing still.

 

[TheKratos]

Power of webshop monopoly

 

[jshackles]

You would think Valve was the one laying off thousands. Apparently not hiring thousands is the same thing in this bizarre thread.

People here are also not understanding that a lot of the things Valve does, these projects don't scale well vertically. If Valve hired 1,000 software engineers to work on the Steam client, do you think it would get better? Or worse?

There's a reason why Microsoft probably has a large team of people working on the new Windows game frontend, and it's still shit. Or that Epic hired a bunch of people to work on their client (which still sucks) and I believe fired most of them working on it because it just wasn't producing the financial results they wanted, and it was "good enough". How many people at Ubisoft work on their launcher? (hint, it's more than the number of total employees Valve has).

And the Steam client is just one example. They've got a small team doing hardware design that can probably outmaneuver a large operation like ASUS. The Steam storefront keeps getting new features (wide pages and the personal calendar have both been shipped in the last month) while, again, their competition stagnates.

I mentioned before: Valve hires a lot of contractors, outsourced labor, etc. These 336 people are essentially just the ones innovating and directing these outside agencies and talent. I assure you that more than 336 people are benefiting financially from Steam's revenue streams. Calm down comrades.

 

[Topher]

People here are also not understanding that a lot of the things Valve does, these projects don't scale well vertically. If Valve hired 1,000 software engineers to work on the Steam client, do you think it would get better? Or worse?

There's a reason why Microsoft probably has a large team of people working on the new Windows game frontend, and it's still shit. Or that Epic hired a bunch of people to work on their client (which still sucks) and I believe fired most of them working on it because it just wasn't producing the financial results they wanted, and it was "good enough". How many people at Ubisoft work on their launcher? (hint, it's more than the number of total employees Valve has).

And the Steam client is just one example. They've got a small team doing hardware design that can probably outmaneuver a large operation like ASUS. The Steam storefront keeps getting new features (wide pages and the personal calendar have both been shipped in the last month) while, again, their competition stagnates.

I mentioned before: Valve hires a lot of contractors, outsourced labor, etc. These 336 people are essentially just the ones innovating and directing these outside agencies and talent. I assure you that more than 336 people are benefiting financially from Steam's revenue streams. Calm down comrades.

Excellent points. Same vibes as "game was made by five guys" and then you see a couple hundred names in the credits. The other thing is if Gabe Newell really wanted to be even richer than he is then he would go public with Valve. Clearly he doesn't want Valve to be a massive corporation but he wants his regular permanent employees to be paid well to keep turnover low. Bottom line is he has created an incredibly successful private business and loyal following based entirely on making a superior product. Folks who don't like it will just have to get over it, I guess

 

[Walliwallipaloo]

They're updating the Steam main, SteamDeck specific improvements, SteamOS, working on 3 new product launches, plus the backend required for all that which includes Steam Input (rivalled only by the subscription based ReWASD) and of course everything behind Proton that has single handedly made an entire OS viable.

Then you add in the stuff that I'm not interested in like their GAAS, plus whatever they're working on outside of the public eye like HL3.

That's a lot for a company that does fuck all

1) No they really aren't. Not in any meaningful way. Which is kind of the point I was making. There are stupid issues from a decade ago, not to mention the inconveniences they do on purpose. I mean, it's stupid that cloud saves force themselves on whenever you go offline. That's not an esoteric bug. That's retarded. But here we are, years later with no fix for an obvious problem - or even acknowledgement that it exists. Their store is full of bloat and just sucks to use... but they've got brand loyalty and no real desire to address any of that.
2) The Steam Deck is kinda just... there? I mean, it's okay, I guess. The only thing for them to do is to maintain their "Verified" program, which itself is hit or miss. I mean, I'd bet cash money System Shock Enhanced Edition is still Verified, even though it doesn't work at all.
3) SteamOS is cool. Anything that rains on Microsoft's parade makes me happy. +1.
4) I have nothing negative to say about their new hardware because it hasn't released yet. But I'm not sure what's going on with the Steam Machine Part Deux. I'm not sure who it's for. The price, when they announce that, will clarify this I'm certain.
5) Steam Input is pretty great. +2.

Alright, I don't need to go over every single thing, because by now I mostly agree. Sure. There's some W's there. But for such an influential company, with so many resources at hand, this activity list remains extremely small. That itself doesn't bother me, but what does bother me is the extreme laziness they display in regards to their flagship product, Steam.

But even that doesn't truly bother me anymore, because I don't buy from them anymore. If a game doesn't release on GOG, I'm not interested. I'm not going to purchase anything I can't play without the internet.

The other thing is if Gabe Newell really wanted to be even richer than he is then he would go public with Valve.

lol, no. Taking a successful private company public is how you kill said company. That would be corporate suicide. Honestly, I wish GabeN and Steam all the best. I'd hate to watch the thousandth company go public and then get kicked in the balls until it died a pointless death.

 

[Topher]

lol, no. Taking a successful private company public is how you kill said company. That would be corporate suicide. Honestly, I wish GabeN and Steam all the best. I'd hate to watch the thousandth company go public and then get kicked in the balls until it died a pointless death.

Not sure what you are disagreeing with as that is exactly my point. That would ruin Valve, but Gabe Newell would just add to his billions and exit, leaving CEOs to suck up to stockholders.

 

[Walliwallipaloo]

Not sure what you are disagreeing with as that is exactly my point. That would ruin Valve, but Gabe Newell would just add to his billions and exit, leaving CEOs to suck up to stockholders.

I didn't see it from that particular angle. Damn. That would be so evil, though.

 

[BlackTron]

I ....really don't understand what exactly is it positive about that. I think have to pay more employers is better than pay more a lot less people and I'm not that sure is so ethic to celebrate as it was a good thing make work less people possible; or at least that's what I perceive reading behind the lines of such message. But imo eh, maybe I'm too much idealistic or rethoric.

What's positive about it is efficiency. They don't have to pay them more; they can. Employees are hired and retained by need, not by dividing profits by how many more you can afford.

Don't water down the machine by spamming employees you don't need because morals. They just stand to get in the way. It's bad for your company.

As it is, I get the impression a number of their people are veterans who spend time tinkering with ideas with no strong time table until/unless they take shape without a huge amount of pressure. But if they put themselves under pressure spamming employees and office space, they could no longer do that.

 

[XERXES_89]

Sony PC store cant come soon enough