Valve understands that they owe their success to the skill of their employees and knows how precious having such a solid team is. You can’t replace that with an expensive CEO or by throwing money at the problem later on. Valve has the best among the best and wants to keep them happy and working for them. They understand that they do best when they’re not subject to corporate micromanagement, pressure or threats of layoffs. The results speak for themselves.
Tim however did that classic business move of sacrificing everything for short term gain and on the long run they’ve completely ruined what used to make the company good.
Valve is also a privately owned company. They don’t need to make more money this quarter vs last quarter to keep shareholders happy, they can just be happy that they’re making a lot of money. That requirement to always become more profitable than before leads companies to enshitify products with anti-consumer “features” and cut costs (ie layoffs).
plus isn’t like pretty much everyone that works at Valve a millionaire? also some of the longest term employees at any game company ever?
Honestly Epic has been a shell of its former self ever since Cliffy B left. I used to love playing Unreal Tournament, 2k3 and 2k4. and thankfully now I can play UT2k4 again for free on linux. But Epic today is a completely different beast. a bad one at that. I mean hell their store front sucks so much that when people see what games they’re giving away for free they’d rather go on Steam and pay for the game than play it for free via the epic game store because it sucks that much. and then you have Sweeny whose finger has been so far from the collective pulse of the gaming industry for decades. He doesn’t get it, he’ll never get it. He thinks his shit don’t stink.
I think once they realised they could sell skins for the price of full games, they were like “fuck it”. I think the only reason this works still is that they have a critical mass of kids who have no way to compare and don’t realise how much they’re getting fucked over.
But as younger generations are more and more aware earlier on, their business model is, perhaps, flailing. But of course they want to apply a business solution to the problem.
My teenage nephew and I share a Gundam obsession. We also both love video games, just different kinds. He was very excited when one shooter or another had a Gundam crossover via skins. He was just waffling a bit since they cost real money. He eventually let slip that they were like $20-25 each. “But you can get them all for like $60, so it’s a better deal than just getting two.”
I was stunned. Dude, you can buy a whole game with that. Multiple games. “Yeahhhh…” You can get a couple HG model kits. Or an MG. “True… but they’re so cool!”
I don’t think he bought the skins. Although a few months later he was angrily reciting the general online discourse regarding Switch 2 game pricing despite not having any Nintendo hardware at all (which is par for the course). And not even two weeks later he’s over the moon about Doom Eternal… which he bought new… at $70… and finished in a week or so. “I can’t wait for the DLC!”
Presumably that nephew isn’t having to budget what to spend on, or maybe isn’t even really spending their own earned cash? Hard to know the value of money when you’ve never had to value it!
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Valve understands that they owe their success to the skill of their employees and knows how precious having such a solid team is. You can’t replace that with an expensive CEO or by throwing money at the problem later on. Valve has the best among the best and wants to keep them happy and working for them. They understand that they do best when they’re not subject to corporate micromanagement, pressure or threats of layoffs. The results speak for themselves.
Tim however did that classic business move of sacrificing everything for short term gain and on the long run they’ve completely ruined what used to make the company good.
Valve is also a privately owned company. They don’t need to make more money this quarter vs last quarter to keep shareholders happy, they can just be happy that they’re making a lot of money. That requirement to always become more profitable than before leads companies to enshitify products with anti-consumer “features” and cut costs (ie layoffs).
plus isn’t like pretty much everyone that works at Valve a millionaire? also some of the longest term employees at any game company ever?
Honestly Epic has been a shell of its former self ever since Cliffy B left. I used to love playing Unreal Tournament, 2k3 and 2k4. and thankfully now I can play UT2k4 again for free on linux. But Epic today is a completely different beast. a bad one at that. I mean hell their store front sucks so much that when people see what games they’re giving away for free they’d rather go on Steam and pay for the game than play it for free via the epic game store because it sucks that much. and then you have Sweeny whose finger has been so far from the collective pulse of the gaming industry for decades. He doesn’t get it, he’ll never get it. He thinks his shit don’t stink.
I think once they realised they could sell skins for the price of full games, they were like “fuck it”. I think the only reason this works still is that they have a critical mass of kids who have no way to compare and don’t realise how much they’re getting fucked over.
But as younger generations are more and more aware earlier on, their business model is, perhaps, flailing. But of course they want to apply a business solution to the problem.
My teenage nephew and I share a Gundam obsession. We also both love video games, just different kinds. He was very excited when one shooter or another had a Gundam crossover via skins. He was just waffling a bit since they cost real money. He eventually let slip that they were like $20-25 each. “But you can get them all for like $60, so it’s a better deal than just getting two.”
I was stunned. Dude, you can buy a whole game with that. Multiple games. “Yeahhhh…” You can get a couple HG model kits. Or an MG. “True… but they’re so cool!”
I don’t think he bought the skins. Although a few months later he was angrily reciting the general online discourse regarding Switch 2 game pricing despite not having any Nintendo hardware at all (which is par for the course). And not even two weeks later he’s over the moon about Doom Eternal… which he bought new… at $70… and finished in a week or so. “I can’t wait for the DLC!”
Sigh.
Presumably that nephew isn’t having to budget what to spend on, or maybe isn’t even really spending their own earned cash? Hard to know the value of money when you’ve never had to value it!