I don’t recall suggesting Valve getting a free pass, nor downplaying the CS skin market being an issue. What I’m saying is Valve at least turns that money to some good, unlike its contemporaries in the veiled gambling space.

Not wrong, but there are more worthy targets to go after first. Ones that have treated their customers far, far worse than Valve.

Agreed, though NY should be going after everyone involved in ‘Surprise Mechanics’, not just Valve.

That’s not true! They’re good at enshittifying lots of things!

modern terribly rottenly not optimised AAA games.

People like getting their money’s worth out of their hobbies? Never would have guessed.

Hopefully other companies losing money will be what the consumer market needs to get some of the big money on-side and kicking ass.

Four times. I’ve seen a listing marked as sold with a price of $400

Of all the people to suggest such a thing, Zelnick is an interesting one considering how well the statement transfers.

Link to the same extension for anyone running a Chromium-based browser: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/steamdb/kdbmhfkmnlmbkgbabkdealhhbfhlmmon

It’s a really good extension, but I’m also not going to complain if Valve wants to implement that sort of information directly either. More easily-accessible data to aid an informed purchase is never a bad thing.

“This ‘chart’ is just a flat line”

Well of course not, there can’t be players for a game that hasn’t been released after 12 years.

Should be a very final ruling.

But more importantly, is anyone other than the AI bubble going to be able to buy any of it?

Improvise. The CEOs don’t hesitate when deciding how to fuck us next.

Because fuck you, I want those extra pennies for my next yacht, that’s why - almost every CEO and investor on the planet, probably.

Because that makes frequent 20% alright? “Oh, everything else is going up in price so they might as well do it too.” Fuck off with their lame excuses. You’re only fighting against yourself.

Which they aren’t going to succeed in doing when they keep raising the price too.

I’m starting to think Sony is too dense to make money at this point.

You’re conflating. While I don’t disagree that Valve is soaking up money, and when it fleet-of-yachts money, it’s just as sickening as when any-and-everyone else does it. Where there’s a difference is in the ‘How’. While I have my problems with Steam, generally speaking, they offer a good service. They provide servers and bandwidth while selling games far cheaper than their closest competitors, by one means or another.

There’s also how they’re using that money as a company. Right now, I can think of three different lawsuits Valve is involved in just off the top of my head, all of which are fighting to worsen the hobby for gamers and Valve is opposing. Obviously, it’s in Valve’s interest as a game’s marketplace to keep gamers throwing money at them, but the ‘Why’ matters a lot less in this circumstance that the ‘What’. Even if it’s not the express purpose, Valve is the only company I know of that’s putting in any amount of effort to defend consumer rights in the gaming space. Everyone else with money comparable to what Valve has are too busy trying to exploit the market or diminish Valve’s share while providing nothing as close to as good as Steam.

News that has come out since your comment involving Valve includes an agreement with Facepunch Studios to make Source 2 available to public without any licensing fee under the name of s&box. While it’s obviously in Valve’s interest to increase the possible amount of games that will be sold on their platform, and Facepunch have done a significant amount of heavy lifting in making Source 2 both available and useful to the masses, that’s still Valve doing their part to make the gaming community a better place and provide an alternative to the (in some people’s opinions) over-used Unreal and (horribly untrustworthy) Unity.

As Zorque has said before me, Valve aren’t angles, but I truly believe Valve is bringing a net positive to the market, unlike any other company with comparable bank balances.

Not that odd. Valve doesn’t have mass layoffs because they don’t over-hire. Beyond that, it’s salt in the wound towards Sweeney’s inability to compete.

Seems they have a tendency of leaving important details for the last minute.

Opera were nice enough to port spyware to Linux? How sweet of them.

Hmmm… Wonder why…

Fair enough. I also assumed the worst of your ambiguous wording, this being the internet and all.

They really are desperate to get rid of Steam, huh?

Your problem with me is that I value free speech? An interesting hill to die on.

Corpos engaging in shady behaviour? Never would have seen that coming.

That game was AAAAwful

Yeah, it all smells of them never having cared about the players in the first place.

Same can be said for any entertainment media in a way. Tiktok (for those people) YT or even films. They’re all ways to spend one’s time, even if they aren’t direct competitors. For those who choose a balanced approached between all of them, there’s really only time left in a person’s day for one or two of these kinds of games, let alone their dwindling funds for everything else that is increasing in price.

I know, I’ve seen it. JM8 already said ages back on Windbreaker that the MMO market is only sustainable for a limited number of games. The amount of games that have flooded the market over the past half decade or so speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the market potential.

The pitiable coughs of the GaaS market slowly realising the audience doesn’t have time for 1500 ‘forever games’.

I don’t like all the Checkpoint Charlie bullshit and got fed up with the side content before the main story was over, but the world in Tsushima was so well made that I had a good time in it - far better than AC: Shadows (that I didn’t pay to play, for the record) - and the combat system was fun. Yotei has a character that isn’t forced into the peg hole of a samurai and has a greater selection of weapons so it looks like it’ll be a fun time.

“CEOs continue to ride the skills of others into oblivion while making a profit from doing nothing.”

This one actually bothers me because I was looking forward to Ghost of Yotei, but if Sony are still so allergic to making money, I guess I won’t give them any. Barely a handful of games from an entire generation is certainly not enough to make me buy an overpriced console.

“Scum company fires more people while pretending everything is okay”

The only acceptable option: don’t fucking bother.

Consider me old fashioned.

write the same sorts of things on game boxes

Don’t be ridiculous. You’re describing criminal property damage. Of course that’s neither okay, nor the same.

I’m sorry you feel the need to be dramatic about this issue, but Steam have provided adequate tools for the userbase to handle the problem, in my eyes.