The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[Spectacle]

Info wasn't from Reddit, but Valve time which learned of Valve's interest in movies, music, and games through entries in Steam DB. If they decide to not go with a streaming service client add on, then they would have to acquire content on their own and meet with the different holders which means they have to pay a fee aka don't expect anything like from HBO Go.

Streaming media licensing usually means paying the license holder a large percentage of your income from that media rather than a set fee, so it would be almost impossible for Valve to pay more in license fees than they earn from the service, unless they do something retarded like a free ad-supported service, underpricing it as a loss-leader or something equally pointless.

 

[Metro]

Valve has money coming out of their anus. Never mind that's it's owned by a Microsoft billionaire who could probably fund it personally for the rest of his life; they have huge profit margins with their 20-30% cuts of digital sales for very little work. They also have a fairly small staff compared to their revenue. That's why they can afford to branch out to crazy areas and sink money on dumb shit like a Steam controller.

 

[Ninjerk]

Valve has money coming out of their anus. Never mind that's it's owned by a Microsoft billionaire who could probably fund it personally for the rest of his life; they have huge profit margins with their 20-30% cuts of digital sales for very little work. They also have a fairly small staff compared to their revenue. That's why they can afford to branch out to crazy areas and sink money on dumb shit like a Steam controller.

Nevermind the ridiculous fucking community market. They take a cut out of every transaction.

 

[OSK]

Yes. This means more streaming media available for Linux.

 

[tuluse]

Yes. This means more streaming media available for Linux.

With pipelight there shouldn't be anything you can't get.

 

[Morgoth]

This been discussed aready?
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2cv5os/so_the_workshop_tools_isnt_just_a_modding/
http://blog.dota2.com/2014/08/dota-2-workshop-tools/

Valve is gonna port DOTA 2 to the Source 2 engine... for science.

The new Hammer doesn't seem to have any map or entity limit, people have been experimenting. One guy even imported an entire 3d model of Paris into Hammer and it took it willingly, needed a bit of tweaking to get the textures working, but it didn't crash or reject it.

Compile times are also much much faster than the previous iteration too, taking mere seconds for the normal DoTA 2 sized map to a minute or 2 for much larger maps.

Valve will also be present at Gamescom.

 

[Destroid]

So I guess they'll be joining the fray against UE4 and Unity for all that indie money.

 

[Ninjerk]

This been discussed aready?
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2cv5os/so_the_workshop_tools_isnt_just_a_modding/
http://blog.dota2.com/2014/08/dota-2-workshop-tools/

Valve is gonna port DOTA 2 to the Source 2 engine... for science.

The new Hammer doesn't seem to have any map or entity limit, people have been experimenting. One guy even imported an entire 3d model of Paris into Hammer and it took it willingly, needed a bit of tweaking to get the textures working, but it didn't crash or reject it.

Compile times are also much much faster than the previous iteration too, taking mere seconds for the normal DoTA 2 sized map to a minute or 2 for much larger maps.

Valve will also be present at Gamescom.

I hadn't heard about the Paris bit. Modders in the dota2 subreddit have been toying with third-person cameras a la Smite amongst other things.

 

[Baron Dupek]

New engine without game? Game that's FPS, big one?
If that don't wake up people and say "fuck you and stop bothering us with HL3" then nothing can.

 

[Dr Tomo]

Info wasn't from Reddit, but Valve time which learned of Valve's interest in movies, music, and games through entries in Steam DB. If they decide to not go with a streaming service client add on, then they would have to acquire content on their own and meet with the different holders which means they have to pay a fee aka don't expect anything like from HBO Go.

Streaming media licensing usually means paying the license holder a large percentage of your income from that media rather than a set fee, so it would be almost impossible for Valve to pay more in license fees than they earn from the service, unless they do something retarded like a free ad-supported service, underpricing it as a loss-leader or something equally pointless.

Hence why I would expect them to pick up older shows for a flat fee and the newer ones to draw in people to use the service. To be honest not sure what Valve is going to do as this already sounds like fail in my opinion but we will see.

Valve has money coming out of their anus. Never mind that's it's owned by a Microsoft billionaire who could probably fund it personally for the rest of his life; they have huge profit margins with their 20-30% cuts of digital sales for very little work. They also have a fairly small staff compared to their revenue. That's why they can afford to branch out to crazy areas and sink money on dumb shit like a Steam controller.

Going to have to explain the MS billionaire as I am not aware of it, I was under the impression it was Gabe and few others owning the company. As for the profit margins they make 25% flat fee of the price charged from what I read and their staff is about the size of amount of developers working on the recent AC series for Ubisoft which is spread out on different project. This is a problem as from what I understood on how Valve is structured that it is run in the same manner of Crytek.

The only difference is that they make constant revenue and unlike Crytek they can release another sequel and get a massive cash infusion. There was a discussion which I wished I had bookmarked that has comparisons to another publisher/studio (think 3D Realms?) in which they kept hemorrhaging cash on ill fated projects and the company was forced to take out loans that exacerbated the situation which lead to insolvency. Granted this would only remotely happen if GoG can actually be a viable competitor which is still up in the air.

 

[Infinitron]

The term is "Microsoft Millionaire" (of course, millions went a bit further back then, but still). I believe Gabe Newell became a billionaire only in the past few years.

 

[Metro]

So picky. Anyway, of all the major publishers/developers/whatever; Valve is probably the most solvent of them all with the sole exception being Acti-Blizz with all their WoW money. If anything they are poised to wrestle the gamer market away from Windows with Steam OS.

...and their staff is about the size of amount of developers working on the recent AC series for Ubisoft which is spread out on different project.

And that's one game with a revenue stream/budget several orders of magnitude lower than what Valve takes in a year.

 

[Morgoth]

New Steam Store overhaul coming.
http://steamdb.info/blog/48/

 

[OSK]

With pipelight there shouldn't be anything you can't get.

I'll check it out. I haven't been able to get Amazon Prime to work with Flash, and I ended up giving up on it. Regardless, it'd still be nice if this stuff worked natively.

 

[Dr Tomo]

Gabe himself is the Microsoft billionaire he's talking about, he was one of the main guys behind some of the biggest Windows up until W95 IIRC.

Yea I was under the impression he was a millionaire and recently turned billionaire as Infinitron said like around 2011.

I'm not following this thread that close but seriously, anyone speculating about any kind of financial turmoil in Valve is just way out of their mind. What the hell? Are talking about the same Valve here? The guys that get a share out of every single store and market transaction that is made on the main digital distribution platform today? Hell I'd put my money on Sony and Nintendo closing their doors before Valve does it

Well no one is claiming that Valve is facing insolvency right now (I should have been more clear), just that they might face issues in the future not sure why people are taking it in a way that they will be gone by end of the year. It took 14 years for Ballmer to run MS into the ground so it isn't going to happen overnight.

The term is "Microsoft Millionaire" (of course, millions went a bit further back then, but still). I believe Gabe Newell became a billionaire only in the past few years.

Thank you. I was thinking he was a multi millionaire until recently.

So picky. Anyway, of all the major publishers/developers/whatever; Valve is probably the most solvent of them all with the sole exception being Acti-Blizz with all their WoW money.

Right now yes, just like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Square Enix, and etc. MS was also still looking strong until Ballmer started making bad decisions on where he wanted to expand and in particular pushing the "gaming division" of MS hard.

If anything they are poised to wrestle the gamer market away from Windows with Steam OS.

I am a bit skeptical on that, but who knows? Right now Satya Nadella is trying to unscrew all the mistakes Ballmer made over the last 14 years.

*edit

This been discussed aready?
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2cv5os/so_the_workshop_tools_isnt_just_a_modding/
http://blog.dota2.com/2014/08/dota-2-workshop-tools/

Valve is gonna port DOTA 2 to the Source 2 engine... for science.

The new Hammer doesn't seem to have any map or entity limit, people have been experimenting. One guy even imported an entire 3d model of Paris into Hammer and it took it willingly, needed a bit of tweaking to get the textures working, but it didn't crash or reject it.

Compile times are also much much faster than the previous iteration too, taking mere seconds for the normal DoTA 2 sized map to a minute or 2 for much larger maps.

Valve will also be present at Gamescom.

Going to have to look into this.

 

[Metro]

Don't be hating on the Ballmer -- he just paid $2 billion for a mediocre NBA team.

 

[Dexter]

Well no one is claiming that Valve is facing insolvency right now (I should have been more clear), just that they might face issues in the future not sure why people are taking it in a way that they will be gone by end of the year. It took 14 years for Ballmer to run MS into the ground so it isn't going to happen overnight.

There is literally no way for them to go bankrupt operating the way they do right now short of force majeure. They are making free money by delivering the software that others make and taking their cut.

It doesn't cost them anything to add film, series or music, it can only make them more free money by delivering content that others make and taking their cut.

They've deliberately stayed out of the costly and risky hardware market, letting desperate PC OEMs take all their risk. Even with VR they don't seem to want to produce their own hardware, but are backing Oculus in what they are doing with resources and manpower (and some of their employees).

 

[Turjan]

I'm burnt out on shitty indie games. I rarely buy bundles these days as most of the games in them I find myself getting tired of after thirty minutes. There's 400+ games in my Steam library but I'm so bored I'm thinking of going back and playing Risen 1.

I'm in the same boat. Ironically, my Steam game count continues to go up with all those keys from those shitty indie games coming in in a constant stream. And I'm just playing old games these days.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Dr Tomo, as much as we may dislike the direction Microsoft took under Ballmer, in financial terms the company is as healthy as ever. Sure, the devices and entertainment division breaks even at best, but that's more than offset by the money they make from their enterprise offerings.

 

[Dr Tomo]

Don't be hating on the Ballmer -- he just paid $2 billion for a mediocre NBA team.

Well I no longer can hate him, MS fired his dumbass and actually put the Satya in and now the stock is doing better then what it was for over the last 10 years. Now if we can see the Xbox unit spun off then MS will be going good (not going to happen under Satya).

It doesn't cost them anything to add film, series or music, it can only make them more free money by delivering content that others make and taking their cut.

They've deliberately stayed out of the costly and risky hardware market, letting desperate PC OEMs take all their risk. Even with VR they don't seem to want to produce their own hardware, but are backing Oculus in what they are doing with resources and manpower (and some of their employees).

Well we don't know if they are selling individual units or they are going into the streaming business because either one is a likely road I think streaming is more likely as Spectacle said. I would be surprised if Steam sells individual movies/music and price gut them like they do with games as the Amazon/Hachette's dispute would show that many people aren't on board with lower prices to tap into all consumers. Amazon is already trying to do this as we speak with e-books, movies, and etc for both physical and digital goods, right now focusing on e-books as they have a lot of leverage as Amazon is too big to tell fuck off.

Well they would have no need to be honest, since they already came up with a console like OS (haven't really fully explored the OS only read impressions when it first came out) and VR seemed like too big of a sink so it would seem a no brainer and let FB dump their money into it like idiots. Like I said, I question what they are doing when it comes to being basically a Xbox and Ballmers goals which was being the #1 entertainment box.

Dr Tomo, as much as we may dislike the direction Microsoft took under Ballmer, in financial terms the company is as healthy as ever. Sure, the devices and entertainment division breaks even at best, but that's more than offset by the money they make from their enterprise offerings.

Yes, I agree that the company is much healthier then ever since they ousted Ballmer as Satya is shutting down things that was a waste of resources and now will focus the company specifically enterprise and Xbox entertainment for now. Their enterprise unit allowed Ballmer to pursue dumb ideas like Windows 8 and their push for mobile/MSN. I did think the entertainment division did break even before like with the original and 360, but I am under the impression now is the not the case with Xbone as their financials makes it immensely difficult to see how much cash they sunk into the unit.

I never dislike, I am just critical of some of the decisions that were made by them just like I am with Steam. Still doesn't stop me from giving my Jew gold for Win 9 if it doesn't suck dick or purchase games off Steam since I honestly think this messiah of GoG Galaxy is a joke, unless someone would explain how it is going to be better then Steam which already offers developers a lot and users as well.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Dr Tomo, as much as we may dislike the direction Microsoft took under Ballmer, in financial terms the company is as healthy as ever. Sure, the devices and entertainment division breaks even at best, but that's more than offset by the money they make from their enterprise offerings.

Yes, I agree that the company is much healthier then ever since they ousted Ballmer as Satya is shutting down things that was a waste of resources and now will focus the company specifically enterprise and Xbox entertainment for now. Their enterprise unit allowed Ballmer to pursue dumb ideas like Windows 8 and their push for mobile/MSN. I did think the entertainment division did break even before like with the original and 360, but I am under the impression now is the not the case with Xbone as their financials makes it immensely difficult to see how much cash they sunk into the unit.

I never dislike, I am just critical of some of the decisions that were made by them just like I am with Steam. Still doesn't stop me from giving my Jew gold for Win 9 if it doesn't suck dick or purchase games off Steam since I honestly think this messiah of GoG Galaxy is a joke, unless someone would explain how it is going to be better then Steam which already offers developers a lot and users as well.

Your post gave the impression that Microsoft was somehow in dire straits because of Ballmer, which simply isn't true. At worst, his forays into gaming and mobile with Xbox, Nokia, Windows Phone, etc. had broken even when taken together. Of course, this is a failure from the perspective of shareholders, who are only interested in growth, so Ballmer eventually had to go to, if only to silence the fears of Apple and Google encroaching upon Microsoft's core business.

Microsoft isn't going to go out of business because of a console failing, just like Valve isn't going to because of this or other licensing deal. If anything, out of all these companies, Nintendo and Sony are the most likely suspects for such an exit. Nintendo because they simply don't have anything other than their consoles and handhelds, and Sony because they're in dire financial straits in general.

 

[Dr Tomo]

Dr Tomo, as much as we may dislike the direction Microsoft took under Ballmer, in financial terms the company is as healthy as ever. Sure, the devices and entertainment division breaks even at best, but that's more than offset by the money they make from their enterprise offerings.

Yes, I agree that the company is much healthier then ever since they ousted Ballmer as Satya is shutting down things that was a waste of resources and now will focus the company specifically enterprise and Xbox entertainment for now. Their enterprise unit allowed Ballmer to pursue dumb ideas like Windows 8 and their push for mobile/MSN. I did think the entertainment division did break even before like with the original and 360, but I am under the impression now is the not the case with Xbone as their financials makes it immensely difficult to see how much cash they sunk into the unit.

I never dislike, I am just critical of some of the decisions that were made by them just like I am with Steam. Still doesn't stop me from giving my Jew gold for Win 9 if it doesn't suck dick or purchase games off Steam since I honestly think this messiah of GoG Galaxy is a joke, unless someone would explain how it is going to be better then Steam which already offers developers a lot and users as well.

Your post gave the impression that Microsoft was somehow in dire straits because of Ballmer, which simply isn't true. At worst, his forays into gaming and mobile with Xbox, Nokia, Windows Phone, etc. had broken even when taken together. Of course, this is a failure from the perspective of shareholders, who are only interested in growth, so Ballmer eventually had to go to, if only to silence the fears of Apple and Google encroaching upon Microsoft's core business.

Microsoft isn't going to go out of business because of a console failing, just like Valve isn't going to because of this or other licensing deal. If anything, out of all these companies, Nintendo and Sony are the most likely suspects for such an exit. Nintendo because they simply don't have anything other than their consoles and handhelds, and Sony because they're in dire financial straits in general.

No, MS would have been if they waited a couple more years to let Ballmer go as this year I think is when there are more players entering into the enterprise market so MS got real lucky to quickly focus more resources to keep their competitive advantage. MS will never go out of business as they make major amounts of cash from their enterprise market and a smaller portion from their OS sales, it really comes down to making bad decision after bad decision and it seems like Steam is doing that in my perspective as I think they could have focused more in other directions.

MS is a huge company and so it would be a bit silly to think the console business failing (recent imo) is going to bring a multi-billion dollar corporation down. Valve doesn't have as much lee way, but we will see how they do on their entertainment foray. As for Nintendo/Sony going down don't count on it, both of them will be zombie companies if they face insolvency I can guarantee that as Japanese bad habits die hard.

 

[Infinitron]

So, what do you think of the new UI, folks?

 

[Konjad]

What new UI?

 

[RK47]

pr. fine.
as long they retain the black - professional look, the better it fits on my work desktop.
Shine on Gabe.
All is right in the world.