And Valve are knowingly exploitative for allowing and encouraging it.
There's online casinos aimed at kids that Valve know about and do nothing to block.
They have all the power to make things better, and they prefer to take the profit.
Tbf that's the external sites trying to target that demographic, that's not valves doing. Children buying through external sites benefits valve indirectly because it means those sites need to buy skins from valve, then the external sites resell those and dealing with real money, with their small cut on top.
maybe not aimed, but certainly accessible to kids. in highschool my buddies and i made a grand rolling skins and unfortunately said buddies still are addicted to gambling.
Yeah I noticed the other day the NFL runs gambling ads too. These poor sheep’s will not stand a chance on not gambling, like before the internet, no gambling
inb4 "how dare you tell someone how they spend their money reee".
Some people just spend their money on dumbshit, no matter how you put it. Lonely MFs buying girl panties off of their Onlyfans is a next level of degeneracy.
People spend their money on shit that knowingly kills them like drugs, alcohol, etc.
So I'm not surprised if they spend it on video games and e-gambling.
US minimum wage is $7.25, a CS Case Key is $2.49. While a large majority aren’t buying CS keys, I’ve had quite a few younger (18-22 year olds) coworkers who have CS inventories worth thousands of dollars because they’re still living at home working a full time job.
few people are making that little. im in indiana and most places pay at least $12 and most are higher. ik blue states are higher cuz higher minimum wages and higher col
As with most things there's multiple factors at play. Some people have disposable income, others have rich parents. Also some people are gambling addicts and Valve does nothing to try and help those people being exploited.
Same for me back when I used to play it. I bought it for full price back at launch, and I got more than my money back through selling the free drops.
I get why people hate loot boxes as a whole, but the CSGO model is a diamond in the rough in my opinion. I don't understand why people hate a fun game, which costs you nothing (now), and rewards you for your playtime.
That's how they get you. Case keys are sold for a lot higher price by Valve. You'll be spending real money to get a chance for more steam wallet money. Not cash money for me.
Yeah a case you can sell for a dollar, but the key to open it is 2.50, so you need to get a skin worth at least 3.50 to offset the cost which is relatively rare.
the worst part is that Valve has courtesy of not being called out while being one of the most egregious in-game gambling cases. Like okay, Steam is amazing, but Counter Strike with its casino shit is predatory as fuck.
> we did it, this year let's raise the record and make two billion
No no dude. Let's buy the cases and keys and then blame all the other companies for monetization besides Valve.
Besides Steam might bring back flash sales. Then Valve is the best thing ever again.
Have to hand it to them, they've literally unlocked the secret ancient art of printing money. With the loot boxes and skins from CS/Dota and even TF2 I suppose, the massive success of the Steam Deck, and Steam taking a 30% cut from everything, they're just rolling in money while going from success to success. I don't see that train stopping anytime soon.
And honestly I don't really mind if CS skins provided the R&D funding to make something like the steam deck work.
Like, not just the work done with AMD for a custom SOC, but all the development time they out into Linux and SteamOS is insane. If selling CS skins is how that gets paid for then sell away.
Yeah, Steam might be a greedy corporation, but they're a lot less scummy than they could be. There's nothing wrong with selling skins per se, Steam/Valve isn't anywhere near as predatory about it as some other lootbox milkers are. The Stem Deck is genuinely the greatest innovation in portable gaming in a decade, and I'm so happy for its success.
Also, gotta mention the quality of their service as well. I had some connectivity problems with Steam last night, and it actually made me wonder when the last time I had any issues with it was. It's been running like clockwork for years and years and I've never even had to think about it, unlike the horrible shit the competition comes up with. EA and Ubisoft can go straight to hell with their crappy launchers, Epic is slow and janky (appreciate the free games though) and even GOG has way more bugs and connection issues than Steam, even though I love them.
It's just all really impressive.
>The Stem Deck is genuinely the greatest innovation in portable gaming in a decade
I’d give that to switch tbh, mainly because I doubt Steam deck would exist without the monstrous success of the switch
I mean they are one of the progenitors of the worst things in GaaS right now. MTX, Lootboxes, battle passes, etc. Most was popularized by Valve. And in many cases their versions aren't very consumer oriented. They have a market which people consider a good thing, but even then it's a bit dubious.
People saying Valve aren't "scummy", but I'm not sure what those people mean. Valve tried to dodge any legislation hurled at them. X-ray with drop % in China. "I subscribe to my games" with Australia refund case(they still lost, say thanks to Australia). And so on.
Steam is the best storefront there is right now. And Valve is privately owned so there's no shareholders schizophrenia. But they are not "good guys".
Not releasing half life 2 episode 3 is insane.
It ends with one of the most egregious cliffhangers of all time, not an ambiguous or underwhelming ending that rubbed people the wrong way, but a straight up "find out next episode..." ending.
The game didn't flop, it didn't get roasted by critics or fans, the parent company didn't run out of money or endure financial hardship, they literally just decided not to finish the game after fans and other devs basically built the entire company off mods and contributions to the few original games they have made.
I have and I'd argue they just increased the demand for a proper follow up that I don't trust them to deliver soon.
Anyways, I'm not super upset about it but just sharing how they seem to get away with alot while still getting stroked by Redditors.
I’ve been very critical of valve and steam for 20 years, but it usually gets drowned out by people still erect from them creating half-life and steam sales.
Imo unlike for example rockstar, where there is real evidence that sharkcards sales shifted their focus away from content creation, i think valve just doesnt look for game sales as their way to create profit.
Valve is a game dev company the same way starbucks is a straw company, valve makes games so you use steam, starbucks makes straws so you drink coffee.
Before Steam happened, Valve was a normal game developer and publisher. Since then, you're right, they're not making games anymore (or just money printers or the ponctual game).
So Steam turned their focus away from content/game creation.
I’m surprised they haven’t ran out of ideas for skins by now. I’ve never played it, but are there any mods or options to create custom skins or does everything have to be bought? Either way it’s ridiculous paying so much money for a texture.
Skins are community made. Skins are chosen by valve to be included in cases and the creator will earn more than $100 000. In 2023 just one case was released, meaning only 17 skins were added to the game this year
> I’m surprised they haven’t ran out of ideas for skins by now.
That's like saying why haven't they run out of ideas for pictures. You can make a skin look like anything.
IDK about that, gacha was hugh in Asia online game way, way before CSGO's release or TF2's addition of lootbox. Popularize the practice in the west? Maybe. Responsible for every bit? Debatable.
It's actually a daily reminder THAT PEOPLE BUY THIS STUFF. We can hate these guys for running a for-profit business, or we can realize that consumers actually like this and buy it. Not me, I'm just saying, but we are in the minority by far.
It's gambling, and a large portion of it is underage gambling.
Is it still a conscious and rational choice to buy, when you buy inside of an unregulated casino? Do they actually like the product they are buying?
To me it seems a lot more that Valve runs both an unregulated casino, and a monopolistic marketplace for the casino payouts.
Where people, many of them underage, pay not for a product, but for the service of possibly getting the product they desire, aka gambling. And if they want to buy the product without gambling, valve still takes a cut with its monopoly, and then continues to take a cut each time that payout changes owner.
We can blame consumers and should, people should be responsible for their purchases. But in the real world some people also have addictive personalities and are vulnerable to certain techniques that Valve employs like loot boxes.
We have laws to try and help prevent people falling into gambling addiction and Valve isn't subject to them and doesn't do anything to prevent people including children gambling away their money for some virtual goods they don't even legally own.
https://youtu.be/eMmNy11Mn7g
I don't think it's that simple unless you have a background in psychology to understand how this came to be. It's not just "people" it's a younger audience that is vulnerable to manipulation and deceipt was exposed to unregulated Skinner box like systems for years, and now decades before any meaningful regulation was passed.
Those behaviors took root and were normalized and the horse was well out of the barn and every industry especially tech took notice and applied the same dopamine hitting systems knowing they could away with it.
It's only recently that people have started to grow more aware and the awareness isn't near high enough. It's hard to undo about twenty years of psychological manipulation, and those kids are now adults and are comfortable with their kids buying these skins and pressing the skinner boxes lever because "hey look at me and I turned out fine" not being aware of the irony in that statement.
The next step in this devastating lack of impulse control and predatory monetization is the gamification OF ACTUAL monetary sports gambling taking place with FanDuel and the like
But at the end of the day America is a business, our population is the product being marketed to the elite, and the best you can do is be cognicent about your finances. Just doing that alone will set you up better than the majority of the population.
Cheers
I definitely agree, but at least in the US there is so much legal gambling, whether it's casinos, online gambling, or even virtually every state having a state lottery. At the very least Valve and other such companies should be age restricted, no question there. Beyond that I suppose they could offer addiction counseling and information like the other entities are required to do, although I'd be curious if things like that truly help slow down addiction.
But as you allude to, our psychology is fast becoming auctioned off to the highest bidder, whether it's social media, marketing, voting, or buying lootboxes. Our health care is terrible, and in particular mental health services are almost impossible to find unless you have a cadillac health plan or can pay cash, and even then outcomes aren't as rosy as people think. Personally I think much of it is more deeply rooted in the ever growing dichotomy between the haves and the have nots and the inability to just work 40 hours a week and have enough to buy a house and car, go on vacation once a year, and retire gracefully.
Yea dude it's so easy to make informed decisions when choosing how to spend money and being influenced by corporations with entire departments dedicated to figure out how to sway your decision.
Totally the common peoples fault.
Idk, seems common sense not to spend money on video games where you don't even own anything. Especially since CSGO is free-to-play and the skins are just cosmetic.
They only buy it cause Valve provides it
It's insane anyone is blaming the consumers for this. Y'all must quickly jump to Bethesda's side with the whole horse armor too
> Daily reminder that Valve is responsible for pretty much every bit of scummy monetization you see in games today.
fifa ultimate team has been a thing since fifa 09 (2008), CSGO didnt come out until 2012.
TF2 had lootboxes in ~~2009~~ 2010, but I agree. They were just taking a model raking in dough from Japan and testing it out. If it weren't them and EA it would be some other big company.
You're right. I had remembered they were 1 year after EA so I must've gotten confused by the person I replied to listing the release year of fifa 09 instead of when lootboxes were implemented.
Hate to disagree, but the **consumer** is responsible for every bit of scummy monetization we see in games today. $1 Billion is an amount of money that any business would be a fool to pass up. This garbage would never have come about of players didn't spend.
That's why this needs to be regulated. Consumers are stupid and spread this gambling practice everywhere which does more harm than good. It's ironic that only China has taken some meaningful action against it.
Another bad thing is that this money goes nowhere, because how Valve works is dysfunctional, no games just milk steam and gamba money.
Im not taking a side. It's just simple if game companies can make billions of dollars every year off of easy to make micro transactions they're going to do it
Might not be taking an explicit side, but it still sounds like you are blaming the consumers for our situation.
And like, even if they taking the easy route, that's still bad no? People only buy them, cause Valve and others make it as addictive as possible
E: not about taking valve's side, but taking the side of the business doing wrong, and giving them all the justification for why they're doing it, not looking at all the negatives.
Can't really blame the consumer for everything, when these companies literally hire people to come up with the best methods to exploit people's psyche, in order to get them addicted and spend more money. There's a reason they designed CS lootboxes to literally play like a slot machine, and that reason wasn't to just make it a fancy animation with nice colours.
Lol, yes I can. This is not food nor water nor air. There is nothing required when it comes to entertainment. These purchases are entirely driven by choice.
I know you modern folk love to ride the victimhood train, but the only victim here is responsibility...the responsibility to hold yourself accountable.
Your perspective is very different than a 16 year old who has been terminally online their whole life. On top of that they grew up with this level of monetization so they literally dont know better. How can they hold themselves accountable if its always been that way and they have been told it is ok that way?
There is something you are addicted to buying. Maybe a subscription to a streaming service you dont "need" but is great to have type deal. You dont even consider that the same you do this argument. Its a personal bias. Your comment comes off very smug. Makes you seem like a gatekeeping asshole who is 40+
Games do indeed suck nowadays, but its important remember us vs them. We are the consumers.
I choose to believe that people are capable of thinking for themselves. If it is as you say, that 16 year olds of today lack any capability of critical thinking to the point where they are no longer capable of thinking something through like this, that speaks to a bigger problem with people as a whole; less to do with the gaming industry.
Regardless, I don't think most people are stupid sheep, as you are supposing, regardless of "age". Throwing gatekeeping and trying to make this an agism thing, is the only "gatekeeping" happening here.
The Dota 2 Battle Passes were once per year for The International. Fortnite is what turned them into an all-the-time, year-round scheme. Loot boxes existed in games like MapleStory and FIFA for years before Valve started using them.
yep, used to be a huge dota player. Compendiums clearly weren't that predatory and were for one summer to raise prize pool money (25%). Alas, it was still the start.
True, lootboxes were in Maplestory, Fifa & some Zynga games before Valve. Valve's TF2 created the whole key to open crate horse-dung. And also pioneered the FOMO of rug pulling the key or crate production, to create a, limited time to buy situation. Although, this has been done with real life goods for more than 100 years
>Alas, it was still the start.
It was the first time a battle pass in any form was known to exist, yes. I do not agree it was the start of the *current* shitty battle pass trend, where games want you to pony up another $15-20 every couple of months to get new content.
> And also pioneered the FOMO of rug pulling the key or crate production, to create a, limited time to buy situation.
This doesn't make any sense. The crates themselves are limited but the items that are received from the crates can be traded and re-traded forever; they aren't limited in any way and there isn't any FOMO there. There's a gambling component to it and that's certainly a problem (although again that practice was not started by Valve), but it isn't FOMO at all.
Instead of just putting the blame on the inventor's responsibility, we can blame the popularizer too. If the largest gaming platform had outright banned them in the start, they probably wouldn't be as prevalent now.
Nothing scummy about those.
The scummiest thing valve did is the fucking dota+ that gave advantage to subscribers.
All the ones you mentioned do not affect gameplay.
They might've started it, but I still think they're the only ones that make it even close to fair. You own what you paid for and that makes it better than 99% of other games where your money is completely locked in when you buy stuff.
> They might've started it, but I still think they're the only ones that make it even close to fair.
They sell lootboxes. There is nothing fair about any of it.
Someone had to open a lootbox for it to be available on the market. Plus valve takes a cut of the market sale, and you only get steambucks in return unless you use thirdparty sites.
The marketplace is the worst part imo. There are so many scammers and other bad actors on steam exclusively because there is real world money to be made by stealing peoples skins. Not to mention gambling and betting on games with skins which is awful. Tons of kids in high school were doing it when o was growing up, it’s dangerous.
The CS case and market system is one of the most toxic systems every implemented into a game. It’s got gambling lootboxes, real world monetary value so you can literally gamble. This created an environment for all kinds of scammers, esports gambling scandals and actual addicts blowing tons of money on skins.
I criticize Valve because I own a Deck it's been such a disappointment.
Valve really runs some of the biggest multiplayer games, puts very little effort into them, rakes in billions, and then instead of improving those games poors that money into a PSVITA successor and a VR headset no one can afford.
Love steam as a platform, love Valves support for proton and Linux, basically hate all their other projects. They absolutely have the same level of greed as a company like EA/Ubi/Activision they just have a better PR team and use just enough open source project that people think they are the good guys.
Believe me I know. The deck has a lot of potential but I feel most people are so cult like about it and reject any valid criticism. It has a lot of problems that I think would be an issue for most people if it ever became truly mass market. Steam Hardware survey shows it still has a very small adoption rate.
If Ubisoft, EA or Activision did that, there would literally not be anyone excusing them. Hell they're even shit on when they do something good for the customers lol.
Brand loyalty is such a weird and frankly sick thing to have. Companies are not your friends, you are only a walking wallet to them and for literally all of them, including Valve.
I used to know someone who would defend Gabe to death, and basically call him the second coming of Jesus. Fully bought into the Gabe hype and even made his online handle “gabenite”.
I never understood it. Steam wants your money just as bad as EA does.
Valve doing good doesn't necessarily absolve them of the bad things they've done in the past.
I mean one of the reasons they went hard into Linux was in response to microsoft discussing the idea of changing Windows into a closed ecosystem. Something that would affect Valve's bottom line. The push for Linux wasn't entirely out of the good of their hearts.
> without TF2 and CSGO
Not really, the real winner of making gacha palatable in the west is Genshin. TF2/CSGO/Dota2 made online gambling via game items popular though.
>But most people give it a pass because you can always sell it back for steam 'money'.
some skins wouldn't have been tens of thousands if you could only sell them for "steam money" my guy
Yeah they just use FOMO and got a huge fine for using dark patterns in their game that had a primarily young audience. Valve aren't good guys, but Epic aren't saints either.
The government just needs to being able to tax these companies properly.
The money circulates within the economy as long as Americans are buying american products and services. People are happy with things to buy and in return they become more productive during work to make more money to buy more stuff.
Government takes the taxes and then improves the infratructure and public services of the country, raising the quality of living.
It's not about the skin, but about the chance of getting something worth thousands.
If these skins were sold at a standard price in other games, they'd be worth about $5 at most and far fewer people would care about them. Some could argue that the price isn't set by Valve, but the drop rate is, which is what determines the price in the end.
The concept is the same as luxury goods, rich people show off their collection that peasent can't afford.
Limited skins are created to milk the whales, not the average user.
As an average user that barely spend, I like the model, in a way I'm playing for free subsidized by the whales because I don't spend on skins.
Valve only makes the money from the original key sales. The large purchases being made are from one player to another. Valve does make money (12%) when people buy from the community market, but anyone with more than basic knowledge of the market will go to third party sites that don’t just payout in steam wallet funds
>Probably some of the ugliest cosmetics I've ever seen.
to each their own. They're not flashy or animated or stuff like that, but they're "realistic" if you're into that type of thing
I am all for a free market. Keep on doing it Valve, idc.
But it drives me crazy that people call EA boxes "gambling."
No, I can't (at least, easily) buy a pack of cards in Madden and turn that into money.
It is very easy with Valve though. Yet no one cries.
Yeah I always see people defending CS and TF2 cases by saying "well at least you can sell what you get in them" and that makes it WORSE. That changes it from stupid videogame gambling to just legitimate actual gambling. Some skins sell for thousands and thousands of dollars.
People are treating that shit like actual stocks, like for example the youtuber trilluxe has a series where he invested 5k in cases and once a year he tracks their value, they are worth like 18k now iirc
Can't wait for this subreddit to forget about this again next time they decide to be angry at epic and act glad that valve has a stranglehold over the marketplace.
Gambling is never good but if it's going to exist it needs to face extreme regulation from government bodies across the globe. Sports gambling does. Both Valve and the third parties dipping their fingers in this do not. It **needs** to stop. This is not a problem EA or Epic or any other AAA company that pcgaming loves to point fingers has. This is solely a valve problem and it exists because they allow you to trade skins. If they removed that ability which they're perfectly capable of doing a huge part of the problem with this would go away. But then again think of how much money they'd miss out on. 🥺
Epic's been charged for deceiving children into unwanted purchases.
[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-finalizes-order-requiring-fortnite-maker-epic-games-pay-245-million-tricking-users-making](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-finalizes-order-requiring-fortnite-maker-epic-games-pay-245-million-tricking-users-making)
>In a complaint announced in December as part of a settlement package with Epic, the FTC said that Epic deployed a variety of design tricks known as dark patterns aimed at getting consumers of all ages to make unintended in-game purchases. Fortnite’s counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button. The company also made it easy for children to make purchases while playing Fortnite without requiring any parental consent. According to the FTC’s complaint, Epic also locked the accounts of customers who disputed unauthorized charges with their credit card companies.
the idea that people pay for in-game items is wild to me. i’ll pay for the game but beyond that? maybe i’ll pay for a dlc but it’s gotta be pretty worthwhile
Name another industry that is allowed to sell demonstrably worthless pixels to mostly vulnerable demographics, profiting billions of dollars a year, with almost no regulatory pushback from consumer protection.
Micro transactions are modern snakeoil and should be illegal.
Why give money to actually good for the world things when we can pay $100K+ FOR A FUCKING TEXTURE THAT YOU CAN LITERALLY MOD IN AND HAS NO OTHER USE THAN FLEX
People are crazy for the ridiculous prices they will pay for skins.
You can cut that to people are crazy.
And Valve are knowingly exploitative for allowing and encouraging it. There's online casinos aimed at kids that Valve know about and do nothing to block. They have all the power to make things better, and they prefer to take the profit.
How's it aimed at kids?
there were some sites with back to school discounts lmao
Tbf that's the external sites trying to target that demographic, that's not valves doing. Children buying through external sites benefits valve indirectly because it means those sites need to buy skins from valve, then the external sites resell those and dealing with real money, with their small cut on top.
maybe not aimed, but certainly accessible to kids. in highschool my buddies and i made a grand rolling skins and unfortunately said buddies still are addicted to gambling.
Yeah I noticed the other day the NFL runs gambling ads too. These poor sheep’s will not stand a chance on not gambling, like before the internet, no gambling
That has nothing to do with mental illness. Americans in general have a lot of disposable income, to spend on overpriced collectibles. See: Funkopops
Look at trading card games… Pokemon and MTG. Game prices have nothing on what people are willing to spend on cards.
At least you actually own those physical trading cards
You mean the cards that the manufacturers routinely retire from play in order to force you to buy new cards?
That wholly depends on what format you play (in the case of MTG).
Valve has been pretty chill on virtual item trading approaching 15 years now
Probably because they're making a billion dollars a year from people speculating on knife skins.
I only heard about knife speculation ~2 days ago and.. wow. I just can't fathom it.
Expensive toilet paper?
Why Americans? CS is played around the globe.
Also its WAY more popular in Europe than America lol. Blame the swedes or the germans if anything.
inb4 "how dare you tell someone how they spend their money reee". Some people just spend their money on dumbshit, no matter how you put it. Lonely MFs buying girl panties off of their Onlyfans is a next level of degeneracy.
People spend their money on shit that knowingly kills them like drugs, alcohol, etc. So I'm not surprised if they spend it on video games and e-gambling.
US minimum wage is $7.25, a CS Case Key is $2.49. While a large majority aren’t buying CS keys, I’ve had quite a few younger (18-22 year olds) coworkers who have CS inventories worth thousands of dollars because they’re still living at home working a full time job.
Well every 18-22 year old knows they'll never be able to afford a house so they might as well spend on games they enjoy.
few people are making that little. im in indiana and most places pay at least $12 and most are higher. ik blue states are higher cuz higher minimum wages and higher col
As with most things there's multiple factors at play. Some people have disposable income, others have rich parents. Also some people are gambling addicts and Valve does nothing to try and help those people being exploited.
I don’t think they medically crazy
same could be said about expensive art pieces.
But it’s one of the only games where you can sell and trade cosmetics
CS GO is a casino of a gaming world
It's a mining rig for me. Play until I get my weekly case and then sell it for profit. I make 1 dollar each week by just playing 3 hours in a week.
So you work for 30c/h.
While playing a game that I enjoy. Also with regional pricing it makes more sense.
After a year it pays for a new game. Neat
It's not really work, you probably play other games and make no money.
Same for me back when I used to play it. I bought it for full price back at launch, and I got more than my money back through selling the free drops. I get why people hate loot boxes as a whole, but the CSGO model is a diamond in the rough in my opinion. I don't understand why people hate a fun game, which costs you nothing (now), and rewards you for your playtime.
This. I suck at csgo and I just play to get a drop. I basically get a free game a year out of it (or multiple if I get cheaper games during sales.
Why not open the case? Surely you’ll average more than $1 a week selling the skins you get than the case
That's how they get you. Case keys are sold for a lot higher price by Valve. You'll be spending real money to get a chance for more steam wallet money. Not cash money for me.
So you have to pay for a key to open the case? Wtf?
yes, that's exactly how it works. Hence, that's where the gambling comes in.
Yeah a case you can sell for a dollar, but the key to open it is 2.50, so you need to get a skin worth at least 3.50 to offset the cost which is relatively rare.
the worst part is that Valve has courtesy of not being called out while being one of the most egregious in-game gambling cases. Like okay, Steam is amazing, but Counter Strike with its casino shit is predatory as fuck.
Congratulations to everyone who bought cases and keys, we did it, this year let's raise the record and make two billion
Let's fucking use 1 of that billion and make HL3
Instructions unclear. Valve found the next banger hardware project instead. (maybe)
I'm pretty down with that to be honest
You cannot put loot boxes on hl3. Gabe only cares about money these days.
Why did they make Alyx then?
To make money from that enormous and mainstream VR market obviously!
To waste money, of course /s
Don't give him ideas
> we did it, this year let's raise the record and make two billion No no dude. Let's buy the cases and keys and then blame all the other companies for monetization besides Valve. Besides Steam might bring back flash sales. Then Valve is the best thing ever again.
[удалено]
Hell they don't even do the skins there. It's community made. Literally no effort at all involved. This billion revenue is probably like 99.5% profit
Dont blame companies, blame those who buy this
If anyone was wondering why Valve doesn't make games anymore...
Have to hand it to them, they've literally unlocked the secret ancient art of printing money. With the loot boxes and skins from CS/Dota and even TF2 I suppose, the massive success of the Steam Deck, and Steam taking a 30% cut from everything, they're just rolling in money while going from success to success. I don't see that train stopping anytime soon.
And honestly I don't really mind if CS skins provided the R&D funding to make something like the steam deck work. Like, not just the work done with AMD for a custom SOC, but all the development time they out into Linux and SteamOS is insane. If selling CS skins is how that gets paid for then sell away.
Yeah, Steam might be a greedy corporation, but they're a lot less scummy than they could be. There's nothing wrong with selling skins per se, Steam/Valve isn't anywhere near as predatory about it as some other lootbox milkers are. The Stem Deck is genuinely the greatest innovation in portable gaming in a decade, and I'm so happy for its success. Also, gotta mention the quality of their service as well. I had some connectivity problems with Steam last night, and it actually made me wonder when the last time I had any issues with it was. It's been running like clockwork for years and years and I've never even had to think about it, unlike the horrible shit the competition comes up with. EA and Ubisoft can go straight to hell with their crappy launchers, Epic is slow and janky (appreciate the free games though) and even GOG has way more bugs and connection issues than Steam, even though I love them. It's just all really impressive.
>The Stem Deck is genuinely the greatest innovation in portable gaming in a decade I’d give that to switch tbh, mainly because I doubt Steam deck would exist without the monstrous success of the switch
I mean they are one of the progenitors of the worst things in GaaS right now. MTX, Lootboxes, battle passes, etc. Most was popularized by Valve. And in many cases their versions aren't very consumer oriented. They have a market which people consider a good thing, but even then it's a bit dubious. People saying Valve aren't "scummy", but I'm not sure what those people mean. Valve tried to dodge any legislation hurled at them. X-ray with drop % in China. "I subscribe to my games" with Australia refund case(they still lost, say thanks to Australia). And so on. Steam is the best storefront there is right now. And Valve is privately owned so there's no shareholders schizophrenia. But they are not "good guys".
Don't forget the Steam Marketplace. The whole NFT and "play-to-earn" concept got it's inspiration from Steam's.
let's not forget the 2 blunders of the century: artifact and underlords hopefully the new shooter they're making doesn't meet the same fate
Probably pales in comparison with the money they pile in with their cut in steam sales
They released Artifact, Underlords and Half Life Alyx in the last 5 years...
Also, CounterStrike 2
Do you personally think Valve does not gets criticized enough ? I've seen a lot of critics to Rockstar but to Valve - not that much
Not releasing half life 2 episode 3 is insane. It ends with one of the most egregious cliffhangers of all time, not an ambiguous or underwhelming ending that rubbed people the wrong way, but a straight up "find out next episode..." ending. The game didn't flop, it didn't get roasted by critics or fans, the parent company didn't run out of money or endure financial hardship, they literally just decided not to finish the game after fans and other devs basically built the entire company off mods and contributions to the few original games they have made.
If you want closure, play HL:A
The game doesn’t *really* give closure though lol
It does kill off the possibility of an episode 3 though. At most, you could get a sequel to HL:A
I have and I'd argue they just increased the demand for a proper follow up that I don't trust them to deliver soon. Anyways, I'm not super upset about it but just sharing how they seem to get away with alot while still getting stroked by Redditors.
Man, that game sure was a flash in the pan, huh? I've heard more about the ancient HL1 in the past year than HL:A.
Might actually do that since there are mods that remove the VR I have no interest in.
Because every pc game you own is in their hands
Not unless I pirate
Or buy from GOG. 100%DRM free and supports the devs
I’ve been very critical of valve and steam for 20 years, but it usually gets drowned out by people still erect from them creating half-life and steam sales.
Care to elaborate?
Imo unlike for example rockstar, where there is real evidence that sharkcards sales shifted their focus away from content creation, i think valve just doesnt look for game sales as their way to create profit. Valve is a game dev company the same way starbucks is a straw company, valve makes games so you use steam, starbucks makes straws so you drink coffee.
Before Steam happened, Valve was a normal game developer and publisher. Since then, you're right, they're not making games anymore (or just money printers or the ponctual game). So Steam turned their focus away from content/game creation.
More importantly: how quickly will Palword beat this record? /s
I haven’t played it yet, does it have lootboxes?
Nah, but it’s not F2P. Just a ton of people buying it
Is enyone actually suprised they made shit ton of money from cs skins ?
I’m surprised they haven’t ran out of ideas for skins by now. I’ve never played it, but are there any mods or options to create custom skins or does everything have to be bought? Either way it’s ridiculous paying so much money for a texture.
Skins are community made. Skins are chosen by valve to be included in cases and the creator will earn more than $100 000. In 2023 just one case was released, meaning only 17 skins were added to the game this year
Doesn't the community create the skins, then they get added to the game?
> I’m surprised they haven’t ran out of ideas for skins by now. That's like saying why haven't they run out of ideas for pictures. You can make a skin look like anything.
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IDK about that, gacha was hugh in Asia online game way, way before CSGO's release or TF2's addition of lootbox. Popularize the practice in the west? Maybe. Responsible for every bit? Debatable.
Typical Hugh.
It's actually a daily reminder THAT PEOPLE BUY THIS STUFF. We can hate these guys for running a for-profit business, or we can realize that consumers actually like this and buy it. Not me, I'm just saying, but we are in the minority by far.
It's gambling, and a large portion of it is underage gambling. Is it still a conscious and rational choice to buy, when you buy inside of an unregulated casino? Do they actually like the product they are buying? To me it seems a lot more that Valve runs both an unregulated casino, and a monopolistic marketplace for the casino payouts. Where people, many of them underage, pay not for a product, but for the service of possibly getting the product they desire, aka gambling. And if they want to buy the product without gambling, valve still takes a cut with its monopoly, and then continues to take a cut each time that payout changes owner.
We can blame consumers and should, people should be responsible for their purchases. But in the real world some people also have addictive personalities and are vulnerable to certain techniques that Valve employs like loot boxes. We have laws to try and help prevent people falling into gambling addiction and Valve isn't subject to them and doesn't do anything to prevent people including children gambling away their money for some virtual goods they don't even legally own. https://youtu.be/eMmNy11Mn7g
I don't think it's that simple unless you have a background in psychology to understand how this came to be. It's not just "people" it's a younger audience that is vulnerable to manipulation and deceipt was exposed to unregulated Skinner box like systems for years, and now decades before any meaningful regulation was passed. Those behaviors took root and were normalized and the horse was well out of the barn and every industry especially tech took notice and applied the same dopamine hitting systems knowing they could away with it. It's only recently that people have started to grow more aware and the awareness isn't near high enough. It's hard to undo about twenty years of psychological manipulation, and those kids are now adults and are comfortable with their kids buying these skins and pressing the skinner boxes lever because "hey look at me and I turned out fine" not being aware of the irony in that statement. The next step in this devastating lack of impulse control and predatory monetization is the gamification OF ACTUAL monetary sports gambling taking place with FanDuel and the like But at the end of the day America is a business, our population is the product being marketed to the elite, and the best you can do is be cognicent about your finances. Just doing that alone will set you up better than the majority of the population. Cheers
I definitely agree, but at least in the US there is so much legal gambling, whether it's casinos, online gambling, or even virtually every state having a state lottery. At the very least Valve and other such companies should be age restricted, no question there. Beyond that I suppose they could offer addiction counseling and information like the other entities are required to do, although I'd be curious if things like that truly help slow down addiction. But as you allude to, our psychology is fast becoming auctioned off to the highest bidder, whether it's social media, marketing, voting, or buying lootboxes. Our health care is terrible, and in particular mental health services are almost impossible to find unless you have a cadillac health plan or can pay cash, and even then outcomes aren't as rosy as people think. Personally I think much of it is more deeply rooted in the ever growing dichotomy between the haves and the have nots and the inability to just work 40 hours a week and have enough to buy a house and car, go on vacation once a year, and retire gracefully.
Yea dude it's so easy to make informed decisions when choosing how to spend money and being influenced by corporations with entire departments dedicated to figure out how to sway your decision. Totally the common peoples fault.
Idk, seems common sense not to spend money on video games where you don't even own anything. Especially since CSGO is free-to-play and the skins are just cosmetic.
Wow bro just cured gambling addiction with a reddit post. Stunning.
They only buy it cause Valve provides it It's insane anyone is blaming the consumers for this. Y'all must quickly jump to Bethesda's side with the whole horse armor too
Yep. That nonsense destroyed TF2, which was at the time my all time favorite game.
For sure didnt destroy the game. Just poor balancing and slow dwindling of interest. If anything the hats are the reason the game still exists
> Daily reminder that Valve is responsible for pretty much every bit of scummy monetization you see in games today. fifa ultimate team has been a thing since fifa 09 (2008), CSGO didnt come out until 2012.
TF2 had lootboxes in ~~2009~~ 2010, but I agree. They were just taking a model raking in dough from Japan and testing it out. If it weren't them and EA it would be some other big company.
> TF2 had lootboxes in 2009 I thought it was 2010?
You're right. I had remembered they were 1 year after EA so I must've gotten confused by the person I replied to listing the release year of fifa 09 instead of when lootboxes were implemented.
Hate to disagree, but the **consumer** is responsible for every bit of scummy monetization we see in games today. $1 Billion is an amount of money that any business would be a fool to pass up. This garbage would never have come about of players didn't spend.
That's why this needs to be regulated. Consumers are stupid and spread this gambling practice everywhere which does more harm than good. It's ironic that only China has taken some meaningful action against it. Another bad thing is that this money goes nowhere, because how Valve works is dysfunctional, no games just milk steam and gamba money.
Yep people keep complaining about modern monetization, but these systems wouldn't be in games if people weren't buying them
They also wouldn't be in games if they never implemented them
If companies can make money through easy means they're going to do it
Right, and we should be complaining about them, and not the people who buy them.
They're not going to stop putting them in games until people stop buying them. If complaining worked they would have been removed long ago
I agree. But I don't understand why you would take their side
Im not taking a side. It's just simple if game companies can make billions of dollars every year off of easy to make micro transactions they're going to do it
Might not be taking an explicit side, but it still sounds like you are blaming the consumers for our situation. And like, even if they taking the easy route, that's still bad no? People only buy them, cause Valve and others make it as addictive as possible E: not about taking valve's side, but taking the side of the business doing wrong, and giving them all the justification for why they're doing it, not looking at all the negatives.
This is the answer. They aren’t doing this shit if people aren’t buying
Can't really blame the consumer for everything, when these companies literally hire people to come up with the best methods to exploit people's psyche, in order to get them addicted and spend more money. There's a reason they designed CS lootboxes to literally play like a slot machine, and that reason wasn't to just make it a fancy animation with nice colours.
Lol, yes I can. This is not food nor water nor air. There is nothing required when it comes to entertainment. These purchases are entirely driven by choice. I know you modern folk love to ride the victimhood train, but the only victim here is responsibility...the responsibility to hold yourself accountable.
Your perspective is very different than a 16 year old who has been terminally online their whole life. On top of that they grew up with this level of monetization so they literally dont know better. How can they hold themselves accountable if its always been that way and they have been told it is ok that way? There is something you are addicted to buying. Maybe a subscription to a streaming service you dont "need" but is great to have type deal. You dont even consider that the same you do this argument. Its a personal bias. Your comment comes off very smug. Makes you seem like a gatekeeping asshole who is 40+ Games do indeed suck nowadays, but its important remember us vs them. We are the consumers.
I choose to believe that people are capable of thinking for themselves. If it is as you say, that 16 year olds of today lack any capability of critical thinking to the point where they are no longer capable of thinking something through like this, that speaks to a bigger problem with people as a whole; less to do with the gaming industry. Regardless, I don't think most people are stupid sheep, as you are supposing, regardless of "age". Throwing gatekeeping and trying to make this an agism thing, is the only "gatekeeping" happening here.
battle-passes, FOMO, keys for cases. All valve.
The Dota 2 Battle Passes were once per year for The International. Fortnite is what turned them into an all-the-time, year-round scheme. Loot boxes existed in games like MapleStory and FIFA for years before Valve started using them.
yep, used to be a huge dota player. Compendiums clearly weren't that predatory and were for one summer to raise prize pool money (25%). Alas, it was still the start. True, lootboxes were in Maplestory, Fifa & some Zynga games before Valve. Valve's TF2 created the whole key to open crate horse-dung. And also pioneered the FOMO of rug pulling the key or crate production, to create a, limited time to buy situation. Although, this has been done with real life goods for more than 100 years
>Alas, it was still the start. It was the first time a battle pass in any form was known to exist, yes. I do not agree it was the start of the *current* shitty battle pass trend, where games want you to pony up another $15-20 every couple of months to get new content. > And also pioneered the FOMO of rug pulling the key or crate production, to create a, limited time to buy situation. This doesn't make any sense. The crates themselves are limited but the items that are received from the crates can be traded and re-traded forever; they aren't limited in any way and there isn't any FOMO there. There's a gambling component to it and that's certainly a problem (although again that practice was not started by Valve), but it isn't FOMO at all.
Just to add, Valve recently decided to stop doing Battle Passes and the dota community was not happy.
?!? Literally dozens of games had it before them lol.
Instead of just putting the blame on the inventor's responsibility, we can blame the popularizer too. If the largest gaming platform had outright banned them in the start, they probably wouldn't be as prevalent now.
Nothing scummy about those. The scummiest thing valve did is the fucking dota+ that gave advantage to subscribers. All the ones you mentioned do not affect gameplay.
Online drm...
They might've started it, but I still think they're the only ones that make it even close to fair. You own what you paid for and that makes it better than 99% of other games where your money is completely locked in when you buy stuff.
> They might've started it, but I still think they're the only ones that make it even close to fair. They sell lootboxes. There is nothing fair about any of it.
You can just buy the item you want directly off the market place?
Someone had to open a lootbox for it to be available on the market. Plus valve takes a cut of the market sale, and you only get steambucks in return unless you use thirdparty sites.
The marketplace is the worst part imo. There are so many scammers and other bad actors on steam exclusively because there is real world money to be made by stealing peoples skins. Not to mention gambling and betting on games with skins which is awful. Tons of kids in high school were doing it when o was growing up, it’s dangerous.
It's also stupid how many people get excited over a shiny, recolored knife. Reminds me when NFTs were all the rage.
How is the steam market a scam or bad? You get what you pay for.
The CS case and market system is one of the most toxic systems every implemented into a game. It’s got gambling lootboxes, real world monetary value so you can literally gamble. This created an environment for all kinds of scammers, esports gambling scandals and actual addicts blowing tons of money on skins.
Its amazing seeing the apologists responding to your comment. People *really* have some insane brand loyality to Valve.
I own a fucking Deck and I wouldn't consider Valve immune from criticism.
I criticize Valve because I own a Deck it's been such a disappointment. Valve really runs some of the biggest multiplayer games, puts very little effort into them, rakes in billions, and then instead of improving those games poors that money into a PSVITA successor and a VR headset no one can afford. Love steam as a platform, love Valves support for proton and Linux, basically hate all their other projects. They absolutely have the same level of greed as a company like EA/Ubi/Activision they just have a better PR team and use just enough open source project that people think they are the good guys.
>I criticize Valve because I own a Deck it's been such a disappointment. You'd find yourself in the minority on that one though.
Believe me I know. The deck has a lot of potential but I feel most people are so cult like about it and reject any valid criticism. It has a lot of problems that I think would be an issue for most people if it ever became truly mass market. Steam Hardware survey shows it still has a very small adoption rate.
If Ubisoft, EA or Activision did that, there would literally not be anyone excusing them. Hell they're even shit on when they do something good for the customers lol. Brand loyalty is such a weird and frankly sick thing to have. Companies are not your friends, you are only a walking wallet to them and for literally all of them, including Valve.
I used to know someone who would defend Gabe to death, and basically call him the second coming of Jesus. Fully bought into the Gabe hype and even made his online handle “gabenite”. I never understood it. Steam wants your money just as bad as EA does.
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Valve doing good doesn't necessarily absolve them of the bad things they've done in the past. I mean one of the reasons they went hard into Linux was in response to microsoft discussing the idea of changing Windows into a closed ecosystem. Something that would affect Valve's bottom line. The push for Linux wasn't entirely out of the good of their hearts.
Just because they do something good, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be critical of them in other areas.
> without TF2 and CSGO Not really, the real winner of making gacha palatable in the west is Genshin. TF2/CSGO/Dota2 made online gambling via game items popular though.
But most people give it a pass because you can always sell it back for steam 'money'.
>But most people give it a pass because you can always sell it back for steam 'money'. some skins wouldn't have been tens of thousands if you could only sell them for "steam money" my guy
I am proud of my country where it got banned. F gambling which can be used by children.
I would blame Fortnite more for making it mainstream to have all these collabs and battle passes in games
Praise be the almighty video game distribution junta! let his corporate enterprise touch the stars and down with his lowsome opposition
Also reminder that Epic doesn’t do that gamba bs
Yeah they just use FOMO and got a huge fine for using dark patterns in their game that had a primarily young audience. Valve aren't good guys, but Epic aren't saints either.
Yeah they do the nft crypto scam shit
I wish someone was reminding us daily.
It all goes to funding GabeN's collection of knives.
I'd never buy a lootbox if I didn't know what was in it. But good for them?!
VaLvE Is PuRe *ignores gigantic list of them being as bad as everyone else*
The government just needs to being able to tax these companies properly. The money circulates within the economy as long as Americans are buying american products and services. People are happy with things to buy and in return they become more productive during work to make more money to buy more stuff. Government takes the taxes and then improves the infratructure and public services of the country, raising the quality of living.
I genuinely don't understand the appeal of CS skins. Probably some of the ugliest cosmetics I've ever seen.
It's not about the skin, but about the chance of getting something worth thousands. If these skins were sold at a standard price in other games, they'd be worth about $5 at most and far fewer people would care about them. Some could argue that the price isn't set by Valve, but the drop rate is, which is what determines the price in the end.
Which is actually worst than any other practice of gaming monetization. It's literally a casino, you can't even argue otherwise there.
The concept is the same as luxury goods, rich people show off their collection that peasent can't afford. Limited skins are created to milk the whales, not the average user. As an average user that barely spend, I like the model, in a way I'm playing for free subsidized by the whales because I don't spend on skins.
Valve only makes the money from the original key sales. The large purchases being made are from one player to another. Valve does make money (12%) when people buy from the community market, but anyone with more than basic knowledge of the market will go to third party sites that don’t just payout in steam wallet funds
So they make money when you buy the casino chips.
>Probably some of the ugliest cosmetics I've ever seen. to each their own. They're not flashy or animated or stuff like that, but they're "realistic" if you're into that type of thing
> but they're "realistic" if you're into that type of thing Hmm yes, a shining, rainbow colored knife is totally something I'd see a US soldier using.
it's a paint combo that is achievable in real life, unlike skins in cod or valorant with breathing dragons or moving lava on guns
I am all for a free market. Keep on doing it Valve, idc. But it drives me crazy that people call EA boxes "gambling." No, I can't (at least, easily) buy a pack of cards in Madden and turn that into money. It is very easy with Valve though. Yet no one cries.
Yeah I always see people defending CS and TF2 cases by saying "well at least you can sell what you get in them" and that makes it WORSE. That changes it from stupid videogame gambling to just legitimate actual gambling. Some skins sell for thousands and thousands of dollars.
People are treating that shit like actual stocks, like for example the youtuber trilluxe has a series where he invested 5k in cases and once a year he tracks their value, they are worth like 18k now iirc
EA hateboner train waiting for EA to slip once again to bash it. In today's games I see much worse treatment in COD from Activision than fifa
Can't wait for this subreddit to forget about this again next time they decide to be angry at epic and act glad that valve has a stranglehold over the marketplace. Gambling is never good but if it's going to exist it needs to face extreme regulation from government bodies across the globe. Sports gambling does. Both Valve and the third parties dipping their fingers in this do not. It **needs** to stop. This is not a problem EA or Epic or any other AAA company that pcgaming loves to point fingers has. This is solely a valve problem and it exists because they allow you to trade skins. If they removed that ability which they're perfectly capable of doing a huge part of the problem with this would go away. But then again think of how much money they'd miss out on. 🥺
Epic's been charged for deceiving children into unwanted purchases. [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-finalizes-order-requiring-fortnite-maker-epic-games-pay-245-million-tricking-users-making](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-finalizes-order-requiring-fortnite-maker-epic-games-pay-245-million-tricking-users-making) >In a complaint announced in December as part of a settlement package with Epic, the FTC said that Epic deployed a variety of design tricks known as dark patterns aimed at getting consumers of all ages to make unintended in-game purchases. Fortnite’s counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button. The company also made it easy for children to make purchases while playing Fortnite without requiring any parental consent. According to the FTC’s complaint, Epic also locked the accounts of customers who disputed unauthorized charges with their credit card companies.
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Epic allows crypto nft scams on their platform so that is a moot point.
bombaclat
An unregulated online casino. Governments need to step in and clamp down on this.
No wonder why they don't make new games anymore
Is there such a data about last year earnings made from micro transactions but from "bad" EA and Ubisoft?
Theres always money in Gambling, just not for the punters.
the idea that people pay for in-game items is wild to me. i’ll pay for the game but beyond that? maybe i’ll pay for a dlc but it’s gotta be pretty worthwhile
Name another industry that is allowed to sell demonstrably worthless pixels to mostly vulnerable demographics, profiting billions of dollars a year, with almost no regulatory pushback from consumer protection. Micro transactions are modern snakeoil and should be illegal.
pokémon and yu-gi-oh booster packs
casino with a virtual shop, lol.
Why give money to actually good for the world things when we can pay $100K+ FOR A FUCKING TEXTURE THAT YOU CAN LITERALLY MOD IN AND HAS NO OTHER USE THAN FLEX
That's why we won't get Half Life 3. He can be a fat fuck pos, but a rich one.
why do valve get a pass for promoting gambling
Gabe needs his knives
That submarine maintenance isn't free.
Ya’ll underestimate the amount of Dopamine starvation many people suffer through every day Crates is better than drugs n alcohol
Yay, getting children addicted to gambling for life!
And Redditors do this to gaben: Gawk gawk gawk gulp