https://insider-gaming.com/steam-fewer-than-80-staff/
It has been revealed through a series of lawsuit-related documents that Steam is maintained by a relatively small team.
Reliable, low maitenance, with good infastructure. 80 sounds like a solid number when not including game devs and support staff.
80 world-class engineers sounds like more than enough people. It’s not like Valve struggle to acquire talent and are thus forced to have teams and teams of juniors who are masters at building tech debt.
Valve will likely be hiring and retaining the kinds of engineers who love a good refactor and appreciate the time and space to do that rather than some product manager pressuring for the next shiny shit they wanted yesterday.
And Steam is their money printing machine that keeps them free to do whatever they want. It’s no surprise their team have stayed invested in continuing to build out the best gaming platform of all time.
80 talented, passionate, and healthily paid engineers > 800 junior, sleep deprived, and struggling to buy groceries “coders”.
This likely management 101 in action
Amazing what happens if you treat people right and let them do their job
Instead we got too much management constantly causing churn
From a comment below, Valve as a whole supposedly has around 350, of which around 80 work on Steam.
"I have 8 different bosses. That means when I make a mistake, I have 8 different people coming by to tell me about it."
Love to refactor, the more I watch the Mesa graphics drivers and the employees valve hired that work on it the more I believe it
What good is job security when we get an automatic pay cut every year? We get raises by switching jobs!
Also explains why Steam is still a 32-bit binary and didn't get ARM port on any platform.
I think the point is that with this kind of upkeep costs it's hard to argue that Steam sales cut is fair, especially given near-monopoly in PC gaming space.
At this point, their cut is just about mathematically fair, given how little value customers get from buying games most other places and how much value they get from Steam. Then that money got funneled back into decoupling PC gaming from Microsoft and making probably the only mass produced handheld gaming system that's open enough to let you opt out of their ecosystem. I'd be really curious as to how many games on Steam even have ARM builds, because I'll bet it's a very low number, and that would likely make the juice not worth the squeeze.
Their cut is mathematically fair but the inputs for this formula are mostly pain tolerance levels of consumers and producers. I meant fair for having a monopoly. Either you're a utility or need to be broken up so that actual competition can take place.
Steam Deck and Proton killed Linux gaming because nobody bothers to do native ports. While I don't agree with that approach it kinda works but it's not that Valve does this because they like Linux. They're scared of losing their monopoly in case Windows changes too much.
There are ARM native games on Mac (Disco Elysium for example) and Steam has no issues with them. Not having ARM client though means that you're running a dynamically recompiling web browser through a translation layer resulting in terrible performance.
Pain tolerance levels? The biggest pain points I have with Steam are that it's not universally DRM-free (which is why I shop GOG first) and that their multiplayer servers go down for 15 minutes during maintenance windows once or twice per week. Native Linux ports were not going to become more common prior to Proton; they were on the fast track to becoming less common, especially given how many more games are now released every year, and Proton has the added benefit of adding Linux support to games where it was just never going to feasibly happen otherwise.
While I don’t agree with that approach it kinda works but it’s not that Valve does this because they like Linux. They’re scared of losing their monopoly in case Windows changes too much.
It's both. That fear of losing their market position is exactly how a functioning market is supposed to work. Competition is supposed to come in and outdo Valve. EA looked like they were interested for a little while back when they launched Origin, but they changed their minds. Epic says they're interested now, but they only want sellers and not customers. It's not a monopoly, legally, when they attained their market position by just being better than everyone else.
There are ARM native games on Mac (Disco Elysium for example) and Steam has no issues with them.
And I wonder how many more there are out there. Because if that number is low enough, it may just not be worth it to bother. I'd imagine it's a nightmare to have to support Apple through all of their standards that they dictate at their business partners. Valve went through the trouble of making a Vulkan->Metal translation layer, since Apple refused to support open standards, and then Apple retired x64 on their machines shortly afterward.
Pain tolerance to prices, how good the support is, how snappy the app is etc. Within the space of game marketplaces they're average and that's because every one of them kind of sucks. If Epic was first to monopolize PC game marketplaces people would be defending them like they defend Valve now because they want all of their games in one place.
Linux gaming was stable before Proton. It was never big but mainstream titles were getting released. These days there's nothing. Titles could be broken at any moment by a developer and nobody will have any responsibility to fix it. I very much doubt that a for profit company does anything because they "like" something like Linux. They're there to make money, period.
I'm not saying Valve should port their games to ARM or update them, it's up to them and they don't seem to be interested in developing games all that much these days. My point wad that plenty of games run via Rosetta2 fine. Steam doesn't run fine because essentially it's a web browser and that's where you can say that 80 developers might not be enough to support this money printing machine.
If Epic was first to monopolize PC game marketplaces people would be defending them like they defend Valve now because they want all of their games in one place.
No, people accept Steam because of the proven track record, values of their leadership, their hardware and the work they do with Linux.
Linux gaming was stable before Proton.
Please.
Pain tolerance to prices? We're talking about the platform whose name is frequently coupled with the word "sale". Given the complete lack of ideas out of Epic in the year 2024, I don't have much confidence that they'd have risen to be a dominant market leader in the first place.
Linux gaming was stable before Proton. It was never big but mainstream titles were getting released.
Stable, but not many titles. Mainstream titles were getting released because Valve was either greasing the wheels or because those partners thought Steam Machines were going to be a bigger deal. When they weren't a bigger deal, those mainstream titles dried up fast. The Witcher 3 and Street Fighter V both announced Linux ports and cancelled them when the writing was on the wall for Steam Machines. Both now work in Proton.
I very much doubt that a for profit company does anything because they “like” something like Linux. They’re there to make money, period.
I was told, to my face, by a Valve employee between the launch of Steam Machines and the release of Proton, that a lot of engineers at Valve "are enamored with Linux" before he gave me a look indicating that he couldn't say more. But also, yes, the pursuit of making money leads to all sorts of wonderful new things, like simultaneously porting more than half of the history of PC gaming to a different operating system.
I’m not saying Valve should port their games to ARM or update them, it’s up to them and they don’t seem to be interested in developing games all that much these days. My point wad that plenty of games run via Rosetta2 fine. Steam doesn’t run fine because essentially it’s a web browser and that’s where you can say that 80 developers might not be enough to support this money printing machine.
But if there aren't many games ported to ARM, and if the number of games running via Rosetta "fine" isn't high enough, then the number of customers you're benefiting by making a native ARM build of Steam is very low, and throwing more developers at the problem only makes that math worse. I think you should have a better Steam on Mac. I also know that Apple is actively hostile to gaming on Mac, so I get it if Valve isn't super interested.
The only reason you don't see the price as a pain point is that you refuse to see that about 50% of that goes to companies that make billions in profit while people like you and me can't afford rent.
Valve is not your landlord. They made a good place to buy video games. And come on, now; it's 30% at most to Valve (which is less than brick and mortar before it) and then some more to the government.
If this was true, games would cost 18% less on EGS because they only take 12%. Shockingly enough, they cost the same.
Because the same games sell for more elsewhere (also, funnily enough, we're seeing tons of info on Valve because they're getting sued for including a non compete clause in their contract to prevent games from being sold for less elsewhere), that's an issue for the market as a whole and doesn't apply to video games only. You're paying too much for your food, for your gas, for your housing, for your clothes, for every fucking thing!
Profit shares for distributors will need to be regulated and wealth tax will need to be applied.
I disagree with your definition of "killed Linux gaming." It killed native Linux development perhaps. But using Linux for gaming is more viable than ever thanks to Valve. They single handedly boosted Linux gaming, if anything.
And they also offer more than the competition. For a while there games on EGS were just telling people to get support on steam forums because epic had nothing for supporting games they sold. Steam has forums, screenshot storage, achievements, remote play, friends lists, a shopping cart (🙄) and is adding new features like clips. I'm not using steam because it's a monopoly, I'm using it because it's a better platform.
Killed Linux gaming? I hard disagree with that. Yes developers may not do Native ports as often anymore but I would much rather have the ability to play games that are not considered a native Port because the ocean is so much vaster. If anything proton in the steam deck put Linux on the map, prior to the deck AAA titles you would never see running on Linux you barely saw AA titles on it. However with the introduction of the steam deck in proton we now have companies moving closer to at least making sure their game is compatible with the deck which is one step closer to allowing it to be Linux compatible. It allows you to take your windows games and for the most part just be able to play it without having to have the studio spend as much for it as they would with a native port, because that's the number one thing that holds them back from making a native Port the lack of market share. I would not have switched off of Windows if this was not the case because that was basically the only thing that was holding me on Windows still was the lack of decent gaming support
Let's take Elden Ring for example, it plays beautifully I haven't had a single problem playing it. They weren't going to release a Linux branch but they made sure it was steamdeck compatible, which meant that it was proton compatible which then allows me to play this amazing game on my Debian 12, a game that otherwise would not have worked because none of the other translation layers function with it. I notice zero difference in performance it plays flawlessly, but I would not have been able to play this game otherwise. It might as well be a native Port because I've had zero issues with functionality.
The Factorio development blog has a piece on developing Linux-native. Basically there's ONE GUY who works on the LInux-native version, and it's a lot more challenging than people think -- from managing and linking dependencies, to working around GNOME's monumentally stupid decision to expect client-side decorations from all apps. It's simply more worthwhile to ensure that a game works well on WIne/Proton.
it's hard to argue that Steam sales cut is fair
It's actually pretty easy to argue it's fair once you look at everything. Steam offers a shit ton of resources for that 30%, including hosting, distribution, patching, workshop, etc. And that's not even getting into the fact that the dev can get all of that AND get steam keys that they can distribute themselves (meaning valve doesn't get a cut of that) that still utilizes the same infra.
I wish I could find it, but I recently saw a video of Thor (@piratesoftware, does his own game dev and used to work for Blizzard) talking about this and going into even more detail than I can remember at the moment.
The cut would be less if competition was possible. I will bet my arm, first child and souls on this.
And you'd lose all of that.
Competition isn't possible? EGS is an active competitor that only takes 12% and they still can't get fucking anywhere because their store fucking sucks. GoG exists and also takes 30%, their store/launcher are ok, but they don't offer nearly as much for that 30%, but they make up for that with drm free games. There are other minor players out there, so competition is definitely possible, but not one of them offers a comparable product.
The only way steam would lower their cut is if someone came along and made a game store that actually offered a significant portion of the services steam offered and was about as good but also had a lower cut of sales. But good luck finding someone who can do all of that and also takes less than 30%.
You don't seem to understand what a monopoly is. Having some small competition that's not ever going to threaten you because you can leverage your dominant position is also a case of a monopoly.
Epic poured billions of Fortnite money with little to show for it. How is anyone going to compete with a platform that most gamers have all of their games on? This is why they need to be broken up or brought to order via regulations. Companies are not your friends.
Success is not illegal. Valve isn't buying up smaller competing storefronts, or paying off developers for exclusivity, or burying competition in legal fees and prepared 80-page lawsuits. The only thing holding back real competition is the competing platforms being dogshit.
I was excited for the EGS when it was announced. Then it turned out to be a garbage platform with the shady exclusivity deals that turned Steam into an ad platform for games that had been poached by Epic. Valve responded to it with the Steam Deck and Proton.
How is anyone going to compete with a platform that most gamers have all of their games on?
They could offer their games DRM-free, guarantee that their multiplayer games have LAN or provide servers and/or at least provide that information clearly to the consumer, write an open source drop-in replacement for Steam Input and Workshop, guarantee more uptime on their matchmaking/friends servers, retain old versions of games that they distribute, and allow for user-customized or open source clients to fit all sorts of UI preferences, off the top of my head.
Epic poured billions of Fortnite money with little to show for it.
Yes, Into fortnite, not EGS. The eggs spent all their money on timed exclusives instead of a better product, and that's why they failed to make a steam competitor.
Blame the game not the player, it's not like they are doing some next level weird shit like all the competition does. This rigged economic system allowed this situation.
As an Indie dev, a 30% cut of profit could be the death of my one man studio (if I ever get around to actually starting it)
Ok, so then handle all of that yourself at cost. Which will lead to the death of your studio faster?
Seriously though, a $15 game selling just 100k copies is still $1m to you (before taxes) and has no upkeep. You do all that steam does yourself, you're going to drown in operations costs and upkeep time.
I agree with you but at the same time I feel like I should point out that this is the China fallacy, where there's a billion people in China and if you could just tap into even 0.3% of their market you would make bank.
While it's technically true, the fallacy behind it overshadows the difficulty of acquiring that percentage of the market. The grand majority of games released never become cash positive, and over 50% of games on steam alone never make more than $4,000.
https://vginsights.com/insights/article/infographic-indie-game-revenues-on-steam
This is not an issue with distribution, it's an issue with marketing and market fit, and accompanied by the base fact of that if you're the kind of person who is good at making games, it would be a rarity for you to also be the kind of person that's good at marketing the games you made.
Those are two entirely different wheelhouses that function best with two entirely different personality types, and that's not covering all of the different disciplines that you need to make a game or run a game making company in the first place.
Use Steams competitors then if you don't want to pay Steams cut. If you're getting less overall from them, that tells you all you need to know about the validity of Steams fees
I think you missed my point. I am in favor of steam and valve by far, my quibble is with the idea that anyone can sell 100,000 copies of a $15 game.
For every Stardew Valley there are thousands of other games no one has ever heard of and that almost no one bought.
By all means though, make great games. I'll be buying them on steam.
After that well-informed take, listen to an actual indie developer talk about why the 30% is worth it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwoAmifo9r0 (it's a separate but similar lawsuit by a "waaahmbulance-chaser" law firm in the UK)
Damn dude that link fuckin DESTROYS every braindead "b-b-but STEAMS MONOPOLY!!!" arguement I've seen uttered by idiots who want to bring late stage capitalism to the PC marketplace just so they can pretend they stood up to a company
Yes, developers are also victims of this monopoly. It's obviously better ("worth it") to pay 30% for visibility on the biggest marketplace.
They also maintain file hosting for saves, game versions and a lot of useful apis for games https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features
I've been reading Ars Technica for over 20 years now but that's because I like their points, not because I write for them xd
Haha naw the joke was supposed to be name of the guy who's suing them but i ruined it by getting David Rosens name like ... Completely wrong.
I don't know how that happened besides not having my coffee and death stick yet
Because they tried competing and it didn't work because they kept offering an inferior product, so they're trying to weasel Steam out of the market
As for as storefronts go, which is what's being talked about here, they are competing and winning. With a fraction of the employees other companies employ for storefront work. Origin (Rest Unpeacefully) and Uplay never stood a chance and epic has had plenty of time to market saturate. The company not being publicly traded doesn't prevent competition, it prevents investor interests like quashing competition.
They meant the other companies tried competing and failed so they're pushing these anti-valve lawsuits and articles.
Shit on? This is some baller ass shit -- What is the rev per employee a billion dollars?!?!?!
They've touted before that they may be the most profitable company per employee on earth. They make a few billion in profit per year with a payroll of a few hundred employees.
Must be -- I can't think of anyone else that could come close unless you count Berkshire Hathaway or something
I don't know, there's plenty of anti-Valve rhetoric on Lemmy. Plenty of people try to spin it as Valve having a low employee count because they have a lot of contractors. One guy was making a point that Valve employee count is much lower because they buy in AMD GPUs for the Steam Deck... As if Valve should buy chip manufacturing plants and design and manufacture their own GPUs.
Even here somewhere below (or maybe up later) in this thread someone said
Also, a company can pretend to have 10 employees if it instead hires 1000 contractors to do the actual work.
Which is an argument, if you can prove Valve is buying in 10 times the amount of contractors as they have employees for positions that should go to full-time employees. But I very much doubt such information exists.
These numbers keep getting smaller with every headline. Tomorrow it says that Steam runs off of Gabens private NAS.
Because other articles cite about 350 (heh, inb4 three-fiddy) for the whole of Valve. This is just Steam.
Failure of larger companies to make a competitive alternative to steam is not anticompetitive behavior on the part of Valve
Seems like a good example of how running a company for the shareholders doesn’t produce a a better product after all.
Precisely what the share holders don't want people to know. They worship money and what the public to think more money = more good. If people realize these investor backed products are generally not anything better than someone can make in their garage they'll stop buying overpriced junk. So here we are about to see how the sausage gets made.
shareholders ... worship money
Well, that literally is the only reason to become a shareholder, right?
I mean, technically you're participating in the management of the company and can influence decisions such as environmental benefits, but it feels like that only happens when there's secondary benefits that also improve profit.
The case seems like such a reach. At worst it's an effective monopoly for devs, not consumers. Devs have a really hard time selling elsewhere.
That said, I love Steam and think it's genuinely one of the best companies out there. And whilst it's not great that they're so big, they aren't that big due to anti-competitive behaviour. It's quite the opposite. You can add non-Steam games to your library and use Steam features. The fucking Steam deck isn't locked down, and you can install non-Steam games. Just because Uplay wants to log me out every time I reboot doesn't mean Steam should be sued.
There are so many other companies more deserving of the lawsuit
Yeah who TF are their lawyers? Anticompetitive behavior is just that—there have o be actions taken, at least in the United States. And Steam doesn't have exclusivity agreements so IDK what they're gonna argue.
The closest thing they can argue to any kind of "exclusivity" is that the free steam keys developers can generate for their games may not be resold for a lower amount than the game can be purchased for on steam outright. That says nothing about other means of distributing the game outside of steam, and nothing about alternative platforms the devs might want to use. It's a tiny and far away straw to grasp at.
TF2 lawyers, it would seem.
Their legal Offense has evidently been workgrouped by Scout, Soldier and Pyro, judging by this particular legal argument. To think the Mercenaries would turn on their creator... Well, they're mercenaries!
But Infinite growth!! How do you affirm the ability for a new CEO to make tough decisions without going on insane hiring sprees to show growth, and then firing those same people to cut corners and also show growth!? The economy needs blood!
Oh wait, they’re not publically traded? I thought only corner shops were allowed to stay off the market.
Okay, end savage stock market mockery.
That's just a name we give to "a share of a well-known, profitable, and established company with a history of success". I.e. "companies that experience constant and consistent growth". That's literally what OP is criticizing. They do the same things. Microsoft is a blue chip. You think they don't have layoffs to appease shareholders? Google? Apple?
This is the second time they've pointed out the size of valve. First total size, now steam specific. Is it some kinna dogwhistle to other companies that the size is a weakness to exploit? Cuz what layman cares about how many people work at a given company?
A lot of companies have been trying to sue them and are trying to tarnish their name in any way possible because their case is already shaky at best. The whole "monopoly" thing despite competition existing and Valve only being on top because they're the best feature wise stuff.
And a lot of publishers already have their own launchers that dont need steam or use steam. Theyre just dogshit
Exactly. It's hard to argue that Steam has a monopoly when the other launchers exist and suck. Steam, despite its flaws, is still the best storefront we have. Gabe is the person who taught us that piracy is largely a service problem, not a price problem. People will pay when the paid option is quality.
"Companies have too many employees!" cries the guy who will lose his job if all companies are run like Valve.
Them having few employees doesn't prevent them from taking a 30% cut on all sales and making billions in profit and having a billionaire at their head, so are people expecting that if other companies were "trimming down some fat" it wouldn't simply result in them making more profit because prices wouldn't come down or something?
Also, a company can pretend to have 10 employees if it instead hires 1000 contractors to do the actual work.
Someone's upset that they're following their own successful business model.
I get that people don't like wealthy people regardless, but Gabe is probably one of the few that's actually not bad.
I don't know where this contractor bullshit is coming from; if anything that should be aimed at Microsoft.
I don't know where this contractor bullshit is coming from; if anything that should be aimed at Microsoft.
TBF, Valve does hire contractors to help work on Proton and Steam OS. I have no idea what the terms and compensation are, I'm just pointing out that they do hire contractors
There are no good billionaires, the reason they exist is because people like you and me are paying more for things than they're truly worth, billionaires exist because of the surplus we pay.
the reason they exist is because people like you and me are paying more for things than they're truly worth
There is no true worth, worth is defined by how much people are willing to spend on something, doesn't matter how much something costs to produce and distribute
How? That can go both ways, I can make some thing for €5000, but if nobody is willing to buy it, it's still worthless
There's a cost to producing things. All the overhead you're being charged that ends up enriching investors and bosses that have so much money they wouldn't be able to spend it if they tried? That's money you could keep in your pocket.
Have you ever thought that maybe you evaluate that some things are worth a certain amount just because that's what you're used to seeing them sold for so in reality you just underestimate what your money is worth and how much you should be able to purchase with it? Because that's exactly what's happening, especially with digital goods, there's no supply vs demand relationship here, there's no rarity.
If bread sells for 5$ for long enough you'll think you're getting your money's worth by getting it on sale for 4.50$ without realizing that it cost 2$ to make it, transport it and put it on the shelves and there's still 2.50$ going to the grocery store owner. You were paying that bread 3$ a couple of years ago and at the time it cost 1.75$ to make, transport and store, but you're ignoring all that because what's important is that right now it's 50¢ less than full price so you're getting your money's worth. Most of the surplus is going to a company that's just making record profit year after year after year, but that record profit comes from somewhere. It went up 100% in a couple of years while the people who made, transported and put the bread on the shelves have seen their salary increase by 10% and you've seen what you spend on grocery increase by 66%, but hey, you're getting your money's worth and the price is fair because that's what people accept to be paying, right?
"Companies have too many employees!" cries the guy who will lose his job if all companies are run like Valve.
Less wasting resources, good. Ah, you mean under capitalism.
Pretty amazing that years of effort from massive competitors like Epic and Microsoft haven't managed to crack this. I wonder what they're doing wrong?
(Ok I lied. I know exactly what they're doing wrong and there's zero chance of them changing.)
The Microsoft Store and how to redeem games is so mind-numbly stupid. GamePass wowed me with their library and the subscription service. But how they do everything, from DRMing their games in a absolute mindfuckery app folder, to locking it into your Microsoft account and ecosystem, was so frustrating. Modding? Eat a Microdick. Hell, save files don't even transfer between Steam and Microsoft GamePass games because FUCK YOU PLAYERS.
I'm glad Steam was extremely proactive at moving off of Windows.
Well large corporations are at least 50% dead weight by volume, weighted overwhelmingly in management and at the executive level. So naturally it's the ones doing all the ACTUAL work who get terminated whenever the line isn't going up hard enough. Capitalism folks, it's doomed us all and there's no way we can fix it and those who could never will.
I genuinely can't fathom why this number should be bigger. What am I supposed to take away from this knowledge? Far as I'm concerned, Valve is still a rare comparative good guy in the dense-packed field of bad guys in industry
Because we have been led to believe that the "titans" of industry are these super above average smart people. In reality it's a bunch of nepo babies with no unique skills (other than, perhaps, a good education) which only copy each other.
After covid, all big IT companies started hiring like mad men... Then they all started firing people like crazy. They are driven more by speculation on their stock price and FOMO than any actual business strategy
Maybe in the distant pre-cloud past, when sysadmins were still a thing, you'd expect a bigger staff to be needed to manage a bigger datacenter.
But a few devs who know how to spin up a thing with auto-scaling can accomplish a lot
But a few devs who know how to spin up a thing with auto-scaling can accomplish a lot
This is true, but I still find it impressive that Valve has seemingly managed to find 80 all in one spot. My company can barely find one or two
Because Epic Games is really hoping to turn people against steam any way they can other than actually improving their service or morals.
This is so silly. Do people think hosting thousands of games and having thousands of users is cheap?
tbf, it's likely significantly cheaper than the 30% margin. I still think it's silly though
This is a "they are hoarding all the profits" "they're not open to stock exchange" "why I can't have a piece if this cake, it's unfair" kind of news.
Pure pressure politics.
gives confidence too. like some sort of superhero that has confidence powers. you could name him, uh... let me think...
I honestly think it's a badge of honor.
I worked in a company where we had 1000+ engineers on a SAAS platform for three years. And it barely has the same relevance or reach as Steam.
These "B-B-BUT STEAMS MONOPOLY CROWD" really do think we have stockholm/boot licker syndrome as if a good 60%+ of steam users didnt know how to Pirate games if we truly didnt like the service
The report says that Valve has ~350 employees total, and of those employees only 80 actually work on Steam as a storefront. The rest are working on their games and hardware.
It's very impressive. Although it explains why the remote streaming and controller stuff is so GD buggy.
Theres probably like 3 guys total working on them. Maybe not even full-time.
I mean that's awesome.
Ultimately they're only responsible for the steam client and the servers.
Of course there's a fee. Do they not realize how expensive it is to fileserve useless videogame data, provide versioning for that, updater systems, workshop storage, curation, promotion etc etc. . . without help?
Is there not a fee for your competing storefront? How would it fund its daily operations?
The workshop alone is already a godsend (from Lord Gaben).
There are decade old games with hundreds of thousands of mods, who's paying for all the hosting?
Has anyone tried Epic Store? It has nothing but the most barebone features to purchase a game, literally just a glorified launcher.
Right? Steam provides better service and functionality than any other PC storefront. It's ridiculous that there's so much whining about them charging for it. So what if it's a higher percentage? It's also a better service and a large audience. Whoever doesn't like it is free to go elsewhere, unlike console games that can only be sold though the manufacturer's store.
If any digital game store deserved to be sue, it's Nintendo hand down. That's the real monopoly store with a "fuck you because we can" attitude.
That actually makes a lot of sense given the fact that i havent heard about massive steam data centers. I suppose they just rent their servers from data centers around the world. Which actually is very suprising. I imagine at their scale making their own data centers would save them money.
Actually i just think they must subcontract a lot of their daily operation. I refuse to belive such low numbers are enough to even handle the complaints from stolen shipments and broken devices not to mention all the other complaints. It is more than enough to actually develop the platform but surely not to handle day to day operations.
I remember reading that having a version keyword in your user alias would cause issues with steam, and it was actually because it was a blocked word on CloudFlare where they store/pull a bunch of steam data from
I suspect subcontracting is how they get around the lasseiz-faire nature of employment there. There's a famously open policy where nobody tells anyone what to do.
But I imagine that policy can't extend to subcontractors. There it's "here's money, make the servers happen".
Valve is profitable because of the reputation they've built up over many years as being an incredibly consumer friendly storefront. Avoiding corporate bloat, and focusing their attention on the core aspects of their business consumers care about has allowed them to thrive where many others failed. Valve created and maintained a fantastic product. So yes.
That feels like free advertising to potential job-seekers.
If just a few staff are running the whole thing, it means they are all probably the kind that do more actual work and less politics. That means, if anyone interested in learning fast and getting good at their field were to work there, they would have the time of their life.
I infer from this that they don't hire fast learners, they hire people who are already well demonstrated experts.
