I mean yeah… The reason why Valve is so profitable is because they have the total monopoly of the market. This is another contradiction of capitalism. Liberals are always pointing out that competition is great, but who wants to install 50 different apps, on their PC, to manage their games? It’s much more convenient, to have it all in one place.
Another thing that should be pointed out, is that Valve and Steam add no real value to the products they sell. They sell games that aren’t theirs to begin with. They’re just the middleman, but being a useless middleman in capitalism is insanely profitable.
And yes, the lootbox fest needs to end. It’s online gambling, where children are the main target. Every company that has used lootbox mechanics, with real money involved, needs to face charges for exposing children to gambling.
Valve and Steam add no real value to the products they sell.
A small quibble, but this is wrong. They are acting as distribution/publishers/storefronts. Not every game developer can host secure digital downloads of their game any more then Id in the 1990’s could produce all the copies of Doom/Wolf3d they were selling.
You can argue that the fees for their services are too high, but no one is forced to use them if they just want their game to be sold. For example Starsector (https://fractalsoftworks.com/) self-distributes, and doesn’t require a store front installed on your pc, but apparently lots of other videogame developers can’t do that.
I mean yeah… The reason why Valve is so profitable is because they have the total monopoly of the market. This is another contradiction of capitalism. Liberals are always pointing out that competition is great, but who wants to install 50 different apps, on their PC, to manage their games? It’s much more convenient, to have it all in one place.
Another thing that should be pointed out, is that Valve and Steam add no real value to the products they sell. They sell games that aren’t theirs to begin with. They’re just the middleman, but being a useless middleman in capitalism is insanely profitable.
And yes, the lootbox fest needs to end. It’s online gambling, where children are the main target. Every company that has used lootbox mechanics, with real money involved, needs to face charges for exposing children to gambling.
A small quibble, but this is wrong. They are acting as distribution/publishers/storefronts. Not every game developer can host secure digital downloads of their game any more then Id in the 1990’s could produce all the copies of Doom/Wolf3d they were selling.
You can argue that the fees for their services are too high, but no one is forced to use them if they just want their game to be sold. For example Starsector (https://fractalsoftworks.com/) self-distributes, and doesn’t require a store front installed on your pc, but apparently lots of other videogame developers can’t do that.