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Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

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Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#261

Post by usefulcat »

xbmcuser wrote: post #251
TulliusCicero wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there. But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty towards the consumer than other major companies in their space, by a long shot.

The major reason is they are a private company with good business. The don't have a need to keep adding to shareholder value ie stock price instead just need to generate a yearly income. We have reached a point where the shareholders are a companies real customers and that is who they all try to attract.Everytthing else a company does is just to attract shareholders

It’s definitely more than just private ownership. In fact I’d say that’s the least part of it.

Look at all the horror stories about businesses that were bought by PE firms; those are all privately held too.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#262

Post by d3Xt3r »

bigwheels wrote: post #89

Any leads on when the next generation of Steam Deck will be released? Hoping it could be sometime in 2025, but suspect it will be more like 2026. Over the holidays I was playing GTA: San Andreas on a Nintendo Switch. It's fun but so underpowered for a game released in 2004 (Yes, 21 years ago! Damn..). I'm really craving something more. As a sidenote, it's really cool Valve allows installing SteamOS on any hardware. T…

If you're considering getting an alternative handheld, a better OS would be either Bazzite or CachyOS Handheld edition. SteamOS is not bad, but it uses an older kernel+graphics stack which doesn't make it very ideal for running on recent hardware. Plus, dedicated gaming distros like Bazzite have additional hardware support (like thirdparty game controllers) which may not be supported in SteamOS.

Currently, AMD Strix Halo based handhelds are the most powerful portable gaming devices out there, with the top three being the GPD Win 5, the OneXPlayer OneXfly Apex, and the AYANEO Next 2. Of these three, the GPD Win 5 has already started shipping. Problem is they're stupid expensive.

Personally, I will wait until I can run FSR4 natively on these portables, because FSR makes a pretty significant QoL improvement on these handhelds.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#263

Post by xboxnolifes »

nialv7 wrote: post #210
TulliusCicero wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there. But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty towards the consumer than other major companies in their space, by a long shot.

Valve is estimated to make $16.2 billion from Steam alone in 2025 [0], and CS:GO loot boxes only netted them ~1bn in 2023 [1] (and CS:GO player count is only slightly higher now compared to 2023, so I expected the income number is similar). Why don't they just take a 6% pay cut and make sure there is nothing to criticize them about :/ [0]: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-mak... [1]: https://c…

Because a billion dollars is still a billion dollars.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#264

Post by bigstrat2003 »

usefulcat wrote: post #261
xbmcuser wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major reason is they are a private company with good business. The don't have a need to keep adding to shareholder value ie stock price instead just need to generate a yearly income. We have reached a point where the shareholders are a companies real customers and that is who they all try to attract.Everytthing else a company does is just to attract shareholders

It’s definitely more than just private ownership. In fact I’d say that’s the least part of it. Look at all the horror stories about businesses that were bought by PE firms; those are all privately held too.

Private ownership is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to have a business which has a healthy relationship with its customers. You also need the owners to be people of reasonably good character who understand that the best way to run a business is a win-win approach on both sides, not people who see nothing wrong with extracting maximum profit from the business no matter whom it hurts. The PE horror stories you hear are cases where the owners are in the latter group.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#265

Post by haunter »

asacrowflies wrote: post #203
TulliusCicero wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there. But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty towards the consumer than other major companies in their space, by a long shot.

They even seem to be on of the rare companies that recognized the issues of this and massively pulled themselves BACK from these dark patterns. They seem to have major restraint and working to undo the evil..... imagine if a Activision blizzard had something like the steam market place for cards and gifts..... They would be full face in the cocaine to make it all WORSE and more egregious

>They even seem to be on of the rare companies that recognized the issues of this and massively pulled themselves BACK from these dark patterns

??? They didn't

All the 3rd party trading and gambling sites are up and running on the Steam API. They didn't change anything at all

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#266

Post by Insanity »

adverbly wrote: post #98

Everything valve doing for linux is making such a huge impact. The HL3 memes don't even seem fair to use anymore. I don't even want to un-seriously make joke fun of them at this point. They are just genuinely doing so much for the community.

I always took the HL3 memes more as a good-faith joke. Like it's part of gaming culture more than a serious jab at them.

I personally can't wait for "SteamOS 2: Episode 2 part 1" :)

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#267

Post by tonetegeatinst »

dansalvato wrote: post #244
tonetegeatinst wrote: post #30

Given how arm license is know to be less than friendly.... Wouldn't it be preferable to explore a RISCV architecture. As far as I know RISC provides similar power efficiency and sleep that is like ARM.

From the last interview question in the article (pertaining to Arm): > We don’t really try to steer the market one direction or another; we just want to make sure that good options are always supported. Sounds like their priority is to support Steam on the hardware consumers are currently using. Given that, it makes sense they'd go Arm in the Steam Frame, because Fex alone is already a massive undertaking, and Snapdr…

Agree but I would argue RISC is catching up fast.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#268

Post by Yokolos »

butz wrote: post #209
12_throw_away wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> isn't this handled at the compiler level? I.e. lower level than game devs worry about. But game devs (at least of a certain type) are notorious for thinking about low-level hardware performance right from the start. As a class I'm pretty sure game devs use godbolt much, much more than your typical developer.

Sadly, nowadays very few, if any, game developers care about performance or optimizations. Look at recent headline about "Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB" and it was done by simply deduplicating assets. Gone are the days of finding inredible ways to use less opcodes that game would feel smoother.

I think we can all agree that performance is often an afterthought to game developers, particular in bigger productions, but HD2 is sort of a bad example for that.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#269

Post by jerojero »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #140
embedding-shape wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read what you wrote, I immediately asked myself "Doesn't Gabe have children who could have been raised with the same values? Maybe that..." and then I caught myself thinking exactly the same way as many others before me, and the reason why we have so many shitty politicians in positions of power today. I hope Gabe has setup Valve in such a way that they can pass on his mentality as a whole inside the business…

Just musing along with you here but I think it's really hard for anything like that to happen. What seems at least halfway likely is that Valve won't be the same post-Gabe. But there will be other companies that end up with a similar ethos, and we can support those companies as best we can. I'm a huge fan of the OSS model of keeping your core business fully unrelated to OSS but allowing and encouraging the use and co…

well we don't know exactly how involved Gabe Newell is with the actual running of the company now a days or how do they going about their governance.

From what I see it seems like the culture of the company is shared between the leadership roles so it might be possible for the company to continue doing as it has been doing after Gabe.

I think the people at valve are smart and they understand their business and the company very well and that this issue is being taken seriously too.

Good governance exists, it's just that for most companies there's not really an interest in having that because it gets in the way of personal interests of people that are already entrenched in power.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#270

Post by jonny_eh »

KaiMagnus wrote: post #165
codeflo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the rumors still hinting at a VR-only experience as they did a couple of years ago when Half-Life: Alyx released, or is that no longer the speculation? Because that would be unfortunate for me, I'd have to play with a bucket in hand.

I believe for the next Half-Life, latest rumors indicate it is actually back to 2D. During the press event last month, they were also pretty clear that no VR game is currently in development at Valve. A huge missed opportunity imo, but maybe playing HL3 on a theater sized screen is nice enough.

I'm sure they've tried making it hybrid, aka VR optional. I'm curious if they'd be able to make it work. If not, I don't expect a VR only HL game again.
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