Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 876 posts

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

#561

Post by goosejuice »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #479
johnnyanmac wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?" Aren't people upset about both? The whole "gamble for features" is pretty much why the mobile market and console market are divorced in audiences (or at least, community). People are "more" upset about Valve here because this is in the console space. They…

> Aren't people upset about both? I'm sure a few people are, but typically no. People are aware that trading card games can be a monetary black hole, but Magic and similar games usually don't take the same heat for the business model that Valve does for loot boxes, even though they're actually worse on paper. > They've long dismissed the mobile scene as lost. I'm not talking about the mobile market. Are you not aware…

> usually don't take the same heat for the business model that Valve does for loot boxes, even though they're actually worse on paper.

This is a weird claim. TCG/CCG is far worse than Valve's loot boxes. It's not even close. MTG Arena is huge btw, it's not a footnote.

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

#562

Post by aydyn »

ethbr1 wrote: post #520
aydyn wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But thats the point, Valve IS maximizing profits. If they treated their customers like Epic does, do you think people would still be using Valve when Epic is generally a bit cheaper?

The entire point of this thread is that there are many things that Valve could do to increase its profits over the short, intermediate, and long terms... that it doesn't (presumably because that's not the kind of company it wants to be). As the simplest example, they could have stamped HL3 on a third party game and made several millions of dollars with only a minor hit to their brand (in 5 years, "that bad HL"). In m…

I don't see a problem with the first, if they want to outsource HL3 go ahead. Consumers can decide if they want to buy it when it releases, that's just normal economics.

As for the 2nd, that's sort of what Epic does, yet Valve's store revenue is 10x Epic. So if enacting these anti-consumer practices were actually more profitable, why is Epic doing so shit? Not even in terms of absolute numbers but in terms of growth, Epic store isn't growing at all. Epic can't hit even a fraction of Steam's numbers despite giving away hundreds of games.

Developing open source emulation is essential to their success - no developer would build and verify for Steam OS and Proton if it were closed source and only available on a single device (lol). Steam being very pro-consumer is what makes them successful.

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

#563

Post by retsibsi »

nialv7 wrote: post #213
viraptor wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes cheating harder and the timeline to a cheat product gets longer than the iteration speed of anticheat. Kind of like fancy locks don't prevent break ins, just take longer to pick and require more specialised tools.

As they say, locks only stop honest people.

They are wrong, though. Locks also stop people who would happily commit an opportunistic theft but who lack the necessary tools or skills, people who would trespass if they could retain some plausible deniability ("oops, I didn't see the signs" vs. "oops, I didn't realise I wasn't supposed to cut that padlock"), and so on.

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

#564

Post by systematizeD »

globalnode wrote: post #559

valve is just as ambitious as microsoft or google, they just appear to be the good guy for now because theyre trying to gain some ground on evil corp, and linux is one of the only openings they (or anyone) has got.

The only proprietary, steam client itself, you can fork their stack build your own store if you like.

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

#565

Post by Xixi »

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

There's a little known alternative: Steward-ownership [1]. It's the kind of structure used by Novo Nordisk, Bosch or Patagonia.

LLM summary: "Steward-ownership is a model where a company’s control stays with long-term stewards (founders, employees, or a mission-aligned foundation) while profits are limited and the company cannot be sold for private gain. The goal is to protect the mission permanently."

The key, if I understand properly, is that these company cannot be sold (not even by the founders), so there is no "shareholder value" per se to maximize. It is also probably not a good way for founders to maximize their net worth, which is probably why it's not more popular...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward-ownership

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

#566

Post by Qwertious »

MobiusHorizons wrote: post #433
kasey_junk wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hypothesis then is that there is not a _single_ public company that has a healthy relationship with its company? Not one, in the entire global public space? When does this relationship with customers happen? Is it at the IPO? When they file the paperwork? When they contemplate going public for the first time? Or is it that any founder who might one day decide to contemplate going public was doomed to unhealthy cu…

> Not one, in the entire global public space? It is genuinely hard to think of one. I treat all companies as adversarial relationships, where I fully expect them to treat me as disposable at least over any time horizon greater than 1-2y. There are certainly some companies that are more likely to find a mutually beneficial equilibrium. I think of Target, IKEA, sometimes Apple. But I don’t trust any of those companies…

Costco is public, according to wikipedia.

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

#567

Post by Qwertious »

wqaatwt wrote: post #436
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

But isn’t Valve extremely profitable compared to pretty much non private company in the industry? They have few employees and massive revenue.

They're the #1 most profitable per employee. There are plenty of companies more profitable than Valve, but they have more employees. Valve could hire more employees.

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

#568

Post by Qwertious »

internet101010 wrote: post #293
ceedan wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need to keep wrecking it. Skins should just be fixed cost items.

Nah. Digital items should be transferable, similar to physical gacha like Pokemon cards.

That doesn't mean they should be reliable speculation vehicles. AFAIK Valve hasn't interfered with the gifting of digital items, only sales.

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

#569

Post by flanked-evergl »

cedws wrote: post #419
shmerl wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, thanks. That's the worst Android did, creating their own incompatible thing. We don't need another NIH like that.

Android is a much more successful platform than the Linux desktop.

Not as a desktop OS.

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

#570

Post by nikanj »

Xixi wrote: post #565
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

There's a little known alternative: Steward-ownership [1]. It's the kind of structure used by Novo Nordisk, Bosch or Patagonia. LLM summary: "Steward-ownership is a model where a company’s control stays with long-term stewards (founders, employees, or a mission-aligned foundation) while profits are limited and the company cannot be sold for private gain. The goal is to protect the mission permanently." The key, if I…

This model, unfortunately, often leads to a "well, we might as well spend the extra profits on executive benefits"-issue. Whenever you have money without oversight, you always face a moral hazard.

If the company makes a profit and there aren't shareholders there to keep the stewards in check, excesses can and do develop.

Post reply on HN