Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license • Hacker News Board

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#381

Post by throw10920 » Thu, May 07, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #316

artyom wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the other way around. Valve is the company where we spend a lot of money and they deserve it. The rest is companies that trick people into giving them money (battlepass! lootboxes!) and they don't deserve it. People often forget that consumers as a whole are the ones holding the power, and the sad part is that rewarding a company with a good product with your money stopped being the business model and it's now t…

I'd like to have an honest conversation about this, but imo Valve is no better than the iOS app store: it aggressively rent seeks and has essentially destroyed the shareware model (which was the best way to discover software in the 80s-90s). It has also willingly been complicit in underage gambling via loot boxes for more than a decade now. I think Gabe Newell is a visionary for building Steam in 2003, way before Job…

> it aggressively rent seeks

I don't know about the rest of your claims ("shareware was the best way to discover software" is really a personal opinion), but this is just factually false.

Unlike iOS, where you cannot publish an app unless you pay the 30% cut, there is nothing that prevents you from developing and a Windows/MacOS/Linux game yourself. You can simply choose to not use Steam - but the benefits of developing and publishing with it (myriad SDKs, game servers, networking, social features, trading cards, anti-cheat, achievements, payment methods, reviews, discovery, forums, launchers, updates, CDN, and on and on and on...) are so overwhelming that it is simply worth it for the vast majority of gamedevs.

Fact: Steam is not rent-seeking - the value that they provide is tremendous, and you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#382

Post by throw10920 » Thu, May 07, 2026, 2:37 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #374

fatal94 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevance isnt anti competitive. Comparing them to Microsoft who not only monopolized but enforced it via product bundling is not the same at all. They simply have the best product and won the market.

Could say the same thing about AT&T, Bell Labs, etc. There’s a lot of precedent here, but most saliently, how you become a monopoly is not really relevant. They absolutely are one. But I’m being already aggressively downvoted with no counter arguments so the Gaben fanboys are here. (Defending a deca-billionaire is hard work, after all.)

> Could say the same thing about AT&T, Bell Labs, etc.

No, you cannot. AT&T/Bell Labs was a monopoly - they physically controlled distribution networks that made it so you had to use them.

Valve does not. There is nothing that prevents you from simply selling your game without Steam.

And even if there wasn't, claims that Valve is a monopoly are factually false - there are many other storefronts that exist, and many games are published on more than one storefront at once. And, Steam does not gate an OS or platform like Microsoft and iOS do.

> But I’m being already aggressively downvoted with no counter arguments

Every one of your arguments is being countered (such as the claim that "relevance is anticompetitive" which isn't even false, it's nonsensical). Including this one.

> Defending a deca-billionaire is hard work, after all.

...and there's the emotional manipulation. It's pretty clear you're just a propagandist who has a grudge against Steam (maybe you work for Epic?), given that you're going up and down the thread with emotional non-arguments that try to redefine words, pull at peoples' emotions (like the billionaire comment), or just flat-out lie.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#383

Post by crysin » Thu, May 07, 2026, 2:39 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #374

fatal94 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevance isnt anti competitive. Comparing them to Microsoft who not only monopolized but enforced it via product bundling is not the same at all. They simply have the best product and won the market.

Could say the same thing about AT&T, Bell Labs, etc. There’s a lot of precedent here, but most saliently, how you become a monopoly is not really relevant. They absolutely are one. But I’m being already aggressively downvoted with no counter arguments so the Gaben fanboys are here. (Defending a deca-billionaire is hard work, after all.)

What’s your solution then to them being a monopoly? How would you meaningfully break them up? While they outperform the sales of Epic and Gog I’m not sure how they’re abusing their position or how they’re keeping others from entering?

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#384

Post by xingped » Thu, May 07, 2026, 2:42 AM UTC

cwel wrote: post #347

xingped wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with most of your statement, but Valve has and continues to make lots of money from loot boxes in both CS and TF2. Just want to point out that they do do stuff like that too.

..and Dota2..

Ah yeah, I forgot about Dota2, sorry. It's just a genre I don't pay any attention to, but you're right.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#385

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 07, 2026, 2:45 AM UTC

mriet wrote: post #355

dvt wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same argument Microsoft used ("we're just an OS, totally not a monopoly"). I think to anyone that spends any time doing any PC gaming, it's obvious that Steam is the only relevant storefront by a country mile.

And yet, Escape from Tarkov is not on Steam, which would seem 5o contradict what you're saying.

[deleted]

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#386

Post by Maxatar » Thu, May 07, 2026, 2:49 AM UTC

KumaBear wrote: post #3

If only scalpers didn’t scoop up every unit

I don't really understand this argument. Is your position that if scalpers didn't exist you'd have a better chance of getting this product?

Scalpers have no effect on the supply of a product, they only affect the demand of the product and specifically they reduce the demand for the product by increasing the price.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#387

Post by Cpoll » Thu, May 07, 2026, 2:49 AM UTC

po1nt wrote: post #358

Cpoll wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's harder to say that when they invented loot crates. Sure everyone's doing it now, and someone else would've done it eventually, but Valve pioneered it. I suppose, yeah, some things would be a lot worse without Steam, so there's that.

That is not true. Gachapon mechanics existed long before, valve only took it to western market, not knowing the consequences. Remember this is way before gambling sites. It was a way to earn a cool random hat on TF2.

I'm aware of what Korean MMOs were doing years earlier, but it feels different, in a way I can't quite put into words. I suspect there's a psychological aspect to earning the chest and buying the key.

But yeah, maybe I'm pushing a distinction that doesn't exist, and it's all just forms of trading cards (which themselves were popularized by tobacco companies).

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#388

Post by throw10920 » Thu, May 07, 2026, 2:53 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #337

eudamoniac wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That a really silly comparison. An OS is a big deal, you can't just switch off. Steam is a video game store. You can install shit from anywhere. People stick to steam because it's good. It's not morally wrong to have the best product on the market.

If you want the audience as an indie developer, it would behoove you to launch on Steam (because they're a monopoly). Again, MS used all these cute arguments, and they don't really work. There's a reason Valve is always playing very nicely with regulators (especially w.r.t. the gambling stuff). They don't really want to rock the boat, but a benevolent monopoly is still a monopoly and I do think that a 30% cut for run…

> If you want the audience as an indie developer, it would behoove you to launch on Steam

Correct, because they're a huge distribution channel, and literally anyone who has ever tangentially touched business knows this and accepts that it is fair to pay for this.

> (because they're a monopoly)

Factually incorrect. Nobody forces you to use Steam. You can create and launch and sell a Windows or Mac or Linux game without ever touching steam. You can self-publish and run your own game servers and CDN, or you can use the Epic Games Store, or you can use GOG, Humble Bundle, Xbox, Origin, Itch, or any of a dozen others.

> Again, MS used all these cute arguments

This is extremely dishonest. Microsoft controlled an operating system, only one of which can run at a time. If you are running Windows, you're not running Linux. And Microsoft entered into distribution deals with OEMs to pre-install Windows, leading to massive default-choice effects. Neither of these are true for Steam - you can install and run every single platform I listed above at the same time, and I've never seen a computer come pre-installed with Steam ever.

> I do think that a 30% cut for running a distribution platform is pretty predatory, especially as bandwidth has been commoditized

So, you have no idea what Steam actually does.

Steam is, in addition to being one of the largest digital distribution platforms in the US (if not the world) - which is by itself worth paying a 30% cut for, a SDK and networking provider that gives you a social network, input (gamepad/keyboard/mouse) library, achievements, digital trading cards, update system and CDN, real-time voice comms, product key redemption, license tracking, DRM, anti-cheat, user forums, and many other things.

If you only criticize things that you actually understand, you'll end up looking a lot less foolish, and undercutting your own points as a result.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#389

Post by Petersipoi » Thu, May 07, 2026, 3:00 AM UTC

kgwxd wrote: post #94

giobox wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish the company would talk more about the post-Gabe transition, or at least begin to give us a rough indication of where the company plans to go. Those of us who have been customers over 20 years often have a pretty significant investment in Steam content, and Gabe is getting old.

No company will ever do that. Even if they did, no one on the planet should expect it to play out as described. The whole anti-DRM position is based on the fact promises aren't worth a damn thing.

> No company will ever do that

Ignoring how many counter examples of this there are, why wouldn't Gaben do this given that he's majority owner of the company? He can do whatever he wants.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#390

Post by AngryData » Thu, May 07, 2026, 3:03 AM UTC

poisonborz wrote: post #29

Even if Valve and Steam is great and overall a blessing for the PC space, I don't like the direction they take with this controller. It only works with Steam, it can't work on a desktop OS without it, despite standard layout. It is a subtle move towards a walled garden.

I do wish there was some kind of stand-alone driver for it. But I think part of the problem is also Windows themselves whos gamepad support is a pile of dog crap for anything that isn't a direct xbox controller replacement. Even retro gamepads pretend to be an xbox controller because they know if they don't 90% of games will be broken.