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I don’t need a Steam Machine

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Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#211

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

cubefox wrote: post #78
Aeolun wrote: post #2

All of this is true, but Valve is one of the best companies I know and for now, I’ll happily give them money. It’s not about the fact that I’m actually going to use it. It’s about the fact that I want people to keep making things like this. It’s about the fact I want to reward them for not locking it down completely.

You wouldn't like Valve so much if you explicitly saw the 30% Steam tax, I mean fee, declared every time you bought a PC game on Steam. Imagine if Microsoft did that. +30% for every Windows software. Like iOS. Then Steam games would be +60% rather than +30%.

Said to a company that just released all their os as open source, contributing drastically to the community.

Please, compare that with Amazon and AWS, spot the difference

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#212

Post by devwastaken »

torginus wrote: post #27

When I first saw the Arduino I didn't see the point - after all there were boards that cost less, did more, and the Arduino IDE seemed very barebones compared to what you could do with GCC and a custom toolchain. Then eventually I saw how much community support, ready made hardware emerged around it, to the point that after a while, not going the Arduino route was a decision you needed to justify heavily. Same thing…

SteamOS is locked down. it is not a community driven project. You cannot update if you modify the rootfs. Valve created a true console, it is not a PC.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#214

Post by crowbahr »

cubefox wrote: post #185
Yokolos wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's still higher than what seems reasonable Based on what? Your arbitrary standards. I still don't understand what's wrong with 30% for everything Steam provides as a platform. It's perfectly acceptable. It's not making indie developers poorer. It helping to ensure Valve can focus on the things that matter to them and do things like invest in Steam Input, Proton, SteamOS, and Steam Deck/Machine/Controller/Frame/…

> Based on what? Your arbitrary standards. Based on a strongly and persistently imbalanced ratio of revenue to expenses, which indicates a form of market inefficiency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent#Monopoly_rent (the mentioned network effects are basically what drives Steam rents) > I still don't understand what's wrong with 30% for everything Steam provides as a platform. It's perfectly acceptable. It'…

There's a reason everyone else who comes to take on this "market inefficiency" fails. Amazon threw billions at it. So did Google. So has Epic. And Microsoft.

None of them dethroned steam, so 30% is still the cost to access the steam user base.

If tens of billions can't overcome this "inefficiency" then it sure seems like there might be more to the story than economics 101.

The fact is that Steam has an incredibly loyal _userbase_ and you won't convince them to leave unless steam betrays their trust, which they haven't.

The trust in any competitor is nearly 0 compared with Steam which has been a platform people have loved and used for over a decade now with basically 0 issues. No corporate missteps.

Arguably the biggest controversy is the latest way they made CS2 loot boxes less valuable, popping the insane bubble in the skins market. That's still ultimately good for the average gamer and I expect they'll come out smelling like roses.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#215

Post by leshenka »

devwastaken wrote: post #212
torginus wrote: post #27

When I first saw the Arduino I didn't see the point - after all there were boards that cost less, did more, and the Arduino IDE seemed very barebones compared to what you could do with GCC and a custom toolchain. Then eventually I saw how much community support, ready made hardware emerged around it, to the point that after a while, not going the Arduino route was a decision you needed to justify heavily. Same thing…

SteamOS is locked down. it is not a community driven project. You cannot update if you modify the rootfs. Valve created a true console, it is not a PC.

Sorry that’s absolutely not the case. They’ve created “locked down” experience so that is serviceable and harder to break but you’re absolutely free to install arch, ubuntu, whatever and put Steam on top of it. You can install Windows even.

You don’t have to choose “all or nothing”. You are not being locked in an ecosystem like you do with the consoles Steam Machine aims to compete with.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#216

Post by cubefox »

crowbahr wrote: post #214
cubefox wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on what? Your arbitrary standards. Based on a strongly and persistently imbalanced ratio of revenue to expenses, which indicates a form of market inefficiency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent#Monopoly_rent (the mentioned network effects are basically what drives Steam rents) > I still don't understand what's wrong with 30% for everything Steam provides as a platform. It's perfectly acceptable. It'…

There's a reason everyone else who comes to take on this "market inefficiency" fails. Amazon threw billions at it. So did Google. So has Epic. And Microsoft. None of them dethroned steam, so 30% is still the cost to access the steam user base. If tens of billions can't overcome this "inefficiency" then it sure seems like there might be more to the story than economics 101. The fact is that Steam has an incredibly loy…

> There's a reason everyone else who comes to take on this "market inefficiency" fails.

Yes, network effects, as discussed in the Wikipedia article linked above. It's the reason why Facebook or Twitter are so hard to replace, or eBay, or Amazon. In these cases larger platforms benefit from the fact that everyone else is already there, which makes switching hard. That doesn't mean they are inherently better though. They can even be significantly worse than alternatives, apart from network effects.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#217

Post by lanfeust6 »

Yoric wrote: post #57

Let me be that guy: we live in a time of collapse, for both the environment and international relationships – do we really need more gaming rigs?

You don't "need" most of what you own, conditioned upon mere survival. Liberal democracy allows people to improve their lives and pursue what makes them happy.

Degrowth as a cure is worse than what it is purported to treat. Itwould hurt people. Developing countries improve their standard of living by exporting stuff to us, by consuming resources, etc. The poorest countries trade the least and its not an enviable lifestyle.

We are not headed for collapse by any metric. Fuel use in China has plateaued despite growing energy demand, owing to rapid solar scaling. Matter of time before we catch up. IPCC says climate will suck and be expensive, not apocalyptic. And finally, global population growth is projected to completely stall. The fertility rate is already stagnant in the 1st world. Innovation also improves efficiency, allowing us to build with less energy and resources over time.

We grow only BC of immigration, and immigrants are not coming to consume less, but to consume more.

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#218

Post by retrochameleon »

devwastaken wrote: post #212
torginus wrote: post #27

When I first saw the Arduino I didn't see the point - after all there were boards that cost less, did more, and the Arduino IDE seemed very barebones compared to what you could do with GCC and a custom toolchain. Then eventually I saw how much community support, ready made hardware emerged around it, to the point that after a while, not going the Arduino route was a decision you needed to justify heavily. Same thing…

SteamOS is locked down. it is not a community driven project. You cannot update if you modify the rootfs. Valve created a true console, it is not a PC.

Immutable =/= locked down

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#219

Post by retrochameleon »

Wurdan wrote: post #67
mariopt wrote: post #12

Steam Machines can become an existencial crisis for PlayStation and Xbox. A “console” that I can use as a PC? I am in 100%. You’ll get the world biggest game library at a discount, this is why I sold my PlayStation after spending 200 euros and watching it becoming useless. I also suspect a lot of game devs will optimize for steam machine and finally we’ll get a console like experience on PC. Don’t let the “low specs”…

I don't really get why people are calling it a console. It is a PC to me in all the ways that matter, and it's probably going to save me from spending 1500 euros on a mid-range gaming laptop that I don't really need. The only thing that I don't use my ipad for is playing games with my friends in other countries while we chat on discord. And the last 5 games we've played together do benefit from keyboard and mouse con…

Because it gives you a console-like experience. What's so hard to get about that? In their own press release, Steam notes it's "just a PC."

Re: I don’t need a Steam Machine

#220

Post by retrochameleon »

luqtas wrote: post #133
phito wrote: post #16

It's the same as the steam deck: I don't enjoy video games anymore, I've actually never really enjoyed gaming except for a handful of titles. But I'll be damned, I love that Valve is bringing gaming to Linux and I'll buy the hardware just to support the cause. The people in my life that have been using the "I need Windows for my games" reason (or excuse ;)) to not switch to Linux are now slowly but surely leaving Win…

wait, your going to buy Steam hardware to support Linux gaming? WFT. isn't the multi-million yatch Gabe bought enough? go donate to khronos or the wine team. maybe even Godot, which treats Linux as a 1° class citizen

Gabe buying a yacht makes the company evil or something? What's your point?

Valve has single-handedly massively contributed to Linux gaming. Buying their products is obviously beneficial to Linux gaming as a whole. It's in their best interest to continue their trend of supporting and improving Linux gaming.

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