Oh, that? I pointed that out in the next reply. But to reiterate.

Valve give you AAA games. For free. No material restrictions on game-play or competitive advantage. They pay for the server hosting, anti-cheat and matchmaking.

The provide a storefront that anyone can sell their games on. And they don’t contract you into exclusivity periods like others do.

You dismiss decades of anti consumer bullshit and exploration of workers because “valve give you AAA games for free”

Which, AGAIN(!!!), is something those other shitty companies do, but you don’t dismiss their anti-consumer bullshit because of it. Which is pretty clear evidence you are caught up in the Valve circlejerk.

So since it’s clear you don’t give a shit about anything and just want to justify your own world view. And you dontn have the mental capacity or the humility to change your opinion, I’m done here, you can only waste more of my time and make me more depressed at the lack of awareness.

I will acknowledge that if and when you make a position with actual nuance. “You can’t compare Valce to Activision because valve makes free games” isn’t nuanced and is just ignorant.

I asked you to point out where I made the claims you attributed to me, you did not.

??? No you didn’t? I even just re read this whole thread. You literally never asked that???

I think you also need to give up the idea that everyone on a given platform will be as ‘enlightened’ as you are.

Clearly.

Everyone has their own thoughts and opinions.

Yep, some people have class consciousness and actually want to talk about the failures of capitalism and the atrocity of people having billions of dollars while others starve and live on the streets. And others want to defend those billionaires because they run a company that made a video game they liked 20 years ago.

one of the two companies you listed have one free-to-play game. If you want to focus on that and ignore the decades of anti-consumer, money-grubbing behavior, I don’t think I can help you.

That’s my point to you exactly. You’re ignoring all of valves anti-consumer bullshit because they made a video game you like.

Are you referring to Steam: Greenlight?

No, I’m just referring to the steam store itself, that just allows all that shit to this day.

Sure, Valve make money off it, but there IS a consumer-friendly reason for it to exist.

So what’s the “consumer friendly” reason they don’t let you actually own your games?

Try this yourself.

I did. I used to be on the “omg Gaben so cool! Steam sale take my money you XD” circlejerk too. Then one day I heard about his fleet of luxury mega-yatchs and that made me look at things properly, that he was again just another billionaire leaching off the work of others.

Also, don’t pigeon-hole people who disagree you into GABEN4LYEF RIDE OR DIE fanatics, and we might just have a constructive conversation.

I’m not. That’s what you are doing to yourself by just completely disregarding decades of anti-consumer bullshit because they made a couple games you like.

You’re just outright dismissing undeniable shitty behaviour from Valve for entirely superficial reasons, then when I show you you’re justifications can be used with other gaming companies that get hate, you dismiss that without reason too.

You will probably consider this over dramatic but this interaction has 100% genuinely killed my last remaining scrap of hope for humanity. If people on Lemmy who are generally both left wing and intelligent, can’t even acknowledge that billionaires that push anti-consumer bullshit are bad (even when they make a bideo game you like) then what hope is there of the general public understanding that? We’re truly never going to change anything and we’re just going to let the billionaires destroy us.

Thank you, goodnight.

I knew comments like this would turn up. But it still saddens me that even Lemmy users, who ar in general much more cognizant of these things and less likely to get caught up in the circlejerk, can’t acknowledge that Gabe Newell isn’t your best freind, he is in fact just another money hungry corporate CEO.

You say comparing valve to say, blizzard is incredible, but the points you use to defend valve can also be made of them.

Is Overwatch 2 not free? With no pay 2 win features? Does Blizzard not pay for the server hosting anti cheat and matchmaking? Do they not also support there game for years? ( also I find that funny given the fact the TF2 community is going ballistic right now over the fact valve isn’t doing shit to support it against cheaters and bots)

Yes they provide a store front anyone can sell on. Including shitty asset flips, early access pump and dumps, predatory spyware etc. And are very reluctant to do litersly anything about it when those scams are called to attention.

And again, that storefront isn’t some altruistic endeavour Gabe took on out the kindness of his heart. No he’s made BILLIONS by exploiting the worl of others, just like every other billionaire. And if providing a basic service makes up for your predatory bullshit, well we might as well let literally every other CEO off the hook then right?

It’s not a bad in to admit you got sucked in my propaganda or marketing or just general Internet circlejerks, what is a bad thing is to vehemently refuse any introspection on your current beliefs and defend them to the death simply because they are what you currently believe. I really hope I can reach out to people on Lemmy and that you guys can actually take a step and try to look at things objectively instead of doubling down.

Nah people need to stop jerking off Gabe and valve I general.

They started predatory lootboxes, ridiculously expensive cosmetics, early access, owning a licence instead of the actual game, had to be sued just to get refund policy and the vast vast majority of his wealth has come from just skimming a bit off from people who actually make games he distributes.

If you look at valve without the “omg steams sale XXXDDD”" mentality, then they are no better than ea or Activision.

Honestly I’m starting to hate this narrative

For one, by far the most polluting companies are state owned coal companies in China and India. Then other state owned fossil fuel companies and then private fossil fuel companies.

So all those companies are just power generation. So it’s not like they can just stop, people need the electricity.

And it’s not like nothing is being done either. Like by far the biggest polluter is China’s coal industry, making up 25% of global emissions, but China is also THE global leader on clean energy investment. They are currently building more nuclear power plants than the entire rest of the world has, they are making the biggest most powerfull wind turbines in the world, etc.

And if people would stop consuming cheap, disposable shite from China, then they wouldn’t use so much electricity, so would burn less coal and also you wouldn’t make a bunch of shit that’s just going to end up in a landfill.