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You know who will give you money? Customers if you stop treating them like piñatas.
Valve is an excellent example of a company that is privately owned, so they don't have to satisfy shareholders with constant growth for growth's sake. And yet they're still growing and making a profit, because they make a good product.
Phil and Xbox don't have that luxury because their masters sold out decades ago.
Valve is also a good example of platform monopoly. People need to stop treating valve like they aren't also a big problem with the modern games industry. They are PC gaming's landlord taking a 30% cut of every sale. You have to be smoking crack if you think that doesn't hurt game developers.
They are a monopoly because they've had the best product on the market consistently for 15 years. There used to be huge resistance to them and their drm from gamers, but they have shown over many years that they are trustworthy, unlike others that have tried this.
This is not an Apple or Google store situation where proper competition could not exist. They were always up against giants like Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft or more recently Epic.
No they don't, Steam barely ever gets updated, it's not magically better than the others it's just the one everyone uses.
Digital storefronts are natural monopolies. No one wants to use a different game launcher because it's annoying to remember multiple passwords, to remember which game is where, to install and have multiple launchers running. None of that is Valve doing some amazing engineering that no one else has done, it's just the natural state of game launcher / storefront economics. The only reason Steam is what people prefer is because it was the first one on the scene and has the lion share of users and games for sale.
We see the same thing happen with streaming platforms, the same thing happen with social networks. And Steam is also a social network which reinforces the monopoly. The other launches have friends and chat and shit but no one uses it because their friends are on steam or discord.
I don't doubt that Steam being first to market is the biggest reason for their success, but you make it sound as if there's some alternative store that is better for the consumer in some way. What's the alternative? I have yet to see any other store/launcher come close to Steam in terms of features, even more so when it comes to Linux support, which Valve have turned into a viable gaming OS pretty much by themselves. In the end, even exclusivity and drastically lower fees for publishers didn't make EGS the success that Tim Sweeney wishes it was and I think at that point being first to market can't be the only explanation. They have to be doing something right.
I think we've found Sweeney's Lemmy account lol
Today, yes, I agree. It's really hard to compete with them anymore. But 15 years ago when everyone was rushing to capture the market, there were many opportunities to do so. Steam and valve were never infallible, but at least they took feedback and stayed consistent, unlike their competitors.
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Nothing stops you from busting your games on other platforms when available. I always choose GOG over steam personally. What cut they take from publishers isn't consumers' concern.
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Yeah but they give you so little money compared to investors and shareholders. 😅
I think the real problem is businesses have to grow. If most big companies weren't publicly traded then just being profitable would be enough.
Imagine making enough money to pay you and everyone else in your company a great wage one year, but it being bad because it wasn't more profit than last year.
I've seen companies phrase 8% growth as a negative because they missed their 10% growth target that they just pulled out of their own ass.
Infinite growth in an obviously finite world is such a moronic concept, yet the driving force of capitalism
I actually can’t believe this is coming from a high level employee at a corporation.
Like we all know this is true, but isn’t it big to hear one of them talking about the insanity of the system.
I like it. I prefer the honesty.
Nobody forced this guy to be a soulless capitalist. He chose his career path. Oh woe is you, Phil. Must be so hard for you. /s
He's speaking for the rest of the industry that also makes product that tangentally pays his bills. Not all assholes have to be brazen 24/7.
I can see why that would be a bummer. In my mind, the perfect video game-ceo position would be for a company that makes enough profit to pay its employees well and self sustains the business to keep making more games. Having to constantly report a higher user base and profitability growth year after year on a global scale would be a total drag.
Steam is a prime example of this. Not privately run it would have been bloated to extinction years ago.
Shareholders are leechers to quality. Dividends are not enough, the underlying asset must grow no matter what.
When Gabe croaks it Steam is fucked. It will go public.
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I thought companies made money by selling a product to customers? Hmm, seems like there is some kind of contradiction here, perhaps Phil should look into that.
Investors don’t care about that anymore. Line must go up more and right now. If not, they will replace you with someone who promises to do that.
The best ways to raise stock prices include downsizing, jacking up prices, and cutting product quality to save cost. None of these are even remotely beneficial to the customers.
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Phil Spencer, you have the luxury to quit if you don’t like the things you’re being forced to do for money.
Or, you could use your influence to try and push things in a different direction.
But Phil Spencer, you will do neither. You’ll shut up and keep dribbling.
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I dunno, maybe stop going public and just sell a decent game?
you get a lot of publicly traded companies that are in the industry that have to show their investors growth—because why else does somebody own a share of someone’s stock if it’s not going to grow?
I thought the way it was supposed to work was, a company starts out investing in its growth and during this period shareholders get gains from the price of the stock going up, and then when it has maxed out just switch to shoveling the profits into dividends instead? If the industry has stopped growing, I don't see why there isn't a path to acknowledging that to investors, what am I missing?
Growth is more valuable than dividends, and there's always more room for growth in the eyes of investors.
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I get the feeling the part of capitalism Phil Spencer hates is the part where consumers can take their business elsewhere if they don't like the product.
I'm glad he can see the issue but then part way through the interview he loses it, and jumps to feeding the capitalist system
Sounds like skill issue.
Cry more rich boy, your tears are delicious.
phil spencer explains market discipline
Comrade?
I genuinely believe he just wants to make cool and fun games.
He's had all the time, money, and resources to do that and hasn't.
I don't think that :/ I think his statements and the games he chooses to back sort of prove that ultimately profit is what he is interested in. I don't blame him for that. But don't make him out to be what he isn't. He is a CEO first, being a fan of games falls lower on the list.
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this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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