Microsoft Reportedly Readies $16B Bid to Acquire Valve / Steam | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Reportedly Readies $16B Bid to Acquire Valve / Steam

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23 pointsCommieBobDole35 comments

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I would've thought Valve/Steam would be worth more than that.

It is worrying that Microsoft is dominating (trying to) in so many sectors.

Edit:

Seems to be a dud: https://metro.co.uk/2024/05/23/microsoft-not-buying-valve-co...

Source of the claim seems to be https://x.com/xDiorCS/status/1793240111435420149

It sounds low... Ofc. Valve is not public, but they have massive cut of PC market plus CS2, DOTA2 and TF2... Which print money... It is hard to say, but from revenue and their cut and some reasonable P/E multiplier I would expect somewhat more.

Yeah, just based on the information in the article alone that seems very low for a valuation.

$10B revenue and healthy profit margins. Dominant market position and very strong brand and product ID in the market. Foothold into a potentially lucrative handheld gaming market.

That sounds more like a $40B valuation to me.

I hope Gabe Newell stays strong and keeps to his fundamentals. I guess all contributions to making gaming easier on Linux would have not happened under a publicly traded company.

I was not even considering the Proton angle. That would be a devastating loss to Linux. Which would be hugely in Microsoft’s interest to shut that down immediately.

I don't think Microsoft can shut down Proton, any more than they could by modifying the current DirectX API to lock them out. It's Open Source software based on DXVK and WINE, both of which are publicly maintained.

If they stop working on it, I think it will be dead for new games in 3-5 years.

Maybe, but like I said Microsoft arguably already held the ability to kill DXVK whenever they wanted by modifying the master spec. Buying Valve to force them to stop paying contributors to a public project would be the most roundabout way to stop DirectX from being reverse-engineered. And it wouldn't stop someone like CodeWeavers from maintaining it themselves.

It would be absolutely devastating to me too. I only do my gaming on Linux, and my large game catalog is through Steam. Which means that even if they can't really shutdown Proton because it's open source, it still might amount to destroying my game library.

It's not your grandpa's Microsoft, EEE isn't a thing now and it's unlikely they'll be hostile towards it. But instead it's more probable that Proton would have been ignored and gone stagnant, ala Amazon type acquisitions.

> I hope Gabe Newell stays strong and keeps to his fundamentals

The fundamentals being extracting 30% of small indie developers' game revenue? Even with payment processing and a healthy profit margin, 12% appears to be a fair cut. Imagine what game developers could do with an extra 18% of revenue in their hands to pay their employees.

Also game developers are forced by Steam not to sell their games at lower prices at other places. It's taboo to criticize Valve/Steam/Gabe on HN and Reddit so I fully expect to get downvoted like in the past. The community attitude of Gabe worship is weird to say the least.

Steam sells an ecosystem, really. To developers they're selling a CDN with integrated cloud save, cross-platform multiplayer, community management software, Steam Workshop tooling and a designated support channel. To users, they're selling a well-designed interface with the ability to modify and add games to their heart's content. If either side is upset, they can avoid Steam altogether and still distribute their app as freely as their OEM allows.

I use Steam because they care about Open Source. Not many "ecosystem" hustlers ever give back to the community they take from, but Valve does, and I appreciate the work they do as a non-Windows user. Were it not for their efforts in DXVK I wouldn't be able to play Indie games at all, Valve-published or not. The "community attitude of Gabe worship" largely springs from the fact that the guy still answers emails, manages his business, and keeps Valve private to avoid shareholder intervention. A lot of the current Valve "spirit" is associated with Gabe Newell's dedication to avoiding venture capital and supporting Open Source appropos of nothing.

That's a great point - so explain, how getting bought out by Microsoft is going to help any of this? How getting bought out by Microsoft is not going to make everything even worse for everyone involved?

I don't think they're getting bought out at all. $16b is a pathetically low figure for a platform like Steam and there seems to be no evidence that such a deal is in the works right now.

They only started supporting open source after Windows 8 App Store started threatening their revenue and profits. Their games and client are not open source. They want to continue taking 30% if desktop Linux takes off.

Yes, the 30% is too much; they should take less, especially for indie developers and small studios.

Nonetheless, are Valve, Steam and SteamDeck the only reasons I spend money on games. Where other publishers just provide a storefront for their own games, Steam builds a customer-pleasing platform where, unlike Apple, you have the choice to go to another store. Additionally, their recommendation systems encourage people to buy niche/indie games and not only the most expensive AAA titles.

Sounds like a purposeful leak to test the waters, and get the bidding war started. I wouldn’t be surprised if Valve execs are simply looking to capitalise for investors.

$16B is far too cheap for a company like them though. They almost pull that in revenue in a single year without locking out third party marketplaces. Their margins are notoriously high.

I’d triple it.

I would say Valve pulls in 70 to 80 billion a year in sales and technology.

One Twitter user posts this tripe and now we’re here.

> Let me reiterate that this news-story currently is nothing more than a rumor.

Great because I would delete Steam if it ever did happen.

Finally, Windows will have a package management system that it can call its own! (Steam!) Also, who wants to develop Windows 12 when they can just buy SteamOS? Microsoft has needed to buy their way into the Linux market for at least a decade, and I am surprised that it has taken them this long.

I can't imagine this would go over well with regulators. Steam is the dominant PC game distributor since the Orange Box and it going into the hands of the dominant operating system maker that it competes with (Proton)? A major console competitor? Hell-to-the-no.

Having the world's best company at shipping consumer Linux bought by Microsoft feels like the biggest easiest to make tech anti-trust case on the planet.

No not happening. It is a private company and Microsoft doesn't exactly know Valve's networth.

Fortunately it is not true, but were it otherwise, it would be a black day for Linux on the desktop.

It's not "reportedly".

It’s rumoredly.

so it wasn't reported?

Not by any serious outlet. It's a Twitter rumor started by a nobody... Another reason why letting people pay for blue checks was an incomprehensibly stupid idea.

As the body of the article says repeatedly, it's only a rumor.

Will talk up all the great progress Valve has made under Microsoft then shut it down in 18 months.

Ah, so that is why Bing crashed today when I asked their chatbot when HL3 would be released... Sorry!

That would be the worst.

pls no

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