Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

One thing Valve seems to understand better than most big tech companies is that once a product/feature is done, you don't need the same size team to maintain it. A lot of parts of Steam have been functionally unchanged for the last few years and just... keep working. The people who worked on Cloud Saves have presumably moved on to something else, instead of entering a Google-esque cycle of pointless Cloud Saves feature launches and deprecations.

their lobbying team is probably larger than this one.

"Admin" is less than "Games" in every year.

I know no os that changes the format of an image when a user changes the file extension, for example, which is a pretty similar situation.

Assuming they can get their game discovered via some sort of non-store channel (e.g. Reddit, social media, YouTube, Twitch, ads, etc.), the user can simply search the web for the game, find the website, click "buy" and proceed.

Probably a bit more work than publishing on Steam but not that much. Seems worth it for large budget games or games that are very popular in a specific niche discoverable outside Steam.

(Or at least were, these days I don't think they are much more than Steam keys resellers ?)

Though I guess that's now probably what Battle.net is ?

For what it's worth, I have the exact same feelings. They provide so much value on-top of just being a store, and it does feel like they take the money and re-invest it into their ecosystem to make it better.

They made gaming on Linux as easy as gaming on windows. They improved the controller situation in games. They do the whole remote-play stuff so you can play local-coop games online. They do the family sharing stuff. They do the steam link stuff. And they don't lock any of it down to their first party offerings. e.g.

* They could have easily made steamlink only work with their set-top box, but they just made it an android app.

* They could have limited the controller bindings and tech to only their controller, but they made it work for all controllers.

* They could have forced you to use their VR headset with steam, but they let you use any headset.

I can't think of any other company off the top of my head that has done something similar.

To play a game, select it on the store, pay (with all sorts of payment options), download (from damn fast servers), and press play, that's all. The game sucks or crash, click a button and you are refunded, no need to be always online just for DRM check (eventually you'll need internet, but you have enough leeway so that it is rarely a problem), ads are very unobtrusive and maybe even desirable (suggesting games you may actually like or announcing sales), they don't usually force an update just before you want to play a game (a much too common occurrence), dark patterns kept to a minimum (or at least subtle enough), generally good software quality (in terms of bugs, broken UI/UX, etc...). You bought a game, it stays in your account, Steam has 20 years of history of not screwing you, and to play it, just install Steam on any PC (it it doesn't already have it), log in to your account, download and play, it is that easy. You can even share games (with some reasonable limitations).

Others just have some annoyance here and there. Some always-on DRM, bugs, dubious UI choices, annoying ads, etc... Only Valve seems to understand the importance of not getting in the way between gamers and their games and do the appropriate amount of effort (which is a lot). Not even in the name of profit, because they understand that it is not worth it, if gamers are satisfied, profits will come. Remember, they have piracy as a competitor, and it is hard to compromise against such a powerful competitor.

They perceive the Steam launcher as something positive that provides them convenience. The network effect also makes it hard for game companies not not be on Steam, allowing Valve to enforce some customer-friendly policies like refunds, further making the platform nice to use.

Epic is trying to break through this by giving away endless free games. All other stores are generally forced upon the player through exclusives (you buy the game on Steam, but you still have to install their shitty launcher-store because the parent company owning the game wants some of the store-platform cake), breeding resentment and further cementing Steam's position.

(GOG being an exception, but they don't have enough major/interesting games to get players to use them as their primary platform.)

p.s. thanks so much for hnreplies.com, Dan! It dramatically increased the utility of HN for me. Your creation is fantastic.

pay. download. run in dosbox or something. done.

steam is just a crap I refuse to put up with. and that's the store. imagine the drm.

Knowing that a not insignificant part of the thousands I've spent on Steam over the years went to fund that.. isn't a great feeling.

How is Epic a serious competitor or alternative, then?

Imo Epic is the only competitor to Steam that tries to offer a similar service to Steam. It's just popular to hate on it among pc gamers.

Many people cite a lack of features on Epic's store as the reason, eg no forum feature, but then turn around and decry Steam forums as the worst place on the internet. I don't think the problem is a lack of features (for players, devs have a point), but rather the Epic Games Store isn't cool enough.

Ironically, Dota 2 would benefit as a game if they STOPPED developing it and focused just on stability of the game, but alas.