Sure I don’t disagree (and it’s a big problem for Lemmy) but it cuts both ways right? That’s the same as going “but I like cheeseburgers” in a vegan comm. Even if Gabe personally is good (I and a majority of people have no idea really) he still exist in a system where a select few are hoovering up disproportionate amounts of the wealth. That’s all, it doesn’t mean Gabe personally has to answer to capitalism. Just that unfortunately he exists in it and due to his position people aren’t gonna like him for it and I get that.

That said plenty of people claim to hate him for that but just hate him in general and would do so even if he wasn’t as wealthy, as an aside. I don’t think I saw many subs specifically for Linux hate on reddit when I was there but they exist here lol. Perks of the platform I guess.

Turns out the whole Epstein thing was a huge misunderstanding, he was supposed to be assaulting miners.

Fair, fair.

Yeah you're right 😔 why can't they be motivated by morals and social high standings like people

Fuck capitalism

You are not my friend, doesn't mean you are my enemy either.

That’s the same as going “but I like cheeseburgers” in a vegan comm.

No not really. Often what I'm talking about is someone asking why everyone hates Gabe then any explanation short of "he's billionaire scum" is offensive to the types of users who make this place less pleasant. Nothing about Lemmy is inherently supposed to be raging zealots. Leftists can and should be civil and measured in the way they apply their ideas to society. Even if one personally thinks some ultra socialist world is the only acceptable one, it doesn't help anyone to go around acting like everyone has to think just the same that regard.

I think Gabe acts more like the European rich. They are still pieces of shit, but they learned a long time ago to STFU about their money after a long history involving guillotines and the like that the U.S. hasn’t experienced to the same extent just yet.

I think we’re conflating some adjacent things here. There’s a good amount of people I can see in here calmly explaining the “he’s billionaire and that’s bad” angle which are all around Lemmy. Hence the quoted, although admittedly poor analogy. No problem blocking or muting the separate zealots as you mentioned before. I do it all the time. Unfortunately those you’re referring view those type of “civil” leftist as also the enemy. Its why I block some of the instances I do.

My billionaire is better then your billionaire because he owns something I like.

Right well the only issue I have with the calm people would be if there's like 5 of them all saying exactly the same thing. Definitely more focused on the ragers in my comments here

well yeah. Do you have a point?

Fairly happy to find a business that wants to make money long term. Pretty rare these days. I would say thats a good thing, wouldnt you?

How do they do it? Looks like expanding into the open hardware space, the open source space, have good customer service and avoid ads except to promote games.

And the alternative is what? GOG?

In the end they are just a store front, so it isnt even like they are the only place to buy a product, yet somehow they are the only ones that seem to even give a shit about me playing games on Linux.

And then there are the employees. As far as we know (please if you work at valve say something) they are the highest compensated people in the it/game industry.

The other stores aren't the bar though. Epic being shit doesn't make Steam a saint. I also don't think giving free games is anti consumer. Exclusives yes but not the free games.

Steam is under multiple lawsuits, including one because they threaten devs with delisting if they put their game up for cheaper on other stores (this is separate from their steam key rule).

I think they have a massive ad campaign not only to make themselves look good but also to make the competition look bad tbh. I see a lot of seo work being done for instance. I'm guessing the budget is massive.

Steam also popularized DRM and not owning your games. It's a money printing machine tbh. They have like 300 employees lol.

You see articles like these pop up every few months. The theme is usually along the lines of "he's not just any billionaire. He is filthy rich but he is also just like you". It's transparent pandering imo.

That's...that's how a business should operate. Not chasing quarterly reviews and stock prices, but being in business as long as feasibly possible. Making products and/or services that meet the need of the market and continual improvement of them.

Instead most businesses, especially dealing with video games, are ran by short term thinking psychopaths who only care how a quarter looks and not the long term sustainability of the entire company. They saw a massive influx during the Covid lockdowns and didn't realize that was temporary growth for a particular difficult time so keep chasing those kinds of profits with layoffs, studio closures.

Gotta spend all that monopoly money some way.

Don't forget he bought his kid a racing team.

It's amazing you defend this guy for rent sitting because he's one of the good billionaire monopolies 🙄

billionaires bad.

Valve pioneering into digital distribution in 2002 because they saw an opportunity to distribute in ways publishers hadn't considered is not the same thing as Sony choosing to end physical media distribution in 2026 to kill off used games sales and control pricing.

Is it defending a store to point out that your description of it only hosting downloadable files and nothing else is very incorrect?

That's what I hate about billionaires.

They all spend their money on luxury shit like this for themselves or other people like themselves.

None of them ever thinks of helping poor people get housing, food and healthcare.

Yes because it's nitpicking and ignores the point. Are we going to pretend it isn't their main product, and that by far?

Wow what an original thought. Its always important to lump everyone into a stereotype, that is the best way to talk about people, right?

But in general I agree, there should be a limit to how much wealth people can accumulate. It just shouldn't be possible. But who let that happen? People.

So in the end: people are bad.

Billionaires would be cooler if there were mythical creatures that don‘t exist but we tell stories about heroes who slay them.

Yes. Billionaires are, in fact, inherently bad. There is no reason for billionaires to exist. As wealth increases, taxes should increase - not to banktupt them, but to limit the massive amounts of wealth any one person can control.

They make their wealth on the backs of the public good - on the backs of the rest of us. Corporations steal our wages, and I don't mean just actively, but by paying us less than we should be paid. Wealth inequality is unconsciable. Especially when people are dying because our social safety nets have been plundered for decades.-

Billionaires benefit from government and society - that's how they became billionaires. They should pay back their fair share in the form of taxes, and taxes should fund things that benefit the people and society.

So yes. Billionaires bad. Inherently so.

If Epic took like 10% of the budget they use for free games and timed exclusives and put that towards making their UX not dogshit, Valve wouldn't even have a monopoly.

So we should hate him on the off chance he might one day be a douchebag?

Why take away a motivation to be a decent person by punishing them for it? I would say give them every opportunity to be decent human beings, dont pre-crime their ass because you have a prejudice against people in their social class.

Pavlov has upvoted your comment

Yeah there was some leaked payroll data around 2021, so its old info, but with bonuses, profit sharing and base salary the average compensation is something like 1.4 million per employee.

Way back when Gabe said he didnt want employees he wanted partners and they would share the success. I don't know what its like today though.

But who let that happen? People.

You make that sound like billionaires aren't fighting tooth and nail to keep their fortunes. Gabe could pay his employees more, he could donate his money, he could do a myriad of different things with it, but no he chooses to keep it and buy yachts. Does that make him evil? I'd sure as hell argue that it does.

"Shipyard owner puts pirates out of business"

people bad.

Do you want to punish billionaires for their wealth hoarding sociopathy or to make things better? Both is ideal, but one matters more than the other.

Yeah he’s a billionaire, but he at least seems to be an old school tycoon in the sense of… doing actual philanthropy, instead of fancy accounting fraud / money laundering with a non profit happy face on top.

He owns a fleet o megayachts and one of the biggest companies making these who commissioned megayachts for bezos and russian oligarchs, he's just a piece of shit like all the others. We are on the verge of a climate disaster, one of these boats consume in one hour as much you will do in your lifetime, stop wasting your time defending this idiot, he's not a scientist.

To my knowledge… he basically just has more money than he knows what to do with,

To my knowledge you don't end up with more money than you know what to do with by being a good person. Valve did a lot of shit such as promoting gambling to kids

Ppl used to worship billionaires, musk, gates, etc. were very popular until recently, musk killed his reputation overtime by not shutting up lol

They are always donating outside the counry too, like great and all but youd think theyd help the country and ppl that made them rich instead of cutting down on employees and maximizing profits

Steam is a good service compared to the alternatives, but corpos will always be corpos. Having loyalty to any company, no matter how good they seem will inevitably lead to disappointment. That said....the vast majority of my game library is from steam, but I have been trying to get more of my games from GOG. Its best to be safe cause you never know when companies like valve will go mask mask off and become the next EA or Microslop.

It would help if they also supported Linux and open source.

Yeah, og only more companies thought that way. Most seem to only care about making money in the short term.

I would say thats a good thing, wouldnt you?

Yes, that's why I simply reminded folks that they are a business and not your friend. So many people jumping to Valve's defense over a perceived slight makes me feel the reminder is necessary.

You are insanely aggro for basically no reason.

Never said he was a scientist. Showed that he hires scientists to make use of his toys.

Yep, he's a billionaire, thats bad, i'd prefer he'd just give every steam user a proportional refund with his excess money, that would do more practical good.

Yep, promoting/facilitating gambling to/for kids is in fact immensely shitty and should be stopped, victims should be compensated.

Yep, owning a small fleet of megayachts is very bad for the climate, very selfish, frankly ridiculous.

There, are you satisfied?

Done assuming my thoughts and positions?

Less bad != better

That is literally the definition

Only if you think in one dimension, absolutes.

If that's a nit, and not a main point, then why is that first line even there? Why mention profits again in the last line if the point is just "We should regulate them more!" When did directly disagreeing with a statement become a "nit" to launch a completely different main point?

And what do you mean "pretend it isn't their main product"? I'm literally telling you that Steam does more than you're saying it does, which is the whole basis of your disagreement with the OP above. I am sticking to the product in question. The only way to think I'm avoiding talking about Steam is if you really don't know what Steam does beyond offering a place to download games, and aren't aware of any of its features.

Whatever they are doing isn't worth close to what they are charging if gaben can spend 1 000 000 000 dollars on boats.

But yes, they mostly host downloadable content that they then charge 30% commission fee for whenever someone buys it. That's the lion share of their business. What are you even getting at?

I mention profits because it is about profits. The profit they are stealing from devs by colluding with other stores and offering a simple service at a massive cost. The profits they make that led to gaben being a billionaire. The disgusting profits clearly show we need regulations. Billionaires shouldn't exist even if they have a marketing team telling you this one is different.

Defend Bezos and Musk next please. It's the same arguments. Amazon isn't only a drop shipping company either, you know.

The reason people like him even here where most billionaires are hated, is that he's doing essentially nothing to maintain the monopoly and Valve gives back to the community by working on Linux compatibility. Sweeney, despite having much less market share, is the one engaging in monopolistic practices (paying for exclusives in particular) and refuses to even consider Linux a potential target OS, he wants gaming to remain Windows-only.

What I am getting at is that you are using another billionaire's disingenuous talking points uncritically while thinking you're being anti-billionaire. You heard something that sounded good but didn't verify or research any of it.

This whole idea of "Steam takes 30%, that's terrible!" is from Tim Sweeney's anti-Steam PR campaign. The 30% cut was always the standard retail cut, and has been part of every retail store until EGS made a big thing about their lower amount and their disingenuous PR campaign that suggested that only Steam was taking an exorbitant cut. The fact is that all stores took that same standard retail cut. Steam makes a bajillion dollars more than everyone else just from the sheer volume of sales they do. The idea that they make all this money because they take a bigger retail cut is a lie.

And, in case this hasn't been made clear enough to you yet: you don't seem to know what Steam is if you think it's only a service to download games and doesn't offer anything else to users. It has a huge amount of features for users, games, and communities beyond just that, far more than another other retailer or store is offering. It is completely disingenuous to pretend like Steam does none of these to force the argument that they are just taking money and offering the most basic of a singular service. So if you want to argue that Steam specifically doesn't deserve the 30% cut that every retailer takes, then you'll need to demonstrate how Steam offers less than every other retailer. If this requires ignoring all the features and advancements Valve and Steam have done, then that really shows the quality of that statement, doesn't it?

Taking a step back to assess situations fairly and accurately isn't a defense of anything. There's so much to criticize Valve and Steam for if you took the time to be informed, most notably with the lootboxes and gambling aspects (which is also where much of its profits come from). So if you're really as anti-billionaire as you claim to be, are you going to go and examine these assumptions you held and figure out why you got misled so deeply by another billionaire, and make sure it doesn't happen again?

You aren't actually reading what I'm writing lol.

The 30% cut was always the standard retail cut

It's the standard because of the collusion not because of the cost. All game stores make bajillions of dollars, not only steam. The only difference is how the profit is shared (stock holders vs a few individuals). Please don't start talking about the "standard retail cut" as well, as if physical products can be treated the same as digital ones. Steam isn't running close to it's cost, even if you pile on everything they do.

I know what steam is, but it's not enough to make me lick a billionaires boot. Steam being slightly better than other stores does not justify their collusion, soft monopoly and anti consumer businesses (like threatening to delist games if the dev puts it for cheaper somewhere else). Please name the feature you think is worth giving a billion dollars to one guy? Is it having a friends list?

You are nitpicking one thing and ignoring the rest.

The other game stores aren't the bar, it's all rotten. And it will stay rotten if everyone keeps thinking the best looking rotting fruit deserves to be defended. Even if you lick Gabens sweaty feet, he still won't let you own your games.

We need regulations not pathetic billionaire worship.

So yes, steam is better than Xbox but it isn't good enough. Polished feces are still feces. Quality and price of games is directly affected by these vampiric mega corps taking 1/3 of the profits to buy boats. Grow up and stop being part of the problem.