Any data to back that claim? I thought most of their income is from Steam and games(including those with pushing gambling on children) is a very small share.
Given that valve has about 350 employees that’s on the order of $5M per employee just from case openings alone. Given that they also take a cut of every transaction and trade that number is possibly orders of magnitude higher. And that’s just CS.
In conclusion, without publicly released figures it’s impossible to say with certainty and my statement obviously involves hyperbole to some degree but in all likelihood a very significant portion of valves profit comes from pushing gambling in their first party games and on the marketplace.
Side note: in my view, $2.50 earned from pushing gambling on a minor does more societal damage than $100 of predatory sales transaction cuts
Why does it have to be? It’s basically free money for them, whereas they have to make deals and curate their store front a lot more. Games take time and energy (if you don’t just want AI generated slop, at least), so to get that to market takes time. Whereas microtransaction garbage is basically hit it and quit it and generates insane amounts of money.
I guess this must be surprising to hear, but it’s just easier to sell content of actual value than bullshit. Yeah… some people will buy bullshit, and yeah, one can take advantage of those people, but having actual products is still a better business model.
But hey, if you’ve got these things all figured out, totally start your own game studio/global digital distribution system. Go make bank on microtransaction garbage.
Sorry, clearly you are far more knowledgeable about such things, despite having nothing more than I do to back it up. I apologize for contradicting your opinion on the internet, that was my bad.
Hey, if I’ve offended you, I do apologize for that, it truly wasn’t my goal. But I do strongly disagree (which is allowed).
And I think it’s pretty obvious that microtransactions could never, ever, possibly be more lucrative for Valve than selling games. It’s just a numbers thing. I mean, dlc can sometimes make more money than game sales for some titles, that’s a fact. But Valve has what, a dozen games that they could potentially sell dlc for? That’s a pretty hard limit. Whereas they also make money on every title sold in the store, and there are currently over 10,000 titles available from the steam store. That’s just like, a lot more than a dozen…
Their entire profit margin is pushing gambling on children
Any data to back that claim? I thought most of their income is from Steam and games(including those with pushing gambling on children) is a very small share.
Obviously given valve is private we don’t have first party numbers but estimates of case openings alone are in the multi billions. https://www.dexerto.com/counter-strike-2/valve-made-insane-amount-of-money-from-cs2-cases-just-last-month-alone-3176876/
Given that valve has about 350 employees that’s on the order of $5M per employee just from case openings alone. Given that they also take a cut of every transaction and trade that number is possibly orders of magnitude higher. And that’s just CS.
Now if you take the leaked financial slides at face value (https://www.simplymac.com/games/3-5m-per-employee-how-valve-quietly-became-the-most-profitable-gaming-company) you’re not looking at the majority of income but skins are almost entirely profit, there’s next to no overhead on generating a fake item.
In conclusion, without publicly released figures it’s impossible to say with certainty and my statement obviously involves hyperbole to some degree but in all likelihood a very significant portion of valves profit comes from pushing gambling in their first party games and on the marketplace.
Side note: in my view, $2.50 earned from pushing gambling on a minor does more societal damage than $100 of predatory sales transaction cuts
I mean, they get a sizable cut from the majority of games sold on PC. I think that’s their business model.
I hear you about loot boxes and skins and stuff. It’s just, that has to be a small part of their total profit.
Why does it have to be? It’s basically free money for them, whereas they have to make deals and curate their store front a lot more. Games take time and energy (if you don’t just want AI generated slop, at least), so to get that to market takes time. Whereas microtransaction garbage is basically hit it and quit it and generates insane amounts of money.
Um, no?
I guess this must be surprising to hear, but it’s just easier to sell content of actual value than bullshit. Yeah… some people will buy bullshit, and yeah, one can take advantage of those people, but having actual products is still a better business model.
But hey, if you’ve got these things all figured out, totally start your own game studio/global digital distribution system. Go make bank on microtransaction garbage.
Sorry, clearly you are far more knowledgeable about such things, despite having nothing more than I do to back it up. I apologize for contradicting your opinion on the internet, that was my bad.
Hey, if I’ve offended you, I do apologize for that, it truly wasn’t my goal. But I do strongly disagree (which is allowed).
And I think it’s pretty obvious that microtransactions could never, ever, possibly be more lucrative for Valve than selling games. It’s just a numbers thing. I mean, dlc can sometimes make more money than game sales for some titles, that’s a fact. But Valve has what, a dozen games that they could potentially sell dlc for? That’s a pretty hard limit. Whereas they also make money on every title sold in the store, and there are currently over 10,000 titles available from the steam store. That’s just like, a lot more than a dozen…