Quetzalcoatl.Xilkk said: »
There are alot of people at Valve who love games. They make the games they would like to play. They aren't trying to force the market to comply with their board room goals.
This was not such a rare thing 2 decades ago, but today it is. Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all big enough to believe we should conform to them. They give you a low cost product to get lots of market share, then raise prices, remove features and charge extra to restore those features. They do alot of bait and switch.
This was not such a rare thing 2 decades ago, but today it is. Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all big enough to believe we should conform to them. They give you a low cost product to get lots of market share, then raise prices, remove features and charge extra to restore those features. They do alot of bait and switch.
Imho you're romanticising valve for things they maybe stood for in the past but haven't for quite a while.
Afaik The last game valve made that was a uncompromised passion project from people who like to play games themselves was portal 2, that was released in 2011.
Ever since valve doesn't make games, they chase trends and make platforms. Those platforms also follow the formula of a cheap or free initial pitch to sell you more stuff afterwards similar to the companies mentioned above.
Half Life Alex, the closest thing to a passion project after Portal 2, honestly was only made to sell more VR headsets.
Artifact was valves attempt to chase the trading card trend and to translate the trading card game formula to the virtual world. Some say the best card in the entire game is the credit card.
Their most popular games CS2, Dota2 and maybe TF2 were originally mods made by people that fit the description in the quoted post. Valve bought the intellectual property for undisclosed amounts.
For the most part they only deserve credit for graphic updates and enshittification in form of micro transactions for stuff like DLCs, cosmetics, items, armory pass and loot boxes, not for the core gameplay.
Their latest project, Deadlock, also chases the hero shooter and moba trend. I think it's save to assume it will get the same enshittification treatment once it gets released and proves it can keep the attention of a sizeable audience.