memes

I can't understand the hate for Steam/Valve taking 30 percent. Back in the day, when people were forced to rely on traditional brick-and-mortar sales models, developers could consider themselves lucky if they got the 30 percent. When publishers, disc/disk manufacturers, box printers, shippers, and retailers finally got done taking all their cuts, it could amount to more than 70 percent. Easily. The lowly creator of the software was an afterthought, in the payment pecking order.

But noooooo, Valve is eeeevil incarnate, because they take 30 fucking percent. Fuck that. 30 percent is reasonable. And what do they do with that money? Does Gaben flaunt his private jet travel and buy sketchy islands, like a some billionaires? Nah. They pump the money back into weird, tech-focused projects. Modern VR would be ENTIRELY under the control of FACEBOOK AND APPLE, if it wasn't for Valve spending their money stash on the SteamVR systems.

I know I sound like a fanboy. It's not even REALLY about any of the stuff I've said, so far. The biggest reason why it's okay for Valve to take 30 percent is to insure that Steam will always exist, and always be thriving, barring a vast and all-encompassing planet-wide economic catastrophe. Nobody has to worry about their Steam library suddenly vanishing. People might be tempted to praise alternative distributors, like Itch.io, because they take only a 10 percent cut. But you only have to look at their website to realize they're incredibly fragile, by comparison. I don't know if Itch.io will still be around in ten years, twenty years, certainly not thirty years. Steam WILL be around in fifty years, when I'm an old, old man. I'd be SHOCKED if it wasn't around a century from now.

That kind of guaranteed future costs money. That is a stone cold fact, whether you like it or not.

EDIT: I just looked it up, and it seems that Gaben does indeed own an island. Pfft. Whatever. I still don't begrudge Valve existing, exactly the way it exists. If Valve hadn't built Steam, we'd be living in a universe where Google/Alphabet handled the lion's share of PC game distribution. Wouldn't THAT be lovely for everyone?

EDIT 2: the article that I found, implying that Gaben owns an island, appears to be satire. LOL.