Comment by otp@sh.itjust.works on Court documents show that not only is Valve a fraction the size [only 336 employees in 2021] of companies like EA or Ubisoft, it's smaller than a lot of triple-A developers

he just realized there’s profit to be made by not pissing people off

I’m okay with this. Same deal with Costco’s founders and CEOs. It’d be nice if billionaires didn’t exist, but they do, and most of them made their profits while pissing everyone off.

I’ll praise the ones that at least try to do some “good” for people. Even if their “good” is “Let’s make obscene amounts of money by charging affordable prices and being the ‘good guy’ in the industry”.

I’m not okay with this because it incentivizes companies and influencers to work together to lower people’s standards.

People are proud to accept garbage these days.

I ask genuinely – what alternative do we have?

I mean, in this case, yarrrr. but in other cases, i think, probably also yarrrr. but like, physically.

Steam won our over piracy, as did Netflix when it first came around. And even Uber – people stopped downloading cars for years when Uber was in its heyday!

That’s the thing though, they’re still overcharging you and 70$+ isn’t affordable prices for a game, you’ve just been brainwashed into thinking that your money is worth less than it is because a big chunk of it goes to enrich a few people.

Valve gets 30% for distributing it, the publisher takes another 10 to 20%, add other fees and 50% of what you’re spending goes to the people doing the actual work, that means that Valve gets 60% of what the dev gets for doing barely anything.

overcharging you and 70$+ isn’t affordable prices for a game

The last game I bought on Steam was less than $2 after tax.

Most games I buy on Steam are less than $20. The most expensive game I’ve ever bought on Steam was probably about $40. And I’ve done that maybe once.

And even at $70, games are cheaper now than they’ve ever been, adjusting for inflation. They’re also generally much more expensive to produce.

Just because they’re cheaper doesn’t mean you don’t get overcharged at the end of the day, what kind of mentality is that?

I provided numerous reasons why I don’t think I’ve been overcharged.

I really don’t understand what your point is. What do you mean by “overcharged”?

If companies make billions in profit and company owners can spend in a day more than you’ll make in a lifetime without batting an eye that’s because people like you, me and the vast majority of humans on this planet are paying more than things are truly worth.

We might not feel like we’re paying too much for stuff, but in reality if the person at the top has billions to their name, that money comes from somewhere, we’ve just been convinced by them that that’s the cost of things and that’s it.

The truth is the 2$ game that you bought would have been 1$ in a system where there isn’t a billionaire at the top. The 40$ game that you bought would have been 20$ and AAA games would cost 35$. The only reason they cost double their value is because a bunch of guys rake in millions or billions a year, they artificially increase the price everything needs to be sold for in order for companies to be able to pay them.

Your see the exact same thing happening at the grocery store, people doing the work can’t afford the food they’re selling while the big boss owns a house on every continent, take them out of the equation and suddenly everything can be sold for much cheaper because that’s billions the company doesn’t need to generate every year.

So your definition of overcharged is that we’re being charged more than what we would in an alternate reality where billionaires don’t exist?

I don’t think imagination is a good basis of comparison. If one store is selling the game for $20 and another is selling it for $70 with nothing different between the two, then the one selling it for $70 is overcharging.

But if one real store is selling it for $70, and an imaginary store is selling it for $20, then I don’t think the real store is overcharging…lol

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Court documents show that not only is Valve a fraction the size [only 336 employees in 2021] of companies like EA or Ubisoft, it's smaller than a lot of triple-A developers (www.pcgamer.com)

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