this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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I don't get how people don't see this!!! Our favorite billionaire is under SIEGE by the radical militant gambling regulators. I mean, how would YOU people feel if the state of New York was trying to take away one of your six mega-yachts?? Lootboxes aren't even gambling, because you can sell your skins. Can you sell the money you make at a casino? I think not!
It's not like a Live Service game like Counterstrike is ever gonna shut down, because who would even be big enough to buy out Valve? I swear, some of y'all act like you don't love big corpo smh smh
Look I'm not defending billionaires or anything, but I am noting that there's blood in the water and this billionaire is being attacked by other billionaires. You're being manipulated into hating this company by other rich people. Like think for yourself.
I'm personally looking up for my own interest as a PC gamer. If this company goes under then our options are extremely limited as far as consumer protections and service in PC gaming. I really enjoy the circus that is steam. It's my favorite way to distract myself from the fall of the world.
If we tear down valve now, we're just entrenching the older corporate computing powers like microslop. Last I fucking checked it was Bill Gates in the Epstein files not Gabe Newell
Btw your own fucking example would show that Nintendo would own Counter-Strike should that happen. That's a literal nightmare scenario. Nintendo's extremely fucking terrible for consumers right now. One of the only reasons valve is in the news and getting all this flack is because they are private company and refuse to go public and feed into the publicly traded stock market system that is currently tearing our whole fucking world apart.
Many large corporate powers are nervous that they aren't bowing the knee in and instead are freeing computing power in gaming and the OS space from the shackles of the old computing world. Which by the way, if you haven't been paying attention is currently under siege, consumers are taking the back seat as far as computing is involved. The billionaires have decided we get to take their shit service and we get to pay more for it because there are no other options and they are making it that way. Valve is the only company running counter to this new market strategy.
So yeah, I'll go to bat for them until I'm shown why I shouldn't.
I think you maybe missed some of the satire there, let's correct the record.
Uhhhh... in that article, it is Microsoft floating the idea of buying Nintendo, not Nintendo floating the idea of buying Valve. If Microsoft is large enough to consider buying Nintendo, they are large enough to consider buying Valve. Like, our shared nightmare scenario is Microsoft owning Counterstrike. I don't want that any more than you do.
This is extremely florid language to describe a for-profit company. I believe the kids call this "glazing" but I prefer the old "giving a sloppy toppy."
Hey that's my line!!
Here, I will show you why, and I'll use Lemmy's own cultural philosophy to make the point. "There are no good billionaires, and there are no good corporations." Until 2016, Valve did not have a refund policy on Steam. If you got duped into buying shovelware, or you bought a game you just couldn't run because it was buggy or broken, you were Shit Outta Luck. Today, Valve has a pretty good refund policy. They could have made this refund policy at any time, they did not need to wait for Australia's regulators to force their hand. But they didn't. Why? Because it cost them money. "Valve’s official standing way back in 2014, when the suit was first filed, was that it had no refund policy, something that is guaranteed under Australian Consumer Law"
Valve is in the business of making money, not freeing you from your digital chains. The Steam Deck costs money. The Steam Machine is going to cost a lot of money. Steam OS as a free downloadable installer does not exist yet. I would like it to exist, but Valve has not made it so. For technical support reasons? Possibly. For monetary reasons, to entice you to buy their hardware? Very likely.
You can like Valve, you can like their products and services, I like their stuff too, I don't begrudge you any of that. Hell I share your complaints about all the other big tech companies, every one of them. But Valve is not exempt from all the bullshit those companies do, because Valve does it too. Defending them like this is embarrassing yourself, you probably know better than that.
Steam OS as a free downloadable installer does exist. The biggest argument you have against me is that they didn't have a refund policy until 11 years ago. A refund policy by the way, which is almost unheard of in a digital storefront. Sure, I read that article wrong And yes, I do believe all companies should be beholden to the law but this lawsuit right now is a targeted attack. I can't believe we're supporting weaponized law like this. They don't charge for their software like proton or their OS, and they always sell their hardware at a loss. Sure, they're in the business of making money but they definitely protect consumers as much as they can on the way to doing it. I don't care. I'll defend valve, downvote me.
How does allowing a corporation (who extra harmful monopolistic influence on the PC game market) to break gambling laws, help your personal interests? They could stop doing that shit and still name bank from their obscene cut for doing nothing but selling other people's products.
"Extra harmful monopolistic influence on the PC game market". I'm going to need sources and I'm going to need anecdotes from developers that tell me how they are harmful before I believe your statement. Also, I do not believe they are beaking gambling laws. Maybe if you are so horny for the fucking law, we actually observe innocent until proven guilty
You think dictating that their platform has to have the lowest non-sale price (while also take that 30% cost) doesn't set a floor for pricing on games across the industry?
Kids paying real money for the small chance to obtain items that can be traded within the same platform for lots of money...is child gambling regardless of how you want to define it.
innocent until proven guilty applies to the government, not the people observing the obvious. Speaking out your ass.
There, your logic breaks down when you say kids can then redeem the items for money within the same platform. First off, the very nature of making purchases on steam requires you to be 18 or have parental consent. Also people cannot exchange the goods on steam for USD only steam points. Steam points are not dollars and cannot be transferred back into USD or any other currency. You have to go through a third-party website to do that and valve has cracked down on those websites in the past. This is up to further legislation further up the pipe to curb this problem.
Also, I want it to be clear to everybody reading this. That steam does require developers to list steam keys STEAM KEYS at the same price they sell them on steam. Developers can mint steam keys for free.
You see this policy is in place because if someone were to start selling steam keys on a platform that wasn't steam suddenly, steam will not see any profits off those disproportionate sales because they weren't made on the platform. And once word gets out that it's cheaper somewhere else nobody will buy it on steam. And then steam is then responsible for all bandwidth now and forever into perpetuity for all of those users downloads and updates.
Many developers have actually tried this look up facepunch. They tried to sell steam keys outside of steam to get all the profit. They decided that it was ultimately worth the cost to just go through steam because hosting their own sales and refunds and support network for their game was too much. Even with the piggybacking off of steam's bandwidth. By the way, facepunch is worth millions. Steam just provides a good fucking deal.
If you wanted to have your own storefront that sold your game exclusively without steam keys. You could list it to whatever price you fucking wanted. Even if you were selling it on steam for more. But if you want the bandwidth and support network that comes with the steam deal, then you have to follow their terms of service. Go figure.
Anyway, I'm done listing the obvious.