• masterspace@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    16
    ·
    8 months ago

    Valve also allowed most of their employees to work on whatever they wanted for a decade, an initiative that produced almost nothing, and during that time they still made close to a million dollars per year per employee.

    I’m not saying I’m unhappy with Valve being private or with Valve making enough money to give itself a nice cushion, but the scale of the money they’re making is absurd when independent game devs often still struggle to make money.

    • Aermis@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      8 months ago

      Source on producing almost nothing for a decade because the employees had freedom of work projects?

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        8 months ago

        Yeah, I’ve been with Steam since 2013 when they came to Linux, and Steam has gotten better every year since then. For example:

        • Steam Controller
        • Steam Input
        • Steam Link app
        • Proton & Steam Deck
        • tons of bugfixes (Steam on Linux sucked when it launched, it’s way more stable now)

        And so on. I don’t know which decade OP is talking about, but at least the last decade has been fantastic for me.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Valve also allowed most of their employees to work on whatever they wanted for a decade

      So 30% cut leads to employee well being? Great!

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        No it doesn’t. It leads to Valve wasting money enriching themselves to the tune of millions of dollars per employee per year while independent game developers making normal salaries continue to have to lay people off and be underfunded.

        • woelkchen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          It leads to Valve

          “… employing Linux developers and finally making actual cracks in the true monopoly of Windows.”

          FTFY.

          while independent game developers making normal salaries continue to have to lay people off and be underfunded.

          Funny, it’s not the indies with the huge layoffs but the megacorps that have enough money to buy fucking Activision-Blizard-King and then shed crocodile tears about the hard economy.

          • masterspace@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 months ago

            “… employing Linux developers and finally making actual cracks in the true monopoly of Windows.”

            Again, Valve has made close to a million dollars per employee per year. No they have not spent anywhere remotely close to that on Linux developers. You’re equating a trinket they tossed you in the last couple of years with the giant horde they robbed from developers.

            Funny, it’s not the indies with the huge layoffs

            It is, independent studios lay people off and have to close up shop all the time, on top of just not making that much money to begin with, they just don’t make headline news the way that big companies do.

            • woelkchen@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              8 months ago

              No they have not spent anywhere remotely close to that on Linux developers.

              More than any other games company.

              It is, independent studios lay people off and have to close up shop all the time

              [citation needed]

              on top of just not making that much money to begin with

              Doesn’t affect me. Improved Linux technologies affect me. Improvements to widely used open source software is public service.

              • masterspace@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                8 months ago

                More than any other games company.

                It wasn’t their money to spend. Devs lost their jobs because Valve kept taking more than they needed.

                Again, 1 Million dollars. Per Year. Per Employee. That means per every single Linux dev they employed, they still made a million dollars per employee.

                That’s indefensible and it’s really weird to see lemmy get their dicks hard about excess greedy capitalism just cause this time it’s behind a service that they like. Facebook gave back a huge amount of open source projects but that doesn’t make up for the harm they’ve caused, even just the harm caused by them sucking up an inordinate amount of societal resources, and Facebook “only” makes ~$750k per employee per year.

                • woelkchen@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  It wasn’t their money to spend.

                  Sure it is. That’s how a free market works. You are free to engage directly with indie developers on itch.io etc. It’s not your call to make what others do with their money. You don’t see me fuming with rage just because you spend your money on different games market places.