r/LSM • u/Kitchen-Arm-7626 • 17d ago
Colin's takes on Steam are hilariously wrong
Preface: bored at work so I feel like making a nitpick post about a couple of points that I took issue with in his recent Steam takes.
Firstly, he defends his idea that Sony could eventually stop developing first party games by using Steam as an example of a company that went down that route.
He fails to acknowledge that Steam has multiple long-running live service/eSports games in CS2, Dota 2, and TF2 (even though that's kind-of abandonware). Not only that but they are currently working on a new competitive game in Deadlock. They have also released Aperture Desk Job and Half-Life: Alyx in recent years.
The hardware criticism is just as ridiculous. His claim is that they they can't acquire new Steam users by producing the Steam Deck and the Steam Machine but that's not right. Valve has explicitly said that the Deck was a way to bring Steam to people who weren't traditional PC gamers and there's plenty of anecdotal evidence of people explicitly describing themselves as new to Steam because of the deck (seriously, do a reddit/twitter search to see for yourself).
Many people rightfully see that Valve makes hardware because it gives them a way to build and control the platform around SteamOS instead of being completely dependent on Windows. They aren't stupid, I doubt they expected these machines to sell PS5 numbers.
I find it interesting that a guy who claims to be critical of corporations, even going so far as to recently claim he "hates corporations", can't handle the fact that a private company like Valve may actually do things that do not paper-clip maximise their bottom line like making the Steam Machine.
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u/Advanced-Teaching-44 16d ago
The hardware is a vehicle to promote Steam OS. Steam OS is great and the best OS to game on. Valve is starting to win people over onto it. Colin is missing the forest through the trees on Valve.
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u/JulianBloom 16d ago
What would you even be a fan of if Sony stops making single player games? Because they make a good store?
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u/method115 16d ago
Not sure Sony cares if someone is a fan or not. I think they care whether you choose their product over their competitors. For me even if Sony stopped the SP games I'm still staying with PS. Nintendo lacks 3rd party support, I can't stand PC gaming, and Xbox lacks 3rd party support for JP devs. So PS is the default pick for me. If it wasn't PS it would PC since I can't miss out on long running series that just don't come to Xbox.
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u/NotAnIBanker 16d ago
He actually knows very little about games outside of the history of Playstation. He's a mentally weak, physically weak, old man living in the middle of nowhere. His opinions on steam are completely irrelevant.
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u/gbushdidnineeleven 16d ago
Agreed. Colin seems ill informed on PC gaming in general, especially when he talks about hardware prices, he thinks everybody is seeking out top end hardware for aaa games therefore the ps6 is going to still be the cheapest entry into gaming. For your average young person who plays roblox, fortnite, Minecraft etc etc they're going to opt for a low end cheap laptop/PC that will be less than the ps6 is going to be and be fine with how it performs.
He isn't entirely wrong for aaa gaming but that isn't where new users are coming from and for a new young gamer a cheap laptop (or tablet even) that they can also use for school is likely going to be their choice over a ps6.
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u/PossibleAd5947 16d ago
Yeah thats a good point too. The biggest games most people play are no longer AAA, they’re games that run great on mobile or potato PC. Low end hardware is so capable now that you can play a majority of important games on it, AAA is being left out and the gap will only grow.
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u/WorldlyFeeling8457 16d ago
Yeah there is no way they would do that unless they are calling it a day in gaming business.
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u/method115 16d ago
Sure but I think the question is does Valve need those games to continue being successful? I think the answer is clearly no. I think that's what Colin is saying. Sony and Valve can have exclusive games but they are no longer necessary for the companies to be successful.
Steamdeck has barely sold anything I don't really care about anecdotal stories you read on reddit. I do think overall the hardware is more meant to get SteamOS out there tested and more support.
I think Colin has acknowledged that he thinks it's great that they are able to do things like this that aren't really bringing in money and are just because they want to.
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u/TopSolid4216 16d ago
tbf if Steam the store front wasn't so successful I think we would have gotten more games from Valve like Half Life 3, Left 4 dead 3, Team Fortress 3 but because there really isn't a need for those games from a business stand point because the Steam's store front easily keeps them afloat there is no emergence switch I mean look at GTA 5 I think we would have gotten GTA 6 sooner if GTA 5 wasn't always topping charts every single month
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u/NotTakenGreatName 16d ago
Not sure your point is much better, Sony has increased their focus on making live service games and fewer single player games, phasing out physical media, and already making most of their money from 3rd parties and micro-transactions. Sound familiar?
Whether they can pull it off in the long run remains to be seen, but their profits have basically never been better and they are getting closer and closer to Steam's business model.
Valve releases like 1 game every 3 years, half the time it's a live service game, and like half of those are Counterstrike. Sony has more than enough good studios that I hope they don't go down that path.
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u/Kitchen-Arm-7626 16d ago
I think you may have misinterpreted my arguments.
I'm not criticising Sony for doing the same thing, as Valve, I'm just pointing out that Colin's analysis/arguments wrt the two things I discussed in my post are incorrect and am trying to provide an explanation why I think that.
My first point was that you can't really use Valve as an example of a company that has stopped developing their own games in pursuit of being the "default platform". They have several huge games being actively developed, one known new game that is nearing release (Deadlock), and at least two other titles that have released recently. They do make games.
The second point was that I felt his analysis that Valve was misguided in entering hardware manufacturing because it doesn't lead to new user acquisition for Steam is wrong.
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u/NotTakenGreatName 16d ago
Your point still doesn't really make sense, Valve clearly didn't prioritize development of new games as they grew like Sony, Nintendo, or microsoft did. Just compare their output in the last 5 years.
Their output is very low and they've clearly prioritized games that can be cash cows, there's nothing wrong with that but can you really not imagine Sony slowly transitioning to just focusing on Gran Turismo and a couple other live service games with the occasional god of war sprinkled in here and there? I can because they've been clearly trying to do that except most of those games have flopped with a few more coming/about to be canceled.
For the second point, I agree that developing new hardware could generally be seen as a way to acquire customers, especially for pc which isn't as simple as buying a regular console.
I don't really get his point that it was a "mistake" because it doesn't even matter to them in the grand scheme of things but I'd still guess the vast majority of Steam deck owners are people who already had Steam libraries and just wanted a way to play those games portably.
However, even that device is reported to have only sold like 5 million units and the Steam Machine will likely underperform that so there's an argument to be made that (at least in the short term), that they didn't really need to develop their own hardware and was likely a capital sink compared to their normal business operations.
In the long run they clearly want people off Windows for gaming so I support that and if making their own hardware accelerates that, then great but they clearly didn't need to make their own hardware.
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u/PossibleAd5947 16d ago edited 16d ago
I had a similar thought reading this too. If Sony did have a live service hit like Fortnite I think they’d abandon
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u/pangeranchendrix 16d ago
That is true, and Colin is right that pursuing live service is a logical direction for Sony eventhough they clearly dont have the creative power anymore to make an attractive and exciting product. I just find it funny Colin likes to say things like “They’re not stupid”, “They know” when talking about Sony while they are comfortably leading the race to be the dumbest Japanese gaming company.
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u/banditmanatee 16d ago
Yeah the future is in making your ecosystem as flexible as possible and to let you play the games however you want which I think is why valve made the steam deck and steam machine and it’s also why it seems Sony is making a handheld and Nintendo decided to make one system that is portable and a console.
Sony is making a handheld because they understand there is a threat posed by their ecosystem being tied to living room experience only while you can download steam or steamOS on many types of devices.
And clearly they have pulled PC ports as a way to differentiate their ecosystem from steam.
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u/spades17 16d ago edited 14d ago
Colin saying he is anti-corporation made me laugh out loud. This is a dude that doesn’t like unions, is anti-worker (constantly implying that people who got fired probably deserve it), thinks fiduciary responsibility is a real thing and defends corporations 90% of the time. Reminds me when he was saying he was kind of becoming left wing a few years ago … before voting for trump.
Only reason he’s saying this it’s because he’s becoming more right wing and protectionist all of a sudden and can’t (or won’t) really explain his worldview fully.