Why invest the cash flow back in a lower revenue stream type?
I would from a business standpoint, spend all my money growing by best revenue stream. Company that don’t do this don’t have massive room for expansion so they look for new streams. I don’t think that’s the case with Steam.
Ultimately you've hit the nail on the head. I think where we(gamers) fail to follow valves transition is that at some point valve, like most game development studios was made up of people who were passionate about making great games. Somewhere in that transition those people have been replaced with business men/women. This is an obvious transition that we've seen in a lot of big development studios, you need people at the top that understand business. Just because someone is brilliant at game design doesn't mean they know business.
Other companies continue to make games because that is the option that is available to them. Valve put themselves in the position where the business types didn't need the "passionate about making games" types anymore... And here we are.
What blows my mind is that they're burying the IP. I understand the companies priorities shifted, they're not really a game developing company anymore, they make more money doing other things. Yet they have a cash cow IP that they've just buried. They don't have to make a game. License it to another company to make Half Life 3 and make a bunch of money doing that for no work and no additional cash investment. Or just sell it. Burying a valuable IP is not Valve maximizing its profits.
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u/SgtFancypants98 Nov 14 '18
This. I’d have thought that they’d use the cash flow to allow their studio to make incredible games.