Valve Is In trouble with the Washington State Goverment - General

[QUOTE=kilerabv;51328051]Hey, do me a favor. Can you define gambling?[/QUOTE] I'm not talking about gambling, I'm talking about profiteering from children. Most, if not all marketing strategies follow the same reward/loyalty programs as gambling. Freemium games especially, mobile games are an ENORMOUS source of this; it's all the same shit, moral outrage or not. [editline]8th November 2016[/editline] They're addictive for the same reasons, and aim to crush every penny out of the child/parent's wallets.

[QUOTE=Destroyox;51329651]VNN is the Keemstar of video game speculation.[/QUOTE] VNN is nowhere near that bad.

I probably just live under a rock but I had never heard about this regarding valve. However, even if it is news to me, he himself says he has no opinion on this matter, then decide to defend a website which obviously means that he has an opinion. This is some slimey stuff.

[QUOTE=Oizen;51330991]VNN is nowhere near that bad.[/QUOTE] Behind the scenes he isn't, but in terms of their show formats he's kinda similar.

[QUOTE=Firetornado;51325718]If I pay 15 dollars for CSGO I shouldnt need to pay for keys.[/QUOTE] As someone who began playing 1.5 when I was 10 years old, and discovered the skin scene thanks to FPSBanana by the time I was 13, the introduction of the crate/key/slot machine pay-to-skin system really rubbed me the wrong way. I loved how in 1.5,6 and Source I was able to use custom models, animations, sounds, and textures for any weapon or object in the game, and was strictly clientside and had no unfair effect on my skill against other players. The people producing these skins spent hours upon hours porting, designing, and creating models and animations that were production-level worthy, and it was a damn shame to me to see all that go away with the release of CSGO. Now, I completely understand that custom models could be seen as a way to have a competitive edge during competitive matchmaking in CSGO, but it wouldn't be all that difficult to simply have skins disabled when joining a competitive match. Instead, Valve opted to remove the ability altogether, and require people to pay to mod elements of the game that again, have no effect on other players. I genuinely enjoyed modding my weapons and found it really fun to swap my UMP-45 with a G36C, or my Glock-15 with an M&P 22. Whenever I bring this up, people always argue, "Well, play on community servers and you can do that." But community servers are scarce and have a much less quantity of VAC-protected servers. I guess I might be stuck in the past, but having to pay for the off-chance I might get a somewhat decent looking texture seems absurd. No matter how you spin it, it's gambling, and while plenty of people may enjoy the feature, it really should be stressed that it should not be exposed to underage players. It's Valve's game, they can do as they wish and I can opt out of using skins altogether, but I really am sad that I can't mod the game the way I used to. It really was a lot of fun.

Valve is not the same Valve anymore.

[QUOTE=Firetornado;51331929]Valve is not the same Valve anymore.[/QUOTE] When Steam was released I had a spark of fear that it would go this route - money grubbing - and that hunch turned out to be right. It's a damn shame, they went from a company that respected and appreciated their consumers to nothing more than trying to make a quick buck in every way possible. It's like the ability to stay humble once you've become successful is a rare commodity nowadays.

For a company that is trying to make a quick buck apparently, they sure do like to spend it all on VR which is, apparently, a gimmick that'll die out losing Valve probably millions. What I'm trying to say is if they only cared about money they wouldn't be throwing away so much of it at VR that quite a few people here believe will die out after the initial hype.

[QUOTE=Aetna;51331966]When Steam was released I had a spark of fear that it would go this route - money grubbing - and that hunch turned out to be right. It's a damn shame, they went from a company that respected and appreciated their consumers to nothing more than trying to make a quick buck in every way possible. It's like the ability to stay humble once you've become successful is a rare commodity nowadays.[/QUOTE] Being humble is pretty much never rewarded in the business long term.

[QUOTE=Aetna;51331966]When Steam was released I had a spark of fear that it would go this route - money grubbing - and that hunch turned out to be right. It's a damn shame, they went from a company that respected and appreciated their consumers to nothing more than trying to make a quick buck in every way possible. It's like the ability to stay humble once you've become successful is a rare commodity nowadays.[/QUOTE] Making money is the goal of every company. Yeah, Valve has changed in these ways by putting microtransactions in their games (which are purely cosmetic for CSGO and Dota 2). But in some ways they still offer the usual things that fans love, though at this moment in relatively small doses. The reactions and content to The Lab or the impressive Source 2 demo with Atlas really shows that Valve can still pull off jaw-dropping moments and their usual high quality style. In other aspects unfortunately not. They are just missing some crucial project leaders for CSGO and TF2 like they have with Icefrog for Dota 2. Someone like him really cares about the game which is why it's not a mess and it really shows.

[QUOTE=Antimuffin;51341445]Making money is the goal of every company. Yeah, Valve has changed in these ways by putting microtransactions in their games (which are purely cosmetic for CSGO and Dota 2). But in some ways they still offer the usual things that fans love, though at this moment in relatively small doses. The reactions and content to The Lab or the impressive Source 2 demo with Atlas really shows that Valve can still pull off jaw-dropping moments and their usual high quality style. In other aspects unfortunately not. They are just missing some crucial project leaders for CSGO and TF2 like they have with Icefrog for Dota 2. Someone like him really cares about the game which is why it's not a mess and it really shows.[/QUOTE] Adding onto this, i think its especially unfair to say they dont appreciate or respect the customers. Certain practices take advantage of them at times, sure, but they still do things that provide convenience and give the userbase the ability to make or put shit out. Greenlights intention was good, even though the final result was hot garbage, and the Workshop is a great, natural addition to the platform that makes a lot of those shady mod sites irrelevant. If they were purely money grubbing and greed focused, i doubt they'd do that, the Steam controller, the Vive, or even continue to make shit in general since Steam gives them ludicrous bucks.

Except much wants more. The money they put on that are prolly only a very small part of what they think would earn from those investions. I'm not saying they don't care about the consumers, I'm saying they are trying their hardest to please consumers while at the same time making as much money as possible, but as of late the focus have really shifted towards more money craving practices.

[QUOTE=IQ-Guldfisk;51341948]Except much wants more. The money they put on that are prolly only a very small part of what they think would earn from those investions. I'm not saying they don't care about the consumers, I'm saying they are trying their hardest to please consumers while at the same time making as much money as possible, but as of late the focus have really shifted towards more money craving practices.[/QUOTE] I wouldnt necessarily say that, it seems like their recent focus has been on software and hardware outside of video games, with the Steam Controller, the (failed) Steam Machines, and the Vive + VR. CS:GO crates doesnt seem like its their "focus", just a byproduct of their TF2 model being applied to another game. [editline]9th November 2016[/editline] Game wise, i heard they'll be announcing something next year.