Blizzard Said No, It Cost Them Billions.

[@BellularNews]

Head to squarespace.com/bellularnews to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code bellularnews. Sponsored by Squarespace.

[@darugdawg2453]

stalker2 is in game pass

[@cherifabdelhamid6373]

You should rectify the game pass pricing chart. It's outdated

[@avfx]

100% very good explination of the biz model ... kudos on logic as always mate.

[@MrGilfred]

I don't think that it would've been wise to have Blizzard turning Battlenet into what is known today as steam. That could mean that they would lose their identity as a game company. Players would see those games as Blizzard games which means you have different game studios that have different ways they develop a game that would contrast or even be so polar opposites that it isn't funny. So I think that even though they might've lost billions initially they still saved money because they didn't lose their identity. If Microsoft wants to use Battlenet like Steam is built then I don't know how well that will be for Blizzard games. There will always have to be a way of telling the difference between Blizzard games and non Blizzard titles.

[@granityseis104]

2 minute ad??? are you kidding me?? This is not television. unsub.

[@xani666]

We dodged meteor sized bullet here, imagine current blizzard management having the reach of Valve

It'd be an empty place. Steam only got where it is by being the best option that people want to engage with.

[@samoclese6435]

Thing is I don't think it would've been current blizzard management. To me it seems far more likely to have been OG blizz management, If they did steam first, and ended up with Valve's value, I doubt they'd have even sold to Activision back in the day. Really either way it's still a good bullet to dodge, just an incredibly different bullet.

[@arjanzweers6542]

I Blizzard managed to become that succesfull I don't think they would have been bought by Activision

[@TheNewCoalition]

yeah with the best deals, or atleast it used to. Humble Bundle and GOG are better these days.

[@xani666]

@@samoclese6435 It was sold to activision coz of greed. It might've not been as bad, but it would still be publicly traded company with investors wanting more, forever. That's how good companies turn to shit

[@systemicbreakdown7864]

I don't want ANY publicly traded company to even touch trying to be a video game marketplace.

[@Bigdog1787]

@@systemicbreakdown7864 I agree it's why steam is so much better at least till all the owners get to old or want to retire then who knows what will happen.

[@bruno-brant]

Any... More?

[@Falzyker]

Gaben Protects.

[@iainawatson]

Shareholders in emerging markets get greedy and greed kills businesses. And greed isn't just wanting more money, everyone wants that. Greed is when you're so frenzied in your pursuit of wealth that you'll screw over everyone INCLUDING YOURSELF to try and get everything right now. Cutting open the goose that lays golden eggs to try and get all the gold at once. We're seeing that happen with tech stocks right now.

[@delayed_control]

@@Falzyker We need to entomb Gaben on the Golden Throne when the time comes.

[@mekaniklboltmb4880]

>be gabe newell >do nothing >competition shoots itself in the foot >win How does he do it?

[@nicholasfarrell5981]

@@mekaniklboltmb4880 deal with the devil?

[@alien5589]

His enemies have movement-based vision and he’s very good at standing still

[@DarkFenix2k5]

By not being a publicly traded company. Once you have shareholders screaming in your ear, "do nothing" stops being an option. Shareholders are universally 50% greed and 50% stupidity, all they want is more money right now, they will _demand_ you butcher the golden goose right now because they want all the gold immediately. Valve isn't beholden to shareholders, they _can_ sit there and do nothing while all their competitors drink themselves into oblivion on that cocktail of greed and stupidity.

[@SpaceApe020]

He does more than people give him credit for, Steam does get nice upgrades constantly, but it still needs so many more. The Market is due for an overall

[@HimitsuHunter]

Not shooting himself in the foot. In the land of the Blind the One Eyed man is king.

[@bloodraven8020]

I'd say "epic should take notes," but they havent added that feature yet.

[@TheRogueWolf]

"But guys, building a digital storefront is hard! Steam sucked when it started too!" "Steam sucked more than a decade ago and they learned. Why can't you learn from them?" "Learning from others? That doesn't make sense!"

[@kavky]

@@TheRogueWolfValve also made Steam with their own capital as an entirely private business which was but a fraction of the investor capital Epic raised by selling shares. They have no excuse besides incompetence.

[@KPX01]

​@@kavkytotally this, a store/launcher is not a new thing unlike when steam started.

[@BatkoNashBandera774]

@OP it takes too much resources to add notepad.exe to their cloud service.

[@Robaken]

@bloodraven8020 I laughted hard 😁 I still can't believe that they don't have a basic user review functionality; even GOG is more beefed up than them and IIRC, they started late on the scene.

[@Immudzen]

It couldn't have gone differently. Blizzard is not the kind of company that valve is. They would have prioritized companies over players and it would have killed the platform.

[@thomaskrogh1244]

Oh like valve doesn't curate anything that goes on steam, in 2016 the Australian government force them to have a refund policy. Or that the refined un regularize gambling in CSG AND TF2 crate aka lootboxes also that you don't own any of the games you purchase just the license to play them.

[@danilooliveira6580]

exactly, being the first helped valve, A LOT, but it keeps winning simply because it's the superior platform. many publishers tried to move their AAA big seller games to their own exclusive platforms and it was a complete failure, because even missing a lot of exclusives, Steam is just better. it's hard to imagine Blizzard making and maintaining a platform that is so good and user friendly for so many years. hopefully MS will understand that and turn Battlenet into a platform that can actually compete with steam. game pass is already a really nice move, because it allows people to try games fully before buying them. but there are still a lot of features steam has that MS will need to implement to compete, not just for users but also to developers.

[@chrisj320ac3]

It doesn't hurt that Gabe, being willing to take risks the way he is, tries to make does he does so without fucking shit up

[@danilooliveira6580]

@@thomaskrogh1244 the refund policy complain from the Australian government was because they didn't offer refund for faulty games, only the 14days/2h refunds. and the "you don't own your games" thing was ALWAYS the case, even with physical media, you just owned a license to play the game, the difference is that companies didn't have the means to stop you from playing the game until digital only games became a thing. the change in the user agreement was just making it clearer to users.

[@thomaskrogh1244]

@danilooliveira6580 what corporate Apologists.nothing more do you want me to find a way to post images of the physical library of the games I have. I'm waiting for you limb excuses.

[@BloodVixen]

Battle net wouldn't get me to swap. Namely because it does a terrible job of re-logging into my account every time I open my laptop from sleep mode. Steam never gives me this problem.

[@lonnie6954]

I get this on my PC sometimes but closing out and relaunching logs me in for some reason

[@dirge7459]

I still suffer the relogging account issue to this day, and they still haven't fixed it... Meanwhile my Steam account stays logged in and also remembers my details to this day.

[@azemaviator]

I have in fact switched what games Blizzard has on steam from launching on bnet... they just work better for me. given I live on linux so having steam manage things better in that regard also helps a lot. The Bnet launcher would not get me to switch off-stream for a game that is not only on Bnet and made by Blazzard.

[@joncarter3761]

Microsoft will end up not putting stuff on steam for like a year then when sales plummit they'll come crawling back just like EA, Ubisoft and every other company (except Epic) that has tried to compete with Steam. IMO the only reason Epic is still keeping at it (albeit without many paid exclusives these days) is due to Tim Sweeny having a personal grudge against Gabe Newall!

[@srdjan455]

EA and Ubisoft still reauirs you to make an account with them, some games even uses steam to launch the Ubisoft launcher. So really who won?

[@delayed_control]

@@srdjan455 Valve, cause they're paying them a 30% cut lmao

[@theslay66]

@@srdjan455 Steam. Because you don't use Ubisoft or EA launcher to browse and find things to buy, you don't launch them when you're interested in a game just released, you just treat them as mandatory, bothersome step to play a game you bought on Steam. They've spent money to develop their own platform, and players just see them as an annoyance, it can't be more of a loss thant that.

[@MrJay_White]

epic is going the "bribe senators" route. its not even a personal grudge. sweeny is a corpo stooge, and the publishers want the competition gone, even if they need to wait for gabes death to do it. epics customers are those corpos letting epic give away games. because they know file sharing never cost them a penny. because they know the players are a product on epic they will do what they can to farm that product.

[@srdjan455]

@MrJay_White people already let corporations win by letting Steam be as big as it, games being mostly digital these day's? You can thank steam for that

[@emanuel81111]

Steam would still be king, Steam is the best not because they came first, its because they put consumers FIRST, and then it comes Steam desires. When people push back on something that Steam does, Steam comes out saying "you are right , im wrong lets do things your way" thats why Steam is what its today.

[@gravity00x]

So much this. Steam isn't king because they were first. Steam is king because they respect their costumers and costumers respect them in return. I would ALWAYS prefer to give my money to steam over any other digital storefront on the entire internet. If steam would sell other products that have nothing to do with gaming, I'd still choose them, because they have proven, that albeit being a business that has to earn money, they also do it in a way that at least tries to consider the consumer in all its processes and offer them good value in anything they do. Yes steam has lots of shortcomings and they aren't always ethical, but you can clearly see that at least they are trying to be.

[@Korodarn]

Valve understands the value of building loyalty and retaining it. Nobody else understands this, constantly chasing the latest fad and attempting to extract the most they can while providing less.

[@oldmanharley4018]

do you know why? Valve is NOT a publicly traded company. it doesnt have share holders to answer to. when a company is publicly traded, like all other large gaming companies their clients stopped being the users and start being the investors, the users become the product being sold. but since valve is private their clients are us.

[@emanuel81111]

@@oldmanharley4018 true, but also there are companies that are also self published and they still act like other companies, shitting on their clients thinking they know better. Steam is that exception.

[@IzaacB89]

Agree. The only reason I have other launchers is either they regularly give out free games (Epic) or they are required for some game included in my Gamepass Ultimate subscription (Dragon Age Inquisition requires EA) and SC2 and D3 requires bnet, thou I rarely play them nowadays. I spent about 11 years only playing on xbox, and collecting 300+ digital games, and since I went almost pc only about 7 years ago, I've collected more that 4x as many games on steam. And a lot of the games I have on xbox I wish I could get on steam instead.

[@dav2mai]

If it doesn't have user reviews, I don't want it.

[@phlogistanjones2722]

@dav2mai You are telling us that you are incapable of reasonable critical analysis, thoughtful consideration and the ability to do even basic research. "I will only blindly consume what some 'other' tells me to consume. I am incapable of cogent decision taking." I do not believe that is the message you wish to convey but that is what your words have done. Perhaps you should try to rephrase your thoughts.

[@the_emigrant]

@@phlogistanjones2722 What ressources do you have to make that "critical analysis" ? What the developper shows ? Specialized news outlets ? Streamers ? All of those are limited, most of the time biased and can still be considered as "listening to what others tell me to do" by your logic. User reviews are an unvaluable ressource just by virtue of their gigantic ammount. You can read opinions and details of what the game actually look like for the user from a huge variety of people and not a sales pitch by the company. That's why they are crucial for an informed buy and companies like Blizzard hate them.

[@aiaoi5048]

@@phlogistanjones2722 imagine not researching products you're going to buy

[@thorveim1174]

​@@phlogistanjones2722 one cant have an opinion of their own before playing, and thus buying, a game. Game journos are just simping for the companies so their opinions are worthless, that mleaves either watching someone else play it (can spoil you)... Or listening to the opinions of others that have played it to know if the game will be a waste of time and money or not. And steam gives easy access to just that on their platform.

[@Me_Caveman]

​​​@@phlogistanjones2722 You're telling the world that critical analysis can be done reliably with a sub-standard source of information? Players/users are where you'd get the best information to do a critical analysis. The worse the information, the more inaccurate the conclusion. A calculation is useless if the numbers you input are incorrect.

[@ErmacRulez1]

Don't get me started on how many mistakes Blizzard have made. While fans created DOTA (custom Warcraft 3 map back then), Blizzard thought it wouldn't be successful so they gave the rights to Valve for DOTA 2 instead. They never learn or listen for years.

[@ToyokaX]

It's not that they *gave away* the rights to Valve, they didn't pursue the opportunity when it arose and were late to the race when they realized what they lost. The game itself was already long gone from their grip, the only thing they could hold on to was the name, and that was only changed through compromise as a result of the lawsuits prior to the release of the game itself. It's the hubris and lack of hindsight that burned Blizzard, because they didn't value the content of their userbase like Valve did and still does.

[@Crunchymunchys]

@@ToyokaX its also why we don't really see any good customer content in SC2 like we did in WC3 because Blizzard did changes to the legal statement of the map editor making who designed said maps didn't own it but rather Blizzard did. This meant we got people jumping ship to either build that map into a game like DOTA with Steam or the few failed modder/map makers who tried to make their map into a game without a proper following that could help pay their bills or the charisma to charm a bigger studio into footing the bill until said game was released. I believe Red Solaces was one of the other few games that made it off the Blizzard map editior and into an actual game, although I believe the devs lost a lot of control over their product from having a publisher pay for it. I doubt we will see a lot of good creativity come from modding communities if they are force to losing their digital rights via a dev kit provided to make modded content like how Blizzard did and I hope a lot of other big companies realize that shutting that down is plain stupid and greedy or it becomes outlawed (probably more likely sadly)

[@PandaMan02]

blizzard had no rights to DOTA because it was a fan creation....

[@likesonggame]

Didn't pubg was a blizzard game mod as well?

[@edgibbs2794]

@@PandaMan02 no, but when the creators wanted to make a standalone game, they approached Blizzard, and Blizzard rejected them. Valve did not.

[@SpaceApe020]

I ain't falling for the Game Pass trap. Get ready for them to pull a Netflix and make the service worse yet more expensive, once they capture the market. Long live Lord Gaben.

[@granityseis104]

they already did that.

[@Micromation]

​​@@granityseis104that is not the end of the slope - it's the beginning. Also there is no end to the slope, no point at which it levels out. The more gullible morons fall for it, the less attractive will it become. I guess that's the difference between Valve and entirety rest of the corporate gaming space - despite defacto domnating the competition they do not use their position to squeeze the customer even harder. Sony was very friendly when playing the underdog during PS3 era, how the tables have turned after PS4 flipped the board and now Microsoft is trying to play the good guy 🙃

[@monish05m]

I'd die under valve rather than live under Blizzard

[@williamyoung9401]

But isn't it amazing now that Bobby Kotick is gone, Blizzard starts to act like a semi-normal company again?

[@simonphoenix3789]

Thank god they didn't succeed. A world without steam would be a dark place for gaming. Steam might have flaws, but it is by far the only company in gaming that doesn't feel like its screwing over gamers constantly. If blizzard had been the go to platform, i don't think it would be so wildly successful. You think a company as revolting as activision blizzard would let players return games so easily?

[@Bigdog1787]

You think you'd see any game sales at all. And they probably say you can't sell your game under $50 no matter how simple it is.

[@littlejimmy7402]

Corporate is where good ideas go to get monetized.

[@mediumvillain]

Its partly why things like EA's Origin never took off outside what was absolutely necessary, nobody trusted them as a company, nobody liked or wanted it as a service. Even when it was mandatory, some ppl just wouldnt play a game if they had to use Origin to play it.

[@Roggor]

Ironically we may have held onto physical games for far longer if Steam hadn't been what it has. Who can say what timeline is better; bad steam, keep physical games or good steam, lose physical games.

[@frozello14]

You have to remember that would have been before Activision takeover.

[@richbuilds_com]

My brain simply does not comprehend "back in 2004" as 20 years ago! Nope.

[@Dethectic]

Wanna make it worse? Google for 2004 movies.

[@yakumoyomi5765]

@@Dethectic Damn...the first Hellboy movie came out 20 years ago?! =fossilizes=

[@f.b.l.9813]

what? you're joking! it's only 10 years ago! but seriously, 2019 feels just a couple of years ago and 2012 feels just 2 years before that.

[@Roggor]

20 years ago is, like, the 80s man!

[@alface935]

Then there is Me Who was born in 2004...

[@Me_Caveman]

Valve has many advantages. The most underrated being that they're privately owned and can choose (and often do) to prioritize balancing consumer interests. A publicly traded company cannot choose to prioritize players unless it immediately and directly benefits shareholders.

[@Nedscape]

I feel like valve would not be the titan they are now if they were publicly traded, someone would have gotten greedy at one point or another.

[@Serevarno]

The biggest issue with the battle net launcher is that download speeds are abysmal compared to literally any other launcher. To all the mouth breathing cockstains claiming the launcher is fine, literally take two seconds to check the actual blizz forums, reddit and other places and see there are a TON of people that have the issue of the launcher downloading games/updates ridiculously slow. I have zero issues with other launchers. Ubi, Epic, Steam, hell, even the fucking star trek online launcher. It's literally a known issue.

[@joshuafischer684]

Battlenet is borderline malware

[@StaySic4Ever]

Really? Is maybe during peek hours, as I can't tell with my 30Mbps lol

[@mycelia_ow]

Eh, they're lower than steam but in my experience they're not bad either. I don't know why steam utilizes so much more bandwidth, but Battlenet is still way faster than any downloads in my browser. Maybe it's your internet or their services we're stressed at the time you were downloading. Idk, it's been fine for me.

[@denormative]

They used to be great with download speeds! Back in the Diablo2 days they basically just used bittorrent as the backend code and ever people like myself on dialup had great download speeds! But yes, since Diablo 3 they're a garbage company who only still exists due to people playing WoW and mobile games. :(

[@marloncebo242]

@@Serevarno you obviously aren't a gamer. I'm not a fan of blizzard but the launcher download speeds are fine. And you rarely have to download blizzard games or patches. You obviously haven't used other launchers and your connection is ass.

[@gravity00x]

let's hope gaben lives to be immortal. no suit should be able control, milk and manipulate the gaming industry as blizzard especially were trying to do.

[@TescoShopperSupreme]

Get your head out your arse, Gabe is the reason DRM exists and you don't own anything you buy.

[@mycelia_ow]

No, he has gotten Iazy. He is not an Andrew Wilson or a Bobby Kotic, but he isn't a Swen Vincke like he used to be either. Valve is a shell of its former self, they traded that in for csgo skin money. Gabe is to thank for that.

[@kavky]

@@TescoShopperSupreme Pretty sure DRM was a thing long before Steam.

[@dirge7459]

@@TescoShopperSupreme DRM existed before Steam, please try again. Also take a good hard look at Microsoft with Games For Windows Live, and Sony funding Denuvo.... Yeah, you look at those two corpos for a while before you even think to comment back.

[@MinorZero]

@@TescoShopperSupreme Not all steam games actually use the drm part. They can use it, but don't have to, it isn't decided by steam! All it shows is your lack of actual knowledge, and _any_ digital store game is a license. But as long as Gabe is around Steam is one of the least likely to abuse this, together with GOG.

[@humeyt]

"People don't want the service so they raised prices". Can we appreciate the INSANITY of that, which certainly isn't limited to Microsoft?

[@Nedscape]

It's a deathloop a lot of companies fall into. They don't get customers so they raise prices to make up for it which drives more people away which leads to more price increases which leads to shutting down the company.

[@PixelTheMushroom]

@@Nedscape ye, it's the exact loop that trhe danish mail system has fallen into. (it got privatised, which is just f'ing dumb, especially in a country where the very base of it's culture is trade, and doing business as a whole)

[@Crimsonland1]

Even if steam shut down tomorrow i’d never use game pass for the rest of my life. Microsoft is the absolute worst, that doesn’t give two shits about the consumer.

[@Mortjep9531]

@@Crimsonland1 game pass is honestly a pretty good service. It's relatively inexpensive, has a lot of games and a lot of Them Are on the service on release day. They also don't try every scummy tactic in order to keep you. If you want to cancel it is one click on the Microsoft subscription page. It does not ask you 3 times wether or not you Are sure you don't want to keep playing (fuck amazon). The only gripe i've had with the service is that the saves in various games aren't always crosscompatible between platforms without 3rd party save converting tools (in case you end up buying the game on steam etc.). And multiplayer games aren't always cross-service either. You still cannot play DRG together if one has it on steam and the other on game pass. In the end it is a great service to try out games you Are on the fence about without spending 60£€$ on it.

[@Tn5421Me]

9:48 I would rather pay full price for it on Steam, thank you very much.

[@_charwyn]

@@Tn5421Me absolutely. No way I’m ever paying subscriptions ever again

[@Sovek86]

yeeeahhh, I quite frequently dont buy any new games for months on end, and in the worst case scenario of loosing a serious amount of income to the point I couldnt afford constant internet would make the subscription model hard to justify and therefore loose ALL of my games, OR.... a complete failure of the internet infrastructre like after Helene (2+ weeks of no internet). After getting power restored wit was still over a week before I got internet back. At least steam says "Yeah, no internet connection but you can still play your favorite games"

[@TheLuceon]

There is just one problem. Instead of revamping their already existing store front they want to add another. How often do we think people are going to be jumping from store to store to store to figure out what is sold where? Steam, Epic, GoG, Xbox, Ubisoft and Battlenet. Except worse, Battlenet is now under Microsoft so now you gotta go between Xbox app and Battlenet to make your purchase. It's cumbersome and Microsoft would be better off using the tech between the two and just choose one or the other.

[@LifeWulf]

I hope they just trash the Xbox app for PC. It *is* better than it used to be, but still pretty clunky.

[@miinyoo]

Here's another fun thing. Why don't I play Minecraft anymore as a leisurely build shit and relax on off time dicking around? Microsoft Account. That's the only reason and I don't miss it. There are plenty of games to casually piss time away with to unwind a hard day.

[@user-to7ds6sc3p]

@@miinyoo You don't play a game because you need an Account? What game does not require an Account? I would understand that if Minecraft was sold on Steam, but Microsoft are the only ones selling it. And you don't even need to use the official launcher and if you do that not even a Microsoft Account as you can just use a offline Account.

[@matthouse99]

I'd like a Windows based OS (call it Xbox or whatever) that is lean and only meant for gaming like Steam OS might be one day if it's ever widely available for PC. Windows 11 is a shit show.

[@tiacool7978]

@matthouse99 I doubt you'll ever get one. They're all about bloat and adding things people don't need or want.

[@Malxer]

they should release their older games to steam

[@Dethectic]

🤣good one

[@revanlord05]

fr, I want the SC1 and 2 and warcraft trilogy in Steam.

[@kavky]

@@revanlord05 The original, without Reforged.

[@BatkoNashBandera774]

@OP Rachel Zegler it, call us all liars and demand we get deplatformed or censored for telling you "2004 was 20 years ago".

[@LordMazafeff]

So Blizzard Execs rejected both becoming Steam and letting the entire MOBA market go. Good times.

[@dogoku]

I remember transitioning from CS:1.6 to CS:Source and everyone bitching about Steam and how it's the worst thing ever made xD

[@TheRogueWolf]

Honestly, it _did_ have problems back then. Thing is, Valve _listened._ It's hard to say the same about the companies running some of these other digital storefronts.

[@cybercifrado]

As someone with a 21 yo Steam account - Yes, yes it was that bad. The difference is that Valve was actually interested in making a good experience and got better...

[@miinyoo]

Steam did not grow up without severe pain. It was new territory for everyone. In the end, and really still on-going, the improvements have been amazing. One of the biggest things for me is re-binding controls for practically any device. Steam's re-binding is what I would call a legendary feature for PC and SteamDeck.

[@1ProAssassin]

I feel like ppl forget that Microsoft has its own PC store, which I think used to be separate from the windows app store and Xbox stores. It also has the Minecraft launcher. Wonder if they'll finally move it all into one thing. All I know is that it sounds like Microsoft really wants to combine it all into one cloud gaming subscription service. It both terrifies me and makes me curious.

[@Micromation]

People forget because nobody uses it 😂

[@calebgoodman3028]

@@MicromationI use it more than their other stuff honestly.

[@jyrolys6]

Just because they have a variety of offerings in more or less one place, doesn't mean they function as they should. There's just something under the hood of the Microsoft ecosystem that never performs smoothly. The possibility of trusting or being hopeful about their software is gone after countless disappointments and the experience never surpassing an acceptable level.

[@GinaRanTruthEnforcer]

yeaaah, Avowed isn't gonna be the "in'" they think it'll be

[@BigLongRandomNumberNameM-kf9vy]

Remember when Starfield was supposed to be a system seller?

[@Iggysdust]

@@GinaRanTruthEnforcer you don't trust Obsidian as a studio?

[@Nick-cs4oc]

It’s the perfect start, not a huge title to cause as many issues and gets some in the door. They’ll crank it up later, don’t worry Not to say any of this is gonna be good or bad, but they got the bank to throw around and the willingness to play like valve won’t

[@luthientinuviel6668]

@@Iggysdust The Obsidian died a long time ago. What we have now is just a skinsuit.

[@luthientinuviel6668]

​@@Iggysdust Just look they last games, and compare this with their old work. The writing of the studio noways is atrocious.

[@CosmicCleric]

As a Linux user (Fedora) I would prefer to continue to support Valve's Steam over Microsoft's BNet, as that'll reinforce a gaming tie-in to Windows, with all of its increasing data/spying features. Valve has been good for gaming on Linux, and prefer they be successful over Microsoft.

[@wunderb33f]

It kind of reminds me of Microsoft saying - No - to BG3. Or every single publisher that said no to Powerwash Sim.

[@KeyanShokraie]

Larian said no to MS because the financial offer was dismally low. MS didn't say no to BG3.

[@ledpowz]

Microsoft didnt care about Larian. They thought the Game and Company is wasted time…

[@adirmugrabi]

"They probably shouldn't add user reviews" Are you mad?! That is the main reason I will ONLY EVER use steam. I would not even install a free game, from a store that does’t have reviews

[@GoDSkRiLLa69]

I'm currently playing GW1 on steam; when you said, "guild wars would never have existed" my eyes went wide in horror

[@Person01234]

I will never use a "subscribe and get all these games you don't want to play and maybe one or two you do" service. It's for some people I guess, but not for me.

[@valiantviktor]

I completely agree. It's a sad model that has all of the problems of online video subscription services with pretty much none of the benefits.

[@BeyondTilted]

The problem with this new strategy, is there is not a desire from the market for a new video game marketplace, because steam has been a fairly benevolent, pro consumer, marketplace. Gamers have a huge preference towards steam, (and all of their games are already bought on that platform) so much so that the hey don’t want to use other marketplaces, in other words, steam would have to “enshitify” itself in order for there to be room for a real competitor.

[@Micromation]

I use GOG if a game I really like and has some replayability to it is on there - for example Binding of Isaac: Rebirth or Factorio. The only drawbacks of GOG IMHO is that standalone installer is packed with some ancient technology and take literal hours to unpack (it uses single processor thread and is abysmally slow compared to, for example, 7zip archive and for some reason they refuse to improve) and that they don't really have any good discounts...

[@pegeta]

DOTA/LOL Will always be the absolute biggest loss in gaming history. I can't believe blizzard fumbled the ball so hard on that 1.

[@Byrvurra]

I'm still old enough to remember when everyone hated Steam just as much as say Uplay, for being an intrusive application. Now some people won't even buy a game unless it's available on Steam. It's pretty interesting what gamers have grown to accept over time.

[@BBP-OMO]

To be fair, Steam used to be a bit shit

[@Qb3nsis]

I'm old enough to know this isn't true XD Uplay ALWAYS was more hated for their intrusiveness. I was there when Steam was olive green and I will not stand for this slander lol.

[@teddys8975]

i think you got it a bit wrong with this. People would not use steam at all if they could buy their phisical copies still...i mean, most of us would. but since thats not really doable, il stick with steam, i preffer only 1 platform to be my library so i can focus all my haterd towards it when they do something shitty.

[@JohnSmith-sk7cg]

Steam adds considerable value to games bought on their platform. A good mod management system, cloud saves, pre-compiled shaders on linux to avoid stutter, etc. It has its downsides with the DRM, but it also has quality of life improvements.

[@spacejunk2186]

Yeah but unlike Steam Uplay never stoped being bad an annoying.

[@MrAdamArce]

I played Guild Wars back in the day and loved it. Amazing game still, really. This makes me love it even more because the idea of Blizzard being the industry leader/standard rather than Valve sounds like a true nightmare

[@skald8981]

Blizzard broke our trust. They were foremost a quality gaming company. That’s what got our absolute loyalty. Even if a game took a decade to make we trusted that it would be a best. Then they broke that deal and did a K-Mart move - they totally sacrificed quality in the name of unabashed money grabbing. So we simply left. Had they stayed the course of their founding they’d still be a multibillion dollar company with no rivals whatsoever. Now they’re effectively dead.

[@RoachDoggggJR]

I'll say the only thing that will get me to come back to wow is if they include the wow subscription with PC Game Pass. Asking $15 a month on top of a box price AND a cash shop is just insane compared to the competition.

[@bassntruck]

I started playing WOW in Vanilla until shortly after Mists. Very few thought that expansion was any good at the time. It would seem based on hindsight I got out at the peak. From what I have seen since it went way downhill at that point.

[@mmmmmhhhbeepbeep]

I didn't think blizzard employees were familiar with the word "NO"

[@antifurryfoundation55]

When Gabe inevitably dies, we need to hook him up to a life support all “the emperor” style so he can keep running Valve.

[@Jimalcoatl]

Seeing the differences between how Valve and Blizzard treat their customers I think on this point we live in the better timeline.

[@Nedscape]

Even if blizzard released a launcher that was on par with or better than steam I would still stay with steam because of how anti-consumer blizzard has been

[@ng952]

Mike O'Brien then left Arenanet and has been working on a new game and a new networking back-end to allow for less lag with synchronized physics.

[@tolyastg6514]

I only ever used battle net for Overwatch 1, and we all saw how spectacularly they fucked that up.

[@Gnipahell1r]

What is overlooked here: you are locked in to Windows, though. There is no way, getting Xbox-App games run on Linux at present.

[@MiroslavMaiksnar]

For me, steam killer feature is linux support (though IIRC we are about 1-2% of user base including deck). And in my case, buying games mostly on sales with just few exceptions for new releases is actually cheaper on average than paying sub and owning nothing so no point getting it. (Not that I really own the games on steam, but removing them is quite rare.)

[@Zhyrca]

Didn't they try this before, with Destiny 2?

[@Turamwdd]

Yeah, Bellular casually forgetting that game, I suppose.

[@HansenLaMoose]

@@Turamwdd as a long time destiny 1/2 player, it’s because it’s a forgettable game. i’m a very salty destiny player. the only good thing i’ll ever stand by for it is the gameplay. the gameplay is 11/10. everything else is horrid - especially Bungie themselves.

[@BaDitO2]

if WoW vanilla launched with a game-store platform attached it would have been just been over for anyone else.

[@vgpowerlord]

When Steam launched, its memory footprint was gigantic for what was essentially a launcher for Half-Life 1 games. The only reason it survived is that PCs got better AND it added a store that sold their own and third-party games.

[@MinecraftersVL]

Honestly if they're gonna use Battlenet like that, they really need to fix the update agent, as that's usually the main reason that we're suffering from connection problems. I've lost count on how many times I've had to quit my games, close the launcher and go into the control panel to force shut the update agent and lunch it all again, just so that I could play with a good connection

[@agodelianshock9422]

Battle net doesn't have near the feature-set of Steam. I don't see it working out. Maybe at one point just having WoW would have catapulted it to success, but that time has passed and plenty of other games are on par with WoW in terms of player numbers, namely CS:GO which may even be beating WoW now in terms of active players.

[@wwld9823]

I know mike o' brien, thankfully he was more into making guild wars rather than monopolizing gaming, bless his heart

[@nintynomreader]

Buck Flizzard.

[@alyasVictorio]

5:59 Speaking of Guild Wars and Arena Net, Guild Wars 2 became the niche but greater MMO because of its great exploration and gameplay (combat wise because of its action pace added into its tap system), and the rests is history.

[@Sollace]

Blizzard is the modern age Blockbuster. Let that sink in.

[@kusykustosh]

They also was sleeping with moba DOTA and League of Legends. They let other people make game about mod to warcraft 3 loosing billions of dollars by making first stand alone moba game. But Blizzard is sleepy till this day. Their updates to their games are alsays slow and safe. Thats why they staying behind others.

[@dezopenguin9649]

At this point, almost any attempt to avoid Steam is going to fail and fail hard, because over the years, by constantly providing a quality user experience vastly better than what other stores do, Steam has built brand loyalty to the point that half the PC gamer market wouldn't buy the cure for cancer if it wasn't offered on Steam. We saw this with Epic and all their exclusives. The playerbase wasn't interested in wrestling with an inferior store experience just to save a few bucks or to get access to a game; they'd just say "I don't need this game." At this point, only Steam is going to beat Steam, if they break away from their consumer-friendly store practices in favor of corporate short-term cash grabs that actively drive the customer base away.

[@yixo]

No subscription is a killer deal for me, even if it's 0.01 and includes all games in the world. I want to buy games not subscribe to a multibillion dollar company.

[@Dereliction2]

This seems like more of a threat to Epic than Steam.

[@FlamingNinjaBoi]

People make jokes about Valve being 'static' while everyone else is just harming themselves in the industry, but Valve actually does do a lot of small things over time. We just don't really notice it because it's not usually big-ticket items. But this recent inbuilt recording feature was HUGE. I've always had issues getting outside recorders to work while maintaining ingame performance, and don't want to pay a premium for the good ones, but Steam's works really well so far. I've clipped a few memorable moments already and started building a Steam gallery.

[@Micromation]

Steam's greatest contribution and achievement was, is and forever will be their controller customization suite and SteamInput API. They've had done more for the PC gaming and supporting plethora of controllers and mindblowingly powerful customization tool than entire gaming space and three major console makers rid for themselves combined which is quite embarassing when you think about it, considering game controllers aren't even primary input device of choice on PC platform 😂 Steam's recording doesn't do anything special for now (maybe they will add features like Nvidia's Shadowplay killcam thingy where game automatically triggers video save after you achieve something inside the game). As it is they don't do anything special that OBS doesn't do, or recording solution provided with your GPU software.

[@FlamingNinjaBoi]

@Micromation it does, though. When i try to use any third party software it affects performance pretty heavily. Steams does not for some reason. I generally won't even bother with recording but now I'm interested.

[@Micromation]

@@FlamingNinjaBoi What third party software exactly? The only way you can notice any perceivable performance impact is when performing software encoding on CPU which is not the case on neither Radeon ReLive, Nvidia Shadowplay nor OBS - they would by default pick the best possible hardware option. Encoding/decoding happens using compute units inside the GPU and have no perceivable impact. Like, Steam has not invented a wheel here, they use libraries provided by Intel, Nvidia and AMD to work with their respective hardware options...

[@mortykun]

No matter how good the Micro$oft or Blizzard option is. Steam will always be the choice because Valve are not a bunch of two faced snaked crooks.

[@MaleMan-o7]

Valve has done things that earned them a lot of good will from the consumer. Counter strike was a home made mod that somebody like Microsoft would've ended and sued over, but valve made it official and hired the modders. Same with black mesa, one of the most amazing single player experiences in modern history. Same with team fortress actually.

[@Bigol_Jimbo]

valves got some not-so-great shit under their belt, every company does. But yeah, at least I can trust valve with my wallet to not try and screw me over.

[@TrickyJebus]

Tnx for segmenting the vid

[@kezia8027]

lmao yeah lets splinter the gaming community even further and make cross-platform communities even harder to maintain! Woo! Clearly microsoft is taking direct inspiration from the balkans and is set on carving out their kingdom regardless of what it costs the community.

[@tolyastg6514]

Microsoft's longest "sentence" was the 16-word-long "Give money me give eat money me eat money give me eat money give me you."

[@mediumvillain]

That was the point of Microsoft buying all those devs/publishers, forcibly carving out a chunk of the oligopoly despite having failed at it by their standards. When ppl were celebrating all that it was pathetic. Now those same people are like "oh no, what might Sony do to FromSoftware?!" yeah, exactly.

[@Qb3nsis]

@@mediumvillain Everyone talking about Sony taking over FromSoft seems to be unaware that Kadokowa was already in talks of being taken over. Sony taking the lead is better than the other options.

[@kavky]

@@Qb3nsis The other option being nobody buying Kadokawa and FromSoft, which would have been much better.

[@kavky]

Bro that is the worst comparison you could have chosen, the Balkans were never supposed to be united. The wars of genocides during its fragmentation were the price for having so many people who can't stand each other being forced to live together.

[@RDeanCrawford]

The problem is, you get a "License" to access the software, but YOUR Creations belong to the parent company.

[@cherifabdelhamid6373]

Good thing Blizzard rejected the pitch, can't imagine living in a world where pc gaming is controlled by the current activision blizzard. Btw, you should correct the game pass pricing, somehow you included a very outdated pricing list 🤔

[@melonelon7590]

The best timeline we currently live, for now...

[@TheRogueWolf]

I do have to wonder if Blizzard would ever have been in a position to be bought out if they'd struck that digital storefront paydirt first.

[@raspvidy]

It's possible they never would have joined Activision if they had that extra income

[@arthanor9631]

You should have gotten a gamepass sponsorship for this one. Honestly making me consider subscribing. How shortsighted of old Blizzard to miss out on the marketplace potential! I remember being a huge Blizzard fanboy, thinking D2 and W3 were the best thing ever. I would have thrown all my money at them for more games out of loyalty/hope for more blizzard games.

[@Voltaic_Fire]

Didn't Avowed fail spectacularly?

[@Iggysdust]

It's not even out yet?

[@chilbiyito]

Games not even out yet and early impressions are mostly positive

[@Xport9]

Game hasn't been released yet. It comes out next year.

[@TheNickzy]

Its not out before Feb 18, 2025.

[@pegeta]

You must be confusing that game with the fail guard. But yes this one will fail as well

[@iller3]

Mike O'Brien has always been a visionary on par with John Carmack and Rob Pardo.

[@Daalon4RPGs]

Don’t say Guild Wars would never exist! I met my wife in the game! We were in the same guild and she posted in the forums about needing help. Helped her out and we chatted online for about a year. Then we found out we had a lot in common. That led to talks on the phone and eventually I moved in with her to make sure we had as much in common as we thought. That was 2007. We’ve been married for over 10 years now.

[@Bare_Essence]

Once thing you briefly mentioned but did not emphasize is when and what. Back in 1995-1999 there was questionable download capability for most users. 56K modems were still in vogue. In addition, many businesses and their leadership were concerned about Y2K moving into the new century. That had significant impact on many decisions, personal and business. Sept. 2001 and the following market crash also had a huge impact on those same decisions. Steam's 2003 debut was right inline with improved permanent connectivity and was ripe as the stock and real-estate market exploded; till 2008. But they rode the wave and had a model that pushed them threw the various market ups and downs till today. Gaming made many people happy despite the issues. Also, Gabe Newell was like the early Elon Musk, for the people and by the people. He still is mostly, but Steam is more of a business now with ups and downs with its public relations. Good overview. Thanks for sharing!

[@Madcows]

When steam came out, I was a lan gamer bringing a case of discs. Everyone at the lan agreed that steam was gonna be big, just for the fact we wouldnt need to carry around our CDs for games anymore.

[@StarlightSoda]

Actually the gamepass deal was even better tbh. They used to do the $1 month trial. (Not just your first ever month, but like every year they did a single month around the holidays for a dollar. Unless I'm misremembering it being Xbox gold.) Xbox does do the free gamepass codes collab with like Doritos and other snack foods, but it was sort of like discord, ie if you bought gamepass before, you couldn't redeem the free gamepass trial codes. Which sucked, so i have 2 accounts, my original, and my alt for the free gamepass codes.

[@kukipett]

I just realized that i have one of the oldest Steam account, created the 09.14.2003, two days after the first Steam launch, 21 years ago. I remember that i received a mail from Gabe as i had asked for the Half-Life development kit two years before. I had to fill a NDA and sent it by post mail to Valve and two weeks later i received a CD containing all game sources, the half-life professional development kit, i still have the CD.

[@Goatcha_M]

I remember when Just Cause 2 came out, I bought the physical disc, but it needed a Steam login to play because DRM and my internet was so bad I couldn't even load Steam. And that was 2010.

[@HansenLaMoose]

this is when i made my steam account too! all because of just cause 2 - physical edition. was annoyed at first but it was because it was new. i couldn’t imagine my life without steam now

[@FireStormOOO_]

The most important thing for me touching this with a 10ft pole is them not forcing the integration with the shoddy windows store/appx installers. I made the mistake of trying to get the last Halo title through MS instead of Steam - huge mistake, I ended up just having to buy it on Steam b/c MS couldn't ship a working installer ON THEIR OWN PLATFORM.

[@whisped8145]

Nobody ever said "Battle Dot Net" This is worse than this late Burning Crusade infestation of new players suddenly calling their characters "toons".

[@MaxContagion]

at about 3 minutes in that loading bar gif would have been perfect. the one showing steam updating or something. i didn't use steam until it got decent and i still fully understood the frustration presented by that jif

[@Eddygeek18]

Just as I don't use multiple streaming services I wouldn't use multiple game platforms. I trust Steam to look after my games and not take them away. Blizzard took away my Overwatch deluxe edition and gave me a far worst experience instead of what I purchased which everyone else got for free, no way in the depths of hell am I trusting them with a catalogue of games. Since OW2 I haven't even been tempted by anything Blizzard Activision and it's not going to start now. If Steam suddenly vanishes i'd rather put my PC in the trash and give up with gaming all together than use their products or services. The fact is Steam for the most part cares about gamers, Blizzard only cares about short term cash and milking their players for every penny they can get and no matter how good the deal, I will not support that.

[@kgonepostl]

Man publishers love going broke. Sad part is they take it out on the lower employees. The executives rarely get reprimanded, or even fired.

[@StrikeWarlock]

This is not the first time something promising walked to Blizzard's door only to get rejected, but then got picked up by Valve, becoming the success it is now. Icefrog initially approached Blizzard with the offer to balance DotA for them which Blizzard initially agreed with, but they wanted him to do so for free, which was what Icefrog to walk away from them. Valve on the other hand invited him to Bellevue to tour their office because Gabe & Co. were DotA fans, which later ended with Icefrog getting hired by Valve.

[@fabucla]

The industry insight is off the charts again, that's why i love this channel.

[@truezulu]

Sooo, what you're saying is, that Blizzard don't know what they are doing businesswise and never did? Who knew! Lol

[@unleashthedog]

I used to maintain the main Italian mirror for valve/HL mods updates 😌

[@Demigord]

It's easy to forget there was a time long ago when Salon wasn't insane.

[@aphoxema]

I switched to Linux a year ago and thanks to Steam/Valve it's been a fairly pleasant experience. Now I'm not only locked in for the number of games I have and familiarity, but ideologically and pragmatically because no one else is going to put an ounce of the effort Valve has into making these things work and I think that was in part the point of them backing Linux so much

[@Siphr0dias]

I am one of the seemingly fewer and fewer peeps, who plays one, max two games at a time. Over months. I never felt a reason, an urge, to get any subscription. Nonetheless it sure is good news. Thanks for sharing!

[@RupertAndCheese]

Guild Wars mentioned, love that game, Prophecies is just teeming with attention to detail, you can feel the love they put into that world.

[@D.J.Berryman]

Man, Mike O'Brien is more storied than I thought. I only know of him from Guild Wars and ArenaNet.

[@M1tZk1]

Two things that prevented me from keeping the BamePass subscription. 1. No cross play with Steam (imagine we ask for Crossplay between console on PC, when there isn't even a unified pool of gamers on PC) 2. Steam Deck. Like surely you can get it to run, but I'm a console player first and I don't like tinkering around.

[@thenecrophymm6591]

No, I don't want my stuff in more than 1 place. I have 3000+ games on steam, BECAUSE it's all in one place...AND, it's not going away - no one can claim that, truthfully. Yes, a game here and there may disappear, because companies have shitty policies, but that's kinda my point - ONLY steam can say, it will be there when you wake up, today, tomorrow, in 10 years+

[@superhello443]

Thank you for pushing the use of the word "enshitification," Bell.

[@redjack2629]

So, how much did Blizzard pay for that spitshine? >_>;

[@whisped8145]

A company "is", a company "are" not. Sometime in the past decade English speakers went to a strange form of using plural for singular entities. That those entities are made up of a multitude of elements is of no matter. An ant colony "is" as well, it's given away by the singular article "a" already. A group is. People are.

[@Xeirus911]

If they add WoW to game pass, I'd actually sign up.

[@Jaceblue04]

The idea of a world where Blizzard runs the PC gaming market is too horrifying for words.

[@xoso599]

Ask Blockbuster Video about their functional streaming service they had, that their new CEO who used to run 7-11 killed because then people couldn't buy the high profit candy and snacks at the point of sale if they could just stream movies.

[@corwyncorey3703]

I'd be far more interested if GOG were to do something like this; someone who is interested in *only* being a distributor/publisher, instead of pushing their own content. Someone that sells the disk image, DRM free so that I can burn and keep the game, regardless of the dev studio shutting down or pulling an Ubisoft.

[@RiderAEonRanger]

For me; BattleNet Launcher is where I go for my Blizzard games only, as it's unlikely Blizzard will port their *older* BNet 2.0 games like WoW or SC2 over to Steam (despite putting Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 on Steam) any time soon in a manner that doesn't require bringing out the password manager and authenticator keychain/app to log in to the Blizzard games each launch. For me to give a tuppeny toss about Gamepass on BattleNet Launcher - there would have to be a *native* Linux client for said launcher (using Lutris or Heroic to manage my BNet Launcher on Linux works 'okay' but not perfect, at least they remember my login credentials unlike adding BNet games to Steam which means having to re-authenticate with my BNet Aut Token every time I load a game) that can launch the games even if the users have to tell the launcher what version of Proton is loaded to the system to launch the game with (for the short-term at least).

[@ch.k.3377]

Microsoft was never primarily interested in WoW at Activision Blizzard, anyone who believes that should take a look around, they had completely different fillet pieces in mind.

[@slytherben]

O’Brien is a genius. GW2 still has vastly superior server tech. Hundreds of players on screen and zero lag

[@acuilnos]

Whilst I can recognise that Game Pass offers great value for someone who doesn't already have a large library, and who is looking to play a bunch of different games and the latest titles, I personally don't think it's as positive as people make it out to be. From my perspective, it's an insidious way for Microsoft to normalise subscription based services when it comes to playing games. It's not so bad for people who like to play through a game once and be done with it, but there are many other people who have libraries full of games that they really enjoy and would like to revisit without constantly having to pay for access every month, or even have it removed and be forced to buy it with a couple week's notice.