I just read in Wikipedia that Valve is privately helded.
There must be something magical in the fact that they don’t need to feed their shareholders with mountains of cash every quarter, and actually focus on their customers, as happened in this post.
Also to be fair they tried to kill PSN store on the PS3 but the resulting backlash made them realize to do so would kill customer faith in the PS4 and PS5 PSN stores and so they backed off. Nintendo could only get away with it because they already trained us not to trust their online stores and buy physical only. Since Steam doesn’t have a physical option they need to play their cards right.
True, private companies are generally more focused on customer satisfaction, but that can suddenly change, for instance when the owner dies, and the new owners don’t share the same ideals.
Private companies have a certain single point of failure built-in by having often just one or sometimes a small number of owners.
Nobody really knows what will happen when Gabe dies.
I just hope that valve becomes a worker cooperative… That would be the most stable form of company that probaly stays focused on customer satisfaction long term, since workers tend to favor providing long-term profits via good service instead of short term gains, for high frequency traders.
It’s addictive. We regulate other addictive things like cigarettes, no reason we shouldn’t put guard rails on gambling. We already do, but I think we’ve got to the end regs in a few areas.
Maybe the Steam Link and Controller weren’t as popular as Valve hoped they would be, but damn everyone who still has them seems to love them. Maybe I’m biased because I still have my controller and love it, and I gave away my Steam link because my Deck can do that too, but my friend who received the link is loving it.
The Steam Controller is one of the best pieces of hardware I ever bought. There’s something incredibly chill about playing strategy games not originally meant for controller on the couch. I also genuinely like fiddling with cool setups and radial menus for it.
I never really liked the Steam Controller when it first came out. My Dad was actually the one that had gotten them and even he seemed to have set them aside after awhile, as they just collected dust for ages after that. I picked them up from him a few years back and I’ve started using them with my Steam Deck and they’re actually pretty nice, I get it now, though I kind of wish they still had analog sticks. They still work fine though after all these years, while every set of Xbox-style controllers I keep getting for my kids last for maybe 6 months before they’re useless.
Valve being a cool company might be true and all but I think there’s also the real reason that steam makes money by selling games, and making it easy for users to stick to gaming (with steam) ensures ongoing income. Imagine someone who now loves gaming on TV but being annoyed by their broken steam link - what are they going to buy next? A PlayStation and years without a game sold to them.
That’s because unlike most other businesses steam understands that if you want people to keep buying your products, you need to provide a decent service
I own and like the steam link, but the reason they don’t sell it anymore is because the steam link app is on most smart devices now, and if your TV doesn’t support it, you can buy a streaming stick that does for like $30, give or take depending on sales. And those devices are more portable (less wires) and more versatile than a steam link.
Any competitive price for the steam link would be less than what Valve can produce them for. Weren’t they selling it for $5 at the end? Pretty sure I picked mine up for $10 or less. Steam can’t show ads to subsidize the price of the hardware like every other smart device does.
Steam Link connects your device to any computer that’s running Steam.
Get it now for:
iPhone, iPad, & Apple TV (11.0+)
Android (5.0+) phone, tablet, & TV
Android users without access to Google Play
Raspberry Pi 3, 3+, & 4 *Windows
Linux
MacOS
Meta Quest 2, 3 and Pro
I wonder if you added up the percentage of ownership for all those devices listed above, versus all smart devices including Roku and webOS, what the numbers would look like.
I’m not sure if Tizen OS (Samsung TV) is lumped under “Android” (I’m not even sure if it is Android?) but it also works great on every Samsung TV I’ve tried it on!
So, a product that has been discontinued doesn’t mean that it needs to lose software support, was the point I was trying to make. It would be nice if they still sold them but still good that the people that own them can continue to use them and are receiving security updates for them.
I think it’s important that companies like google, samsung, apple, etc are held to at least this standard where products don’t need to be changed unless they actually break, rather than forcing software changes that break or reduce effectiveness of the product to try and force the consumer to produce e-waste and buy a new product.
Nothing wrong with wanting new products, however that should be a personal decision made at a personal level by a consumer not one forced onto them by a company who designed products using the planned obsolescence doctrine.
This post reminded me that it’s supposed to be used for gaming. I’ve had mine since it was first released and have always used it to turn my TV into a PC monitor to watch YouTube and Movies from my bed
I swapped over to a Sunshine host (non-NVidia version of Moonlight) + Moonlight client combo for game streaming and it absolutely blew Steamlink out of the water for me. Went from lag, resolution switching and disconnects to buttery smooth on my Pi400 at 1080p.
huh I was using the nvidia shield and switched to sunshine when they shut it down. had heaps of issues then went to steamlink which seemed better. last game I tried was slow as though, maybe I should give sunshine another run
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