Has it really been that long? Apparently so. Valve originally announced their rebranding of Steam Play with Proton back on August 21st, 2018. Seems like a good time for a quick reflection being halfway to a decade old now with the tech that gave rise to the Steam Deck.
Valve? Profitable at all costs? The same Valve that refuses to give sequels to games for their own IPs because they can’t come up with ideas they feel are innovative enough, even though they know they would sell tens of millions of copies regardless of the quality?
The same Valve who literally gave Proton to the Linux gaming community?
That valve?
I don’t know why this keeps having to be said, but companies need to defend their IP in court or they risk losing their trademarks. This does not mean companies are evil.
As for not listening to TF2 players, I’m pretty sure the game is still pretty popular so they must be doing something right.
I’m not a valve apologist. I hate that they’ve shifted their focus from developing games to developing their platform for many years. It’s frustrating. But they did just release Alyx. And they are objectively doing some great things for the PC gaming community with the steam deck.
The Valve that pushed always online drm to the masses? That Valve that takes 30% of every purchase made on their monopolistic platform?
Yes, that Valve.
Let’s not pretend Valve hasn’t gotten to where it was against consumer interest and especially not that Valve is some kind of a good guy.
One more on top: That Valve that had to be forced to offer refunds and to this day offers the worst customer support in the industry by choice? (Yes that one)
Why would they need to make games when they can just sit on their ass and because of steam monopoly on games storefronts they would still be paid?
“As for not listening to TF2 players, I’m pretty sure the game is still pretty popular so they must be doing something right.”
Like what? They arent doing anything but release workshop cosmetics lol. Did they even fixed the bot problem after all this time?
You’re right, they don’t need to make games. Yet they just released Alyx! Counterstrike 2 is known to be in development!
I don’t play TF2, so I don’t know what they’re doing right, but people are still playing it so whatever they are doing is apparently just fine with a lot of players. Bots have been problematic in online games forever, I don’t really know if that’s a TF2 specific issue. In any case, they’ve already supported TF2 way longer than most companies actively support their non-subscription games so I’m not sure what level of expectation is fair really.
No one has to like Valve, but painting them as this evil force in the gaming industry is a little bit silly IMO.