Except afaik Valve is a PRIVATE Company, not beholden to shareholders and can do whatever the fuck Gabe wants. Yes they can miss out on doing business with dictators.
Steam China will be separate from the international version of Steam, platform is "tailored for Chinese users", will launch with 40 games
- Thread starter jrpl
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Who the fuck cares if VALVE loses the Chinese market. Seriously, who the fuck cares. And I want to see your numbers on their revenue their which you don’t have because it’s a PRIVATE Company.
The actual bad is that Gabe is just rolling over to the whims of a dictator, without really any good reason.
Uyghur community and identity is in real danger of being actually eradicated from the face of the planet.
And nobody gives a shit about them. At least when Trump is doing stupid stuff about immigrants he will face pushbacks from many people and organizations. While for Uyghur, no one actually give a fuck.
Developers? Literally go ask any developer that has added Chinese translations to their games. Most if not all of them will tell you China is one of their best performing regions.
Valve has an excellent relationship with China
Hell, TI9 is being held there right now
It would be a stupid buisness decision to not try stay in the governments good books. Im sure more than 30% of all Steam purchases come from China and surrounds
Steam users in China surely care.
If Xi says Steam in its current form is not acceptable and has to go, what would you have Valve do? If they pull out of the market completely they hurt Chinese gamers and the people behind the games they play more than anyone else.
Wouldn’t caving to Chinese demands hurt the developers and gamers, Steam China will hurt them since it will limit the amount of games on the store. There was a reason China hasn’t blocked Steam before and I think giving China their own Steam has pretty much gotten rid of Steam’s leverage.
Well my assumption is -- and this could be flawed -- that if China says you're done that's it. If there is like a court or some way for Valve to contest the decision if it comes then yes they should pursue that route for sure.
This is shit, China is shit, the US is shit. Done. They are both shit for different and at the same time connected reasons ever since the 1970's. While all of that is true and in theory i'm sure people's kneejerk is to think it would be nice to see a company like Valve take a stand. Guess what? This is how the system works. It is literally impossible to do otherwise with the way the world works, and those that somehow find a way to be different will be replaced by someone else who doesn't care. The system will have to fundamentally change. There are no good actors under capitalism in the aggregate.
I think 15% unit sales is a perfectly fine price to pay for a backbone.
Im sure EGS or some company with a shareholder excuse to hide behind would be perfectly happy to oblige.
Fucking GOOGLE still doesn’t have a censored search, even though they desperately want to. I’m sure Gabe can live up to their high standards.
What I’m getting is that China doesn’t want to upset a decent part of its populace that could happen if they blocked Steam, Steam just caving makes them lose this advantage. It’s possible that blocking steam which would make Chinese upset and also give them free time could cause China to be afraid of doing so.
People keep saying think about the developers but we have no idea about the curation process, only 40 games is extremely small so there could be multiple things needed before a game even reaches curation
I am literally in Shanghai now and I still have access to Google apps with vpn
I thought that said “Gabe is all in on that cheese money” and got REAL confused for a second there lmao
You say like its a bad thing when its honest decent money. if Valve pull Steam out, China can replace with a Chinese clone of the platform who is 100% compliant to the government, heavily bias to their Chinese games and therefore fucking over the developers of non-Chinese games who rely on the Chinese market, and the gamers.
China is functioning well without Google Map, whatsapp, uber, instagram because they have clones like Baidu map, Didi, weibo, wechat etc.
Some people here are really weird.
What would Valve even achieve by "not bending to Chinese government"? To satisfy some random internet posters' "moral high ground" and pride?
If Valve doesn't adhere to Chinese government, it's not like some random Chinese company can't just make their own platform and replace Valve.
I'm quite sure there are a lot of developers who want to tap Chinese market no matter what.
What would Valve even achieve by "not bending to Chinese government"? To satisfy some random internet posters' "moral high ground" and pride?
If Valve doesn't adhere to Chinese government, it's not like some random Chinese company can't just make their own platform and replace Valve.
I'm quite sure there are a lot of developers who want to tap Chinese market no matter what.
Its called loosing out on a huge ass business opportunity in a market of billions and a good amount of those people are likely to use steam for gaming on PC's. WHY valve shouldn't explore that opportunity? Its so silly.
Yeah so going by your logic, valve should ditch a market of a potential millions of consumer base just cause the country is run by a dictator.... but that same country also happens to be one of the most leading leading countries in the entire world. Seriously you can't think that they'll ditch its being run by a dictator and Americans and the American govt. are financial opponents of it?
Honestly your logic in terms of business is not feasible. Doesn't matter if Valve is a private company with no shareholders, they're a big ass leader in the PC industry and they'd want to provide services everywhere they can and when they can tap into a market of billions and more with a compromise, they'll most likely do it.
Honestly iam not sure if you fully understand valve's position in the PC market right now. These companies always look towards the amount of people they can tap into and through through politicial lenses such as yours. Again iam not saying iam on their side in this fully but i don't blame them either for doing it either. They're not funding the chinese govt. with arms and money, they're only trying to reach their Chinese consumers as much as possible to sell them products.
I'm saying they shouldnt bend over backwards to create a censored version of their product to cater to a totalitarian state, yes. I'm well aware of how companies work and I can even understand the pressure shareholders place on a company, but in Valve's case there is no such pressure. Thats just being a good corporate citizen.
Its perfectly feasible btw. No-one is compelling them to move in this direction.
Are you suggesting the alternative is better; where one Chinese company has complete control over the market instead?
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I understand your point but like i said this huge business opportunity is huge enough for them to bend backwards and create a censored version. There's a certain trait of companies that are pretty popular in consumers, they reach towards any possible customers they can make and when you consider this huge ass crowd of potential customers with numbers in billions, Valve have accepted to look at this as only a mere business opportunity to reach their customers and shut off any other angles that may lead to seeing China as anything other than a business opporunity for them. All other major business i doing this to do business in china, surely they know how China is perceived globally and yet continue to do it.
But if i ever wanted to add my take on this it'd be like this. If valve cut off steam totally from China, its audience would be totally barred from playing valve games like CS:GO and Dota. This is without a doubt a compromise between business and the consumer. It lets valve still take revenue from it while still being able to offer their services to the consumers in China but it'd be a censored version and its a bad deal however you look at it.
But at the end of the day if we purely talk from a consumers perspective, its absolutely still better than nothing and valve not offering their services in China AT ALL. So no i do not agree that valve should stop its services in China because a dictator is ruling it, it will harm the people consuming valve's content as well also their enjoyment of valve's content. So iam all in for this compromise.
If this was anything other than gaming then yeah i'd have a different take on it but games are for pure enjoyment so i wouldn't want anyone to be barred from it.
...Are you giving shareholders a free-pass because they're generally horrible? The shareholders also make their choices as well.
Both private and public companies play the same game, and the rules are set up be the company who's willing to do the worst things to make the most money. If Valve don't open a Chinese version, then Epic or something else will. It's a system where everyone is simultaneously a lackey and a villain - Capitalism!
Yes, fuck every technology company that caters to tyrannical dictatorships. They're funding evil. Don't defend it unless you prefer profit over human wellbeing. That's the outcome, intentional or otherwise.
Haha, as much as Epic would like some good-will, I'm gonna guess they'll like having a presence in the largest growing gaming market in the world more.
Having Shareholders means “underperforming” companies are subject to in the worst case, hostile takeovers. It’s not an excuse, just how the system works.
Culture can be used to perpetuate horrible circumstances. So we disagree on the special position entertainment should hold. I don’t want to speculate on the actual demands the Chinese government made so let’s leave it at that.
“Everybody is doing it” is not a great excuse, not even in business.
I don’t think it will be functionally different from that in a few years. China is flexing its power over entertainment now. I don’t think helping that proces along by developing special censored shops is a good thing.
Well thats your own quote, even though i actually agree with it, iam not sure other companies agree with that moral stand of yours.
IMO You can only talk and understand the implication of such stuff once you're in such a position where you have the opportunity where you can gain a whole lot of profit by compromising on your morals somewhat as a business CEO in charge of a highly profitable business company if you decide to do it or not.
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Yes? Employees at public companies are legally required to try and make as much money as possible. It is a fucked up system, granted, but its what they're in. Valve can do whatever they want, they don't answer to anyone but themselves. That's quite a bit worse to me.
... ok you know Corporate Resposibility is a thing right. Unless you're a libertarian, in which case we have a whole other set of issues we need to discuss.
They aren't. They really aren't. Its just that they will be taken over if they really screw shareholders.
The biggest PC gaming launch of 2019 happened thanks to China, Total War Three Kingdoms cleaned 1 million copies in one week thanks to China.
Fucking PUBG is still selling 2 years later thanks to China
Developers DO care and Valve HAS to care as well.
What iam trying to simply say is that its easy to talk as someone who just consumes products and is just watching the flow of stuff going on but you only truly understand the situation and the circumstances you're in once you're in a high position that decides on stuff like this steam china venture and whether to do it or not. Its the test of man tbh and how much exactly do profits matter to that person and his/her company. If you were in such position and then decline to do it even then, then yeah your saying would carry a lot more weight.
Right now its just a statement i agree with, thats it.
Yeah, just take my word that I can relate. Profits "meaning a lot" to someone is just a bizar argument. I don't think steam is anywhere near bankruptcy, do you?
Again you're taking in the direction of "why a business would need to take such an opportunity if they're not needy of it" while what iam trying to say is that "Profits mean a lot to these big companies and they'd even take a compromise to achieve as much profit as they can rather than just missing out of all of them"
And i pretty much disagree with this statement "Profits 'meaning a lot' to someone is just a bizarre argument"
Once you're in such a position where you can possibly reap big ass profits as a big company leader only then your statements would carry a lot more weight in terms of business. Its no wonder these big ass companies still reach out to many other markets in the world despite being the market leader in their fields already.
As a consumer you could even call this act as 'greed' while business mean might only refer to this as 'an opportunity to gain profits'.
Oh please, we as a society have the right to demand corporate responsibility from actors depending and influencing our environment and politics. Its time to take a fucking stand and saying " its just too much money, i couldn't resist" is the exact same attitude that got us into the financial crisis and frankly a corrupt and horrible way of thinking.
We deserve better, you deserve better, no one is taking away steam, no one is taking away your games, stop being a corporate apologist. They can handle themselves perfectly fine.
Yes, to publish your game on China in an official way, you will need to go through a long process of approvation and verification and in some cases, see Valve own games, you need a publisher and you have to modify your game, it's doable for AAA developers, it is not for indie developer.
Iam not really being a corporal apologist, iam just sharing a fact of reality with you. You're just taking my statements as an agreement with what valve is doing when i've already said that i agree with the "“Everybody is doing it” is not a great excuse, not even in business. " stand of yours although i did also say that when it comes to gaming, i do want the consumer to experience it however possible even if its censored and not miss out on it totally, but yeah that doesn't mean your statement carries any weight in terms of business either.
Putting it simply. Valve is doing it for what they think is best for business while also reaching their consumers and what you're saying is simply because how you think how business should be ran in times like these as a consumer.
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