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.
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.
@@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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
@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.
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 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.
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.
@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
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
"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!"
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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)
@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.
@@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.
@@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.
@@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.
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.
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. :(
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@変質者-o8j 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.
@@変質者-o8j 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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Honestly, I don't hate Battlenet, but it just can't and probably never will be able to compete with how consumer friendly Steam is. The only reason I even buy digital media is because of Steam, if Steam ever shuts down or get's purchased or publicly traded, I am moving to physical media again. I will not be using Battlenet for anything other than World of Warcraft, as I have been for the past 20 years.
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.
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
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.
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.
Not only would have this secured revenue from selling other companies' games, this would have introduced people from new generations (my generation, i'm 19) to blizzard games. Many people from my age group found out about other valve games by having steam installed.
I don’t play Blizzard games, but the appeal of playing COD campaigns subscribing for a month or so is not bad. They’re pretty throwaway. The problem is having the computer to run those games. Atm I’m Deck bound
And here I was thinking we were living in the darkest timeline. I bet a lot of services would have been behind some kind of subscription if they made it big.
To be fair, Steam was in open Beta 2002. Napster and their p2p seeding was around by 1999. The early years of BNet eventually used p2p to download/upload(seed) content to others. They also tried to talk to ISPs to convince their P2P was legal and legit because that was a mess too. ;) People gave Steam crap but they improved.
Microsoft also had the chance to grab the multiplayer and game sales market. If you wanted to play online against other players for a lot of games in 1997 where did you go? The Internet Gaming Zone. Microsoft has blown a ton of chances to cash in on the internet over the decades.
If we have to live in a world where one company has a _de facto_ monopoly on digital game sales, I'd rather it be the company that _doesn't_ have stockholders constantly pressuring it to find ways to squeeze ever more money out of us.
as one of the people who have gdpr wiped their battle net account after the whole blizzard meltdown a couple years back, I still don't regret my decision. And microsoft won''t be able to change that.
Pretty sure, regardless of the things that could have been, Blizzard has still lost billions in potential revenue from how many players are put off by Blizzard's dealings, lack of integrity, and aggressive monetization tactics in the few games they have left. They may not be the only ones, but they have a sizeable net loss from themselves.
Blizzard isn't really the company that instills confidence in a consumer base. Even if they would give control over to Microsoft for Bnet, it is still has the perception of blizzard attached to it.
"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
I think what Blizzard needs to become really relevant again is to focus more on the "FUN" aspect of the Games and less on the "CORPORATE GREED" part so basically tone down Activisions old influence , they'll never get rid of it completely but maybe enough to bring some old fans back
I game on Linux, so these days I only really look at Valve, because it's just easy to check likelihood of compatibility, and most stuff works anyway, and don't have to fuss, like when I try games I got on BNet and GOG
Warcraft 3 custom games... I basically just played those for almost five years of my gaming life. That was huge to go along with everything else they had going but we really dodged a bullet in the end because Valve had a way better vision for the industry than Blizzard ultimately did... the endless money coming in from WOW fully corrupted them.
Call it nostalgia, but the original Steam UI was really clean and intuitive. Valve have always been pretty exemplary. Far from perfect, but still an far cry from the EAs and Blizzards of the space.
Head to squarespace.com/bellularnews to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code bellularnews. Sponsored by Squarespace.
stalker2 is in game pass
You should rectify the game pass pricing chart. It's outdated
100% very good explination of the biz model ... kudos on logic as always mate.
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.
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.
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.
I Blizzard managed to become that succesfull I don't think they would have been bought by Activision
yeah with the best deals, or atleast it used to. Humble Bundle and GOG are better these days.
@@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
I don't want ANY publicly traded company to even touch trying to be a video game marketplace.
@@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.
Any... More?
Gaben Protects.
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.
@@Falzyker We need to entomb Gaben on the Golden Throne when the time comes.
>be gabe newell
>do nothing
>competition shoots itself in the foot
>win
How does he do it?
@@mekaniklboltmb4880 deal with the devil?
His enemies have movement-based vision and he’s very good at standing still
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.
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
Not shooting himself in the foot. In the land of the Blind the One Eyed man is king.
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.
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.
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.
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
@@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.
@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.
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!
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?
@@srdjan455 Valve, cause they're paying them a 30% cut lmao
@@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.
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.
@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
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
I'd say "epic should take notes," but they havent added that feature yet.
"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!"
@@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.
@@kavkytotally this, a store/launcher is not a new thing unlike when steam started.
@OP it takes too much resources to add notepad.exe to their cloud service.
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.
I get this on my PC sometimes but closing out and relaunching logs me in for some reason
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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?
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.
Corporate is where good ideas go to get monetized.
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.
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.
You have to remember that would have been before Activision takeover.
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.
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.
@@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)
blizzard had no rights to DOTA because it was a fan creation....
Didn't pubg was a blizzard game mod as well?
@@PandaMan02 no, but when the creators wanted to make a standalone game, they approached Blizzard, and Blizzard rejected them. Valve did not.
If it doesn't have user reviews, I don't want it.
@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.
@@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.
@@phlogistanjones2722 imagine not researching products you're going to buy
@@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.
@@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.
My brain simply does not comprehend "back in 2004" as 20 years ago! Nope.
Wanna make it worse? Google for 2004 movies.
@@Dethectic
Damn...the first Hellboy movie came out 20 years ago?!
=fossilizes=
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.
20 years ago is, like, the 80s man!
Then there is Me Who was born in 2004...
The biggest issue with the battle net launcher is that download speeds are abysmal compared to literally any other launcher.
Battlenet is borderline malware
Really? Is maybe during peek hours, as I can't tell with my 30Mbps lol
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.
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. :(
@@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.
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.
I hope they just trash the Xbox app for PC. It *is* better than it used to be, but still pretty clunky.
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.
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.
Get your head out your arse, Gabe is the reason DRM exists and you don't own anything you buy.
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.
@@変質者-o8j Pretty sure DRM was a thing long before Steam.
@@変質者-o8j 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.
@@変質者-o8j 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.
they should release their older games to steam
🤣good one
fr, I want the SC1 and 2 and warcraft trilogy in Steam.
@@revanlord05 The original, without Reforged.
@OP Rachel Zegler it, call us all liars and demand we get deplatformed or censored for telling you "2004 was 20 years ago".
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.
I'd die under valve rather than live under Blizzard
9:48 I would rather pay full price for it on Steam, thank you very much.
@@Tn5421Me absolutely. No way I’m ever paying subscriptions ever again
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
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.
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...
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.
So Blizzard Execs rejected both becoming Steam and letting the entire MOBA market go. Good times.
yeaaah, Avowed isn't gonna be the "in'" they think it'll be
Remember when Starfield was supposed to be a system seller?
@@GinaRanTruthEnforcer you don't trust Obsidian as a studio?
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
@@Iggysdust The Obsidian died a long time ago. What we have now is just a skinsuit.
@@Iggysdust Just look they last games, and compare this with their old work. The writing of the studio noways is atrocious.
"People don't want the service so they raised prices". Can we appreciate the INSANITY of that, which certainly isn't limited to Microsoft?
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.
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.
It kind of reminds me of Microsoft saying - No - to BG3. Or every single publisher that said no to Powerwash Sim.
Larian said no to MS because the financial offer was dismally low. MS didn't say no to BG3.
Microsoft didnt care about Larian. They thought the Game and Company is wasted time…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
To be fair, Steam used to be a bit shit
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.
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.
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.
Yeah but unlike Steam Uplay never stoped being bad an annoying.
When Gabe inevitably dies, we need to hook him up to a life support all “the emperor” style so he can keep running Valve.
Didn't they try this before, with Destiny 2?
Yeah, Bellular casually forgetting that game, I suppose.
if WoW vanilla launched with a game-store platform attached it would have been just been over for anyone else.
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.
I only ever used battle net for Overwatch 1, and we all saw how spectacularly they fucked that up.
the biggest feature that bnet has over steam is partially downloaded games being playable
and valve has a bigger monopoly then well epic
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
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.
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.
Seeing the differences between how Valve and Blizzard treat their customers I think on this point we live in the better timeline.
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.
I'm currently playing GW1 on steam; when you said, "guild wars would never have existed" my eyes went wide in horror
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.
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.
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.
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.
Blizzard is the modern age Blockbuster. Let that sink in.
What is overlooked here: you are locked in to Windows, though. There is no way, getting Xbox-App games run on Linux at present.
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.
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!
This seems like more of a threat to Epic than Steam.
Sooo, what you're saying is, that Blizzard don't know what they are doing businesswise and never did?
Who knew! Lol
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.
Man, Mike O'Brien is more storied than I thought. I only know of him from Guild Wars and ArenaNet.
It's easy to forget there was a time long ago when Salon wasn't insane.
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.
Honestly, I don't hate Battlenet, but it just can't and probably never will be able to compete with how consumer friendly Steam is. The only reason I even buy digital media is because of Steam, if Steam ever shuts down or get's purchased or publicly traded, I am moving to physical media again.
I will not be using Battlenet for anything other than World of Warcraft, as I have been for the past 20 years.
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.
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
Thank you for pushing the use of the word "enshitification," Bell.
Mike O'Brien has always been a visionary on par with John Carmack and Rob Pardo.
The idea of a world where Blizzard runs the PC gaming market is too horrifying for words.
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.
If we wanted to patch counterstrike, we had to visit "planet half life" and then wait in a line at file planet....Whole series of planets.
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.
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.
this made me realize how expensive coffee is, for what it is 10 bucks is wild.
The fact that my video decided to buffer @2:23 right as he said "the internet wasn't where its at right now"....
Not only would have this secured revenue from selling other companies' games, this would have introduced people from new generations (my generation, i'm 19) to blizzard games. Many people from my age group found out about other valve games by having steam installed.
Tnx for segmenting the vid
I don’t play Blizzard games, but the appeal of playing COD campaigns subscribing for a month or so is not bad. They’re pretty throwaway.
The problem is having the computer to run those games. Atm I’m Deck bound
This is about as big as a blunder as Blockbuster executives rejecting the offer to buy Netflix.
And here I was thinking we were living in the darkest timeline.
I bet a lot of services would have been behind some kind of subscription if they made it big.
dodged a bullet in avoiding blizzard having that kind of power considering what blizzard is today.
To be fair, Steam was in open Beta 2002. Napster and their p2p seeding was around by 1999. The early years of BNet eventually used p2p to download/upload(seed) content to others. They also tried to talk to ISPs to convince their P2P was legal and legit because that was a mess too. ;) People gave Steam crap but they improved.
Microsoft also had the chance to grab the multiplayer and game sales market. If you wanted to play online against other players for a lot of games in 1997 where did you go? The Internet Gaming Zone. Microsoft has blown a ton of chances to cash in on the internet over the decades.
If we have to live in a world where one company has a _de facto_ monopoly on digital game sales, I'd rather it be the company that _doesn't_ have stockholders constantly pressuring it to find ways to squeeze ever more money out of us.
It's baffling how they failed with store marketplace while having the edge early on. Same with dota hah.
I don't think they can compete with these massive sales events that Steam has.
as one of the people who have gdpr wiped their battle net account after the whole blizzard meltdown a couple years back, I still don't regret my decision. And microsoft won''t be able to change that.
Pretty sure, regardless of the things that could have been, Blizzard has still lost billions in potential revenue from how many players are put off by Blizzard's dealings, lack of integrity, and aggressive monetization tactics in the few games they have left. They may not be the only ones, but they have a sizeable net loss from themselves.
Blizzard isn't really the company that instills confidence in a consumer base. Even if they would give control over to Microsoft for Bnet, it is still has the perception of blizzard attached to it.
Never. Don't need another money maker for a company that is way beyond a conglomerate. No Thanks.
"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
I think what Blizzard needs to become really relevant again is to focus more on the "FUN" aspect of the Games and less on the "CORPORATE GREED" part so basically tone down Activisions old influence , they'll never get rid of it completely but maybe enough to bring some old fans back
I game on Linux, so these days I only really look at Valve, because it's just easy to check likelihood of compatibility, and most stuff works anyway, and don't have to fuss, like when I try games I got on BNet and GOG
Warcraft 3 custom games... I basically just played those for almost five years of my gaming life. That was huge to go along with everything else they had going but we really dodged a bullet in the end because Valve had a way better vision for the industry than Blizzard ultimately did... the endless money coming in from WOW fully corrupted them.
Call it nostalgia, but the original Steam UI was really clean and intuitive. Valve have always been pretty exemplary. Far from perfect, but still an far cry from the EAs and Blizzards of the space.
I used to maintain the main Italian mirror for valve/HL mods updates 😌
Regarding game pass and the Xbox app. My only real issue is that it can't handle VPNs. Which to be fair is a MASSIVE issue today.
From the company who pushed dota2 AFTER League of Legends started to be successful, I'm not surprised they missed an opportunity...
Why did 10 minutes of this feel and read like an ad?
glad I'm not the only one
Because Mike is a huge Blizz fan, and I guess by default that makes him wanna be in MS's good graces (which does come off as a bit shilly and weird).
You’re assuming lord Gabe wouldn’t have stomped them out even if they did. We like steam and we’re not budging. If it’s not on steam, we ain’t buying.
happy to see i live in the correct timeline for these things
Back in 2000 I remember a thing called MPlayer and that's where I played Quake and Unreal.
I wouldn't mind more competition to steam, but I rather own my games rather than leasing them through yet another subscription service
They had years of it...
Yeah, years and years for internet to actually be able to support the model.