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Comment by aChrisSmith | Hacker News Reader

Does it really? Valve is extremely profitable because of their particular role in the video games industry. But outside of Steam, is the company really a role model for success?

Is Valve's latest "new" IP DOTA2 successful when compared to the other set of MOBAs that have come out over the past few years?

Have Valve's forays into VR and hardware been successful compared to other companies in the space? e.g. the Vive, Oculus?

Looking at Steam itself, has the service dramatically improved since launch? Certainly there have been a lot of good incremental updates, e.g. two-factor auth. But the Apple App Store has seen a lot more updates in terms of search, discoverability, etc.

I am not an expert, and may have my details wrong about Valve. But I don't think the company has been especially successful outside of being the only game in town for buying AAA video games online.

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> Looking at Steam itself, has the service dramatically improved since launch? Certainly there have been a lot of good incremental updates, e.g. two-factor auth. But the Apple App Store has seen a lot more updates in terms of search, discoverability, etc.

This may not be your main point, but have you ever used the Steam store? It's the only app store that I've ever encountered that actually gives me valuable suggestions, and thus the only one into which I've sunk a considerable amount of money. (At least 200€, probably more. In second place is Google Play, where I spent some 7 € or so on apps.)

Just look at the huge percentage of games that are only purchased and never played (or even downloaded) to see that Valve has absolutely nailed the Steam store.

Regarding the actual argument: I agree that for a company this large, the turnout in form of actual products (esp. games) from Valve is surprisingly low. But I'm not sure if that's even a bad thing: For some studios, it works well to release 10 mediocre games within a certain amount of time. For other studios, it works better to release only one extraordinary game in the same timespan.

I don't think success outside of Steam needs to be considered. Steam is their core business. The software itself is quite bad, but they're the dominant player by far.

Dota 2 I would estimate is #2 behind League of Legends, and it's too early to tell whether VR is working out, but guess which platform VR games are going to be delivered through?

(Besides Steam, their games are pretty successful: Half Life, Team Fortress, Portal, Counter Strike, Left 4 Dead)

Just for some clarification on the VR side, the Vive is a partnership product between them and HTC. Valve did the R&D, and HTC did the manufacturing, adnd Valve helped Oculus get things off the ground as well. I'm not a gamer, so I can't speak to that world, but they are doing truly innovative things in VR.

Would Steam have happened if they had a different management structure?

Perhaps not, but if it didn't it would be because the rest of the org that didn't want to do Steam would have been more empowered to stand up to Gabe, whereas with Valve's flat org, Gabe is God and everyone has to do what he says.

It's probably best for Valve that Steam did happen, but if it's due to Valve's flatness, I would attribute that to the org's inability to resist Gabe rather than any sort of bonus wisdom that arose from that flatness.

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