I have been avoiding multiplayer Valve games like Counter-Strike 2 and Team Fortress 2, due to their in-game economies that have created an underage gambling gray market, which Valve has done little about. However, I am on Linux, and the choices for multiplayer shooters are few. Besides, my small boycott is not stopping Counter-Strike 2 from being the most played steam game. Are boycotts really the best solution to stop this epidemic in gaming? How can we best prevent these gambling grey markets and the gaming to gambling addiction pipeline?

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[–] Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They have been the most profitable business *per employee" for a long period, and they definitively are in still in the top. They have under 200 employees and generate billions in revenu because of loot boxes and because they take 30% on every games, while many studios have hundred of employees on a single game lol.

Now I had that conversation dozens of time with gamers and I won't do it again, but steam fucking sucks. At this point, it's basically like arguing with a trump voter, nothing anyone can say will make them change their mind.

https://www.gamesradar.com/internal-valve-study-found-the-house-of-steam-was-making-more-money-per-employee-than-facebook-apple-and-microsoft-over-dollar780000-per-head-a-year/

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Most profitable per employee is a different metric, and yes, they may very well be that, but that's not what you said before. Boycotting all of Steam because some of Valve's games do the thing they don't like is a tough sell, rather than just not playing or paying into the offending games. I certainly don't take issue with them taking a cut of every game sold on Steam, given all that they've built with those proceeds.