this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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Steam

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Steam is a video game digital distribution service by Valve.

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago (3 children)

valve does a lot though. they continue to expand their store and related products, OS, hardware

if they did nothing another company would have leapfrogged them in terms of digital storefronts

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago

Like, you're not wrong, but even if Steam hadn't changed in the last 5-10 years, it would probably still be the best digital store front out there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I think by "do nothing" he means no arbitrary interface changes, new features no one asked for, etc.

That's the sort of "doing something for the sake of doing something" stuff that Microsoft and Apple often do that people hate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Yeah I really don't get why people try to act like Valve doesn't provide a ton of value to its customers. So much so that their "competitors" have basically said before they aren't even going to try to compete on features or merit, because it would cost too much/they are too far behind at this point.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago

I think doing nothing is an overlooked business strategy. Companies always expect change and improvement. There must be a new version, a new redesign, a new functionality, a new hype. It looks good on paper and signals leadership to the investors, even when what the customer really wants is just stability and consistency. We saw it with Windows, where Microsoft's endless hype-chasing led us to Windows 11. If stagnation is one extreme of business strategies, then whatever these tech companies are doing is the opposite extreme.

Valve knows what to change and, more importantly, what not to change.