Quoting: JuliusMaybe Valve should expand into digital Anime & Manga distribution (as opposed to streaming). That is also one of those areas where a market failure leads to a lot of piracy, similar to how it was with computer games before Valve made digital stores popular.

They Already tried (colaboration with crunchyroll).

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: PlutonMasterWhat if Valve does the "Linux only" exclusive game?
I think that would be a good treat for Linux gamers.
Or is it a bad idea?

They won't, Gabe has said time and again that doing exlusives is bad for the industry. On the other hand, their games are exclusive to Steam, so there is that. Even just a few initial months on Linux first would/could be a boost. Especially if they did something like what Liam was suggesting, selling a branded Valve USB stick (they already have a mold for the Steam controller dongles) with a LiveCD Linux distro and the game on it! Get bew customers using Steam, Linux and their new game all at once.
Surprised more companies don't do this simple thing, they could package their all popular method of 'exclusive skins and blah' on the USB drive.

There is one more posibility for future :-) WSL. Maybe Valve can make game exclusively for linux, but run it under windows in WSL.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: ArtenAll regulations have negative side efect!

This is no doubt true, but many regulations have positive primary effects that are much more important. I, personally, am quite fond of safe food and drink, for instance.

Food and drink regulation are evil just like all other regulation. They need to be abolished as all other regulation.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: ArtenSo, you propouse use regulation (forcing valve enable regional pricing) for deal with consequences of another regulation?

You are shifting the blame here.
The consequences of not allowing region blocking should not be that there is only one EU region. Imagine if that was the case for other goods - EU would have imploded the moment that happened.
That this was the result is entirely Valve's fault - they could have, and easily so, only removed the region locking without also removing different EU regions (remember, they had those, even if only three).
They did not do that out of good old corporate greed - capitalistic entities will always strive to maximize profit, no matter the negative consequences. Which a state (or in this case, the EU) exists to regulate in order to benefit its citizens. It's called social capitalism and is working fairly well in most European countries.
It requires regulations, believe it or not.

Now, what can the EU do here?
Abolish its own principles because one fringe entity (in the grand scheme of things, when talking about the entire EU, Valve doesn't amount to anything) chose to be greedy about implementing laws?
I'd hope not - if they did that, it would show that just about anyone could strongarm the EU into backpedaling.
Force Valve to not f*ck over its customers? That would be optimal but as I said, I have no clue if there is legal ground to enforce regional pricing.
Or just do nothing and accept being blamed for another's fault? Unfortunately the most likely scenario here, there are bigger tasks to tackle right now for the EU than Valve.

Quoting: ArtenAnother regulation only do situaction worst in another place!

Not the one that I proposed, at least not for customers.
As I wrote before, regional pricing has not lead to price increases so far - just look at Russian games that aren't region locked, there is no price increase on the scale some seem to be afraid of.
Assuming that this would somehow be different for the EU is just fear mongering without a base in reality.

It would lead to Valve and publishers earning less money per purchase in lower income regions - while also leading to a lot more purchases in these regions. I'm not even sure it would lead to a net loss. I could very well imagine lots of people from lower income regions purchasing a lot more after such a change.

Besides, seriously, what is the worst that could happen?
We already ARE in the worst case for most Steam customers in the EU! Everyone's paying the highest price. Having regional prices again would mean an improvement for pretty much everyone.
Even in the (highly unlikely) case that those regional prices would be rising - they'd still be lower for most than they are now.

I'm not shifting blame. I identified true criminal in this case and it is EU. Whole EU is just regulatory hell which make hell from living in here. Idea of duty free trade is good, but EU evolved into mutch closer to totalitarian organisation. Ok, not china level yet, but wait couple years.
EU is evil organisation to begin with.
Which negative consequences have maximizing profit in this case? That rich germans with houshold income mote then 2* greater then for example czech houshold income can't buy games on third party regional sites and use it? Without this barier, germans can maximize their profit at the expense of citizens of poorer nations. So local third party stores need choose higher prices.

In this case, Valve is purely victim of EU oppression and regulatory hell.
So, some games are using regional lock in russia. Is logical to assume one who change price are the one which move price.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: WindousicoConsequently, regional pricing was terminated with the elimination of region locks on Steam (something I regretted greatly).

Indeed, it was.
Which is absolutely a mistake - I'm not sure what really went wrong there.
It was definitely not the EU demanding regional pricing to be stopped within the EU.

My guess is that Valve itself realized that regional pricing within the EU would lose it some income without region locking and therefore decided to just have one Euro region at the highest price and be done with it.
Also enabling the EU to become the scapegoat again. You kinda feel bad for EU politicians - meaning well, often doing good, but almost always failing to foresee consequences of their actions.

What the EU should actually do now is force Valve to enable regional pricing within the EU again. But I doubt there is legal grounds for that. And apparently the prices even for the lower income region are still "low" enough to make enough sales.

In the end, just another example of Valve's greed - right in line with the ridiculous 30% cut.
And no, I'm not a hater, I just see the good and the bad an entity like Valve is doing.

Quoting: WindousicoThere is no "existing" problem. There is a "verdict" 6 years later (more or less).

Yes, thanks.
I reread the article and now I get it, too. This is the resolution of the problem from back then.

So, you propouse use regulation (forcing valve enable regional pricing) for deal with consequences of another regulation? All regulations have negative side efect! Only posible and ethical solution is remove original regulation! Another regulation only do situaction worst in another place!

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[quote=orochi_kyo][quote=bubexel]

Quoting: Whitewolfe80Expecting the next valve game to be VR is so selfish but I expect that after seeing comments coming from VR owners on Alyx forums.

Interesting. Same argument as windows users use about linux support. Why game developers throw money out of window when they support us? It's so selfish want linux/VR to be supported.

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[quote=TheSHEEEP]The amount of made-up-fact posts in this thread is pretty ridiculous.

Quoting: mphuZThis is NOT about regional pricing, it is about region locking within the EU.
Regional pricing is not only legal, it is perfectly normal - you pay different prices for the same thing in different countries - the EU is no exception. I've been in seven countries within the EU (not counting airport stops) and went shopping (groceries, etc.) in all of them, and almost ALL prices differ from country to country.

If i remember correctly there are different rules for physical goods and purely digital. So, you compare apples with oranges.

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Just 2 days back i get my Index. So i hope for portal VR :-)

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Quoting: gradyvuckovic

Quoting: LinasThe whole idea is to give a stable runtime environment to the game developers where you don't need to care about what distribution is the game run on, or that upgrades to the system would break something. It is essentially a Linux compatibility layer for Linux to address the main argument a lot of people have against Linux - fragmentation.

That's how I read it too. Which is awesome, as usual for anything Valve is working on related to Linux. Fragmentation is one of those hard problems with Linux, and this goes right to the heart of addressing it.

I don't think Valve is planning another console. Even Steam Machines weren't really consoles as such, more like prepackaged PCs with a living room tailored experience, like a media center PC.

To me the way I read everything they're doing, it feels like they've taken a step back, looked at the Linux gaming ecosystem, identified every pain point they can find that's preventing adoption and they're just systematically going through each one and trying to either fix it or at least reduce the pain as much as possible. I think they're hoping if they fix enough pain points and wait long enough, eventually organic growth will take off.

The question is why of course. Why do they care. It is possible that perhaps they're just passionately and ideologically supportive of Linux. Or the popular theories of it being a preemptive defensive strategy against any future moves Microsoft might make. Either way, at this point they're putting so much effort into this, it's clearly one of their main goals now, not just a side interest, they're 100% committed to this.

Will it work? Honestly I think it will. But it's definitely going to take a long time.

The analogy I'd use is ... imagine that Linux gaming is like a 100m diameter ball of lead, on a flat plateau of land on top of a hill.

We're been trying to get the ball rolling. Once it does build up speed and start going down the hill, it will become an unstoppable force. We've been trying to get it rolling for years, but it's a 100m diameter ball of lead and we're just a dozen people pushing at the side, having no impact. The stubborn bastard wouldn't shift.

Valve's efforts with Steam, Proton, DXVK, ACO, Pressure Vessel, etc, is like bringing 4 giant trucks up to the top of the hill to help us out, they've strapped them up to the ball and are gunning the engines with the tires screeching. The ball is shifting a little, starting to move, a few inches at least, it's working but it's slow. If they keep at it for the long haul and the tires don't pop, eventually it will build up momentum and it'll work.

If it works, Valve is best positioned to benefit from the success. A new mainstream gaming platform will emerge and Valve will be the centre of it's universe.

preemptive defensive strategy against any future moves Microsoft might make... like Windows 10X? Microsoft want kill win32 apps because they have problem maintain backward compatibility. So Steam can lost main advantige against other stores...

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Great! With 5.0 Everspace 2 closed beta didn't even run. Now i can get into menu, but don't have time to try if i can get further :-(

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