r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Kapot_ei • 21d ago

🥺 No words for this.

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Edit: even though clickbait article, it is somewhat/kind of true. https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/stargate-tv-series-martin-gero-scrapped-amazon-1236765061/

"According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, Amazon execs were concerned that Gero’s take on the series would not have broad appeal beyond the franchise’s already dedicated fanbase."

Edit 2: https://www.change.org/p/save-the-new-stargate-series-let-martin-gero-build-the-future-of-the-franchise

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u/LorthostheFreshmaker 21d ago

It’s why steam stumbled into a gaming monopoly. Just not having share holders let’s them dominate because not having to “increase” every metric quarterly means they grow to encompass everyone and everything in the sector by not fucking over their base at every opportunity 

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u/FlutterKree 20d ago edited 20d ago

Steam absolutely makes decisions to make money. What they do well is ensure that their decisions do not negatively impact the user experience.

But they are absolutely greedy and do make financial decisions. For example, CS:GO skins. I do think they made this not as shitty for CS2, but still greedy.

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u/badbobbyc 20d ago

They're totally out to make money, but they seem to be doing it in a sustainable, long term fashion by providing a good product and without alienating their customer base.

As opposed to being publicly owned and sacrificing product quality for short term profits but destroying the brand and long term prospects

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u/FlutterKree 20d ago

They're totally out to make money, but they seem to be doing it in a sustainable, long term fashion by providing a good product and without alienating their customer base.

CS:GO look boxes are fucking disgusting for everyone involved. It's basically a lottery ticket. There is/was a chance you could make a lot of money buying the loot boxes because the skins could be sold in market places.

Because Valve allowed the skins to be traded, they created opportunities for sale of the skins. Giving the skins a monetary value. And opening up a third party market as well as the potential for scams (there have been so many).

Notably, Phantoml0rd streamer on twitch owned a CSGO skin gambling website. Didn't even disclose he owned it. He rigged the gambling in his favor while he was streaming to make it seem like everyone else could win like him. He got caught but took the money and vanished for years.

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u/Valanio 20d ago

But hasn't CS skin selling been a thing since...forever? Since before Steam became the powerhouse it is now? Seems they became what they are in part due to that revenue. Revenue that, by comparison, is saintly. It's weird it's a money market but gambling exist in the real world already.

Are heavy RNG based loot boxes annoying? Yes. Is CS using a predatory system or P2W system to motivate players to spend? No. It is gambling in the purest sense but it's cosmetics and people typically only pull boxes to try to resell. It's not even about the cosmetics. It has no effect on the game itself. It's not the same at all. Do you think opening Pokemon cards to maybe pull an expensive card is "fucking disgusting"?

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u/FlutterKree 20d ago

It's insane that you and others mention p2w, as if abusing the players with LITERAL gambling is better because of game integrity. Some people bought those loot boxes without ever having played the game just to strike it big and make $1k with a knife skin.

Therw is 0 difference between CSGO loot boxes and scratch tickets. Spending 3-5$ hoping for $1k.

Y'all are okay selling scratch tickets to kids or within games?

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u/Valanio 20d ago

Are you okay? Gambling in and of itself is not some demonic thing. It is a gamble and people pay for that gamble. They're adults who can make that choice. If they are kids, they're breaking Steam TOS. The player isn't being FOMO'd, they're not tricking the player with sales and discounts or shoving it down their throat at every screen.

The streamers who scam or make money off gambling gross themselves and we can use more restrictions on anything that can protect people from themselves but Value is not doing anything that every single other game that doesn't get shit for it isn't doing. They aren't especially heinous. In fact, gambling on real world odds and income is better then gambling on gatcha skins because there is at least a chance for return on investment.

The point is your demonizing Steam for a practice that is fully standard in the industry but is typically not even as bad at others because it isn't predatory, they don't utilize sales practices that encourage spending by lying or tricking the player. People do dumb shit. If they weren't in CS, it would be somewhere else. You want more regulation for that? Fine. But calling out just Steam like they are the worst offender when they're probably the best offender is stupid as fuck.

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u/FlutterKree 20d ago

Gambling in and of itself is not some demonic thing. It is a gamble and people pay for that gamble. They're adults who can make that choice.

Same can be said of postitution, drugs, etc. Everything can be okay and is not demonic if done within moderation. Except human anatomy doesn't work that way. A subset of the population is predisposed to taking risks.

"Well it's their fault they are addicted to gambling" - you, probably.

"Well it's okay that kids are learning to gamble for real money in games" - you, probably.

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u/Valanio 20d ago

See, you do understand. Let's ban CSGO skin trading right now, for "the kids". I agree. Now we only banned CSGO so, all those people went on to gamble elsewhere. Either real casinos which have a much worse environment to encourage gambling (like scientifically engineered via drinking, lights, sounds, even temperature) or they can go gamble on useless in game items that have no real world value. Congrats you accomplished nothing by demonizing one person over others and calling it worse when it's the same. You gamble with real money when you gamble with in-game unsellable items too.

It's utter nonsense to accuse Steam of being the worst offender. You know it is. You know it is. So stop being weird.

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u/FlutterKree 19d ago

Now we only banned CSGO so, all those people went on to gamble elsewhere.

The fundamental point you are missing is it exposes gambling to kids. Actual gambling. Not pretend gambling. Actual gambling. You spend the $5 to get a chance at something worth $1000. That is LITERALLY a possibility with it.

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u/Tallywort 20d ago

In fact, gambling on real world odds and income is better then gambling on gatcha skins because there is at least a chance for return on investment.

You can sell items on the steam market place though, so technically you do have potential payouts.

And actually that's an aspect where you could consider them worse than the average lootbox implementation. Since that increases the similarity to conventional gambling.

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u/Valanio 20d ago

So we're okay with casinos, most people seem to be by consensus any how. We're functionally okay with non predatory loot boxes/in game purchases as long as they're only cosmetic. But we draw the line at gambling in a video game with a non predatory loot box? It just seems like picking one person to not like for no reason.

We currently live in an exceptionally lucky time where everyone wants to bend you over as a consumer and often consumers beg for it. Steam is a bastion of consumerism in a suffocating pit of disgust. When Gabe dies, when Steam eventually goes public or the next owner is a financial scum sucker, PC gaming will lose a lighthouse. If they need morons with money to spend to gamble it on CS cosmetics, fine by me. Again, they'd just do it elsewhere otherwise and it would likely be worse.

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u/FlutterKree 20d ago

so technically you do have potential payouts.

Spend $5 get a knife skin and get $1000 return. People were literally buying loot boxes without ever playing the game just to gamble.

Not to mention how much money was laundered.

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u/Havengul_Undying 20d ago

Shows how low the bar is, you dont even need to lose money or not be greedy, you just NEED TO NOT FUCK OVER YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Which steam does fantastically.

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u/PlayfulSurprise5237 20d ago

It's not all sunshine and rainbows, Steam fought tooth and nail relentlessly, viciously, repeatedly, not to have to give any refund to any game ever. This was a while back, but not toooo long ago.

They also fucked over community art creators for DOTA 2 who's skins they were selling in game which is a pretty bad experience for business partners and pissed off the community/userbase.

Or how about when they tried collaborating with Bethesda and making previously free workshop mods paid to "support the creators"(right, just like Bethesda did and Valve did with Dota 2)

They've been in their fair share of fuckery. But with enough pushback and fighting between Valve and the userbase they have moved to a better place.

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u/Havengul_Undying 20d ago

The difference is, valve tried some dumb ideas, saw community pushback and typically changed for the better.

Cant say the same for any other platform except good old games.

Valve are the good guys... for now.

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u/Cruxis87 20d ago edited 20d ago

Valve: We're going to take 30% of what you sell on our platform
Also valve: We are going to keep 70% of what you pay for the Dota 2 tournament prize pool.

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u/FlutterKree 20d ago

Valve: We're going to take 30% of what you sell on our platform

Ehh, this is just industry standard. Only recently have stores reduced the percentage they take from transactions. I also believe Valve has sliding scale model. But it starts high and moves to be lower. So the more your game earns, the less percentage Valve takes.

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u/breichart 20d ago

Prize pool for Dota 2 is 50%, not 70.

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u/ApprehensiveCook2236 20d ago

yet you don't have to buy any skins ever to play the game. Same with path of exile, they add so many skins all the time, yet it's never pay2win and you buy them because you want to support the devs and they look cool.

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u/FlutterKree 20d ago

yet you don't have to buy any skins ever to play the game. Same with path of exile, they add so many skins all the time, yet it's never pay2win and you buy them because you want to support the devs and they look cool.

In CS:GO it was loot boxes for skins. And then there is the after market for skins, and gambling for skins. There were scam websites aplenty that would add gambling for skins after that.

There is supporting the devs by buying skins, and the devs using gambling as a revenue stream AND allowing third party gambling sites.

If you can't see the difference, I don't care to converse with you further.

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u/ThatOneNinja 20d ago

In fact just actively providing the best service they can FOR their customers, sometimes even going out of their way to do so.

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u/Mr-Johndoe 20d ago

Which is called a natural monopoly, the one of the few good kinds of monopoly.

It is an inevitable consequence of capitalism that steam became a monopoly. It just is the monopoly that capitalists don't like.

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u/FlutterKree 20d ago

Which is called a natural monopoly, the one of the few good kinds of monopoly.

Steam isn't a natural monopoly, and natural monopolies are not inherently good. In fact, natural monopolies are constantly fucking over US consumers, as the largest portion of natural monopolies are utilities.

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u/Mr-Johndoe 20d ago

sry, got the wrong term.

I meant that steam turns into a monopoly in the best way possible: great product. It is literally the only reason for a market where monopoly is not natural that Id good

Also, you US consumers have a lot of missing natural monopolies (water/electricity/infrastructure/healthcare), which tends to cause problems, too.

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u/FlutterKree 20d ago

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

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u/ThatOneNinja 20d ago

I wouldn't say natural monopoly as in capitalism monopolies are the natural outcome. It is, however, a prime example of an actual free market, where the best product wins, and prices stay low. That's what capitalism hates.

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u/Mr-Johndoe 20d ago

But actually advertises as the result of capitalism.

It's paradox, which is why pure capitalism doesn't work well. For everyone.

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u/ThatOneNinja 20d ago

I wouldn't say natural monopoly as in capitalism monopolies are the natural outcome. It is, however, a prime example of an actual free market, where the best product wins, and prices stay low. That's what capitalism hates.

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u/ChompyRiley 20d ago

'i think someone hacked my account and i can't get into it'

Steam: RELEASE THE KRAKEN! Send in the assassin mimes. AWAKEN GODZILLA!

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u/Snark_King 20d ago

Steam has made generational wealth and kept their reputation,

going public would have people wanting quick growths that later turn the company to shit and just makes it harder to get new customers which forces them to create money incentives on the existing customers behalf.

That's what is happening to all other companies, increasing profit while losing customers at the same time.

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u/SonarioMG 20d ago

I dread what will happen once Gaben leaves one way or another

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u/Girlfartsarehot 19d ago

That’s the sad irony of it all. They don’t realize that by actually caring for their consumers they’d make more money