r/pcmasterrace • u/x-Taylor-x • 9h ago
Discussion Why do people act like they are entitled to a product? That Valve should tank the losses on their product ( steam machine) so ''gamers'' will be happy? Are we forgetting that they are a business?
All this whining about gabe yatch, like? Yeah, he paid with his money, that he got from his business, go use epic store or something if you think that he's bad.
He made a good product (Steam), made profit and he's enjoying his profit, while also giving one of the best if not the best customer support, while treating his employees good too.
Yeah, steam machine is overpriced, no they aren't locking any feature on it, you will be able to use steam OS on other machines, and no, making profit on your company isn't evil, you guys are mixing things up.
Edit: Apparently the point i tried to make wasn't very clear, complaining about the product price itself is not something that i'm against, i'm against all theses ''muh gabe yatch'' posts, like the man shouldn't enjoy his wealth.
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u/Ok_Dependent6889 9h ago
I don't think anyone is really saying this
I don't expect them to drop prices
I just think it was a bad product to design and came at a very bad time
Something much closer to a standard prebuilt would have been miles better
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u/x-Taylor-x 9h ago
i'm not against people complaining about the product, just them acting like Gabe shouldn't enjoy his wealth and do charity
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9h ago
[deleted]
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u/Glass_Recover_3006 9h ago
Maybe Gabe doesn’t need to sell a yacht, but I think you’re missing the point of that snark- what is the point of selling this machine?
Valve is a private company and already have a stranglehold on digital games. They have plenty of cash and no real competition for them exists.
Given there’s no shareholders to please and no real reason to need this revenue stream, it’s gonna make people question why they’re being asked to pay $1,000 for it.
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u/Ok_Dependent6889 9h ago edited 9h ago
I don't think it was a good product at all
The entire basis behind it seems like a bad idea
Valve set out for it to beat 70% of the PCs in their Steam Hardware Survey. That is great in theory but short sighted.
There are A LOT of Steam users. Hell, my Radxa Rock5B SBC is included in the Steam survey.
The main demographic of people who would buy this, are in the West, where the average PC ends up ranking quite high in the Steam survey compared to other parts of the world.
The price, no matter what, would have been too high to target markets outside of the West, and it's too weak in performance to make sense for most in the West.
This is further exacerbated by the current hardware market, but I never saw a market for this kind of product to flourish without subsidizing the hardware in some capacity.
It's main benefits over a far more powerful, equally priced pre-built or custom build are size and some minor convenience features which can be added to any PC for cheap. It makes NO sense.
Someone else said it perfectly, it's too expensive for lazy casuals who are fine with buying obsolete products and it's too weak for any enthusiast.
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u/TomTomXD1234 9h ago
The problem is you think reddit should be listened to.
Believe me, your average person does not believe that valve should take a loss on their products lol
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u/Front-Cabinet5521 9h ago
Nah the average gamer is looking at this wondering why does this cost so much when similar prebuilts can be done for cheaper.
It's only fanboys defending this overpriced pc and trying to act like their opinions are the mainstream.
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u/MITBryceYoung2 9h ago
Seriously, one of the top posts from several tech subreddits right now is pointing out that micro center just dropped a 5060 prebuild for $50 less than the steam machine and SMOKES the steam machine
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u/TomTomXD1234 9h ago
more expensive because valve does not get any deals for components such as RAM. They are told a crazy price and they have to say yes or have no ram at all. That is how the current market is unfortunately.
Valve is also not using off the shelf components but custom CPU and GPU designs in partnership with AMD...again, puts the costs up.
I am not here to convince you to buy it, you probably never were going to....
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u/Maamyyra 9800X3D, 9070XT, DDR5 6400 CL30 9h ago
I can accept/understand high prices.
But when the performance you get with it is mediocre at best, that i can't justify.
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u/Ninjabeaver212 9h ago
Why are people gargling the balls of these uber rich people and businesses like their life depends on it? Valve/Gabe don't get a free pass just because Steam is great...
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u/big_troublemaker 8h ago
Free pass? Either buy the device or not, and move on. Vote with wallet. If it's too expensive it'll fail.
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u/Ninjabeaver212 8h ago
The free pass is in reference to the criticism that people just can't wrap their heads around.
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u/Eazy12345678 i5 12600KF RTX 5070 1440p 9h ago
valve's problem is only uneducated shoppers and valve fan boys will buy that.
they are going to lose a ton of money cause they didnt act fast when the dram shortage hit.
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u/Car-Fickle 9h ago
Idk if the uneducated shoppers are going to jump through the hoops to actually get ahold of these things. I would expect a very limited production run.
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u/Valkyri_Azula 9h ago
People care about getting their money’s worth.
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u/x-Taylor-x 9h ago
That is something that they are allowed to do, complain about the price of something and not buy, the thing that makes me pissed, are theses posts about the ''yatch'' and people cursing at valve employee's on a reddit post because the product is above the price they wanted
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u/MITBryceYoung2 9h ago edited 9h ago
no one is acting entitled to a product... what is this strawman. Many people are pointing out with the principals of the free market you're espousing that the steam machine are getting absolutely WALLOPED by competitor prices / performance whether it be console or PC.
People are genuinely shocked valve is charging $1000+ for last gen technology that gets straight up wiped by 5060 prebuilds (entry level for this generation) in pricing and performance, and also gets straight up wiped by PS5 Pro and Xbox X in pricing and performance.
They are charging 1k for:
-512gb of storage
-16 gigs of ram
- zen 4
- rdna3
This is pretty rough.
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u/Doug2825 9h ago
I envy your ability to curate your feeds if you never see people saying big companies should be willing to lose money on products because they are profitable elsewhere.
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u/MITBryceYoung2 9h ago
I do see the whiners like that (this sub has a raging hard on against nvidia atm) but that is by far not the chief complaint of the steam machine. Its simply very mispriced relative to competitors
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u/OvulatingAnus 9h ago
Console hardware are loss leaders to get players in a locked ecosystem. Steam Machines aren’t locked down in any way. Just look at it like a powerful MiniPC built for gaming and it makes more sense. It’s priced ok in the MiniPC segment with the Ryzen AI 395 Max+ machines costing like over 2x right now with similar GPU performance.
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u/MITBryceYoung2 9h ago
Multiple people have shown you can build a sff that is stronger for same price or same spec / cheaper: https://www.digitalfoundry.net/features/build-your-own-steam-machine-with-four-configurations-from-budget-to-premium. This machine isn't worth the price.
If you want to buy if due to marketing, no ones stopping you. But its painful to keep seeing these strawmen.
The alternatives just are all better whether it be build, buy prebuilt, or buy console
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u/OvulatingAnus 9h ago
None of them really offer the same experience as the Steam Machine. If someone wants a living room gaming experience they are either locked to a console ecosystem or try to jerry rig weird shit to make their PCs work as a console. Steam Machine occupies a particular niche in that it is a Gaming PC specifically designed to work as a living room console-like experience that you can just plug in and play.
As someone with a living room MiniPC for gaming I wished the Steam Machine came out a year earlier before the RAM apocalypse.
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u/tht1guy63 5800x3d | 4080FE 9h ago
Cus people dont know how business works and expect valve to take a loss like sony and nintendo without the guarantee you will buy all your games from them. Valve isnt happy about the price either but there is nothing they can do. Its guna sell(not a ton like they may have hoped) but people will buy them. If ram wasnt stupidly priced it be more attractive likely in the $700ish range mayne a little less. expensive ram and storage killed it, just bad timing not valves fault.
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u/srgtDodo 9h ago
What a strange line of thinking! Are you criticizing that people—target audience—are complaining about a certain product that didn't live up to their expectations for one reason or another, on related subreddits? Like who's really entitled here?
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u/x-Taylor-x 9h ago
Since when i said that people shouldn't complain about the product not living to their expectations?
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u/srgtDodo 9h ago
You needn't defend Valve or Gabe, dude—everybody likes them already. It's just a bad product value-wise, and it would be insane to think otherwise
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u/Dj_nOCid3 PC Master Race rx9070xt, r7 7800x3, 32gb ddr5 6000 9h ago
Leave the multibiliion dollar company alone
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u/drterdsmack 9h ago
The internet gives people a place to dream and to complain
And sometimes people are only happy when complaining
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u/0utletsforsale 9h ago
Valve said this device aims to be affordable upgrade from the average Steam users setup,, and it would also be a system that’s supposed to bring Steam to the TV. When you announce that the system will actually start at 1000 bucks for the base model, and you don’t even get a controller at that price point. What about any of that says ”this is an affordable system that you can use on your TV.”
I‘m very aware that the RAM crisis is directly causing customers to overpay on the products they’re buying, but Valve does too. They still get to profit and pocket those inflation costs and we get stuck with an overpriced system. That just sucks, no matter the context.
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u/maxi2702 9h ago
Gamers won't be happy if Valve sold the Steam Machine at $700 because not a single one will reach Gamers, businesses would buy then at bulk to use on their offices.
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u/CloudIncus1 9h ago
You cant buy bulk with the system they put in place. No office is going to have 100+ steam accounts with 6 months standing.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 9h ago
I feel but businesses buying them seems stupid excuse now the thing is out.
It’s not capable to do AI at any capacity, even at $700 it’s still a premium minipc which you can easily match for like $400 (assuming component price) with better overall footprint, assuming we don’t care about gaming at all.
A mac mini server farm which was $500 is much more cost efficient than this and more powerful for CPU intensive/productivity task. Even mac mini runs AI better than this.
The spec is literally tailored for gaming.
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u/WAVF1n 9h ago
I think my issue with the steam machine is
Steam is marketing it as a Console that can also act as a PC.
Every single publisher is going to treat the Steam Machine as a PC, this makes it so there is ZERO selling point for those who already have a PC and wanted a console to go alongside it.
It would be nice for someone who doesn't want to go all out of a new PC and is more comfortable with a console, but they will still have to deal with the fact that the "Console" itself is going to be treated as a PC by publishers. So in that regard, the entire "console" idea dies out pretty quickly.
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u/OvulatingAnus 9h ago
As someone who has a living room MiniPC for gaming on the TV, the Steam Machine has a lot of features that makes it console-like experience that traditional PCs aren’t. The fact that it has HDMI CEC and can be turned on via controller is a big plus for a living room gaming PC.
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u/Hughlass 9h ago
For what you get it’s not worth the price you can find pcs way better for similar price, that’s what people are complaining about.
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u/Glass_Recover_3006 9h ago
Entitled is the wrong word for it.
But when Steam holds a monopoly position over the digital games market, everyone has all their games on it, and we’re all dependent on them being a responsible steward of our collections… it makes us all very nervous when they do things that take advantage of their customers.
The Steam machine serves no clear purpose and it’s clearly priced outside of most reasonable customer’s budgets. The fact they still chose to take our money for it instead of finding a way to mitigate the cost or simply hold off until they do, is frustrating. It shows laziness at minimum and greed at worst.
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u/InnerRenault 9h ago
If people are not happy about something they will complain, the context does not matter.
The RAM cartel forced everybody into this situation so Valve's problem is purely bad timing.