Here's how Valve should "fix" Steam Because Steam ain't perfect, either...

Having gone on at length about the problems with Epic's storefront, and with their profoundly consumer-dismissive approach to... well... everything, it's only fair to spend some time and words on the issues that Steam actually does have, which GabeN should probably attend to. Because after 16 years in service, it's fair to say that Steam's pipes have some rust and corrosion on them, and really could use a good cleaning.

Gabe! Buddy! My nearest and most excellent friend (that I've never met in person, and who doesn't know me from Adam, but whatevs don't@me)! I have some advice for you; a five-step process that will clear a up a whole bunch of that embarrassing clutter that's causing so much agita, lately. Take these ideas, and use them in all good health.

Updated Steam Play makes every game Linux compatible, paving the way for SteamOS 3.0... and that's just for starters...

Valve Software have a history of "running silent" - they'll make little or not noise, saying almost nothing publicly about what they're working on, only to pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, and make all kinds of news. Their critics (and some of their fans) often find this to be a source of frustration; Valve simply don't fit the mold of most other big players in the video game business, mainly because they're not a publicly traded company, and thus don't have to be unceasingly communicating to their investors, and potential investors. Some days, Valve's silent running mode works against them.

Today was not such a day.

From PCGamesN:

Steam Play – Valve’s name for its cross-platform initiative – is getting a major update, with built-in tools allowing you to run Windows games on Linux. [...] In the most practical terms, this means you can now download and install Windows games directly from the Steam client without any further fuss. Valve is currently checking “the entire Steam catalog” and whitelisting games that run without issue, but you can turn off those guidelines and install whatever you want, too.

[...]

In theory, this should eventually allow nearly the entire Steam catalogue to run on Linux, though it’s possible certain types of DRM and anti-cheat measures could keep that compatibility from happening. [...] Valve’s own SteamOS is built on Linux, and as we speculated when hints of this update surface last week, this could be part of a renewed push for the platform. There are rumblings around the internet about SteamOS 3.0 being on the way, even after Valve removed Steam Machines from the Steam store. At the same time, Valve reiterated its support of Linux and Vulkan for PC gaming – and this update marks a major confirmation of that support.

Combined with the Vulkan API and an industry-wide trend towards cross-platform development, the fact that Valve is about to make the entire Steam library compatible with Linux will be game-changing. Valve's Steam Machine initiative failed to launch because there were too few SteamOS-compatible games to convince people to switch operating systems, and too few people using SteamOS and Linux to make Linux game development worthwhile.

But Linux is about to become a viable gaming platform, virtually overnight, which means that game developers don't have to maintain a separate Linux version of their games anymore, and Linux gamers can play the largest single library of PC games on their own machines with no additional work required. This is great news for any gamer who had been dragging their feet about switching to Linux. Valve just made it easy.

And that's not the only news that Valve made this week.

Gaben speaks again: Only 30 SteamVR apps have made more than $250K

One of the advantages of being a privately-held company, rather than a publicly-traded corporation, is the lack of pressure to keep driving up your share price. This relentless pressure means that, for publicly-traded corporations, you can't just make money; you always have to make more money than you made last year, or your share price falls, which can be catastrophic for people who e.g. have a bunch of your company's shares in their 401(k) or RRSP. 

A private company, by comparison, only has to make more money than they spend, or (in the case of dot-com startups) hold the promise of eventually making more money than they spend. Among other things, this can lead to more tolerance for risk-taking and innovation. Facebook lost money for years before figuring out a profitable business model and finally doing an IPO, but Facebook is now a publicly-traded company, with shareholders to answer to, and share prices that they have to continue to increase year-over-year, every year. 

Which may be why Mark Zuckerberg was only willing to admit under oath during the ZeniMax trial that Oculus probably won't turn a profit for ten years, and pleaded with shareholders to be patient while he keeps throwing good money after the $3.5B he's already thrown at VR:

“I would ask for the patience of the investor community,” he said. “Because we’re going to invest a lot in this, and it’s not going to return or be really profitable for us for quite a while.”

Gabe Newell, on the other hand, is being remarkably blunt about HTC Vive's shortcomings, and openly talking about how he's OK with VR failing completely. And he's apparently not done yet.

From c|net:

During a recent media event, Valve revealed that only 30 VR apps have made over $250,000 so far on Steam. Now focusing his company heavily on VR development, Valve president Gabe Newell remains bullish on the future of VR, but isn’t shying away from sharing frank assessments of the still young industry.

Sorting content ‘by VR’ through the Steam store, the number of titles that support the technology comfortably exceeds 1,000. While a few early indie VR titles have seen a few million in revenue, according to Valve only 30 of Steam’s VR apps have made over $250,000.

This could be a fairly discouraging figure for aspiring VR developers, as Steam is surely the most popular source for PC VR content, considering the apparent sales advantage of the HTC Vive over the competition, combined with the fact that SteamVR works with other headsets like the Oculus Rift and OSVR.

This figure isn't at all surprising, considering how poorly VR headsets, generally, have been selling, but it is a little unusual to hear the head of a company that's developing VR hardware and software speak so openly about it. But then, maybe that's just because Gaben doesn't have shareholders to answer to. Valve doesn't have to keep making more money than it made the year before; they just have to turn a profit, and can afford to lose money betting on VR's future, in a way that publicly-traded Facebook may find increasingly difficult, even though Facebook may actually have more cash on hand.

It's a very interesting dynamic, and it'll be even more interesting to see how this plays out as VR continues striving to become a thing. VR really isn't ready yet, and it really does need for hardware and content developers to be willing and able to spend boatloads of cash with no guarantee that this R&D will result in actual profits, ten years from now. Facebook, with billions of USD in reserve, should be well-positioned for this, but it may prove to be Valve who have the freedom and flexibility to actually spend the money, without risking an investors' revolt.

Stay tuned...

Most expensive VR headset "barely capable of doing a marginally adequate job of delivering a VR experience," according to its makers.

I'm not surprised that this is the case; I'm only surprised that it's being discussed with such candor.

From AndroidHeadlines.com:

Valve’s President Gabe Newell said that the virtual reality (VR) industry still needs time to develop. While speaking to reporters at an informal meeting earlier this week, Newell made some surprising comments about the HTC Vive headset that Valve helped develop. After acknowledging that the Vive is the most expensive VR headset on the market, Valve’s chief said that “it’s barely capable of doing a marginally adequate job of delivering a VR experience.” As such, the VR ecosystem that Valve and HTC are currently trying to build will still need more time to grow and fulfill its potential, provided that ever happens.

The famous entrepreneur compared the current VR industry to the PC market of the 1980s in the sense that people were originally buying PCs without really understanding what they can be used for. Those types of consumers are also now driving the growth of VR hardware sales, Newell believes, adding that VR will hopefully end up being as successful as PCs were and still are. [...] Valve’s chief also said VR hardware sales are currently inhibited by the general lack of content, adding that there’s currently not a single VR game on the market that could be considered a system-seller.

Newell’s comments are somewhat similar to those recently given by Mark Zuckerberg who said that the Facebook-owned Oculus has yet to develop “good virtual reality.” Overall, it seems that most major players in the industry are still cautiously optimistic about this technology, but everyone is apparently waiting for third-party developers to start making more high-quality experiences for VR hardware. Given that state of affairs, it’s possible that the VR industry is in for another slow year in terms of growth.

OK, a few things about this:

1. PCs in the '80s absolutely could do things right out of the box, which is why people bought them. Among other things, they could run word processor and spreadsheet software (useful for business), and play games (already very popular). They were even simple enough to program for that users could write their own programs for them, and were encouraged to do so; Commodore computers (also very popular at the time) all came with BASIC built-in, and manuals on BASIC programming. PCs in the '80s were not nearly as hard to sell as VR headets are today.

2. Hype drove early sales of VR; now that the hype has died, nothing is driving them. PlayStation VR sales dropped off a cliff after some early success, and the only VR headsets that have moved more than a million units are Gear VR and Google Cardboard, both of which managed to get to market last spring, while the hype was still hot and VR's many issues not front and centre in the coverage. And those are the VR success stories; none of the other VR headsets is anywhere close to doing as well as those three. The hype is over now; all of VR's recent PR has been bad, and the only people still bullish about VR's future are people who've invested heavily in VR succeeding.

3. VR cannot afford another slow year in sales. VR is a hardware purchase, and not just a software purchase or a Cloud-based service, and one that really doesn't sell itself -- even VR's proponents admit that it needs to be experienced in order to make converts. Except that BestBuy is closing hundreds of Oculus Rift demo stations because nobody wanted to try them. The clock is ticking: retailers like BestBuy can't afford to stock VR headsets that aren't selling. If VR hardware doesn't start to show sales performance soon, stores will stop carrying the gear, and that will be the end of the story for this generation of VR hardware.

4. VR isn't going to see a flood of third-party development unless they can improve the headsets' adoption rate. There's no money to made developing for VR, because there aren't enough users in the marketplace who can buy VR content. Given how little interest consumers have for VR, and give how expensive it is to develop for VR, third-party developers just can't afford to develop for VR right now. Which may be why Valve has three VR games in the works for the HTC Vive that they helped develop: nobody else is going to make games for the thing, so they have to.

It is noteworthy that GabeN is willing to be so candid about VR's issues. Zuckerberg's original comments were made in response to questioning, under oath, during the ZenMax v. Oculus trial; he later expanded on them while trying to calm shareholders' concerns about the Oculus purchase, basically pleading with them to be patient after his blunt admission that Facebook would lose money for years trying to make VR a thing. In other words, his comments happened because he had no choice in the matter; he couldn't refuse to answer the question at trial, and he really was forced to do damage control afterward.

GabeN wasn't in that situation. His comments were volunteered during an informal meeting. That's a little amazing, when you think about it, and goes to illustrate why gamers hold such a high opinion of the man. Zuckerberg would never have commented about the current state of VR if he hadn't been forced to; GabeN, by comparison, is publicly musing about how he's OK with it, if VR fails, no matter how much money Valve would end up flushing along the way.

None of that changes VR's fundamental issue, though. The tech simply isn't ready, and the content simply isn't there. And with retailers already starting to check out of the VR gold rush, VR developers, hardware and content, are running out of time to turn it around.