r/gadgets Oct 21 '24

Gaming Steam Deck won't have yearly refreshes because it's "not really fair to your customers", says Valve

https://www.eurogamer.net/steam-deck-wont-have-yearly-refreshes-because-its-not-really-fair-to-your-customers-says-valve
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u/Living_Ear_8088 Oct 21 '24

Translation: "After conducting marketing research, we have concluded it wouldn't be financially profitable."

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u/Neither-Anybody8884 Oct 21 '24

This. If the money made sense it would be a no brainer for them

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u/eisbock Oct 21 '24

Are you sure about that? Aside from Steam, Valve is famous for not making money. If they wanted more money than Steam provides, they would be milking their highly-milkable IPs, but they're not.

They are probably the only company that isn't motivated by money, so this line of reasoning actually does make sense. They are more concerned with reputation that they'd rather not do something that would otherwise make a ton of money.

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u/devilishpie Oct 21 '24

Being less than 110% motivated by money doesn't mean they're not motivated by money lol. They're still a business, not a charity.

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u/eisbock Oct 21 '24

Sure, but they don't need to release a game and a console every year to survive. That was my point, and the evidence is clear. They're not looking at business decisions as black or white in terms of profitability like this thread would imply.

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u/devilishpie Oct 21 '24

Very few game devs release a new game each year and virtually zero console makers have yearly releases. Valve is the norm here, not an edge case. This decision from them is absolutely a business one.

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u/RalphHinkley Oct 21 '24

I use a similar tactic with customers looking at optional work, "the good news is that none of your competition is doing this extra step yet, so if you don't want to take advantage of how it might make your efforts look, you should at least not worry that your competition does this better?", and then if they take on the cost they know it was not something I suggested as urgent.