Gabe Newell Takes A Flamethrower To The Metaverse And NFTs

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

Back when blockchain gaming was first starting to take off, Steam took an early stance that it would not allow blockchain-based games on its platform, while rivals like Epic Games said they were more open to it. Now, Gabe is talking about both that decision, and all the tech hype surrounding the “metaverse.” It’s…kind of amazing.


"The things that were being done were super sketchy. And there was some illegal ♥♥♥♥ that was going on behind the scenes, and you're just like, yeah, this is bad. Blockchains as a technology are a great technology, that the ways in which has been utilized are currently are all pretty sketchy. And you sort of want to stay away from that…. The people who are currently active in that space are not usually good actors."

And on the metaverse (via PC Gamer):

"There's a bunch of get rich quick schemes around metaverse. Most of the people who are talking about metaverse have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. And they've apparently never played an MMO. They're like, 'Oh, you'll have this customizable avatar.' And it's like, well... go into La Noscea in Final Fantasy 14 and tell me that this isn't a solved problem from a decade ago, not some fabulous thing that you're, you know, inventing.

Here, Newell is saying plainly what many in the gaming community have been thinking when it comes to the “metaverse” presented as a bunch of blockchain-based Second Life knockoffs that are selling virtual real-estate to stupid business brands for millions. Meanwhile, actual metaverses, immersive video games, have been around for decades and already do all the things and much, much more than these newcomers.

Very few people in this space will speak this frankly about the current gold rush situation when it comes to the blockchain, NFTs and the metaverse, but it’s great to hear from industry icon Gabe here to set the record straight.

The future of blockchain gaming and the metaverse remains hazy. Traditional publishers have been mostly scared away from offering NFTs in their games after massive, violent pushback from players whenever the issue comes up. Blockchain gaming remains its own space mostly occupied by crypto enthusiasts, not core gamers. And as for the metaverse? The main blockchain metaverses probably have no more than 10,000 DAUs combined, less than the top hundred games on Steam. Facebook is pushing for its VR-focused metaverse with Horizon, but few trust them to get it right, and they’ve already run into many privacy and harassment issues there.

The Steam Deck? Now that’s an advancement that’s a much easier sell, PC gaming on the go. And no controversies are erupting as a result.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/02/26/valves-gabe-newell-takes-a-flamethrower-to-the-metaverse-and-nfts/amp/

[Candyy]

引用自 Q-T_3.14.exe：

引用自 Candyy ♡：

Barely know that person

He's the man behind Valve and Steam, you know the thing we are using.

Ah I thought it was just another game maker v:

Not something bigger than that

[Ailes]

引用自 Draxos：

[...] Why is everyone praising him [Gabe Newell]? He has done exactly this what we dont want in the gaming industry. [...]

Pretty sure I never did. I got used to Steam, I appreciate some of its features. But lootboxes, trading cards, hats (TF2), skins (CS:GO), profile levels? ♥♥♥♥ all that. And of course in an ideal world I wouldn't want to have all my games DRMed either. But then again I'm a fickle player and don't usually return to older games like ever at all, so this never affected and worried me as much as it has others. Still, I have been here since the earliest days and I remember times when people were bashing Valve much for forcing us to use Steam.

[{ИЯm} Keith]

引用自 Varsik289：

引用自 HaemorrhoidGraboid：

Organisations can still pay or threaten them to make changes against gamers interests.
For example steams forum censorship might have been forced by third parties.

Considering how much valve cares about its reputation that would be impossible

Actually valve does bow to external pressure. Take Steam China for example and the game Devotion.

[hypercybermegatron]

Regarding the idiotic Metaverse, Gaben is correct!!

Anyway, "Blockchain, crypto, Metaverse, NFT" blah, blah, blah...these are nothing but scams and ponzi schemes.

Mark Zuckerborg is a soulless ghoul who's pumped gargantuan amounts of cash in a pathetic attempt to revive Facebook's image to try and rebrand it as "Meta" and thrust the idea into people's consciousness that the "Metaverse" is the "way of the future", so that scam victims he's conned try and get in quick and buy "in the dip" and snap up virtual real estate in the "Metaverse" before it's too late.

The "Metaverse" is a distopian hellscape which only crypto scammers are interested in, not gamers.

Zuckerborg is in panic mode because of Facebook's failure to address the nutcases on its platform, and the whole "Metaverse" nonsense is because Facebook only appeals to grandmas and grumpy old farts who don't know how to use technology; Facebook's growth is on the decline, and the "Metaverse" is a desperate attempt at trying to invigorate growth by tapping into the "gaming market". Zuckerborg is essentially the "how do you do, fellow kids" meme at this point with this Metaverse BS.

Zuckerborg is a low life penny pinching scoundrel who has not been held accountable for any of his crimes. A lot of people already own VR headsets which are gathering dust and would rather play their Switch or Steamdeck. I am immensely enjoying the demise of Facebook, which started out as a website for ranking the appearance of girls at his school, as well as this pathetic "Metaverse" scam.

[crunchyfrog]

引用自 Ailes：

引用自 Draxos：

[...] Why is everyone praising him [Gabe Newell]? He has done exactly this what we dont want in the gaming industry. [...]

Pretty sure I never did. I got used to Steam, I appreciate some of its features. But lootboxes, trading cards, hats (TF2), skins (CS:GO), profile levels? ♥♥♥♥ all that. And of course in an ideal world I wouldn't want to have all my games DRMed either. But then again I'm a fickle player and don't usually return to older games like ever at all, so this never affected and worried me as much as it has others. Still, I have been here since the earliest days and I remember times when people were bashing Valve much for forcing us to use Steam.

Thing is it's extremely silly to make a claim one way or the other. Reality don't work like that.

I don't know why some people think "x is a good guy/bad guy". It's simplistic and silly.

All that matters (or should) is that Gabe Newll has not only stated a decent opinion on this, but demonstrated fact and their intent.

The claim stands - all else is moot.

[Morkonan]

引用自 crunchyfrog：

引用自 Ailes：

Pretty sure I never did. I got used to Steam, I appreciate some of its features. But lootboxes, trading cards, hats (TF2), skins (CS:GO), profile levels? ♥♥♥♥ all that. And of course in an ideal world I wouldn't want to have all my games DRMed either. But then again I'm a fickle player and don't usually return to older games like ever at all, so this never affected and worried me as much as it has others. Still, I have been here since the earliest days and I remember times when people were bashing Valve much for forcing us to use Steam.

Thing is it's extremely silly to make a claim one way or the other. Reality don't work like that.

I don't know why some people think "x is a good guy/bad guy". It's simplistic and silly.

All that matters (or should) is that Gabe Newll has not only stated a decent opinion on this, but demonstrated fact and their intent.

The claim stands - all else is moot.

^--- This.

The guy came out and slammed a terrible, money-grubbing, practice that is as predatory a behavior as even the worst game publishers have ever been. Zynga couldn't even have hoped to plumb such depths so quickly...

And, then comes the "whataboutisms."

His statement stands. If one wishes positive change, then one should support positive things being said by people in order to demonstrate to them how you wish them to behave and the behavior that you approve of. It's that simple.

Steam won't allow these things not because they wouldn't make money, which they would, but because they're ethically questionable and those who most loudly promote them only do so for their own predatory reasons.

Note: Running a distributorship that has to comply with the differing laws of every country in the entire world is not easy. That's especially true when new laws are decreed nearly "overnight" and must be complied with immediately, lest bajillions of monies in fines be incurred. Navigating what can be done and can't based upon a customer's region and account connection is probably a nightmare. That's not an excuse for the violation of what some may consider primal ethical or moral considerations by a business concern, but it should be considered when making knee-jerk judgement impugning someone's personal character. IMO, Gaben seems like a pretty cool guy eh doesn't afraid of much...

[Ailes]

Not sure if this even counts as "Whataboutism". This is about industry practices, they are all valid points and connected, I'm not sure if it's a wise idea to look at everything individually like nothing relates to each other. People are effectively saying that even Valve/Steam may allow NFTs at some point, that Gabe isn't the "savior" or whatever. His criticism is way less... "harsh" then let's say what itch.io published in comparison. Itch.io used a flamethrower, Gabe hardly so. Between the lines I'm reading "It may happen, if overall less predatory and sketchy actors are in the space." We will see.

[Varsik]

引用自 Fred Sanford：

引用自 Varsik289：

Considering how much valve cares about its reputation that would be impossible

If they cared about rep they would fix the HORRIBLE hacker crisis in TF2. Their band-aid fixes only makes the game worse (like muting f2ps) and not to mention that there are people who claim that hackers are playing audio of crime

That has nothing to do with reputation, EVERY single company has its own interests on what they want to work in, specially valve whose employees decide to work on what they want
Tf2 is an outdated game that most of the ppl dont care and mostly its veterans play and some kiddo that saw that tf2 is free on the Steam store free to play section, its the only reason why tf2 is the 9th most played game on Steam right now, its obvious that at some point ppl would just move on to something better and that time is now, EVERYBODY HERE WOULD DO THE SAME THING....
Tf2 is just another arena shooter, arenas shooters are a thing of the past, they barely/have attract/ed new ppl in the last couple of years and there are way better projects to work in
Games come and die ,and tf2 day has alredy came but tf2 community struggle to understand such basics
Do you rly think a game will last forever? No lol, even csgo and dota2 WILL have its day to come too lmao
Working on the same thing for a lot of years just makes you less motivated, thats a fact ,so obviously something has to sacrificed in order to produce better stuff with a maximum performance coming from the programmers, yeah just getting a lot of money is not enough to make someone motivated once you got that alredy lol, thats how humans work

Also that the problems tf2 have are definetly not THAT bad, first of all not even 5% of the playerbase are cheaters/bots and most of them are on empty servers, teamwork.tf has all those stats but tf2 community act like if most of the playerbase is just cheaters, thats nothing compared to any other online shooter... And tf2 community still struggle to provide an actual useful method to combat the cheating problem yet they claim is ez to fix ,that just proves tf2 community ignorance once again, basically tf2 community can barely make their minds and its so hard to even take them seriously
And the f2p muting ban exists becuase the community complained about certain molesting sounds on voice chat, and after that ban, now less ppl abuse of it than before, sure it doesnt stop it but that wasnt the intention since that d be impossible
Its also rly curious how ppl barely used the voice chat and chat before said ban but now they complain so much about it
Once again it proves how most of ppl only appreciate things when they dont have them

Now if valve promised a release date for a new update or promised that they ll update the game forever this d be a different story, NOW on THAT situation is where valve reputation would be on risk, but since they never promised Nike of that no reputation lost in here

[ambi]

based gabe

[SODA]

NFTS ARE DUMB Xp

[SODA]

引用自 БАСЦКО：

引用自 Fred Sanford：

If they cared about rep they would fix the HORRIBLE hacker crisis in TF2. Their band-aid fixes only makes the game worse (like muting f2ps) and not to mention that there are people who claim that hackers are playing audio of crime

That has nothing to do with reputation, EVERY single company has its own interests on what they want to work in, specially valve whose employees decide to work on what they want
Tf2 is an outdated game that most of the ppl dont care and mostly its veterans play and some kiddo that saw that tf2 is free on the Steam store free to play section, its the only reason why tf2 is the 9th most played game on Steam right now, its obvious that at some point ppl would just move on to something better and that time is now, EVERYBODY HERE WOULD DO THE SAME THING....
Tf2 is just another arena shooter, arenas shooters are a thing of the past, they barely/have attract/ed new ppl in the last couple of years and there are way better projects to work in
Games come and die ,and tf2 day has alredy came but tf2 community struggle to understand such basics
Do you rly think a game will last forever? No lol, even csgo and dota2 WILL have its day to come too lmao
Working on the same thing for a lot of years just makes you less motivated, thats a fact ,so obviously something has to sacrificed in order to produce better stuff with a maximum performance coming from the programmers, yeah just getting a lot of money is not enough to make someone motivated once you got that alredy lol, thats how humans work

Also that the problems tf2 have are definetly not THAT bad, first of all not even 5% of the playerbase are cheaters/bots and most of them are on empty servers, teamwork.tf has all those stats but tf2 community act like if most of the playerbase is just cheaters, thats nothing compared to any other online shooter... And tf2 community still struggle to provide an actual useful method to combat the cheating problem yet they claim is ez to fix ,that just proves tf2 community ignorance once again, basically tf2 community can barely make their minds and its so hard to even take them seriously
And the f2p muting ban exists becuase the community complained about certain molesting sounds on voice chat, and after that ban, now less ppl abuse of it than before, sure it doesnt stop it but that wasnt the intention since that d be impossible
Its also rly curious how ppl barely used the voice chat and chat before said ban but now they complain so much about it
Once again it proves how most of ppl only appreciate things when they dont have them

Now if valve promised a release date for a new update or promised that they ll update the game forever this d be a different story, NOW on THAT situation is where valve reputation would be on risk, but since they never promised Nike of that no reputation lost in here

first of all, try using periods. second of all, if nobody cared about TF2 why are there literal ♥♥♥♥ TON of videos about wanting valve to fix it. People still care about TF2. It's a timeless classic.

[crunchyfrog]

引用自 Ailes：

Not sure if this even counts as "Whataboutism". This is about industry practices, they are all valid points and connected, I'm not sure if it's a wise idea to look at everything individually like nothing relates to each other. People are effectively saying that even Valve/Steam may allow NFTs at some point, that Gabe isn't the "savior" or whatever. His criticism is way less... "harsh" then let's say what itch.io published in comparison. Itch.io used a flamethrower, Gabe hardly so. Between the lines I'm reading "It may happen, if overall less predatory and sketchy actors are in the space." We will see.

No he actually stated what was predatory about them and said that's not going to happen. The only thing he left on the table is those that have actually spoken of MORE to the metaverse with TANGIBLER things in - those DO have potential merit.

You're misunderstaindg I feel.

What he said was that the CURRENT idea of NFTs being absolutely ♥♥♥♥ all with no ownership of anything are just taboo, and those have no place here.

And that's demonstrably correct.

[hypercybermegatron]

引用自 WILL：

NFTS ARE DUMB Xp

NFTs are the biggest scam around same as crypto. Crypto/NFT shills and scammers are bunch of freeloading good for nothing parasites who want free money by taking yours.

[crunchyfrog]

引用自 hypercybermegatron：

引用自 WILL：

NFTS ARE DUMB Xp

NFTs are the biggest scam around same as crypto. Crypto/NFT shills and scammers are bunch of freeloading good for nothing parasites who want free money by taking yours.

That's perhaps THE cardinal thing I don't get about crypto bros and their bloody stupidity.

When ANYONE offers so-called advice on how to get rich and tries to bring you along for the ride should immediately stop you in your tracks.

The simple reason is that if you're going to get rich where does the money come from? If you're going to make money then it MUST be that others will lose it. The "pot" has to come from somewhere.

So if anyone claims to want to bring you along for the ride, you are actually the ride.

[hypercybermegatron]

引用自 crunchyfrog：

That's perhaps THE cardinal thing I don't get about crypto bros and their bloody stupidity.

When ANYONE offers so-called advice on how to get rich and tries to bring you along for the ride should immediately stop you in your tracks.

The simple reason is that if you're going to get rich where does the money come from? If you're going to make money then it MUST be that others will lose it. The "pot" has to come from somewhere.

So if anyone claims to want to bring you along for the ride, you are actually the ride.

That's correct. I have a friend who's practically begging me to get in "on the dip" for crypto/NFT if I have a few lazy grand lying around.

I asked him how much he's made. No response.

But when I asked how much he lost, he said it doesn't matter because it'll go back up again but he was just too embarrassed to say how much he'd blown. Funny thing is the ones I've noticed harping on about "Metaverse" and crypto and NFT crap are people who have no idea about tech and are not good with computers. And that's one of the points Gaben made in that interview, these "Metaverse" stooges got no idea what they're banging on about.

I said in an earlier comment that most people I know including myself who own a VR headset hardly use it, and more often than not people are picking up handhelds more and more, which is why I think Steamdeck will end up being a winner in the long run and why the Switch is a success. I've been playing around with a PS Vita and it's incredible for what it is (don't know if I'm allowed to talk about Moonlight here...), and lately I've been using it more when I've come home from work and want to relax without fuss, I'll just lie down listen to music and play that.

But VR, as cool as it is, is too inconvenient. It's been around for years and there's always been talk about it being about to take over the world and it never does. This crypto friend of mine is obsessed with the "Metaverse" so bad that he's putting real dollars into it because he thinks he's getting in early, I've tried to warn him VR isn't what it's cracked up to be in terms of marketability and reach, but oh well...

These scams such as NFTs/Crytpo/Metaverse are all based on hype, and Elon Musk is king troll for inflating worthless crap by way of Twitter trolling. Even Telsa is ridiculously overvalued, it's worth more than the next top 10 auto makers combined, even after the Cybetruck stunt and all the rest of Musk's moronic antics on top of the fact that Tesla cars are absolute garbage quality. The only real winner in these scams are the scam creators. No one even knows who created Bitcoin because the guy who created it used a fake Japanese name. Shadiness upon shadiness. At the end of the day, people are just downright gullible unfortunately.
https://wolfstreet.com/2021/10/26/teslas-market-cap-gigantic-v-next-10-automakers-v-teslas-global-market-share-minuscule/