>So, according to some people, the fact that there were fewer Steam Machines than PlayStations in the world meant that the project as a whole was a failure.
I mean, there's no metric short nor long term where we call the steam machines a success. It was an experiment and some neat tech (hardware and software) came out of it. Valve is still a business at the end of the day.
But yes, a business that can salvage the good and iterate is apparently 1000x better than what we get nowadays in this late stage capitalism, where something sells millions and the company still cuts back and lays off staff, while milking it to the ground.
>a particular distinguishing virtue they're holding on to is being willing to play the long game and not giving up in the absence of overnight success.
Gabe learned it straight from old school Microsoft. I don't know what happened to Microsoft in that time.
Breaking the seal and demonstrating the capabilities, and getting it into the hands of consumers set the conditions for the Steam Deck's success. The Steam Deck exists because the Steam Machine existed, and it's in this context that the Steam Machine succeeded. You don't need overnight instant success for the program itself to succeed.
Dark souls exists because Demons Soul existed. But if you ask Sony or even FromSoft, they'd never say Demons Soul was a success. It just didn't bomb so dosasteroisly as to prematurely cancel an entire sub-genre.
You can have disappointments and even failures while Also admitting they lead to successes by not giving up. That was all I was saying.
Indeed. I can name quite a few of both kinds of success and the end result was unfortunately a shattering of a studio who did get a chance to iterate on the potential.
As a business, it's clear what kind of success valve prioritizes.
Valve has put out some artistic and engineering masterpieces consistently over the years. They currently print money with steam. However, they aren’t putting out a Half-Life 3 to rake in more money. They don’t believe they have anything worthy from a storytelling or tech perspective. But they put out Half-Life Alyx, which was an incredible VR game.
Further, I wouldn’t call the Steam Deck itself a financial priority. Hardware is famously risky. Obviously, they want to continue their financial success, but they don’t seem to pursue that at all costs like other companies that run their IP into the ground to make more money. Having their financial success allows them to keep their integrity and continue pursuing artistic and engineering successes to diversify their income stream and build goodwill. Their work on Proton is a crowning achievement for their pursuit of engineering successes.
I don't agree that Fromsoft and Valve were operating from the same definition of success in those respective cases.
I also don't think it makes sense to suggest that the Fromsoft timeline starts at Dark Souls. My understanding is their first game was Kings Field, which had modest commercial aspirations compared to the Dark Souls franchise.
I mean, there's no metric short nor long term where we call the steam machines a success. It was an experiment and some neat tech (hardware and software) came out of it. Valve is still a business at the end of the day.
But yes, a business that can salvage the good and iterate is apparently 1000x better than what we get nowadays in this late stage capitalism, where something sells millions and the company still cuts back and lays off staff, while milking it to the ground.
>a particular distinguishing virtue they're holding on to is being willing to play the long game and not giving up in the absence of overnight success.
Gabe learned it straight from old school Microsoft. I don't know what happened to Microsoft in that time.