I just read in Wikipedia that Valve is privately helded.
There must be something magical in the fact that they don’t need to feed their shareholders with mountains of cash every quarter, and actually focus on their customers, as happened in this post.
True, private companies are generally more focused on customer satisfaction, but that can suddenly change, for instance when the owner dies, and the new owners don’t share the same ideals.
Private companies have a certain single point of failure built-in by having often just one or sometimes a small number of owners.
Nobody really knows what will happen when Gabe dies.
I just hope that valve becomes a worker cooperative… That would be the most stable form of company that probaly stays focused on customer satisfaction long term, since workers tend to favor providing long-term profits via good service instead of short term gains, for high frequency traders.
Gabe-AI, it’s the only one I’d trust to run Valve. We need to preserve his personality starting today!
And the fact is they still make a mountain of cash every quarter, just by focusing on their customers.
I don’t know about that. They run one of the most predatory examples of gambling in gaming.
The new EU ruling really brought to light how big of a problem the CS:GO gambling is.
Is gambling really that bad though? It’s voluntary. Valve isn’t forcing you to buy keys or cases if you don’t want them
It’s addictive. We regulate other addictive things like cigarettes, no reason we shouldn’t put guard rails on gambling. We already do, but I think we’ve got to the end regs in a few areas.
Same argument could be made for Heroin that is illegal as fuck.
And the fact is they still make a mountain of cash every quarter, just by focusing on their customers.
“Win-Win” for the win!
but what about the latest investment fad like AI or NFTs? Won’t they think of the poor scammers?
Twitter (sorry, X.com) is also privately held now so it’s not always a happy story :/
Ofc not, what you need to show is a public company that does not fuck over customers
Easy answer. Valve prints money.
Fun fact, they used to be public but Gabe took it back private after realizing how shitty it was having to answer to shareholders.
That’s an interesting piece of info
Wow, when they were practically giving those away, I figured they were washing their hands of it. It’s amazing that it’s still being supported.
Mine was $1! I love it. I just bought a wireless mouse and keyboard for it, because it’s honestly just a great way to stream stuff. Now my computer can be in my living room, and my office at the same time!
I’ve got one I never hooked up. Can you just control the computer in general or do you only get access to steam? I wanted to jellyfin with it maybe
You can do both. The default is Big Picture mode, but you can back out if it and get a desktop.
But, you’ll basically have to be a foot or two from the PC to read anything unless you have a desktop environment set up for a large screen (KDE plasma has a TV version)
You can control the computer but it boots in big picture so you need to escape it to get to the desktop
Isn’t that a setting, and you can make it connect without launching big picture, so it’s basically just pc streaming?
Yes, I have one and remember doing just that.
Oh cool I didnt know that. That’s handy
Can control it in general, but the first few times you’ll have to run over and look at the monitor to do stuff.
It generally assumes it’s being used “close” to the computer, so instead of complex pairing, it just shows a code on one you type into the other.
Sometimes windows will get antsy and pop up a dialogue that can only be interacted with locally, but it’s only one or twice ever.So, would you say, shit just works?
I remember that sale and annoyed I didn’t buy one. At the time I thought I’d never use it. Fast forward a few years and I occasionally use Steam Link on a Raspberry Pi, so I would have used it. Oh well.
Think about it though. Probably some overlap with the deck. And hiring one dev very part time to keep this thing alive is nothing for them. Which makes the steam deck way more lucrative
Tell me you don’t know how valve works without telling me you don’t know how valve works.
How do they work?
Flat structure. If you want to work on something, work on it; if it’s not interesting to you, find something else. If you have an idea find people that also seem passionate for it and start making it, if you can’t find people then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s why valve rarely makes anything, but when they do it’s super high quality
Means that there is this one dev who still likes to use his steam link and so he keeps maintaining the project
That’s actually really awesome.
I bought one during the clearance sale for the price of shipping, assuming that it would be abandoned but maybe still useful as a low-power linux server. I guess I ought to set it up and take advantage of it.
Thanks, Valve, for not letting these things become instant e-waste.
I thought this too, but unfortunately in terms of modding and general use they are very limited, afaik. When I looked into it, it boiled down to: There’s an sdk to develop stuff for it and you can get root access but good luck trying to replace the os or anything like that. That being said, this is what I remember from ~2 years ago, so if it can be customised more now, please let me know. I kinda bought 2 in hopes of being able to do that :D
I meant that I ought to use it for its intended purpose after all.
(But yes, I would still like the option of replacing the OS.)
Honestly, I wouldn’t bother replacing the OS. It’ll more than make up for the cost in labor to just buy a raspberry pi and install the steam link software on it. The steam link hardware is not nearly beefy enough to do anything interesting with.
I just let mine be a little magic box for couch gaming.
Why would you need sdk? It’s literally linux box. Just use GCC.
It seems to be more for if you actually want something that makes use of the screen and gamepad input and then you can launch it from the UI.
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamlink-sdkThanks for link. Seems like regular buildroot for crosscompilation. I’m more wondering if it is using X11, wayland or KMS/DRI.
On the first glance seems to use dri. Basically linux box.
I thought you could literally install sunlight/moonlight on it and have an even better experience. I never got around to trying after it got recommended to me
You can and it is great! https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-qt
8 years later and I still haven’t used it once
Every time I’ve tried to use it, I’ve either had to head downstairs to the PC to fix something or had terrible lag and artifacting making it unusable for even turn based games like Xcom…
But I still love that little box. I’ve got two of them and I have Steam Controllers to pair with them but I’ve never had luck with them. Wired, wireless, no luck.
Have you tried Moonlight? It’s an open source streaming alternative software that you can install on Steam Links, streams using Nvidia’s GeForce Experience as the broadcasting part and Moonlight receives it.
https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine works for AMD/Intel/Nvidia :-)
Unfortunately the NVIDIA part isn’t open-source. With that said, for what they are, products like Moonlight and Parsec actually are really good.
Agreed. I prefer Parsec where available but Moonlight gets better performance on my Android TV box.
Moonlight was a better alternative a few years ago when I tried it but I just built more computers. I’ve got three towers in the same room at this point, not to mention the Switch and Steam Deck. If I’m ever far enough away from video games to make me consider streaming them, I’m usually too lazy to bother.
Every time I’ve tried to use it, I’ve either had to head downstairs to the PC to fix something or had terrible lag and artifacting making it unusable for even turn based games like Xcom…
That’s not normal. While Steam Link is a bit older by now and as a result there are constrains like streamed resolution, your problems look more likely connected to your network than Steam Link itself. Digital Foundry talked about PlayStation Portal recently which also includes a two minutes chapter about best practices that apply to other game streaming devices as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEoo_gbOBYo
I love mine. It does one thing, and it does it well. That’s exactly what I wanted from it
Eh, I’ve had issues with mine being able to stream 1080p@60fps with my pc on wifi without it lagging like crazy, and my desktop had a strong AX connection to the AP (and speed/latency/jitter tests to and from the router were perfectly normal).
It’s definitely starting to show its age, but it’s great if you’re streaming at 30fps.
I would definitely not recommend a wifi connection for this
Maybe the Steam Link and Controller weren’t as popular as Valve hoped they would be, but damn everyone who still has them seems to love them. Maybe I’m biased because I still have my controller and love it, and I gave away my Steam link because my Deck can do that too, but my friend who received the link is loving it.
The Steam Controller is one of the best pieces of hardware I ever bought. There’s something incredibly chill about playing strategy games not originally meant for controller on the couch. I also genuinely like fiddling with cool setups and radial menus for it.
I never really liked the Steam Controller when it first came out. My Dad was actually the one that had gotten them and even he seemed to have set them aside after awhile, as they just collected dust for ages after that. I picked them up from him a few years back and I’ve started using them with my Steam Deck and they’re actually pretty nice, I get it now, though I kind of wish they still had analog sticks. They still work fine though after all these years, while every set of Xbox-style controllers I keep getting for my kids last for maybe 6 months before they’re useless.
I loved my stream controller so much I recently bought a second on eBay
That’s the thing about Valve. They really know and do software as good as anyone else in the business.
Let’s not pretend alt tabbing a source game was possible pre 2013
True, but the Steam overlay is a good workaround
Not like anyone else, they’re unique.
This post reminded me that I have a Steam Link. Somewhere.
Somewhere, someplace, steam link is there
I put mine in the original packaging and donated to one of these gifts for kids collections… in hind sight that product was so niche especially being pc gaming is probably quite rare in low income families I can’t imagine any kid being happy with it so I feel a bit guilty!
I teach lower income students and they love technology as much as the rest of us. They usually opt for used electronics and a lot of them are getting scammed into buying secondhand enterprise rigs that are converted into shitty gaming PCs, but don’t worry, you made some nerd’s day.
If you have proper full continuous deployment infrastructure setup then you can do minor updates of things like dependencies automatically. I’d guess that’s what’s happening here.
Amazing how many products just don’t.
But…but…vAlve doEsNt suPpoRt iTs haRdWare
I’ve never seen people say this, but if they do, fuck em
It depends what you mean by support. They made the Steam Link for 3 years and have not made it for 5 years.
This post got me to dig mine out after all these years.
After literally 99 updates, I got it running and again and played some games from the couch. It was a good time! I don’t know why I packed it away.
Valve needs to update this little dude, but they never will, of course.
Most smart devices have steam link streaming built in now…which is sadly why they retired the hardware
I wouldn’t say ‘Most’.
Neither of my 3 different brand Smart TVs nor either of my Roku models have Steam Streaming.
Yeah, support for it was cut for my TV sadly. I’ve got the device, but apps are convenient and don’t involve running wires.
Oh yeah, that’s a fair point.
I love the concept of them, but I’ve never had an enjoyable experience on mine. Always lag, host client crashing, or some other crap stopping me from playing.
This is on a Cat 6a network too. Never had it on wifi.
Try installing https://moonlight-stream.org/ on the Steam Link. Uses Nvidia’s GeForce Experience to stream from your PC; works a lot better in my experience.
Can concur. The hdmi cable to my living room broke, and I tried steam link on my shield but it was way too much input lag. With moonlight however I cannot tell the difference anymore, it honestly feels as direct as having it connected via hdmi. This is with direct pc - cat6 - router - cat6 - shield though.
It’s fine for games that don’t require super fast reflexes. I played 99% of Final Fantasy X on mine. The only things I needed to move to my PC for were the (infamously difficult to begin with) races. The Persona games also ran fine on it. But it’s worth noting that all of those are turn-based, so I’m not worried about a noticeable slight input lag. I absolutely wouldn’t use it for something like a shooter or fighting game where reflexes matter.
My fiancée actually prefers when I use my Steam Link, because it means we can cuddle on the couch while I play. So she doesn’t feel like gaming is coming “between” us like it does when I’m at my PC and she can’t snuggle up next to me.
I used to have really fucking bad sporadic lag, (I would dip to less than 1FPS for probably 15-30 seconds at a time, every 5-10 minutes) but a recent-ish update (in the past few months, though I can’t remember exactly when) fixed that. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t any weird network traffic on my end that was causing it; It was just the Steam Link failing to keep up every now and then. But whatever they did in that update resolved things, because it’s rock solid these days.
I was able to play crash Bandicoot 1-3 on my steam link with steam controller and I was having no problem to run diamond times on hardest maps. I wouldn’t play counterstrike or dota on steam link, but I almost never had delay problem with my steam link… it’s interesting how many people had different experiences. I was even raiding classic wow on steam link.
Ive had lag once using the Raspberry Pi variant and that was due to using a poor quality usb cable, it was under powering the unit. Aside from that it’s been surprisingly fast on ethernet and WiFi.
I actually got very mixed results with mine. Ultimately the app version is just more stable for some reason. I did get periodic lag, but interestingly I had the most problems with graphically intense games. Steam link has absolutely no problem, if my PC can run it smoothly it looks great on the app too. But on the hardware version it struggled to keep up and I got periodic crashes. Weird.
This post reminded me that it’s supposed to be used for gaming. I’ve had mine since it was first released and have always used it to turn my TV into a PC monitor to watch YouTube and Movies from my bed
Labor of Love
