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The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Valve Moving to Lincoln Square Expansion

BELLEVUE, WA (PRWEB) AUGUST 03, 2016

Kemper Development Company (KDC), confirms today that Valve has leased 225,000 square feet of prime office space in the new office tower at Lincoln Square’s 1.5 million square foot expansion site. With the lease of floors 11 – 19, the company will encompass nearly one third of the total office space available in the new tower which features 710,000 square feet of Class A space.

Launched on the Eastside in1996, Valve first leased space at another KDC office tower in Bellevue Place. “It is great to have this dynamic company back in the KDC family,” says Jim Melby, president of KDC. “They outgrew what we had to offer at Bellevue Place compelling them to move but with the new space coming online at Lincoln Square, we can welcome them back.”

The move to Lincoln Square from its current location represents an increase of approximately 100,000 square feet of space. “This lease puts Valve on the list of the largest companies in terms of office space in downtown Bellevue,” says Melby.

One of the significant reasons for selecting Lincoln Square according to Valve is the proximity to the vast number of dynamic dining, retail and entertainment at The Bellevue Collection for its expanding workforce.

Valve has produced award-winning titles and Steam, a leading platform for games and software. “We are proud to continue to support innovative companies like Valve that bring high paying, quality jobs to the region as well as entertainment platforms that set the standard around the world,” says Melby.

Other Lincoln Square Expansion office tenants to date include Stifel Nicolas, one of the nation’s leading wealth management and investment companies leasing the 20th floor and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, has leased the top floor of the office tower.

Valve is scheduled to move into the new space May of 2017.
 

Jaesun

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Valve2mfhq4z.gif
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
INB4 Half-Life 3 is announced as a VR title that requires 100.000 square feet of space to be played in.
 

Metro

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It's probably for shit like racket ball courts and yogurt bars.
 

pippin

Guest
What if they know VR is going to fail (not that you have to be a genius to figure that out), so they can release a bland HL3 to an unsuspecting audience so they can be named the saviors of gaming again?
 

Country_Gravy

Arcane
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Wasteland 2
What if they just have SO much cash and Gaben is SO fucking fat, that they need the extra sqft for his belly (and his dozen whores lip locked on his rich dick)?

I mean....what if, bros?
 

Metro

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I'm surprised he hasn't made a concerted effort to get into shape. It's not like he has to do anything work related anymore. You'd think losing weight would be a priority since you can't buy years of your life you'll lose out on after a massive heart attack with money.
 

Turjan

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5,047
I'm surprised he hasn't made a concerted effort to get into shape. It's not like he has to do anything work related anymore. You'd think losing weight would be a priority since you can't buy years of your life you'll lose out on after a massive heart attack with money.
It's the age-old question of what you want from your life. If you love nice dining and hate sports, why do you want to live long with tons of money if all you do is things you hate.

I wonder what will happen with Steam in that case though.
 

Caim

Arcane
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What if they just have SO much cash and Gaben is SO fucking fat, that they need the extra sqft for his belly (and his dozen whores lip locked on his rich dick)?

I mean....what if, bros?
Gaben has actually been losing weight lately. Dude's starting to look a lot better.
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I think he has already planned to transfer his mind into a machine. All that Valve money is probably going towards the research... then we will have the real skynet on our hands.
 

Konjad

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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
What if they just have SO much cash and Gaben is SO fucking fat, that they need the extra sqft for his belly (and his dozen whores lip locked on his rich dick)?

I mean....what if, bros?
Gaben has actually been losing weight lately. Dude's starting to look a lot better.
He's already lost weight a long time ago, but in my heart he will always be a fatty :love:
 

Metro

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I'm surprised he hasn't made a concerted effort to get into shape. It's not like he has to do anything work related anymore. You'd think losing weight would be a priority since you can't buy years of your life you'll lose out on after a massive heart attack with money.
It's the age-old question of what you want from your life. If you love nice dining and hate sports, why do you want to live long with tons of money if all you do is things you hate.

I wonder what will happen with Steam in that case though.
He has a son (possible multiple). I doubt much will happen. Son inherits his father's controlling stock in Valve and Steam continues to rake in hundreds of millions a year. Hell, even if they stopped selling games they could sustain themselves and then some off of DOTA2 money.
 

Deleted member 11480

Guest
Just opened Steam, looked at the main store page and immediately had to take a screenshot.

Steam_2.jpg


Look at this. The only reason I can't say this is the perfect "2016 Valve & Steam in a nutshell" is because there's not enough VR shit in it.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I don't think that's true, all I'm getting are just the "Popular New Releases" on the slideshow thing.

EDIT: Maybe it's browsing history instead.
 

A horse of course

Guest
I don't buy or look at JRPGs/RPGMaker shovelware on steam yet it constantly has them up on the front page.
 

Caim

Arcane
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Dutchland
Just opened Steam, looked at the main store page and immediately had to take a screenshot.

Steam_2.jpg


Look at this. The only reason I can't say this is the perfect "2016 Valve & Steam in a nutshell" is because there's not enough VR shit in it.
Ah yes, good ol' Kimulator. The greatest North Korea simulator on Steam.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
How come the News Jew didn't pick up on this?

Steam hit by patent troll

British Telecommunications (BT) is suing Steam for infringing on its patents, most notably for the inclusion of a library, the chat, the messaging and its broadcasting services.

Why am I not providing a link? Because honestly I'm not 100% certain anymore about which news sites are Codex-friendly, so just type in the bolded words above in your favorite search engine, and you should find a news item on it.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Eh, don't be a child: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/08/31/bt-valve-patent-infringement-lawsuit/

BT Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Valve

25valve.jpg


British Telecommunications (BT) have filed a lawsuit against Valve claiming patent infringement. The action was brought “based on Valve’s continued willful infringement” of four patents (I’ll go into what they are in a moment) and was filed in Delaware on 28 July.

[Edit: I was wondering “Why Delaware?” and reader, @Bear_Theory, linked me to this PricewaterhouseCoopers study pointing to page 15 which has Delaware as one of the favourable venues for patent holders to file suit because there’s a decent combination of a shorter time-to-trial and higher success rate for patent holders. It’s not the only district where that’s the case (the study also highlights Virginia Eastern, Texas Eastern, Wisconsin Western and Florida Middle as filling out the rest of the top five) but it would make it one of the more attractive options when filing. I’m going to take out the earlier paragraph because it only confuses matters and adds irrelevant info BUT I’ll leave thislink to Delaware’s government website where they talk about “myths” regarding corporations and Delaware because it was also entertaining in its own right.]

Anyway, let’s take a look at the filing. It specifically mentions that Valve “offers a broad range of products and services which incorporate technologies invented by BT. These include, inter alia, Valve’s Steam Library, Valve’s Steam Chat, Valve’s Steam Messaging, and Valve’s Steam Broadcasting.” It states that BT has notified Valve of the alleged infringement on multiple occasions and has requested discussions to address the issue, giving a licensing arrangement as one possible option.

The filing continues “Valve has failed to respond to BT’s correspondence, at all, and chosen instead to continue to infringe the Patents-in-Suit willfully and wantonly.” Further correspondence from BT’s intellectual property rights counsel to Valve has, it says, been ignored.

“BT brings this action to recover the just compensation it is owed for Valve’s past infringement, and to prevent Valve from continuing to benefit from the patented inventions in the future without authorization or compensation to BT.”

The four patents mentioned in the suit are the Gittins Patent (US Patent No 6,578,079), the Newton Patent (US Patent No 6,334,142) the Beddus Patent (US Patent No6,694,375) and the Buckley Patent (US Patent No 7,167,142).

Patents are ways of excluding others from making use of your invention without permission for a limited time after the patent is granted. These are US patents and are only effective in the US and its territories and possessions. The four listed above are utility patents which are granted to anyone who discovers “any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof”.

bt1.jpg


The Gittins Patent is about customers being provided with content originating from multiple subscription services through a single portal and being able to retrieve that which they have rights to access. There are more details in the filing and in the patent description itself but essentially this relates to Steam’s basic structure for customers.

The Newton Patent is included as BT says it pertains to Steam Chat and relates to a method for delivering messages to “an intended audience in a reliable and predictable manner. Messages are stored as files at a server for retrieval by the intended clients. Each client transmits requests for messages to the server at automatic and periodic intervals.”

The Beddus Patent is to do with the provision of different communication mechanisms and associated call control protocols. With regard to Valve, the filing references the communication network on Steam where you can use text chat or VoIP calls, each of which are associated with call control protocols. Also of note here is that the system monitors the user’s status and changes to that status can determine which communication methods are available to them.

The Buckley Patent is the one which BT say relates to Steam Broadcasting. It “relates to a multi-user display system and method for controlling a communal display that includes at least two independent workstations and an interface server for connection to a data network.” As per the filing: “Steam Broadcasting controls a communal display that allows a game player to share a streaming video of their game play with one or more second users. Steam Broadcasting also uses an interface server that manages the users and their requests.”

If you’re curious I suggest reading the filing because it goes through the step-by-step processes which constitute each patent and why they believe Valve’s various Steam set-ups infringe those patents. You’ll get more of a feeling for the specifics involved such as particular divisions of storage and so on. The Beddus Patent was the one where I needed to have a proper read through to see what was so specific. It’s also just interesting from a logistical point of view if you want to know how aspects of Valve’s Steam platform work.

BT are asking for a judgment holding Valve liable for the infringements, damages resulting from the infringement, a judgment determining the infringement to be deliberate and willful along with a trebling of the damages, BT’s legal fees and expenses and whatever else the court might care to offer.

I’ve sent Valve a request for an official response or comment so I’ll add one in if they respond. I’m also kind of considering trying to add “Smith Smith” – the example user they cite in the filings – as a friend.
 

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