this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 366 points 8 months ago (5 children)

It's called "being privately owned" or "not having to suck up to shareholders"

[–] [email protected] 159 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Yup hit the nail on the head. Not only can he make decisions that are risky that don't pay off he is also 100 percent legally in his right to make decisions that lose the company money. If he feels it pushes the industry in the right direction.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 8 months ago (3 children)

It’s crazy to think the Steam Deck may not have been a reality due to this. And crazier to realize that Valve probably, at the very least, doubled their annual revenue due to all these new Deck owners, some who may have never had an account before, now buying all these games because of the cheap handheld.

Not only that, all the lack of proprietary things on the Deck like locking down the OS or forcing only Steam games and discouraging emulation or disallowing mods and upgrades like the removable SSD, even on the cheapest option with eMMC that is usually reserved for cheap soldered storage.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (1 children)

He also doesn’t need to demonstrate revenue growth every 3 months.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago

Drags them kicking and screaming

[–] [email protected] 56 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Valve also has a very unique organizational structure where engineers manage themselves and pretty much all decisions are handled by horizontal committees.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Costco is a public company, and their CEO just pushes back whenever investors ask why they don't increase the membership fee or prices on staple goods.

His answer is consistently "because we don't need to"

There's definitely room for companies to have responsible growth. It's just that most execs don't care enough and just want a giant payday in the form of short term gains so they can do it again at another company.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

epic are also private, the difference is that Gabe aren't a dubmass CEO, now epic...

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[–] [email protected] 160 points 8 months ago (8 children)

Not being publically traded.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 8 months ago

For profit publicly traded companies just look quarter to quarter and make the dumbest fucking decisions as a result

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago

This is the key. I believe GabeN specifically owns 50.1% of Valve so that he can always make the final executive decisions.

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[–] [email protected] 158 points 8 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 103 points 8 months ago

And DXVK. And VKD3D. And contributions to upstream Wine. And Gamescope. And the best handheld console thus far. And going against common industry practices by supporting the right to repair said console.

[–] [email protected] 92 points 8 months ago

Valve over here revolutionizing Linux gaming and they get told they “did nothing”.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I'm 99% sure this is totally in regards to software/Steam. Valve's HW/FW departments are 🔥

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

Steam already has a fair few shitty issues like its promotion of gambling.

Gabe will pass one day and the enshittification will happen, it's not like Steam is immune at end of day. People need to stop glorifying companies.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 8 months ago (2 children)

So what you're saying is that we should glorify Gabe? Understood!

[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago

No such thing as an ethical billionaire and everything. Steam just lost a class action antitrust lawsuit and will have to issue refunds to a bunch of developers and customers. Overall GabeN seems like a less-evil billionaire though and truly seems to enjoy games (and knives). Steam will definitely go downhill once he's not leading it and we'll all lose a great platform that's defined PC gaming for a decade or three..

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It is possible but for things like a steam deck you just move on to the next store or piracy. It's so open you get trapped by convenience not by encryption or premium features.

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 8 months ago (5 children)

So true -- It's totally because Gabe rules as King and they don't have 'investors' -- One day they'll sell or he'll die and it will be turned over to the wolves just like everything else.

It's telling how they have no real competition other than cash fire ad fueled investor snake oil a la epic ea ubisoft w/e -- Is GOG still cool/unruined by short term anti user greed?

[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago (1 children)

My wet dream is that when Gabe passes Valve is turned into a cooperative. It wouldn't guarantee that Valve wouldn't turn into a bad company, but it would mean the people at Valve want Valve to be shitty and I just don't see that happening.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 8 months ago (4 children)

GOG is trucking along. They haven't pulled any crap on my limited library with them. I only have around 25 games over there. Compared to the 140 I have on steam, mostly bought, and the 250 I have been given on Epic for free, none bought over there.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago

It’s telling how they have no real competition other than cash fire ad fueled investor snake oil

Especially since Valve has never been aggressive or territorial.

You want to compete with us? OK, good luck. Competition can be good. You're buying up exclusives and preventing games from selling through our store? Well, that's shitty, but we're not interested in joining an exclusivity war. Our product speaks for itself, and we're just going to keep doing our thing.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Gabe should get a boy to shadow him like in the olden days. Then when Gabe moves on or dies there is an heir ready to go.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Its called try to run an ethical and pro-consumer business. Fuck up occasionally, but never falter. God help us if he decides to steal all our games from us

[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Or when he dies, dude has an amazing track record of doing the right thing when he's gotten push back, but I'm worried once he is gone, we're going to get some dick wagon that's going to do a 180 and make Todd Howard look like Jesus.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 8 months ago (3 children)

This is the "let them fail" method. Valve has a solid product in steam. They have no need to suck up to investors, they're making money hand over fist with steam.

Running a good marketplace is amazing income; as long as gaben still runs it, there's no reason to screw that up. The focus of valve is on Steam as a marketplace; and they're reaping the rewards of that decision. It's why so few games have been made by valve. The reasoning is clear if you're paying attention for them.

Valve started as a software company that makes games, but after steam was created, which initially was just to distribute their own games - little more than a digital purchase and delivery platform for their software, and they opened that up to allow other publishers to have their games purchased and distributed through Valve's system, the writing was on the wall.

I miss the games that Valve used to make, and as far as I'm concerned they were some of the best games available, and in many ways, they still are. I'd like to see more from them, but I understand why it's not their priority. At the same time, I appreciate that they are still working on games, as evidenced by Alyx, which was an excellent experience. They still make excellent games. I look forward to anything they decide to release in the future, but I know better than to ask about it. Heh.

I've more or less been a valve/steam fanboy since the orange box. Not in the way that I am going to attack someone for not liking it, or not using it. I personally enjoy it, but what others do is not my concern. I hope that they continue to create amazing games and that enshittification is put off as long as possible.

They're moving slowly and carefully.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Inventing the most lucrative online casino with a game attached isn't nothing.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's way more lucrative than any casino... They never have to pay out...

The operating costs are possibly lower too, but not sure...

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 months ago (8 children)

It's the same thing Brother Printers is doing.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (4 children)

It's called being privately owned

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago

I was recently playing a game, with my wife (it takes 2). I realised, I brought the game in a steam sale, I was gaming on my steam deck, my wife was using a steam controller, and we were playing on the TV via a steam link.

At some point I became a huge steam fanboy, and I'm actually ok with that. 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Gabe should become the first fully reanimated person, using an AI to make his consciousness immortal

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I had hope for CD projekt, but it's publicly traded.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (3 children)

it really is a miracle how GOG hasn't been corrupted yet, it almost did with the online Hitman game, but fan pressure was strong enough for it to be removed.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago

It's called not being fucking stupid

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago

Everybody keeps talking about "when he dies", which given how rich he is, might never happen.

However, he is gonna retire and that could very well happen tomorrow!

I think it's time to collectively freak out

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

The Luigi Approach.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The first-mover advantage and network-effect.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago (5 children)

I think it's slightly more than just that. Those are big parts, don't get me wrong, but Valve has legitimately done a decent job with their store from what I understand. Nearly two decades of regular, if incremental, improvements. That sort of quality is difficult to catch up to.

I think if the Epic Games Store had come out swinging with a more fully fleshed out user experience, instead of relying almost solely on the free game lure strategy, it might have grown to be a much bigger deal. But all Valve had to do was pretty up their UI a smidge and they were at parity or outcompeting EGS in every category.

I dunno. Maybe that's just me.

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