I think I have enough to worry about already without worrying about what ifs.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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I kind of hope gaben has set up something smart for his death. Eg Valve is owned by a trust.
It is funny that people think Valve would sell out instead of becoming the big evil.
As Valve continues developing an OS agnostic platform, they start building into various tools that require a Steam account to play games in order to defend their app store. Maybe they buy Unity and make it a Steam exclusive, maybe they make their own engine that can be played on Windows or Linux.
Integrate Chromecast technology to make a console like multimedia device to compete against XBox and PlayStation. Then, start selling video and integrating streaming access.
Push the Steam Store to become bigger. Sure, you aren't forced to use the Steam Store on most Valve developed hardware, but it is default.
Then, like Google did with Android, pull the tech stack from the open source tools to become wholely integrated with Steam Services.
Most of this already exists and they haven't taken that tack, though. SteamOS is just Arch and KDE, with access to anything Arch has access to. If you don't like that, Valve made it trivial to put another OS on the Deck, like Bazzite.
Steam Play is already a streaming technology, which works great and is free to use and has been for like at least a decade.
Steam Store is already gigantic, despite having some well funded competition who has to resort to exclusives and free game giveaways to entice users. It's already the de facto default game store for PC, and provides lots of extra features beyond just game delivery.
Most of the technology Steam uses (like Proton or GameScope or Arch) are open-source. We can (and do) fork their work for our own purposes regularly.
I don't think Valve is perfect, but I do think they value their open approach to technology. I think as long as the company is never publicly traded, I would imagine anyone who currently works at Valve would share that attitude with GabeN, otherwise I imagine they wouldn't work there long.
If they go public and have to report to shareholders, then I completely agree that the enshittification will be swift and merciless. I hope Gabe makes Valve an employee-owned co-op or something when he decides to retire. I can only imagine he has strong plans for the transition of power.
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Sucks being old.
Is it just prejudice? Stereotype? Laziness?
You see this happen to everything. It all gets enshittified. These corps that started out for the end user all end up selling out for profits.
It’s not a secret, not a revelation, nothing new.
Who'd have thought not actually owning the games you purchase was a bad idea?
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The direct transfer of power in tech is often to someone that will carry the torch. It's quite rare that a successor is picked that has been at the company for years, but wants to change practically everything about it. For that reason, I can see Gabe passing to a like-minded person that already knows that they are a succession candidate.
But ultimately none of us know Gabe, or what he plans to do. He may have a 100 step plan to secede power, or he might get to 65, say "that'll do" and just sell up and retire to a remote island somewhere. The plans might have been in place for years, or he might not want to consider Valve without him. Hell, he might not even think that Valve should exist without him. It's impossible to guess, so it's not worth worrying about...
Remember when google didn't do evil? Remember when they were hip, cool and not the living nightmare of a corporation we see of them today?
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