Do they realize that what they really said was: having shareholders destroys businesses.
Anyone who isn’t head deep in Capitalism understands that, yeah.
Huh. What an unexpectedly damning indictment of the extraction-oriented enshittification market aka capitalism
It’s not, really. Steam runs under capitalism. They’re just a super outlier in that they’re a billion dollar company that doesn’t have shareholders. They’re basically the wet dream that conservatives are trying to sell you but that just fails 99.9% of the time due to greed.
Capitalism SLAMMED by Steam Store market analysis. “Eat my shorts, jabronies” capitalism was heard saying in response.
Shocking, that when a company’s real purpose and focus is to make a product for customers, as opposed to making money for the investors, it is better for the customers…
Gabe dying is the major thing I fear in my life… It’s the last compamy I know about that’s not getting enshitiffied.
That’s why they have been trying to cripple it with other nefarious means under the pretence of “safety”.
Gabe will eventually die and the MBA that takes over will see the quick paycheck.
Gabe will probably have it own by all of valve employees, so enshitification would be less likely.
Maybe I’m wrong but hey let me have some hope.
Owned by employees (continuously) vs shares given to current employees are two very different concepts.
But yeah, let us have some hope, otherwise it’s GoG or the high seas.
turn it into a coop you say?
Exclusive image of Valve HQ
I personally think he might go with a trust that way it will still stay in the family
Any source for his intentions?
There’s no public knowledge of his intentions. However Gabe speaks on how Valve operates plenty and in general, if the industry is doing one thing, they often explore doing the complete opposite.
Valve’s primary thesis is exceptionally talented people are most productive when they don’t need to think about money, are surrounded by other exceptionally talented people, and there’s minimal people telling those people what to do.
I doubt Gabe would want the soul of Valve to die with him so his succession plan will factor that in.
They just need to continue to put out a product/service that makes customers feel like they are the priority as opposed to enterprise customers. Very few regular people focused companies these days. Another example would be Costco, which people also love despite being public, which makes them a super unicorn.
It’s very rare these days for companies to put focus on regular people for money instead of knowing they can abuse them due to lack og options regular folk have. And the bar is so low that it is enough to have people content.
Steam is to convenient. I’ve stopped with trying to get games for cheap anywhere else. Because it’s too simple to have them inside our steam library. Updates and Saves files are synced too with steam.
As long as they do what they have been doing, this deal will just go on. And they know it.
Let’s hope the plans after Gabe’s passing (if he is indeed a mortal human) is the same.
You know how it usually is relatively straightforward to create the alternative to something that already exists and make it better, but the network effect is usually the reason why your alternative will fail?
well, with valve you don’t just have the network effect, but also trying to replicate everything steam does is a giant undertaking. you’ll be looking at several years of work (if you can get a couple dozen employees) just to catch up to where steam is now (or like 5 years ago I guess? :D). and then what? you have a fully functional empty store, congratz.
this is why alternative stores usually just narrowly focus on the store aspect. itch, GOG, and those big publisher launchers like ubi connect, are all basically just ways to buy games without getting valve involved. but their narrow focus also allows them to do something different without having to compete with steam.I mean obvs there are things valve should improve that most likely aren’t gonna happen without serious competition, but at the same time I don’t think this is gonna happen unless a benevolent billionaire decides to throw their hat into the ring. sadly, benevolent billionaire is a oxymoron.
Tbh, a lot of people don’t bother with many of Steam’s additional social features. Some people actively hate those features, seeing them as bloat
I don’t see it happening. Before Steam, the only way PC games were being sold were GameStop (barely), computer stores and retailers. I don’t think anybody wants to go back to that or maybe they do just for nostalgic sakes but PC gaming has largely taken off from the physical media days.
God forbid the freaking Saudis start pitching offers for Valve. Or Tencent. Or Epic Games.
All that needs to happen is just one gullible person to allow it to happen, just one, within Valve when Gabe is gone.
Pretty sure epic will. They got their super intelligence to help them lol
