Memes

I would rather hope that he legalizes and codifies the "flat" management structure, disallowing any one figure head from taking over and fucking things up.

Valve annoys people because it can be slow to choose to do something, because everyone works on what they want to work on, but it means average workers have a lot more agency in how they're involved in the company.

I'm sure there's till unofficial cliques and leaders, but having it in legalese for the employees post-Gabe would be nice.

Tbf as long as it doesn't go public it will probably be fine regardless of who takes the job. It doesn't take a genius to keep up the good work in a company that can afford to plan long time.

Apparently you like to read. Open the EULA for basically any commercial software (not FOSS or open source, costs money, isn't made by some small company, basically the same criteria as >90% of the games on Steam) and you are going to learn 2 things very quickly. First, all of them are just a license to use, and second, if there are patches or an online component you will have at least as many caveats and restrictions as what is included in the Steam TOS.

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong or that I'm okay with this situation (I look for open source, free, then paid for all the software that lets me do whatever it is I'm trying to do), but the situation with Steam is very typical.

Doesn't matter, Steam offers DRM free games. Steam DRM is opt-in and can be broken by anyone in seconds, and games with other DRM have a big glowing warning on their store page. You give money to Steam for their servers that support multiplayer, their workshop, seamless patching, user forums, image hosting, controller support, Proton for Linux, SteamDB, easy multiplayer via the friends interface, achievement tracking, and a large majority cut to the developers. Your complaints apply to basically every storefront, the only way you'll own data is by having it on your own disk which Steam lets you do.

Very good point. Just because Valve hasn't screwed us over yet is no excuse for assuming they never will.

Not saying that I disagree, but it has basically always been written like that...

It involves golden tickets and the unsolved disappearances of a handful of children.

Brutal, I know, but it's the only way.

If you're reading this GabeN, make Valve a non-profit.

To implement NFT Microtransaction RNG lootboxes into their games while letting them rott?

They’ll ruin it just like they ruin everything in pursuit of profit.

I'm very anti-DRM as well, but I'm willing to give Valve my money even if there's a chance I lose my game down the line. Some of that money's going towards Proton and making Linux more popular

If Steam turns to shit I'll just pirate all my games again. I've already paid for them anyway.

That would be the best outcome, legal framework for the "flat" management structure, making it an employee owned company.

The same reason countless studios have destroyed successful IPs (like EA). Sure it’s profitable but it could be MORE profitable. Sales were up last year? Cool story, have sales improved over that this year though??

Because MBA- and CEO-brains say that raking in money hand over fist doesn't matter unless you can rake in consistently more and more money hand over fist. What normal people see as stable profits, they see as underperforming versus the bigger profits they see only in their head.

Well his name didn't show up in Epstein's public records (unlike a certain CEO from a company Microsoft bought/CEO that founded/ran Microsoft) so we're fine there.

And I did look. Extensively.

It's a good sign because 1) He's smart enough to not have a paper trail and/or 2) His hobbies are innocuous, like, I think he really only cares about submersibles and knives and he wasn't stabbing people on some carbon fiber tube near the titanic so he's not a dumbass either.