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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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.