Lets pray valve never goes public
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2025
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Why would they?
The fuck do they need investors for?
Depends on who gets the crown - or prices thereof - when Gabe passes. There are lots of cases where the beneficiary of an estate can't afford to keep the asset due to a lack of liquidity, and is forced to sell.
I'd say Zuckerberg's $77B disaster is not a forced mistake but a self-influcted wound. If anything, it's the Cambridge Analytica scandal that pushed him towards the rebrand they would have been better off without.
This is such a controversial person to discuss. On one hand, loot boxes, the steam market for trading, and a lot of gambling and profiteering going on. At the same time, all of the OP comments are also true.
Out of all the billionaires, I dislike gaben the least. The net good he's done for gaming may not balance the scales entirely, but at least there's a discussion to be had whether what gaben has done is for the better, or for the worse. Which is more than I can say about most billionaires I know of.
Hot take: ...but it's just fucking gaming tho... He's not fucking with manifesting some bullshit ideology throughout the world, he's not trying to leave his mark on history... And if he is, it's as a chill dude who gave us all a better alternative to piracy.
he’s not trying to leave his mark on history
He kind of is, but in the way old-school millionaires did - he has purchased a MASSIVE yacht and turned it into an ocean-floor research laboratory, either donated it to a university, or just allows researchers to use it.
Gabe was already wealthy with Microsoft money when he founded Valve, so when his new private startup found success he didn't feel the pressure to go public, expand, dilute, and cash out. He made the judgement call that they already had enough talent internally to keep playing the hits while keeping all the profit for themselves, and he was right. I'm sure a little bit a business ideology reinforces Gabe's long-term outlook for Valve, but he's ultimately enabled by a happy intersection of pre-existing wealth, great timing, and careful hiring choices.
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Guys I know he is not perfect but it's understandable that people like him in a world where the average CEO drinks the blood of newborns daily.
Huh, so that’s why they’re all so prolife. Need to keep the source of fresh babies going…
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Gaben and steam are not perfect, but are monumentally better than what we would be stuck with on sony-soft
They're succeeding by not actively running their platform into the ground, which is somehow inspiring and disappointing at the same time
That's because they're a privately owned company. They can decide when to prioritize long term profits over short term profits.
Most of their competition are publicity traded companies that have no such luxury. They have to make next quarter's number higher no matter what.
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succeeding by not actively running their platform into the ground
As someone who began to use Steam from 2007, and play their games since 2000 - they not only made their platform better over years, they also now branching out lately. Their hardware is either the best in price/performance or outright innovative.
They are not "succeeding by not actively running their platform into the ground", they succeeding in actually providing a good service and getting better the more time passes. All that while all competition does is to attempt to expand their user base without actually providing a good service.
Just thought that if not Valve, we'd be stuck in the same shithole streaming services been lately.
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I'm pretty reluctant to be this flattening towards Gabe Newell and Valve.
Once Google was seen as one of the good companies. "Googling" became synonimous with searching on the internet. Most if not all competitors went bankrupt. When Google was accused of monopolistic behavior, its fans treated it as an attack on "perfection". Google Chrome was a fast browser requiring less memory than its competitors. People saw them owning YouTube as a good thing. The most common form of toxicity towards new users in the Linux community was only providing lmgtfy links to them (I did get the occasional custom WinXP ISO torrent link too). Even their motto was don't be evil.
And then came the YouTube content ID system. And then they were reluctant to throw off the far-right from their platform for breaking their ToS during Gamergate. Then they dropped the motto. Then they put ads into the Google search results. Then they let the far-right control their platform before the 2024 elections. And also they're pushing AI hard.
Will Gabe Newell stick to his ideas, or get an anyeurism and join the Trump oligarchs?
How do you write all this and fail to mention that search doesn't even fucking work anymore?
I'm not arguing with you. But internet searching aDOEA NOT WORK ANYMROE.
Not perfect, but better than Google.
No it is t.
DuckDuckGo is a horrible search engine.
Google is a horrible search engine.
Bing is horrible.
They all fucking suck.
So, you are afraid to have an opinion in case future events make it invalid?
How do you support literally anything with this mindset?
Elon Musk might be haunted by the three spirits of not being racist this christmas and give away all his possessions. Nonetheless, I'm happy to call him wanker today, because it's an accurate representation of reality at present.
It is fair to compare Google to Valve only in a category of "once been good". Other than that, 2 different companies with 2 different mottos.
Thing is Valve is a private company with a flat structure and shared ownership that encourages moving between departments.
Basically, it's just a club of people doing whatever they want and they happen to all love videogames.
They only began giving refunds when the European Union mandated it, back then only Origin (EA) gave refunds. Some times the EU is useful.
The EU definitely helped. I'll add that this was actually kicked off by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in 2014. They took Valve to court over their insistence that they can ignore Australian Consumer Law rights - in particular that if a product is 'not fit for purpose' then the buyer is entitled to a full refund, with respect to games. Valve offered no possibility of refund at the time. The case dragged on, but Valve eventually lost and was told to pay several million in fines, they appealed it to the High Court of Australia in 2016 - and lost also on appeal.
The judge was pissed at Valve, and wrote in their ruling:
“Valve’s culture of compliance was, and is, very poor”. Valve’s evidence was ‘disturbing’ to the Court because Valve ‘formed a view …that it was not subject to Australian law…and with the view that even if [legal] advice had been obtained that Valve was required to comply with the Australian law the advice might have been ignored”. He also noted that Valve had ‘contested liability on almost every imaginable point’.
Valve are generally a very positive force in gaming, but they're definitely not the saints that OP image text implies.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/australia-fines-valve-over-steam-refunds
Thanks mate for adding the extra information, I had forgotten about the Australian ruling.
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I am a fan of Valve, but this is just way exaggerated. For example, encourages you to save money by having sales? Isn't that about manipulating you into buying more games than you would otherwise, because you perceive the value as being better?
I fall for it every time and I couldn't be more proud
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STEAM- Give a reasonable good platform for gaming.
OTHERS- Kill themselves with shitty optimization and spam policies.
STEAM - Sit. Enjoy the sunny day. Drink a coffee. Improve a bit the navigator to help you find new games.
OTHERS - Keep their shitty platforms unoptimized and double down on AI Slops.
STEAM - Doing some yoga. Walk the dog. Add an AI disclaimer for the games.
People saying that when Gabe dies so does Steam seem to be missing a piece of the puzzle.
From everything I've read and can tell they work using an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Program). Meaning each employee working there today is becoming partial owners in Valve. If you think they will allow some new face to show up when Gabe dies and flip the table you are missing the piece where the owners of this company are extremely well compensated today and a core part of making Valve successful today.
A ton of companies have ESOP, but that doesn't stop enshitification because the employees generally don't own enough shares to exert control.
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Mmmm billionaire boot must be delicious
Steam is not a bad company but it is still a company that holds a lot of power, don’t forget that.
Yeah. I am a fan of valve but their complicity in cs:go skin gambling uhhh... gets worse and worse the more closely you look at it.
Its fair to appreciate the good they have done for linux and largely very consumer friendly business practices AND, companies are not your friends.
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BTW the way refunds work is that steam withholds the money for a month to pay refunds with it. The publisher has no say, they just get gross - 30% - VAT - refunds.
Also giving refunds is required by law in some countries, it's not like valve invented it out of the goodness of their heart.
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I know this novel strategy that Valve employs might be difficult to conceptualize for people whose thinking only extends as far as "company evil, success bad", so let me summarize it in a format that is easier to understand:
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Steam refused to issue refunds for a long, long time. In the end they started allowing refunds for everyone because governments started requiring it and it was easier to just allow them for everyone than having to do the legal footwork to have different policies based on geography.
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Encouraging customers to spend less money by having sales is certainly one interpretation
Step 1. Make a good product
Step 2. Corner the market
Step 3. Build up good will
Step 4. ...?
Step 5. Keep building up good will
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As a fan of TF2, I'll quote another greentext: "does nothing, competition keeps shooting themself in the foot." It was about Overwatch vs TF2, but it's mostly similar.
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The power vacuum this man will leave behind sucks.
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