The fact that people non ironically visit 4chan in 2024 kind of worries me

Anyone who thinks their steam libraries will be safe forever is delusional.

Eventually a for-profit motivated individual will gain control and they will use all their MBA learnings to maximize subscriptions, per play revenue, per download revenue and overall provide a cheaper platform.

There isn't an mba on the planet that doesn't recognize that advertising is highly lucrative and being the company that sells the most pc games means you have metrics no one else has. They'll instantly monetize advertising and the popups we get when we log in today will turn into mandatory non-skippable ads on the free tier to start a game, and they'll add their wrapper on top of games in their store, especially games that do not currently need steam to play today.

It'll only get way worse. Expect everything to be pay to play.. once gaben is gone. They have a monopoly and any leader would think they are too big to fail. No one can just take their games elsewhere... we're locked in. We're committed. We can't escape. They've got us by the balls.

Good news. Unreal Engine 4 is usable on Linux and works pretty well too.
Learn some C++, get some ppl and make good games.

Also, GoG means old games don't die. (well at least the non DRM ones)

I mean, its possible.

But then again, people have now known the beauty of steam. If this does happen as you say it could, it does open up the possibility for someone to make a Steam_v2.

I have faith that there are enough people who are passionate about Linux that it's possible for Windows to lose some of its dominance in the future. Maybe the enshittification of steam is needed to make that a possibility.

Well thankfully Gabe has lost a ton of weight in recent years. Man is looking absolutely svelte these days. Here's hoping he has many more years of good health.

I'm also guessing he'll hand pick a successor that will carry on his views, instead of dying in office and having some kind of CEO election free-for-all.

He has 2 sons

maybe they can take over - and not fuck it up (they literally have to do nothing to achieve success!)

Steam, my Steam library and Proton could disappear. But at least it will have supported a big traction in the ecosystem : Wine, DXVK, Lutris, Heroic Launcher, Bazzite, etc... are all open source projects (so they can't really disappear) that have never moved as fast as they are today.

Steam is just another profit business. I don't get why people think they're about anything else. They take a huge part of the sells and don't even let you own the games. Owning means you can sell, give or do whatever you want with your games. Oh and "likely to die before 75", lol, says fucking who, the 4chan doctor?

I think anon has it 100% correct. The instant Gabe is out of the picture, I expect to hear talk about how "you don't understand, we have to fuck out users, won't someone please think of the IPO?!"

if steam dies we need to support GOGS

No no..it’s going to be much worse than that.

It’ll be a subscription just to play the game you already own.

Piracy is a service problem. They'll reap what they sow if they change course. I'm not afraid to hoist my sails again when I need to. ;)

What will happen to the Steam Deck? Will they discontinue it and support for existing units, or replace the OS with Windows (causing degraded performance and exposing their users to Microsoft adtech enshittification)? The Steam Deck is a star product of theirs, which hopefully will count for something.

Can't Gabe do what John Bogle did with Vanguard and transfer ownership to the employees and clients?