Deadlock

They don’t need VR or handhelds and they certainly don’t need their own games, but they do it anyway.

Releasing a handheld was a fairly savvy marketing strategy, given how lucrative the console marketplace has proven to be. Idk if I'd call that "love of the game" so much as "optimal play at the production price point".

Valve doesn’t have shareholders and doesn’t seem interested in the myth of infinite growth.

Plenty of Valve's store content is absolute dogshit. I refuse to believe they are immune to the allure of infinite growth through the distribution of MOBAs and other FTP games. But they're not munching on their seed corn in pursuit of stratospheric growth, like Apple and Microsoft. They're also coasting on an environment where things are getting worse and they're just kinda treading water.

Not getting worse is the new getting better.