this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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A great feature. I worry when Valve will stop being consumer friendly as they are the only company that still is.
This might happen if GabeN dies, because it is mostly him and his mentality that leads to consumer friendly decisions inside VALVe
Everyone keeps labelling GabeN as the only one holding VALVe to standards, but by his own admission he's more of the equivalent of a board member now, not deeply involved in the day to day anymore. I think the only ones that truly know his level of involvement would be people at VALVe.
What I'm getting at is that I have the same concerns about what will happen after he passes, but I don't think he's the only person standing in the way of VALVe going full corporate.
That‘s why I said his mentality leads to consumer friendly decisions. VALVe has been a holacratic since decades and GabeN has no special status. It is only because of his mentality and leadership which infects other employees with the same views. This might change if he passes. Hopefully it does not.
He won't die before releasing Half Life 3, which means he's immortal.
being consumer friendly has brought them more money than any exploitative behaviour ever could have. Getting rid of that would be like butchering a goose that makes golden eggs just so you can get some extra money from the meat.
Butchering that goose is the common tactic of satisfying shareholders temporarily.
Fortunately, their shareholders are still private and they don't have to go to that level (yet)
if i was shareholder i would be furious about that. Isnt "infinite growth" the very point of all this insanity?
One bad quarter beats any long term growth goals, for some reason
What's interesting to me about this and other features is that they all actually benefit Valve, as long as the EU/Australia require them to issue refunds upon request. Without refunds then these features are simply charity, but presently it's good business.
The cause of enshittification is essentially the shareholder pressure for endless and exponential growth that comes from public ownership.
Valve is a privately held company, and as long as it remains that way it doesn't have those perverse incentives.
Gabe will never allow Valve to go public as long as he is in control, but after he is gone who knows.
Epic Games is also a private company... and they're the posterchild for "fuck the consumer, we want a monopoly."
It might have something to do with Epic being partly owned by Tencent and Disney, but it more likely comes down to the philosophies of their CEOs. Gabe came from a corporate shithole and runs with the diametrically-opposed view that good service = loyal customers = profit. Sweeney, not so much.
Considering the majority of stakeholders in Epic are all public companies, I disagree with this notion. Tim Sweeney owns a bit over 40%, the rest is held by:
Tencent Sony Disney Kirkbi (Lego)
Not very private, I say.
I doubt Epic would give out the number of free games they do if they were public. Investors hate anything that takes more than a quarter to give returns.