Kinda sounds like how worker cooperatives work tbh, but with Gabe still technically being the owner.

I remember reading a news piece a while back about how the founder of a food company made sure to transfer ownership to the employees before leaving. While we're talking about worst-case scenarios, let's also hope for the best and hope that Gabe has a similar plan.

PeopleMakeGames has a two part series on Valve that's pretty interesting. The second part (here) dives into the structure of the company. It does have a bit of an angle, fwiw, so if you'd prefer something more objective, it might not be a great watch. Personally I think the issues they bring up are valid, but figured I'd mention it.

Stack ranking is toxic and removes individuality from a given employees expectations in my opinion.

People should be qualified to give proper unbiased reviews. Just because someone is an excellent engineer does not mean they are good at understanding other people's expectations and work outputs.

I worked at a company that had no 'managers' just the owner, and everyone else. I hated that I had no real way to settle disputes and every single disagreement has to ultimately be resolved by the literal one person who was in charge.

I think there is merit to flat structures, but I don't think the extreme is always the way to go.

A little unsure about the "peer based performance review", sounds like bullying might somehow have to be kept in check. Otherwise this sounds awesome.

How does more boring tasks like accounting, legal or facilities work?

This, and as long as the company is legally structured to prevent restructuring things will be fine.

Apparently 50%+ of the company belongs to Gabe himself, presumably he would pass it on to some very trusted. That makes a hostile takeover pretty unlikely.

Yeah the scenario we're being asked to consider is what if someone else gets control of the company, so whatever power employees nominally have now, they won't if he dies without deeding the company to a collective.

This doesn't make any sense. The reason Valve hasn't been acquired is because it's privately owned and not up for sale, not because it doesn't have "enough profit". In fact it's extremely profitable, for all we know.

Sure, another company could come along and build a competitor. It's happened already multiple times, and Steam is doing just fine despite some major titles these days being exclusive to other platforms. Unless Steam drops the ball on something big time, it's unlikely that people will move to another platform en masse, especially one that is less focussed on consumer interests. No-one can just come in and "take capital away" from Steam, whatever that means, by building a competitor that sells advertising space and "monetizes user data" — they need users first.

... And then there's the fact that Steam is already "selling advertiser space" today. Games don't just get featured on their storefront because Gabe likes them. They make deals with publishers for this.

I'd drop Steam if that happened. There are other ways to get games and managers like Lutris make organizing them easy. I'm sure Valve knows this and with how long they've been successful, fucking with gamers would not make sense. Look how it's working or for some of the bigger gaming companies recently.

They do provide Linux support in other ways though. They even troubleshoot me once with a game I tried to play on Linux and offered a refund.

Gog Galaxy not on Linux is a shame, yes, but its DRM-Free and Linux installers are enough for me to continue to buy from them.

Edit: Heroic Launcher makes a great replacement of Gog Galaxy, maybe even better than the Windows client, from what I'd tried. No multiplayer though.

So you're saying if Valve enshittified, they wouldn't fork and try to capitilise on that market?

They probably do not see the point right now as Valve have it sewn up. Lemmy grew when Reddit scored own goals. When Valve do, opportunities are there and would be taken.

Maybe, but DRM free content isn't exactly shareholder value...

It's better shepherded than Epic. They probably don't fill the space because Steam do it better, but you invest more if the return is higher.

The case I'm referring to is in the future if Steam badly enshittified.

Isint Steam a form of DRM? You effectively cant play your games if you dont have an account I thought

Even if they want to open-source it, an issue is the amount of work of organizing the repository, making sure it's properly organized and doesn't have any files they don't want to distribute, and then maintaining that with future versions.

Or talk to a girl!

The ship has sailed about 4 times now, gog galaxy on Linux has constantly been at the top of requests but we made a stinky about the Witcher 2 so gog and epic will forever hold the community as not worth it. Now the community has done the leg work they have no reason to mess about with translating all those .net calls

They barely "support" Windows, they aren't rally a software dev company, they are just sell you the actual game (unlike Valve etc).

And that is precious, the world needs companies that help restore some equality on the market.

And also what Nothing said.

Could you expand on that pls?

Im wondering how does the excess amount of games offered by a store affect your experience. How would you even notice that?

And - that they were a more closed store was what made them special?

Then I think of GOG I think about licencing, how I actually own a game purchased, how I have a key for it, how I'll still own that game even of GOG stops existing. Thats not true for any of the other stores (outside of physical copies if some sell them, idk).

Yes. GOG. itch.io. Direct from some other website. That's right.

Steam is very good; but the hidden cost is that you depend on them maintaining their service. If they turn evil, you're screwed. You either have to bend to their will, or you lose your library of games.

On the other hand, GOG and itch.io are arguably not as good as Steam right now, but they don't have any kind of lock-in. So if they start to backslide, you can still walk away with your full library of games. I do think it's a good idea to 'not put all your eggs in one basket.'

You can take away peoples home, food, and rights... Just don't you dare touch their entertainment for the plebs might get antsy...

In the US, there are multiple Supreme Court precedent cases that force profit-maximizing. Shareholders can sue the CEO and board to maximize profit seeking.

So yes, increasing shareholder value is enshrined in US law. Only private corporations can get around that rule. Also, a corporation cannot be forced to break the law to maximize profits, that's just something most CEO's are willing to do for fun.

It’s not that they can’t still be profit driven, it’s that they can’t be sued by investors for not being ruthlessly profit driven. Private just means that they have the choice at all

Publicly traded companies are, by law, driven to make as much money as possible for shareholders. Privately held companies are not held to this same limitation. So while a company like Valve could be highly profit-driven (let’s be honest, all for-profit companies in a capitalist system are driven by this motivation), it doesn’t seem to be driven to maximize profits in the short term. This means that they can focus on things other than profit if they so choose.

I had briefly searched to see if it was known how much ownership Gaben had. Did you find it somewhere, or are you just assuming he's majority?

I do know the employees are compensated in shares of the company, but you're right that I don't know what proportion is owned by employees.

I don't think that misunderstanding is limited to the libs.

You are most definitely right that the major shareholders aren't the workers. The major shareholders are Gabe Newell, and some bankers in Japan.

Still, it is known that Valve employees are partially compensated with stock for working in the company, so most of the employees are still shareholders. They just aren't the major ones.

Sorry, the way i phrased that does sound causal. It should say "and".

Any real lib knows, public or private, there's no way out of our capitalist downfall.

How are you differentiating stakeholder and shareholder? The employees are certainly shareholders.

Valve doesn't really hire "grunts". The people who are actually considered employees of valve are very few and highly skilled. The number of Wikipedia from 2016 is very out of date and estimates 360. But valve's LinkedIn still says "over 300".

Valve isn't pulling any anticompetitive moves though. They just try to secure profits by being the best instead of destroying everyone else that dares to compete with them.

They're not a defacto monopoly? There's many different ways to buy games online and valve does not have anti-consumer practices like exclusivity deals. I have not heard anything about them not banning for hate speech? Every time I've ever reported something its been taken down within 48hrs

That window is the only ad I purposely allow in my life. I know I can disable it but it sometimes informs me of games I want

I actually don’t mind the advertising. Good way to know what games are popping off or are just released. I’m not great about keeping up with everything coming out every month, so it’s honestly one of my number one ways of knowing what’s being talked about/releasing besides specific reccs from friends and forums.

I also find it’s a great way to know that a game I used to play a lot dropped some beefy DLC. It’s not like we all keep tabs on every game we’ve put down thinking that we might return to it.

I have tried and failed to find the option to disable this. Does anyone know what it's called?

Oompa loompa, doompadee doo, We’ve got a perfect riddle for you, Oompa loompa, doompadee dee, If you are wise, you’ll listen to me.

Three precious knives, in Counter-Strike they hide, Find them all to claim your prize worldwide, The first to collect, in triumph shall stand, To unlock Half-Life 3, the game so grand.

Oompa loompa, doompadee doo, Follow the clues and you’ll be through, Oompa loompa, doompadee dee, Just one more knife, and then you’ll see.

A crown awaits, a throne so high, Steam’s vast empire, you'll rule the sky, With Half-Life 3, your reign begins, All hail the gamer who truly wins.

Oompa loompa, doompadee doo, The ultimate prize belongs to you, Oompa loompa, doompadee dee, Gaben 2, you shall always be.

Making the company employee owned would be ideal.

i feel like there have to be at least three, from his (family? Does he have one? I believe he does, but can't be bothered to check)

to someone in the company, perhaps there are numerous positions that exist solely to prevent this kind of hostile takeover from happening? Who knows!

stalin lasted quite a bit, he was also insane, but it was really post stalin that shit kinda went fucky.

When people talks about life expectancy 99.99% of the time they mean life expectancy at birth, at every year the life expectancy change. Using this life table someone with 61 years, have a life expectancy of 19.7 years, that means he's expected to live until he's 80.

Yep, and that was true even going all the way back through history. People weren't routinely dying in their 30s or whatever before modern medicine; it's just that a lot more of them were dying in infancy/early childhood and that brought down the average. (That's the situation anti-vaxxers are trying to go back to, BTW.)

I would say it’s appropriate to loop cancer deaths into the “old age” bucket – DNA getting old and making mistakes replicating seems relevant.

The latest pictures of him look good, though. The man has definitely lost some weight.

Bad competition is still better than no competition, because of the aforementioned issue.

EGS can't compete on features for sure (it really is quite a shit platform), but they would be very competitive if their 12% fee (vs. Steams 30% fee) could be passed to buyers as lower prices. As it stands, Valve's policies essentially strongarms the market to prohibit this (publishers selling on Steam may not have a lower price on a different platform, or the game can be de-listed from Steam). The Wolfire v. Valve case is highly relevent here.

My plea is for you not to get mad at Epic for being shit. We should be accepting of crappy platforms if their fees reflect that (Epic charges 40% what Steam does). Focus your frustration at Valve for preventing the market from fairly allowing you select the quality of the platform you'd like to pay for.

Humble bundle also has a store now fwiw

Their own host of anti-competitive practices.

dracarys 🔥🔥🔥

And of course the ones they (i.e. CD Projekt Red) make themselves. The Witcher series, including Gwent spinoffs, and Cyberpunk 2077

I'm waiting for BG3 to make a Linux thingy. Until then, it''s on the "maybe" list.

If it's not native on Linux, it needs to be exceptionally good for me to buy it, considering GoG doesn't have regional pricing.

How about "Customers in low income countries will pay the same full price for your game." as a pitch.

Anti Commercial-AI license

Every game that I have seen that runs on UE5 either looks like a vaseline smeared blur or runs like crap.

Do you know one that runs great AND looks great? And I don't mean in the trailer.

I haven't tried UE5

Also, they changed their licence midway, so a little unsure about it rn.

Valve is numerically challenged.

I don't think it's quite as simple as "let's crack down on steam like other monopolies" as what do you crack down on?

They do little to no anti competitive behaviour, clutching at straws would be that they require you to keep price parity on steam keys (except on sales).

All these other monopolies do lots of shady stuff to get and maintain their monopoly, so you generally want to stop them doing those things. Steam doesn't do anything shady to maintain it's monopoly it just carries on improving it's platform and ironically improving the users experience and other platforms outside of their own.

Like what do you do to stop steam being so popular outside of just arbitrarily making them shitter to make the other store fronts seem ok by comparison?

The 30% cut is often something cited and maybe that could be dropped slightly, but I'm happy for them to keep taking that cut if they continue to invest some of it back into the eco system.

Look at other platforms like Sony, MS who take 30% to sell on their stores, THEN charge you like £5 a month if you want multiplayer and cloud saves etc. Steam just gives you all this as part of the same 30%.

Epic literally does anti competitive things like exclusivity and taking games they have some stake in off other store fronts or crippling their functionality.

Steam has improved how I play games, it has cloud saves, virtual controllers, streaming, game sharing, remote play together, VR support, Mod support and this is all part of their 30%, the other platforms take same and do less, or take less but barely function as a platform.

Anti monopoly is great when a company is abusing it's position, but I don't feel Valve is, they are just genuinely good for pc gaming and have single handily made PC gaming a mainstream platform.

I think the whole "monopoly bad" notion is a bit off. You start opposing monopolies, but then people realized that duopolies are also bad, and next thing you know we talk about triopolies and centiopolies and whatnot.

So I think the actual number is not the thing that matters, and instead the thing we should be worrying about is cartels.

The defining feature of a cartel is the ruthless action it takes to kill competition. The monopolies everyone are so mad about are cartels of single companies, but the bad thing about them is their cartellic behavior - not the fact they are along in the market.

Steam is not a cartel.

Steam isn't a monopoly, I can get my games elsewhere (epic, gog, humble store, origin etc). But Steam is dominating the market because it does it better. It offers value and features that others don't, and it generally hasn't abused its dominant market position to squeeze the consumer or crush their competitors. The closest thing to enshittification we've seen from Steam was them allowing third party DRM and launchers, which isn't something they wanted, it's them backing down from a stand-off.

I want competition, but there's good competition and bad competition. Good competition is what we see from Steam and gog, where they stand out by being good at what they do and giving customers what they want.

For an example of bad competition, just look at streaming sites. We went from everything being on Netflix to everything being divided among dozens of shitty platforms, each of which costs more, and the prices keep going up, especially if you don't want ads. Nothing was improved for the consumer when Netflix lost its defacto monopoly. Which isn't to say that Netflix is great, only that the competition for marketshare has only made things worse for the consumer.

I think it's easy to look at all the bullshit EA and Ubisoft and the like pull now, and imagine that same pattern from streaming playing out in gaming.

Everybody would love 2 or 3 more good healthy alternative to even the playing field. Because having the future of fun hang by the tread of a single not-corrupt-to-the-core company is fucking stressfull. But dunking on valve is not the way to a healthy gaming marketplace.

Tbf monopolies are sometimes unavoidable. Like the water company or the energy company (at least the ones that actually own the cables). Usually natural monopolies are nationalized though.

Even if steam is not a natural Monopoly, competition is possible, we allow it to be a monopoly because we like it, not the other way around. There are plenty of digital stores, you can at any time buy almost any game from an alternative, I'm not aware of steam having any exclusivity agreement with any game (except the ones that valve made).

Valve also doesn't use shopping platform monopoly methods such as artificially making process low by selling at a loss, which is the main problem with other monopolies like Amazon.

It also doesn't bundle 100 unnecessary services to the subscription. It doesn't even have a subscription.

Sure, you can't move your steam games to another platform, but you can get new ones. It's not much of a problem having games from different platforms anyway, GoG for example even let's you launch steam games from the GoG launcher. And you can always go back to good old shortcuts on a folder.

The moment steam starts enshittifing, it will be very easy to switch to another platform. Compared with other platforms, like any social media or YouTube.

It's not their fault epic sucks

Because it isn't a monopoly, shut up already.

No, that's an assumption. Probably correct. But if you can see into the future you should buy some lotto tickets or some stocks.

I'm commenting more on how Valve could become evil while maintaining and expanding its markets. Part of that is using open source as a way to reduce development costs while still controlling and monetizing key parts of the tech stack.

When you own the game you have the choice whether to back up the game and whether to keep a computer that can run it.

You're thinking in reverse. Walled gardens keep you in, not out. Without logging into your Steam account (pretending you don't have one), try to download a mod for a game you bought on GOG and see how it goes for you.

I have seriously no idea, but can you take them out easily? If not, it's a walled garden.

I mean, I'm not even bummed! Life has gotten very busy, but I have about 10 old standbys in multiple genres. When time allows, I can get tons of enjoyment out of them.

I look forward to playing them years into the future and don't feel limited. It's rare that a new game piques my interest and rarer that it hits my "list"

What you’re saying is “inevitable” hasn’t happened for the entire 20+ years of Steam.

Something being "inevitable" by definition means it will eventually happen, but has not already occurred.

Steam’s monopoly is actually what’s holding PC gaming together.

"Steam good. Steam has monopoly. Therefore, monopoly good."

Woof.

Simply build a gaming server farm in the middle of every small town in the world

Latency is a non issue if you make the service even remotely decentralised. One server per EU country is enough to push the latency below 50ms, which is more than playable, even for shooters and MOBAs.