I can think of very few companies or services that I approve of more than Valve and Steam. Being private and free of shareholder greed is huge. They’ve never once screwed me over.
Only moment of worry will be when the company changes hands, but I’m sure Gabe has already thought about a worthy successor who won’t destroy the soul of the company.
I’ve even wanted to bring up Valve in some recent political discussions on corporate governance. With the blatant exception of CSGO child-focused gambling, it is otherwise the “shining ideal” of a good company: They invented a product that people like and enjoy, maintain it well to please their customers, and pay their employees well without growing excessively or finding ways to cheat customers out of their money.
What a weaksauce article, spends most of the time arguing against itself, and the problem is most of the strawman arguments it sets up to argue against actually win in my opinion. Most of its arguments follow this kind of format:
I think that 2 + 2 = 5, now I know you might hear that 2 + 2 = 4, but the only thing that says that is thousands of years of math, and we can’t assume that’s going to continue into the future because Valve made a mistake doing math once.
Finally ends with some vague hypothetical about how even though they admit Valve is pretty good today, but still it will become evil someday because grr capitalism bad.
Steam is fantastic, they’ve made mistakes yes (Australia’s gaming laws are well known to be crazy for example so that’s not completely Valve’s responsibility) but on the whole they are doing great things and making money while doing it, which is great because a successful and profitable Steam is able to continue to do great things. Making money is not a sin if they do it fairly and ethically, and they do. 30% is a bargain for what they’re providing, especially the devoted audience which they have attracted (completely legitimately), and if you don’t agree it’s worth that 30% you’re welcome to distribute your game literally anywhere else.
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