Last year, they all came crawlin' back to Steam, and this year was another strong one for Valve.

From the opinion piece:

Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin’ back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    652·
    9 months ago

    This genuinely doesn’t get talked about enough. Steam is a private company and Gabe Newell seems to be the de facto “head” of the company, despite its famously “flat” management structure. There is no guarantee a new leader will have the same values or lead the same way. There is ripe opportunity for Steam to become a steaming pile of shit. I don’t know about the exact ownership structure beyond Newell, but unless the employees are far more empowered through things like ownership stake in the company, new leadership could effectively destroy how things currently work at Valve to be replaced by any number of terrible business decisions.

    Gabe is old as hell. It’s coming.

    • stealth_cookies@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      9 months ago

      Hopefully they have some sort of transition plan for who will take over when Gabe retires. As long as they hand the reigns over to someone with similar ideas and not some business type they could be fine given they are privately owned.

    • GreenEnigma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      9 months ago

      That’s because at a certain point things like this should just become services.

      But that’s wildly against capitalists mindset so…

    • Magrath@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      Gabe is only 61. But based on his size he will probably go from health issues from that sooner than old age will get a skinnier Gabs.