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.

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 142 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

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.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 109 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Dude, he's 61. You guys are making it sound like he's as old as a presidential candidate..

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You don't need to be old to die tomorrow.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

True, but that's unrelated to people pretending that he's older than dirt 🤷

[–] stringere@reddthat.com 1 points 10 months ago

61 != 450,000,000

[–] KrapKake@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes its so damn bizarre. Every time talk about steam comes up, people start talking about how ancient Gabe is. What are they on? Lol

[–] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

It's probably teenagers talking. To them 61 IS nearing death.

[–] Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago

Long live the King!

[–] stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] cottonmon@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Has there been any news at all on who the potential successors are?

[–] nihth@programming.dev 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Read somewhere that his son who has a similar philosophy was going to take over

[–] cottonmon@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

First time hearing about this. Hope it works out.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Because nepotism usually works out amazingly and never goes badly. /s

[–] cottonmon@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I looked it up and apparently Gray Newell doesn't work at Valve, so it's actually unlikely that he's going to be the successor.

[–] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 1 points 10 months ago

So steam is a family owned company?

[–] Magrath@lemmy.ca 16 points 10 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.

[–] GreenEnigma@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

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

But that’s wildly against capitalists mindset so…

[–] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 2 points 10 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.

Agreed, further the behavior of valve has to be understood like that of bandcamp before it was sold, an anomaly in a capitalist system that is vastly underperforming and dysfunctional from the perspective of those with money and power. It isn't, valve is doing great (so was bandcamp) but and I really want to stress this point for the naive gamers here who dont have a very well developed sense of the political realities of capitalism as an ideology (as opposed to some "natural order" of commerce or trade), it doesnt matter if valve is in its most profitable state right now. When it falls under the control of different rich business people it will immediately begin having its heart ripped out, rationality actually comes a lot less into the picture than you think if you believe in economics as a pure science rather than a belief system that uses more math and acronyms than most.

If there arent robust alternatives to valve then, it will be a big step back.