I'm actually pretty worried about him dying. Hopefully he has a chosen successor that he's indoctrinated.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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I would rather hope that he legalizes and codifies the "flat" management structure, disallowing any one figure head from taking over and fucking things up.
Valve annoys people because it can be slow to choose to do something, because everyone works on what they want to work on, but it means average workers have a lot more agency in how they're involved in the company.
I'm sure there's till unofficial cliques and leaders, but having it in legalese for the employees post-Gabe would be nice.
I would argue the flat management makes it hard for Valve to produce things and they should re-evaluate it, but you can do this while also not turning into a rank and yank shit out fortnite clones 420 69 flossing scheme to fuck over users and line their pockets.
I think that's a valid take, and I think Valve has sort of re-evaluated it, because if I recall correctly, they kind of had to "put on hold" the "do whatever you want" bit to get Half Life: Alyx out of the door. So, imho, it seems like they're capable of doing both. They managed to produce a high quality VR game by putting the "flat" on the backburner, and them coming back to it later.
Although, to be fair, I hadn't heard anything similar about the SteamDeck or any Valve hardware, really. So if they can make a SteamDeck from scratch, an entire new product category, with the flat management structure, I bet it's not holding them back half as much as some folks at GlassDoor seem to think.
Its really hard to get a look inside Valve, because I can't confirm/deny the Steam Deck came about because of the flat management. I'll be honest, my apprehension about their management stems from the many failed attempts to conclude the franchise they started in Half-Life and how 20 different projects died to get to Alyx. Would a change in leadership get us more of the same? Maybe. It would probably be a substandard product, and i'm still recovering from Starfield being mid.
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The problem with that is that they're a private company so that can just be undone by the largest share holder, unless that codification also splits up his equity across the employees.
Tbf as long as it doesn't go public it will probably be fine regardless of who takes the job. It doesn't take a genius to keep up the good work in a company that can afford to plan long time.
I guess you've never had a "new boss" come in, huh? Even in a private company?
Man, new bosses love to shake things up, to "make the workplace theirs." It's literally one of the most common things to happen when new bosses come, and very often it results in a deep change in company interpersonal politics.
Barry used to be your go-to guy, but the new boss has decided they just don't like Barry. Why? They couldn't tell you, but Barry gets under their skin, so it doesn't matter how he's the best guy on the team who can handle whatever is thrown at him, his role is going to be dilluted and minimized and he's going to be pushed and prodded by negative management to try to get him to just quit. Eventually, Barry will just quit because who wants to work under those conditions. Barry found a better job, and now he's replaced by your new bosses 20-something nephew who doesn't know what the fuck he is doing at all and everyone can't stand. He's a fucking loser who keeps getting promoted by the new boss.
I've been through that too many times to pretend it's just "that easy." No, generally the kind of people drawn to that role are controlling dickheads who have their own dickhead "vision" of being the biggest dickhead to ever dickhead.
But how am I supposed to prove my exorbitant salary if I can't prove I'm doing something. If I don't change anything they'll realize I don't do anything and can't do anything! As for my next idea, we need to put ads in steam because everybody is doing it. And people should watch a promo video before their game starts because look at how successful YouTube is! I'm a genius for doing this. YOU ALL JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.
~ some manager, somewhere....probably
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Have seen it. Good managers walk in and watch their team for months to learn how things work before making changes. Bad managers walk in and change things before learning why they work the way they do. We saw that with Twitter/X.
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Yesterday I bought something on Steam for the first time in many years. (I have a large Steam library, but in recent years I've been getting games from gog and itch instead.)
Since I hadn't bought from Steam in a long time I figured I should read the "Steam Subscriber agreement" that you have to click to accept when you buy something. Let me just say now, the agreement is a very very bad deal for customers.
It goes to great lengths to make it very clear that you don't own anything. You aren't buying anything, you have no essentially rights. You are simply paying for a license subscription to use software with various conditions. Valve is able to end your subscription with no refund if you break the agreement. And the best bit:
Furthermore, Valve may amend this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use) unilaterally at any time in its sole discretion.
So by using Steam we're putting a lot of trust in Valve; because the 'agreement' basically says they can do whatever they want, any time they want, for any reason they want.
Steam is quite good. I particularly appreciate their Linux support. But they are clearly using their position of dominance to make people agree to unfavourable terms. At the moment, things are fine. But make no mistake - when you use Steam, Valve has all the power. They can screw people over whenever they choose to.
With all that in mind, buying DRM free is better if you want to still have access to the software when a company decides to change direction for whatever reason.
Apparently you like to read. Open the EULA for basically any commercial software (not FOSS or open source, costs money, isn't made by some small company, basically the same criteria as >90% of the games on Steam) and you are going to learn 2 things very quickly. First, all of them are just a license to use, and second, if there are patches or an online component you will have at least as many caveats and restrictions as what is included in the Steam TOS.
Now, I'm not saying you're wrong or that I'm okay with this situation (I look for open source, free, then paid for all the software that lets me do whatever it is I'm trying to do), but the situation with Steam is very typical.
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Doesn't matter, Steam offers DRM free games. Steam DRM is opt-in and can be broken by anyone in seconds, and games with other DRM have a big glowing warning on their store page. You give money to Steam for their servers that support multiplayer, their workshop, seamless patching, user forums, image hosting, controller support, Proton for Linux, SteamDB, easy multiplayer via the friends interface, achievement tracking, and a large majority cut to the developers. Your complaints apply to basically every storefront, the only way you'll own data is by having it on your own disk which Steam lets you do.
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Not saying that I disagree, but it has basically always been written like that...
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I hope he has some sort of contingency plan. Perhaps he can find a successor.
It involves golden tickets and the unsolved disappearances of a handful of children.
Brutal, I know, but it's the only way.
I selfishly wish he had a son or daughter to carry on his legacy lol
More generations deserve to know how good Valve is.
Son/daughter would be like "ugh, this is lame, I want to play real-world games with peoples' lives. ..like, corporate wars, or screw-the-smallguy."
Kids never handle the inheritance right, and passing on the experiences they need in order to do so is hard as fuck.
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If you're reading this GabeN, make Valve a non-profit.
Worker co-op. Non-profits are pretty easy to rig for the benefit of the C-levels.
Easy-peasey to rig. Worker co-op isn't a bad idea.
I vote that as a second to finding a successor, and giving the whole thing to them, sans whatever kickbacks to family etc that he wants.
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You know the Hedge Fund Fuckies are just fucking salivating at the thought of Valve being available to buy.
To implement NFT Microtransaction RNG lootboxes into their games while letting them rott?
CS2 already exists. You just need to add the Pay 2 Win to the crates.
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They’ll ruin it just like they ruin everything in pursuit of profit.
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If a game is on GOG, I'd rather buy it there than on steam. Steam is great and they do a lot of great stuff, but you don't own the game if you buy it through steam.
I'm very anti-DRM as well, but I'm willing to give Valve my money even if there's a chance I lose my game down the line. Some of that money's going towards Proton and making Linux more popular
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I will cause a resonance cascade on Valve HQ if that ever happens.
That, sadly, is the future. Valve is one of those rare companies that put out something interesting then got out of the way so that others could put out their ideas. Steam and PAX are a fantastic way to enable the creativity of others. I will keep my fingers crossed that this all works out, but I am fully prepared to be sad between now and, say, 10 years in the future.
I buy my favorite games from GOG when they're there so that I can keep the install files forever.
If Steam turns to shit I'll just pirate all my games again. I've already paid for them anyway.
Maybe we'll get lucky and Gaben will leave ownership of the company collectively to it's employees.
That would be the best outcome, legal framework for the "flat" management structure, making it an employee owned company.
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Honestly, why ruin something already raking in money hand over fist? Valve is profitable, sustainable, and all around well executed.
Messing with it would cut profits!
The same reason countless studios have destroyed successful IPs (like EA). Sure it’s profitable but it could be MORE profitable. Sales were up last year? Cool story, have sales improved over that this year though??
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Why? Because the enshittification is based on short sighted greed over long sighted sustainable income.
This is what going public means. Now it is time to grind it to dust and snort it so the elite can have their fifth christmas bonus
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Because MBA- and CEO-brains say that raking in money hand over fist doesn't matter unless you can rake in consistently more and more money hand over fist. What normal people see as stable profits, they see as underperforming versus the bigger profits they see only in their head.
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GabeN is the Ruth Bader Ginnsberg of gaming. Please sir, take care of yourself, for all of us.
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It needs some legally bulletproof foundation structure to own the company and continue with his values. Not easy but possible.
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Hey now. A divorce could also sink things. He doesn't have to die for things to go to shit.
(I know nothing of his personal life.)
Well his name didn't show up in Epstein's public records (unlike a certain CEO from a company Microsoft bought/CEO that founded/ran Microsoft) so we're fine there.
And I did look. Extensively.
It's a good sign because 1) He's smart enough to not have a paper trail and/or 2) His hobbies are innocuous, like, I think he really only cares about submersibles and knives and he wasn't stabbing people on some carbon fiber tube near the titanic so he's not a dumbass either.
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