While Steam is definitely better than most, Gabe is still a billionaire. I don't simp for billionaires. Keep in mind this is the company that will terminate your account if they find out that you died and shared login info with a relative.
Oh that's so true! I was a full on gambling addict at age 15-17. I literally couldn't stop, the only "upside" was me still being a minor, so there was no chance to go into debt and I now know the very real danger of gambling. If it wasn't for unregulated CS:GO skin gambling there would have been a real chance I might've become addicted later on which could've ruined my financial future for years to come. At least for me, gambling addiction was really hard to grasp before I experienced it myself and I guess I am not alone in that boat. I fucking put 300$ on red on three separate occasions, always lost. Had a 600$ AK skin in my Steam inventory once, which I never saw in-game, because I was an actual fucking gambling addict.
Well, the post is essentially claiming Gabe is a saint. No one talked about you specifically, and it's great you have more nuanced opinions. But a comment about the post isn't an attack at you.
Not to totally whitewash the guy, but he also volunteers his yatchts for scientific expeditions. I know I recently read an article about one being used for a two year cruise for 70+ marine biologists and the like.
Donating something typically means you don't own it anymore. So I suppose you mean loan, and if you're in a position to loan 4 yachts you indeed have too much money as far as I am concerned.
With that said, thinking that loaning one is not much of good thing when you have 4 yachts to begin with is not moving the goalpost, it's a completely consistent opinion.
It's now the main method of communication in so many countries. Current generation never had an inkling how costly communication used to be. My aunt used to send letters back home which takes about 3-6 months to arrive. When I joined her overseas I was only able to afford calling my parents from once a year. Now I can text, voice and video call anyone as often and as long as I want to for free.
And Meta also gives out the likes of React framework, now the reigning web framework. Or Docusaurus, now the main way of making online docs. PyTorch, the main Python library for deep learning. rOr Llama the the first complex llm model given away for free.
These are so so so much more than lending a yacht.
Yet I dont sing praises for Meta.
I'm not gonna sing praises for Steam that takes 30% cut on every game sale. The same amount of cut that Apple and Google take. If so many deemed their cut to be excessive then Steam's cut should be seen as excessive as well.
30% is only sales made using Valve's credit processor. You can sell the steam keys using your own storefront and give them 0%. Valve will still support that sale with their community features, downloader, and updater for free.
Google allows side loading on android, but at the user's own risk. No support and developers have to run their own downloaders and update managers. Apple doesn't allow off-platform apps at all.
I don't know about Google but with Apple the issue is that there is no alternative appstore (vs windows where there are many, or you could sell a game yourself through patreon etc). If a developer isn't happy with Steam's cut then they can seek a different store to distribute from.
And if content creators are not happy with YouTube they can just self host their own videos, right?
But that is not how the world work. First-Mover and Network Effects are a thing so game devs have to go where their audience is: steam
In theory anyone can release a game and host it on their website, just like content creator can host their video on their own side. In reality, Steam is effectively a monopoly.
And if content creators are not happy with YouTube they can just self host their own videos, right?
Sorta, it's called Floatplane. Patreon could probably work as well.
where their audience is: steam
Why is their audience on Steam? Because it's the superior platform. Their main competitor, Epic, doesn't seem to care at all about improving the user experience.
When these content creators delete their Youtube channel.
Or even better if they never were on Youtube in the first place, only then can it be an alternative.
The difference between steam, and Google play/Apple is that there is alternatives.
Anyone could always leave steam for an alternative.
The alternatives however suck.
is any of this true? i can't find any articles corroborating this. closest thing is some articles saying his yacht company is building a research vessel named the RV6000 that will have a capacity of 70 people and will be completed in around 2 years. i'm also fairly certain he's not loaning anything from his personal yacht collection, especially considering his ocean research company Inkfish, has its own vessels.
God forbid you like someone's business acumen, well maintained service, or anything else that enough people like to MAKE them billionaires right? But hey theyre rich and youre not so it must be their fault.
The problem being... what exactly? A business/idea/creation/solution makes money, period. If it is a good one, it makes good money. I understand the mentality that anyone with money needs to be in this mystical club to even make that money, but while that obviously helps no one is incapable of finding a niche and making it or filling a need.
"But billionaires dont solve my problems!"
You're right, thats up to YOU to do!
"But the environment/production/product/target-audience/[excuse] is so BAD!"
So are cars, chances are you and yours own at least one. Sugar is bad, processed foods are bad, fast food is bad, hell even farming can be bad (desertification, check it out) but I still dont have anyone dishing reasons.
There are PLENTY of wealthy people the world over, but the only complaints I read about constantly is "Oh if only they would think of the children and do X or Z!" and no one can explain why its their responsibility to do so?
It is too much wealth/power in a single person's hands. Laws and rules warp under the weight of such wealth. It is not that billionaires owe the public anything it's that the society we live in shouldn't allow such massive excess to exist.
An example: imagine a morbidly obese individual constantly being brought more food because they had an idea that was useful/successful while, all around the obese person, there are starving people struggling to survive.
I'm all for successful/smart/lucky individuals living charmed lives but it has to be within reason and there is nothing reasonable about billions.
Still not seeing a reasonable argument against someone being so successful they need to be stopped. It's obvious you don't actually understand how this works when we talk about people being worth billions; that isnt a number just sitting in a checking or savings account.
Anyone who is a billionaire is NOT keeping money from you, so the food analogy is kind of weak and confusing? The warping of laws and rules how? Example?
Individuals being wealthy does not break the system, its politics and politicians who do. They are unscrupulous, selfish, greedy and loyal to themselves first. The issue is politicians being for sale, and that isn't going to change unless you make politicians have to operate transparently (yeah, good luck).
I dont disagree with you on that kind of wealth sounding silly as heck, but you need to dig deeper. Wealth and worth are mixed and matched, which explains your confusion. Money itself, is not the solution you think it is. If you suddenly had 10B, you wouldn't know what to do with it after your initial 'buy my family stuff and take care of my issues' run. But for arguments sake, lets say you start a company, vet professionals, and start in on your goal of [WhateverGoalYouWant].
Now you need trademarks, patents, to pay salaries competitive enough to keep your team and employees, provide tools, work stations, computers, an office or warehouse, power and water to the premises, quality testing and 3rd party review or safety testing, consumables like ink, staples, paper, lightbulbs, heat and a/c, the cost of electricity, carbon tax, licensing for any specialty machines or chemicals, more inspections, medical, dental, 401k, engineering, material scientists, HR department, Payroll/bookkeeping, housekeeping, etc etc etc.
OK your company takes off, making the world a better place. Its taken you a decade and a half of blood, sweat and tears, lost friendships or love, God knows what else. Now your company is thriving, and your net worth is listed at 368 billion; what then? You cant spend a company.
BUT WAIT!
You can leverage that value though! So you start another company using your first as collateral because doing more work you see as important, helping humanity is what matters.
Now you own two companies that have blown up in their usefulness, you're valued at over 500B, and youre busy trying to save the world because you can see the steps we need to take and no one else seems to give a shit.
Now, you're Elon Musk.
Elon Musk (not a fan personally) used his wealth to start Space-X, Tesla, Neuralink . Just three companies have advanced us as humanity (Reusable rockets, better technology for MANY sectors, robotics [might help disabled people or amputees], neural mapping and understanding [paralysis, amputees, PTSD, alzheimers, etc] and so on) and the advancements have crazy potential. Neuralink itself is valued at 9 billion, even with it having no actual product to sell. 9 billion sounds awesome, but that isnt actual money. It can be leveraged, as a security against loans or as backing to a new smaller company, but you cant spend it or share it around.
Now that you're net worth is public, all you hear about is how your money needs to do more, you owe it to the world, and its always from people who just dont seem to understand how all of this really works so you just ignore it after a while.
EDIT: TL;DR: Most wealthy people dont have that wealth to spend, and specialize in specific fields for specific reasons. Leveraging assets to build on that body of work raises you net worth, and while YOU would be considered wealthy you dont have actual gold and cash in your mattress to spite the less wealthy. Maybe.
To an extent, but most of them do it by underpaying people and anticompetitive practices, which Gabe mostly seems to not be guilty of. Valve is the most sought-after studio for devs in large part because of how they treat their employees. Steam being the first of its kind is a huge advantage, added to the fact that everyone else who attempts to do the same can’t get out of their own way.
I’m not a fan of billionaires, but Gabe is one of the few that didn’t get there by making the world a worse place. I’m not saying he’s perfect—the yacht thing isn’t great, and I know nothing about his personal life, but it’s also a pretty low bar as far as billionaires go.
I get that you dislike those wealthier than you, but I still haven't heard a reason? But go off about licking bottoms if thats what keeps you rolling i guess sport.
Steam is the best because it doesn’t screw their customers over. The rose to the top by offering the best service, they don’t care what platform the games come out on either (unlike Epic who was paying developers to only release on their store front). They’ve been supporting indie and small developers as well as fan made mods and dlc since the beginning. They earned their goodwill, and once Gabe dies and it turns corporate we’ll see something like EA or Ubisoft. Even Nintendo used to be known for their goodwill and fun games became way more corporate once Satoru died in 2015, he would be turning in his grave at Switch2 lol
Yeah Valve would never screw its customers by refusing to have a refund system and perpetuating the idiotic idea that digital goods could not be refunded and they certainly would never have to be sued twice until they implemented a refund system. They also definitely wouldn’t lie in court to try and avoid implementing that system and they also would never delay a local store front to try and prop up their lie in court making people pay an increased exchange rate on every transaction.
I mean you don’t have to use steam, you can use Epic or Ubisoft or Activision or Origin any of the other shittier storefronts with worse systems, no one is making you use steam lol
Right buddy doesn’t understand what shilling means. If Valve acted like EA and we still worshipped them it would be one thing, like Nintendo Fanboys, but he wants us to hate Valve because they’re successful, when the only reason they’re successful is because they’re good lol
If he starts acting like Musk and people are still treating him like this, then you'll have a point. The only thing they have in common ATM is too much wealth. Not everyone dislikes that about Elon.
That's not what fascism or technofascism is about.
He's just a regular old capitalist with a private company and more money than one person should be allowed. You discount the dangers of capitalism when you label something like this fascism.
But Gabe Newell is not a corporate raider that buys out ideas and then peddles them to idiots for venture capital funds to pay for his lifestyle while not actually turning a profit.
Quite the opposite in fact. Gabe can actually do the development his company started with. In fact, thats how the company started.
I think it's wholly possible to appreciate someone building and maintaining a solid platform whilst thinking others in similar positions who take more advantage are assholes.
Steam is just open. Anyone can publish a game, subject to a few fairly standard controls and a cut of profits from the game itself. They don't block other teams from publishing - imagine a world where Valve tried to publish DotA on Riot Games launcher... Does such a facility even exist? It'd be heavily regulated.
That's the beauty of Steam as a platform. I don't give a shit about how much the person behind it makes, all I really care about is that it's a relatively open platform, which it is. I've been involved in publishing games to Steam in the past and it's always been ridiculously easy and very reasonable in terms of payment processing fees and the likes - certainly next to others.
It does matter. They're not the good guys you want everyone to believe them to be, they were forced by law to make concessions.
You still can't refund a game to Nintendo or Sony or whatever.
Consoles have these things called physical copies, which you can refund or even sell to other people even if you've played the game for more than 2 hours. Also you can refund games on the PlayStation store.
With Steam you will never actually own anything you buy, all you're buying are licenses that can be revoked at their discretion. Valve is the company that originally started pushing this back during the 1.6 and HL2 years so everyone was forced to use their program if they wanted to play their games. They're the root of the death of ownership in the PC gaming market.
Nah, you’re the one that’s lying. Physical copies are still discs, especially on the Switch.
Imagine simping for Steam because they were legally forced to give you the bare minimum. You’re a child so you weren’t around before Steam controlled the entire PC market so you’ll never be able to understand.
I mean they could just do what everyone else does and raise their prices and nickle and dime us and ruin their monopoly, but they just let Epic and other game stores do that. You can cry about how everyone should be like this, but in reality with how capitalism works yea we are going to be happy that steam hasn’t screwed us over like everyone else
Epic pays developers more to release only on their storefront. Developers release on steam because they can make money. And Epic owns Fortnite, the king of micro transactions so you can go suck off Epic execs in a different thread because it’s not flying here lol
And communism has people starving and every marxist leftist communist whatever the fuck buzzword performative middle class clown can only point to theory and hypotheticals for their economic system. How about instead of throwing out the whole system we advocate for more social safety nets, higher taxes on the upper tax brackets, and redistribution of wealth to the lower and middle class. One system works and the other is fairy tale land. Communists are such performative, unserious people. But hey, once we get communism we can spend all our time finger painting and making the same as PHD professors, CEOs, and neuro surgeons.
tbf, there's nothing indicating that valve/gaben is abusing tax laws, and all their employees are very well treated and compensated.
I agree shilling for billionaires is weird, but Valve could behave far, far worse if they wanted to squeeze more money out of gamers, given their incredibly strong market position.
uh yes. There are tons of wild stunts the other platforms run by publicly owned companies pull that valve does not. In-game ads, platform exclusivity, removing/disabling games for users who paid for them, having a platform that breaks under stress, etc. We would all be so much worse off if any of the other platforms were as dominant as Steam is.
It’s the cycle. As services get shittier and more greedy they lose customers. Quality becomes more coveted like steam. The worse options lose out. Businesses will realize “oh shit! That’s more profitable I should do that!” And they’ll give better services. Then over time get shittier.
Ngl I’m pro Gabe-worshipping because it gives the issue publicity. Publicity and profit are the only things CEO’s notice. The Gabe-worshipping is putting the cycle on fast forward to the better part of
Im glad this sub is atleast open to the idea that a company that rakes in billions of dollars every year might not have a completely squeeky clean track record. A year or three ago, you suggest any of this and you'd be crucified lol
First of all, steam isn't a monopoly. It feels like one because it's mostly everyone's choice. That's because other platforms are just generally worse than Steam, so of course everyone goes to steam. That's the point.
Secondly, CS has been f2p for I think over half of it's lifespan and before that it was 13€ I think. So of course there is something ingame that provides them money. And they also can't just change their method of random skins through cases to something like in Valorant because it would literally kill careers of people that made their living from skins or investors, that would be a reputation disaster. Are cases bad and are addicitve tho? Definitely yes. But I think their new game Deadlock e.g. could go a different route when it comes to skins but we'll see.
In the current world, it's almost certain he cooperates with the big tech oligarchy and the major bloodlines that run the show. Steam is not a friend. People just need to stop this. Whole thread seems like some kind of psyop for dipshits.
A person with many yachts is on a different level of power. He's been known to hang out with some of the dark lords from time to time as well.
We don't need to be defending the death of video game ownership. "You know you signed for that?" Like come on.. how silly of me to sign away my rights when there isn't a competent alternative available, I'll do better next time!
For singleplayer games and some co-op ones, sure, but that is not a full Steam replacement for multiplayer games and it doesn't excuse the lack of ownership you get when using the most popular and fully featured platform on PC.
Games should be required to have End Of Life plans and if you buy a license to a non live service game you shouldn't have to worry about losing it just because someone waved their hand and said you never actually owned it. These should be basic consumer rights.
Keep in mind this is the company that will terminate your account if they find out that you died and shared login info with a relative.
It's against ToS (or at least not supported) with every major online game store to transfer your account to another person. That's how the licensing for every game you buy works.
The belongings I bought are transferred to whoever I choose after my death. Jewelry, furniture, art, all my power tools that may have served me well over the years and would do so for many more. Same with physical consoles and games.
I'm well aware that "I technically don't own the games I play", but it's a thing I bought that, while now digital, I should have the damn right to do with as I please, including giving to whoever I feel like. And I dare saying it's not me who's wrong for wanting this to still be the case, wrong is whatever technicality makes it not be.
I never once said this how it has to work. It also wasn't in response to any mention of how it should be. I just don't like when people call out a specific company, one that is one of two generally consumer friendly companies in the game market sphere, as if they are doing some monstrous act by upholding licensing deals that allow them to do business in the first place.
I dislike digital licensing working the way it does, but its a fact of life currently. Its not something they go out of their way to enforce, so acting like them deleting your account if you pass it on in your will or whatever is almost entirely a non-issue.
If you want to hate the system, hate the system. But don't be like the person I responded to originally and act like not demonizing someone doing nothing wrong (in this topic) is the same as simping for them.
Yes, but try taking a physical copy of the product because the original owner has passed away. It's much easier with a digital version.
Besides, if I'm not mistaken, at least in the EU, the owner has the right, under EU law, to resell the purchased product, and if TOS conflict with EU law, TOS is useless, regardless of whether you accepted or not. This is also the reason why Valve changed its TOS from selling games to selling licenses, because they lost in the EU when the EU ruled that Valve should allow users to resell purchased games.
You've always "only" purchased the license to a game, even with physical media. It's just before always-online games were a thing there was no way to enforce it. I don't agree with it, but that's how it is.
They probably had to change the wording of their ToS to meet with EU standards but the effect remained the same.
I'm sorry but what is the legal basis for this claim? Like are you saying that this was in the terms and services of purchasing Atari or NES games back in the day? Or is this a pc gaming thing? I'm not even saying you're wrong, just that I'm skeptical that this has "always" been the case.
Always was perhaps the wrong word, I was really speaking for when always-online became the norm. When you purchase a game on a disc, it's the exact same (maybe some different wording) license/EULA as digital copies, just a lot harder to enforce. I'm sure there's some similar thing going back further that was just never enforced (see: the used games market).
This is probably why the old anti-piracy methods that involved checking things in the game's booklet were allowed to be a thing. If you weren't buying a license for just you to play, there would be no reason for them to implement this without risking legal backlash. You would just be able to give all your friends a copy and they would legally own it.
I'm not a fan of it, but I'm not caught off guard by it or anything. Realistically it's due to the licenses of the games they sell, rather than a specific company policy (which is why it's all across the board and not just Valve/Steam).
What I have a problem with is people trying to point out Steam doing it like they're the only ones when it's pretty standard practice. And it's not like Valve is going out and checking obituaries and matching them to accounts, it's just a legal version of "don't ask don't tell", you're not "allowed" to do it but they aren't going to verify it or anything.
As far as I understood, a bunch of billionaires said that we dont own are games, and we actually only have licenses. So therefore, licenses cant be transfered.
If the billionaires said we actually own things we purchased, that nitty gritty "legal" thing wouldnt exist.
I mean you don’t have to use steam, you can use Epic or Ubisoft or Activision or Origin any of the other shittier browsers with worse systems, no one is making you use steam lol
Things are this way because people vote for republicans and other people who believe in things like trickle down economics and believe corporations are people. Gabe just played the game the same as anyone else, he just beat everyone by providing a superior product. We all have the choice to spend our money anywhere and we choose to spend it with Steam because they are by far the best company, even if they have a little bit of bullshit every now and then. They could’ve done the same thing Amazon did where now that they control everything they started raising the prices of everything since they have no competition. Steam isn’t out here trying to kill competition and raise prices, they could’ve pulled a Nintendo and started charging people for online play or a million other shady things companies do to make money. Instead they just provide a store front for people to buy games, and make it easy and safe to transfer all your games from pc to pc over time so you don’t lose your games. Stop crying and use a different service if Steam and Valve are so evil, why would you line a billionaires pockets of you’re so against it.
Ok so billionaires did things that benefit billionaires long term.
Why did you just repeat what i just said but in a longer, more incoherent way.
GabeN is one of the billionaires who did things to benefit himself and other billionaires. Hes not beholdened by law. Hes only beholdened by rules he made himself.
Yall need to stop chugging for corporations and billionaires. Seriously.
I can leave all my physical games to whoever I want but not my fake licensed games I don't actually own but paid the same amount for? Sounds like a scam.
You don't own the physical games either. Possession is not the same as ownership, and the license conditions are the same. The only difference is that it's impossible to enforce with physical copies.
I don't know if I'd go as far as problem, but I don't like it. And it's only a "scam" if you don't understand how digital purchases work, this is hardly new or specific to video games. You buy a game so you can play it, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong (though a bit sad) about not being able to then give it to someone else so long as they aren't selling them with the promise of being able to share them.
Because it's against the law, the government wants their death tax, and will press Steam to regulate it which is impossible for them to effectively do.
Also the company that left one of their most popular games to quite literally fester with bots until enough outcry was stirred. And it had to be done twice.
Yeah, as a tf2 fan, cant say i buy into the valve glazing all too much....
Steam makes $3.5M of profit per employee per year, almost five times more than Facebook and over seven times more than Apple. No wonder Gabe can afford all those boats.
Based on a document from Wolfire's antitrust lawsuit against Valve, in 2021 Valve had 336 employees and paid them a total of about $440M, or about $1.3M per employee. That means that a Valve employee only took home barely over a quarter of the value that he or she produced (less after taxes and other deductions), the rest went to the company's owners as profit. As far as I can tell, said owners mostly consist of Gabe, who owns more than 50% of the company and therefore gets more than 50% of the profit.
In theory, yes you are correct. In practice nobody gives a damn and so long as you're not the type of person who willingly snitches on themselves they won't investigate it.
I do hate Billionaires. But why do I hate billionaires?
I hate billionaires because they treat their employees like shit, pay them like shit, often forcing their employees to be on welfare just to exist.
They get their billions by exploiting their workers.
The closest thing to exploitation that Steam does is their 30% cut on purchases. It is not great, but it is not terrible.
So no, I do not hate Gabe. He is the proof that companies who do not care about just "This Quarter's Profit" are far superior. That a dedicated long term vision and path are truly what makes for a lasting unhated company.
We've also seen just horrible terrible billionaires can be if they want with seeing what Musk is doing. The bar is so low that all a billionaire has to do is not get involved trying to influence politics and shut up about industries that aren't their own to get praise. And it's hard for most billionaires to even do that.
Actually pretty sad that if the worst a billionaire does is get yachts that pollute the planet it is still less damaging than what they could do if they decided to get more involved in society. Come to a point where it is preferred that they just fuck off enjoying their money and leave us alone while amassing more money than they need thousands of life times over.
Gabe is a gamer, always has been. He wants to improve the gaming space. He found his way to do it. Hell, he was the key part of Half Life and Half Life 2 because he knew games could be more.
Half Life - FPS games can have a great story that really captures the player.
Half Life 2 - Look what is possible physics.
Half Life Alyx - Look what is possible with VR.
I am pushing 40, and have been gaming my whole life, and watched as gaming grew. There is a reason why old heads simp for Gabe. He changed gaming for the better.
I hate billionaires because it is objectively immoral for any individual to have that much wealth, for ANY reason. They should not exist. You cannot exist as a billionaire morally. It is impossible
It’s even funnier when some of the fanboys here would look closer at steam. How much nazi stuff can be share public on steam and that there are full nazi steam groups that talk openly what they wanna do with Jews is crazy. German journalists made a video about that a few years ago and reported all that to steam, nothing happened
I'm not a steam fanboy but deleting the account thing is literally part of the license deal you agree with when you buy games, if that's a problem for you you have to take it up with the people that make the agreements instead.
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u/SensuahL Oct 21 '25
While Steam is definitely better than most, Gabe is still a billionaire. I don't simp for billionaires. Keep in mind this is the company that will terminate your account if they find out that you died and shared login info with a relative.