Valve is a whole company of people like Gaben.

Proton is open source. Anyone can pull it together and integrate it. Gog have been doing DRM free games for a while, they'll be quite keen to fill this niche. Epic probably won't care. If none do, someone will want to.

Gabe is helping, sure, but he isn't holding up gaming. People were gaming on Linux before Proton even existed, myself included. Also, even if Valve went away completely, Proton is open-source and there are people like GloriousEggroll who work on Proton entirely as a community member. Proton will live on, specifically because it is open-source. All the progress made on Proton won't suddenly disappear, all the games that were previously playable on Proton will still be playable on Proton.

It's a somewhat reasonable fear but it's not a realistic fear. Proton isn't going anywhere.

Obviously his death will trigger a worldwide AR Easter egg hunt, where the Steam user worthy enough to find the three keys first will become the new Gaben and Master Of Steam.

I think Gabe has been getting healthy lately. Last picture I saw of him he was looking like he lost a lot of weight. Maybe repost this in 10 years and then we can panic.

GOG.
We need to support GOG and it's model as much as possible.

<3

Whenever you are afraid of the negative impact on your life of a corporation's possible failure, it means that you have become reliant on someone you can't trust. You must act accordingly.

For sure, valid to fear the enshittification of steam. But they aren't killing proton. Maybe ignoring proton at worst. But Steam has profit motivations for not being reliant on Windows, which has actively been trying to supplant them with the Windows Store for years.

As another separate, profit-motivated company, with a gaming division and a lot to gain from eating Steam's lunch, Microsoft is not Steam's friend. Proton is a critical bargaining tool for them, and not having to include windows licenses for devices like the Steam Deck helps their costs too.

Yeah I do have a similar fear. Valve is something special. I tried to hate them, they're filthy-rich corpos after all, but I can't. Something of value will be lost when Valve finally succumbs to enshittification, which cannot be said of a lot of other big companies.

But my fear isn't necessarily about Steam. I have like 20-30 games in my library. Steam is simply the least shit way to play games you have/want to pay for.

If you don't expect enshitification these days you are dumb. Very rational fear

What many posters in this thread fail to realize is that there is a very good reason why steam hasn’t been hit by the enshittification that otherwise permeates human existence in 2024.

Of course, Gaben as their CEO has the last say in it. And he’s just a good guy. But wait, aren’t there other companies that have good guys as their CEO and yet the enshittification persists?

The profound reason is that Valve is not a publicly traded company. They have no obligation to any investors to make number go up. They are a private company, they can do whatever the fuck they want. If they stay flat and keep paying their employees, that’s totally fine, and there is 0 pressure on them to change anything. THAT‘s why Valve seems like such a different company compared to everything else that’s out there.

Of course it’s still a choice to go public or not, and they have made the right call (for us consumers).

I think there are important considerations to keep in mind.

First and foremost, Valve is not a public company. I don't know if it has investors, but it is not driven by profits like many typical public companies are. These companies tend to allow themselves longer investments without any clear visibility of immediate profits. They also do things for the greater good, even though it does not bring profits.

But also, I think the whole of valve is a set of gamers and people who genuinely care about the gaming business and making great products. I think they all share Gabe's values and goals. It's not like Gabe is the only one holding everything together or else it would instantly crash into the profit driven company it could be.

Both of these scenarios keep me hopeful that this is a longer lasting stance and doesn't hinge on just one person. It's not a proof it will never be a typical profit company but these are barriers which are not typically present. Let's hope for the best and keep rewarding them for their contributions to gaming, open source and for their good actions.

I think this post massively overestimates the power a CEO has. The CEO is beholden to the shareholders. Valve is private, ~~so~~ and its shareholders are its workers. It would be useful to know how many shares Gaben has of valve, but I still don't think the next CEO would suddenly also be the majority owner.

Also, I know things have changed a lot in the last 12 years, but 12 years ago regarding the total dissolution of Valve, Gaben said:

“It’s way more likely we would head in that direction than say, ‘Let’s find some giant company that wants to cash us out and wait two or three years to have our employment agreements terminate."

Also, forcing users onto windows is THE way to kill valve's profits. The whole point of the Linux push was a direct response to the windows store, and msft's threat of forcing valve to give them a cut of purchase through steam. Msft will still do that the first chance it gets. So even the most profit-minded new leader wouldn't make that choice, as it's plainly shortsighted.

...you can load right to library?

Edit: holy crap you can, all these years..

Considering how much money they make with gambling, I think Valve is not as saint-like as people think it is.

People make Games has done two great videos on Valve

Aside from valve probably having a hit by bus plan, I'm pretty sure ownership of valve is actually split pretty evenly so it will likely fall to another senior dev who understands what to do.

gaben is a smart man, i doubt that he isn't aware of his own mortality, and presumably has someone who he trusts, that he will appoint the position.

Categorically wrong since Gaben lost weight.

A billionaire who is 61 is very likely to outlive 75, even if they're fat.

It's inevitable.

But if steam becomes enshittified I'll move onto something else and use torrent sites to download the older games I care about that I've bought on steam. It wouldn't really be pirating them, since I've bought them already.

For now steam is fine, and I appreciate the work they've done on supporting Linux, so I'll keep on using it to buy games.

Many won't like it, but this is the reason we need competition like Epic games and GOG.

The steam fanboys certainly aren't going to make this problem any better.

Gaben's last dying wish is to make every game work on Linux and donates $1 billion to making it happen.

The life expectancy of 75 is an average (of the US population i assume), billionaires are likely to live longer

Well, at least we’ve got global climate change and multiple other threats to the survival of humanity, we won’t have to worry for long.

He is a gazzillionare. We better hope he is working on a foundation or something that is legally bulletproof.