Valve Is A Wonderful Upstream Contributor To Linux & The Open-Source Community

I mean, I'm not naive to think valve does anything for anything other than money and self preservation. That doesn't mean I (and the overall linux community as a whole) don't greatly benefit from it. I want to incentivize their actions which benefit me. I love that I have been able to not boot into Windows for close to a decade because of proton, so I buy from them. I hate that GOG for all their drm free policy don't support linux, and that I have to jump through hoops to get their games working on linux (which is again made easier because of valve's proton), so I don't buy from them.

I agree GOG and Valve have different objectives. GOG's objective is to provide drm free games, where as Valve's objective is to make linux a viable gaming platform so they can stay independent of Microsoft. My objective aligns with Valve, so they get my money.

There's a key point in the article that emphasizes that valve are indeed "being nice": their policy is " upstream everything".

Yes the motives are still keeping a foot out in case Microsoft decides to screw them over in some way, but they could (as many companies do) keep the improvements all for themselves, buy developers and make a closed source version of any of the tech they have been funding, locking down steamOS to only allow steam games and so on.

I mean, both could be true at the same time.

And I don't buy games out of the bottom of my heart to give those companies more money. So why should I care about their reasoning, as long as they aren't inherently unethical? In the end it's a win / win situation that we can both benefit from. I personally cannot compare Valve & Microsoft here, because Microsoft acts in a way that is ultimately not a win situation for me as a customer anymore. Google started similarly, but then went to shit in how they behaved, hence why I degoogled myself for at least the majority of their services, especially their search engine. If Valve continues to benefit me as a customer, then I as a customer will continue to benefit Valve. That's our contract, or mutual agreement.

That's not fallacious at all. I imagine the guy above knows valve aren't a selfless charity.

There's a guy in my area that goes around with his pressure washer and cleans grimy road signs, park benches, etc (because the council doesn't seem to give enough of a shit to do it themselves!)

He does it because the goodwill and publicity he gets from it benefits his business (he cleans everything from walls and houses, to wheelie bins and industrial/farming equipment).

He is not acting out of pure altruism, but does it really matter? His/Valve's actions are still benefiting people regardless.

I only made this comment because for some reason GOG seems to be more preferred by linux users than Steam, where as Steam has done a lot more for linux, and it not just works for Steam. GOG is now easily usable on linux mainly thanks to Valve's proton. I don't mind if game devs don't make as many games for linux. There is a huge chicken and egg problem with game development and userbase. Before proton they had all the reason to make games for linux but most didn't because it didn't make much financial sense to them. Now they don't have to worry about it. Plus, linux is much more than gaming. Because there is more people using linux now because of gaming, software other than games would be interested in building for linux, because the userbase is getting there.

Also because valve is private, they don’t have any legal obligations to return maximise profit. They can purposefully lose money if they want and it’s not illegal. (At least to my knowledge)

Yup. And the moment he steps down (or gets hit by the greed) everything will go to shit. As is tradition.

Its unknown exactly how much money Valve makes but it is a safe bet they are probably one of the most profitable companies on the planet considering they get a cut of more or less every single PC game sale. Others have larger revenues but, relative to expenditures, they are likely a top 100 if not top 50.

But yeah. Everyone just needs to figure out a billion dollar idea, luck out that people liked them enough to ignore the negatives while everyone else (Stardock, Atari, Gamespy, etc) were getting torn apart, and then maintain an effective monopoly for two decades. Easy.

But they do run it to maximize profit. There's just allowed to do it creatively instead of obsessing over short term gains.

I mean the company essentially gave up on AAA games for well over a decade because they were making more money from steam, and Gabe famously only approves projects that have a plan to turn a profit or expand Valve's market.

They didn't spread into Linux out of sheer principle. It gives them more control and influence over the market to separate themselves from Windows. And they've done tons of shady stuff with steam like refusing to give refunds until they were sued by state governments.

Just run the company in a way where you don’t really care about maximizing profit.

Our system of government makes this illegal for publicly traded companies.

It helps that they aren't struggling to keep the lights on.

You can't really do what you want if youre constantly worried if you can pay bills. Same for people, same for companies.

holy crap I want to work there. I never had any idea they had such a radical structure (or lack thereof)

Stock markets are socially acceptable ponzi schemes

A stock market can still work. The ultra high speed market we have now is a problem. Ultra fast trading encourages fast, short term thinking.

A stock market with an update once per day could work better. It would take all the fast impulse trading out of the market, while still allowing price adaptation. When runs and crashes take weeks to play out, it's a lot easier for cooler heads and logic to prevail. This, in turn would favour the sort of traders favouring long term stable investments.

They are also a good example of positive middleman behaviour. While they take their cut, the value they provide to both sides is huge.

They are also in a position where they are still easily replaceable. Their dominance is from doing it well, not because they have an absolute lock in.

Part of why this works is because they don't have to prioritise short term profit over long term. Most companies like this get brought up and pumped dry. Valve seems to be the exception.

I don't think Steam is rent-seeking because:

• no cost to maintaining an account
• no cost for keys if you sell stuff outside the Steam store
• no cost for downloads
• no cost for improvements to games

Valve's customers are publishers and devs, and they're charging a finder's fee for connecting customers to the games. To me, that's not rent seeking, that's a direct exchange of money for a service. If you don't think the service is valuable or think you can do better, then generate keys and sell them elsewhere and you won't need to pay Valve a cut.

Valve is capitalism done right imo. You only pay when you receive a service, and only when you profit from the service. Steam also has a fantastic refund policy as well, which is surprisingly rare in the digital goods market.

Unlike every other company in their position they're not complete assholes to consumers :

• steam deck not locked down at all and reparable
• steam and valve games support Linux very well
• they don't sign exclusivity deals for games to only be on steam

Most companies in their position would lock their users in, they don't. That doesn't mean they can't be abusive though. 30% of game revenue is huge!

somebody doesn't understand what rent seeking is.

Valve is not doing rent-seeking...

they have created a service that didn't exist that's beneficial to both the consumer and the seller, they don't do any anti-competitive shit with it as far as I am aware.

in what world is what they do rent-seeking?

are you an edgy 15 year old that just learned a new word and didn't understand it?

Wouldn't those games be locked up through steams DRM?

I used to tell myself this and gog even used this as marketing with the "French Monk" incident.

But over the years? I don't see the point. If I am going to replay Stranglehold again but don't want to wait for a re-release/re-buy it, it is just as easy to pirate it. Since I am going to need the crack to get past the lack of steam (which is totally not drm...) and probably a few patches anyway.

I would be so proud to be the dude who first said “enshitification” right now.

It’s probably my favorite new word I’ve ever heard in my life and seeing it widely used brings a smile to my face.

I’ve got a cousin who is probably claiming he invented it at this very moment.

Yeah, I've been burnt before and know it's only a matter of time. Enjoying it while I can.

I mean, I don't have a problem with mod authors earning money for what they do instead of having to offer it for free. Especially the mods that bring the base game to a whole new level.

What's the argument that paid mods shouldn't be a thing?

I remember the outrage at the time but just because it's paid doesn't mean it's bad.

valve has done a lot of great things for foss but keep in mind they do those things for money like everybody else

Define users of their devices? As a steamdeck owner my experience for installing an alternative os was terrible because theirs specific hardware configurations that valve made for the device and never bothered to upstream it so they were applicable outside of their environment. I'm not criticising valve for closing their resources, I'm criticising them for exploiting open source software to get a usable os up quickly and then not contributing to the same ecosystem that let them do that... not even assuring anyone they would eventually do that. Valve is a for profit company like any other, if you wanna waste time defending their less savory actions than go ahead but don't pretend they aren't what they are.