Not out of the goodness of their heart but to drive sales and foster a customer base willing to return.
I think this is partially true, but also I legit think Gabe Newell is ideologically a market anarchist that legitimately loves video games as a medium. He probably could have (more safely) made even more money doing something else considering his early Microsoft connections and ability but he didn’t.
Unfortunately as a result, the moment hes dead Valve might be in trouble long term. Depends on who takes over afterward and how they want to direct Valve. Pierre-Loup Griffais or Lawrence Yang seem possible given how successful Steam Deck has been. Its hard to get a read on them. They seem smart and well meaning though.
Based on what I’ve heard of the internal structure of Valve, there’s a good chance he’s helped foster enough an environment of “doing what you love” that it’d survive him retiring/dying. Maybe not forever, but at least for a long while after he’s gone.
I think this is partially true, but also I legit think Gabe Newell is ideologically a market anarchist that legitimately loves video games as a medium. He probably could have (more safely) made even more money doing something else considering his early Microsoft connections and ability but he didn’t.
Unfortunately as a result, the moment hes dead Valve might be in trouble long term. Depends on who takes over afterward and how they want to direct Valve. Pierre-Loup Griffais or Lawrence Yang seem possible given how successful Steam Deck has been. Its hard to get a read on them. They seem smart and well meaning though.
Based on what I’ve heard of the internal structure of Valve, there’s a good chance he’s helped foster enough an environment of “doing what you love” that it’d survive him retiring/dying. Maybe not forever, but at least for a long while after he’s gone.
And hopefully by that time they’ve built up the open source community enough that even if Valve turned bad they wouldn’t be able to do much damage