Games

I don't know what a solution would look like here. In your opinion, what should be done to stop Valve from being anti-competitive? What specifics should I be raising awareness of and looking into? What should be done by/about Gabe Newell?

I would like to know more about what you believe the solution here is, because at its core I see Valve as the end result of very talented and self-driven people doing an amazing job at delivering a very good product. I would hope that would lead to success, and I am given to understand that Gabe (to focus back in) is not a disinterested corporate figurehead as the position is with other software companies.

There's some amount of anti-competitive behavior that is just... Doing business in a space with competitors. I write private code that I use myself and within the company I work for that I choose not to share with my competitors, is that anti-competitive behavior? This is a dumb example, but also I haven't seen a direct convincing argument as to what Valve is doing to deserve the label.

In many ways, to provide my viewpoint, they've directly supported both unofficial modifications to their storefront by users (Decky Loader, for loading steam deck mods), modifications to their hardware (OLED screen mods, replacement parts on iFixit for reasonable prices), and even support Windows on the deck and are beginning (through reading commit logs) to support competitors' hardware in their custom OS. They've singlehandedly pushed gaming on Linux into the mainstream eye and are doing well with it.

All that to say that I don't think the way that Gabe became a billionaire was bad, and while I would prefer he use his personal wealth to better society I both don't know enough about what he does with his money to know whether or not he's already doing that and also think that any solution here would genuinely go against fundamental liberties and personal freedoms that I personally agree with. I'm not an absolutist on this, but enough of what I do know about the history of Valve and Gabe in specific lead me to lend him some amount of goodwill, because he has through his works and actions earned it from me.

I don't disagree that billionaires are bad. Personally, I strongly believe in a Star Trek post-monetary future.

I wouldn't call Gabe Newell a friend, although I suspect I don't disagree with many of his opinions.

You are able to email him at gaben@valvesoftware.com, as is anyone else. I've emailed twice. Once when I was 13 to inform him of a bug in portal 2, and once a few years ago to inquire about steam being ported to arm.

There was a lot to explain about my position there and it may be a bit disjointed. If there's anything I can clarify on my thinking, I'd be happy to.