Am I just deceived? I think I might love him?
We don’t have to eat them all, but we do have to take their money.
When we eat the billionaires, we should spare Gabe Newell? No?
Submitted 5 months ago by ivanafterall@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 5 months ago
halvar@lemy.lol 5 months ago
As far as I know Valve isn’t one of those companies that employes a hundred thousand minimum-wage slaves, but one that’s gotten big, by actually innovating, which is like the only potentially good aspect of capitalism and seems to not be something most corporations do anymore. Of course were this question to ever become relevant he would have to give up most of his wealth, but it’s not like he is one of those billionaires that eat babies for breakfast.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Valve innovated a package manager, a store, strict DRM, and gambling / third party cosmetic markets.
Very recently they built the Proton compatibility layer.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
The worst thing he does that we know of seems to be trying to collect the fastest iteration of every type of vehicle.
Grimy@lemmy.world 5 months ago
And collusion with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.
He charges 30% like the rest of them, he isn’t trying to compete.
Jacob_Mandarin@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Well no. Valve is involved in a lot of actual gambling with csgo etc. How they are ignoring and willfully profiting from all of the skin casinos etc. is my biggest problem with them. Despite that they are still one of the best big companies i know of.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 months ago
Billionaires aren’t your friends. Corporations aren’t your friends.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
But they can be an adversary or friendly.
Not everything is black and white.
It’s just a question when we’ll eat Valve
Aequitas@feddit.org 5 months ago
Idealizing billionaires is cringe. Eat them all. Just because he’s not a complete asshole like all the other parasites doesn’t make him a good person. He’s still a parasite.
PunnyName@lemmy.world 5 months ago
If he continues to be a billionaire, yes.
Amassing that level of wealth is not an accident, it’s by choice.
EightBitBlood@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I agree with this sentiment, but given a choice, I believe Gabe would make the right one and spend his wealth to lose billionaire status.
His supposed exploitation was not by his own design, but rather by luck - the sheer benefit of riding a privately owned and benevelontly steered surfboard on top of a collapsing capitalist society.
Basically, there’s a meme about all other companies shooting themselves in the foot so Gabe always benefits, and part of that is in the way those companies fucked and manipulated their control of capital and markets. Gabe benefits just by being one of the few that can afford to participate in that system others rigged.
So he simply rigs it the least, and wins by providing the platform with the least greedy problems. Far far less than he could given his position.
IMHO, despite all controversies, Steams cut of profits from providing equal access to game visibility despite creator, nationality, background, etc, has legitimately opened the door for nearly anyone to be successful on their platform. For all the tools and services they provide, they ask for literally the smallest cut compared to any other publishing platform.
Gabe could destroy that to his benefit on a whim, and instead he over designs it to make it possible for nearly anyone to try gaem dev if they do the work needed to develop for them.
To hold so much capital simply for providing some form of equality to access the same in a system that overwhelming benefits others with more resources is in no way greedy imo. It’s being the person with the only fire extinguisher who knows how to use it in a burning down building: popular.
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 5 months ago
A man who owns a billion dollars worth of megayatchts is not doing everything he can to ethically spend/donate his wealth. Yes, lots of his wealth is tied up in Valve stock and he can’t sell that without losing voting rights and making Valve stop being what it is, but he’s rolling in other assets and cash, too
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
But he loves us, no?
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 5 months ago
He could love people more distributing his billions instead of hoarding them.
LuigiMaoFrance@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
He’s just another fat dragon who got rich exploiting people through ownership of capital. Then he got children hooked on gambling because one billion wasn’t enough.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
He is not fa… he is definitely not a dragon!
Suburbanl3g3nd@lemmings.world 5 months ago
If one bad apple truly should the bunch, yes. Yes you have to eat him too
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 5 months ago
We can give him the honor of being eaten last.
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 5 months ago
It’ll give him time to stop being a billionaire before it’s too late.
DrFistington@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Take all of his assets, let him live. Then take all of his assets again 5 years later
halvar@lemy.lol 5 months ago
since he would have gotten rich again by the right people attracting wealth obviously
Wilco@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Sorry, but they must all be eaten. There should be no billionaires.
xpey@piefed.social 5 months ago
Fuck him too
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
That’s what I’m saying: how do I make this happen!?
snooggums@piefed.world 5 months ago
Maybe a few dates to wine and dine him?
TheJesusaurus@piefed.ca 5 months ago
There's a real easy way for him to not be eaten. Make sure he has no more than $999, 999,999 in his pocket when we get there
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
But that’s haaaaard.
You guys are much less understanding than I expected. Bleeding hearts, my ass…
hakase@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Bleeding hearts always clot surprisingly fast when it comes to those they don’t like.
actionjbone@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I’d make all the billionaires the same choice:
(a) Give away everything except, say, 25 million.
(b) Guillotine.
HubertManne@piefed.social 5 months ago
This is my problem. If the wealth stacked up real fast maybe I would crack 100 mil but man I would so do the myspace guy thing.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The Sovereign Fund for Humanity’s Poor. Even if the wealth is stacking up that fast all anyone has to do is set up a trust fund with that name, the goal of using said wealth to fund every single human with a trust fund that will eliminate poverty in their life, and a board of directors that MUST contain two fiduciaries but only one from any given major Megalopolis, as well as three data analysts from OxFam. Once that’s setup, all you have to do is setup automatic deposits of every single penny above $100,000,000 and every other rich person can do the same.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Does that include the Kelley Blue Book of my boats or are we talking purely liquid (heh) assets?
elephantium@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Only if they’re underwater.
actionjbone@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Oh, everything.
Got a $20m yacht? Sell it. Oh, youcre forced to sell it for $50k because nobody will give you more? That’s just the free market, clearly it’s only worth $50k.
Paid $75m to build your house? Well someone is offering you $175k and you’d better take it.
And you own a company worth $100m? No you don’t, it was already taken from you and turned into a worker-owned co-op.
After all the sales and seizures, you’ve got $23.1m in cash, and just 1m more in the bank? OK, dude, we cool.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
no
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
:(
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
Love cool ideas not companies!
Klear@quokk.au 5 months ago
Valve invented or normalised a ton of crap that’s plaguing modern gaming: game launchers, always online DRM, microtransactions, achivements, lootboxes…
paultimate14@lemmy.world 5 months ago
None of that was invented by Valve. “Normalize” is subjective but I would argue they didn’t do any of that either.
Launchers existed for a long, long time before Steam- part of what made Steam so successful was having a centralized launcher for games from a lot of different companies together. Before then there was usually a separate launcher for each game.
Online DRM has existed for as long as the Internet was ubiquitous enough to get away with it. Offline DRM existed before that. Even back in the 80’s games would ship with all sorts of anti-piracy mechanisms. The only 2 Valve games that ever had DRM were Artifact and DOTA 2, both of which were online multiplayer-only games, which seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Maple Story is pretty widely considered to be the first game with micro transactions, and they were in the form of loot boxes. By the time Team Fortress came out the concept was already popularized in MMO’s, Facebook games like Farmville, and FIFA.
Achievements aren’t something I really care about, but game had those concepts for years. I remember playing Spyro 2 as a kid and tracking down all the skill points. Sure it doesn’t use the word “achievement” but even today Sony uses the word “Trophy” to mean the same thing.
Corporations aren’t your friend of course, it’s just weird that people think Valve invented these things. And Valve’s implementations are some of the most benign and consumer-friendly cases in the industry.
The launcher i consider a positive - it’s a great way to organize my library, including non-steam games. There’s tons of free features I use all the time, like Remote Play, free Cloud Saves, friend management. It’s great for managing inputs from all sorts of different controllers, managing systems with multiple displays, allowing me to control everything with a controller without having to set it down to use my mouse and keyboard. They have great mod support for the games that use it. There’s tons more features I don’t use. It’s not just a launcher like EA Play or UPlay- it’s a full platform. It’s so useful that I even added GOG Galaxy as a non-steam game.
Any business needs to balance the needs of its stakeholders. Owners, partners, creditors, consumers, employees, governments, etc. Valve is one of the fairest companies left alive in 2025 at balancing all of these entities, and yet in every online discussion about them someone always feels the need to pipe in and be like “well aktually they are secretly very bad!”, just because they don’t have the power to stop other companies from being shitty. They don’t have the bargaining power to tell Sega to get rid of Denuvo on a games from prior generations selling for $20. They don’t have the bargaining power to Ubisoft or Larian to drop their annoying launchers. They don’t have the power to tell other publishers and devs to stop adding pay-to-win mechanics. They don’t have the power to stand up to payment processors that are demanding certain content be removed from the store.
Valve DOES have the power to promote Linux as a legitimately viable operating system for gamers, behind Linux enthusiasts. They have the power to get Microsoft to drop their ridiculous store. They have the power to get Ubisoft to at least add their games to Steam, even if you need a dumb launcher still. They have the power to clearly and consistently label games with DRM in their store so consumers can make informed decisions without spending hours digging through the legalize or EULA’s or doing research on enthusiast forums.
It’s fair to question whether Valve’s 30% cut is justified for every publisher, though we also know that some publishers have been able to make separate deals at times. I’m sure you can find other things that are fair to question. It’s really weird to accuse people of “kissing Gabe’s ass” just for recognizing that Steam is the best platform for a consumer to use right now.
halvar@lemy.lol 5 months ago
Blaming game launchers on Steam is like blaming streaming becoming unusable on Netflix. They were having success being (probably) the first ones to do it and when other companies saw that they tried to copy their success, only to find out that what made the original product successful was that they were the only ones doing it and that was (unlike the new landscape the companies just created) incredibly useful.
The sad fact of the matter is that while having a one stop shop for anything sounds great, once a solution in a certain field gets successful the other companies trying to achive the same success will fly in like vultures and make it forever impossible to have just one service that unites everything into one neat package.
DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
whats wrong with game achivments?
Klear@quokk.au 5 months ago
They’re nothing but a skinner box that’s supposed to keep you playing games for longer. It’s the same type of instant gratification built into most mobile game, but applied to everything else.
Suburbanl3g3nd@lemmings.world 5 months ago
For me, it’s when people complain that a game/system/platform doesn’t have them. Some games and systems don’t need or want to gamify playing games and that’s okay
CaptainBasculin@lemmy.bascul.in 5 months ago
Valve is in a very unique spot where employees are all paid well because of the low amount of employees they have and the massive income they generate; in their employee reviews you typically don’t really see low salary as a reason to leave.
Grimy@lemmy.world 5 months ago
He spent a billion dollars on boats.
Grimy@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Gabe’s fleet of yatchs is worth about 1 billion (8 boats and a sub or two). The yearly maintenance cost is estimated to be between 100 to 150 million per year. He essentially taxes a whole industry and most gamers because the soft monopoly and collusion he has going on with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo let’s him.
This is literally the definition of boot licking. Please try to think farther then the line his marketing team draws for you.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I obviously should’ve posted this to unpopularopinions. Still, you guys need to really slow down and enjoy your showers more, JESUS.
NewDark@lemmings.world 5 months ago
Look, he can be a rich guy and a leader. 1 billion is a decent line in the sand of “sorry, you own too much”. He’s certainly not as nakedly evil as most the rest of his ilk.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
I usually put it at $10M, and there are specific arguments for this.
The Trinity Study used a standard retirement portfolio and then studied its results using a sliding window starting from 1925. Let’s say you retire at 60 and expect to have another 20 years of life. This time period covers good stock market performance and bad, high inflation and low. It’s a very robust result, and the US and even worldwide economy would have to fundamentally change for it to be invalidated. (You could argue that Trump is driving things in that direction, but that’s a whole other discussion.)
How much of the portfolio can you withdraw each year and be safe?
The study starts with a percentage withdraw rate, which is increased by the rate of inflation each year. It then checks if the portfolio would have run out of money before the person is expected to die. This resulted in the 4% rule where you start withdrawing 4% the first year and then increase by inflation. It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll run out of money in a standard retirement period.
If you withdraw 3% or 2%, you won’t run out of money even if you live forever.
So let’s take a 2.5% withdraw rate. This is extremely conservative and should basically last forever. US government bond rates are typically higher than that (but not always), so we’re not even that tied to the stock market on this one. If you had $10M, take 2.5% the first year and increase by inflation each year after, you would perpetually have the purchasing power of $250k/year.
If you have $250k/year, you can live very comfortably anywhere on Earth. This is the part where someone always chimes in “what about the Bay area or New York?”
First, with this plan, you can live anywhere. You’re not tied to an area by a job. Maybe don’t chose high cost of living areas.
OK, let’s say there’s family or something else that’s specifically tying you to those areas. Median income in Manhattan is $106k, and the other burrows are significantly lower. San Fransisco median is $136k. I’m quite certain you can live comfortably on $250k in those areas if you absolutely had to for some reason.
Also, don’t forget that unlike all us working stiffs, you wouldn’t have to put another dime into a 401k or any other retirement plan. Your $10M already covers that. Feel free to spend it all on luxuries.
So that’s the limit. We can increase the $10M based on future inflation, but higher than that is just wanking about how much you have, and there’s no reason society should respect that.
NewDark@lemmings.world 5 months ago
That’s really well thought out. Thank you for that.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I can agree with that. Still, has he ever been naked that you know of? Cuz… I’d like to really solidify my stance…?
BurgerBaron@piefed.social 5 months ago
There’s Steam Marketplace and loot boxes that stain his image for negatives. He could’ve not done that had had one less mega yacht.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
That’s real life for you, with all those pesky shades of grey
dontsayaword@piefed.social 5 months ago
Being a billionaire is immoral in all cases
ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
How does it work with someone like Taylor Swift, who According to Forbes, Swift is the first musician to reach 10-figure status solely based on songwriting and performances rather than brand deals, makeup lines, or business ventures?
You can argue they should be more charitable, but that really can’t be required. You could also say taxes should be higher past a certain point, but they currently aren’t and that’s not any individual’s fault.
Also, I’m using Taylor swift as an example, but I mean more generally a person that captures worldwide attention for their art.
leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
in all cases
dontsayaword@piefed.social 5 months ago
I believe a moral person would not horde such obscene wealth while people are struggling and starving unnecessarily. Were not talking about just being “well off” - It’s more money than a person could need in countless lifetimes. So yes, I think she should give it away.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
FINE.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 months ago
Do we get to keep his boats?
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Okay, I hear you. But if you were a billionaire, wouldn’t YOU buy six boats? PLEASE try to lie and claim otherwise.
HubertManne@piefed.social 5 months ago
Is that boats inside of boats or completely seperate. I can’t see ore than 3. Spare boat and emergency boat in the off chance both are down.
WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The fuck would I or anyone for that matter do with more than 1 boat? Honestly?
PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org 5 months ago
No lol.
amzd@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Why? He takes a 30% cut from every game sale just because his platform has a dominant grasp on gamers.
I don’t understand how people can hate taxes (which go on to pay for schools and roads) but not the way larger cut that digital storefronts charge.
caoimhinr@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Devs can just generate keys and sell elsewhere to avoid the 30% cut.
rikudou@lemmings.world 5 months ago
Pff, I wish my overall taxation was only 30%.
anyhow2503@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There’s an argument to be made that it’s too high of a cut, especially these days. A lot of this money has funded great improvements to the gaming ecosystem and many open source projects. The major competing storefronts/launchers do not come even slightly close to the feature set that Steam provides, but they have tried attracting users through exclusivity deals. It’s very telling that some successful competitors (like itch or gog) actually offer some unique benefits and aren’t attached to some incredibly controversial corporations…
Valve isn’t free from criticism and their role as a monopolist should definitely be scrutinized, especially as companies often radically change for the worse in behaviour and culture, but a lot of this critical attention was instigated by Epic CEO Tim Sweeney who can frankly gargle my nuts.
30p87@feddit.org 5 months ago
I hate misused taxes.
Gabe at least gives us 95% greatness back (5% being gambling)
amzd@lemmy.world 5 months ago
He has an 111m superyacht, he is not giving you anything my friend, I’m sorry.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I don’t want to love him. I just feel like I’d never find anyone better, if I left, you know?
amzd@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Is this one of those “the ogre has fallen I love with the princess” farquaad meme situations
Mr_Fish@lemmy.world 5 months ago
He’s low on the list for sure
spykee@lemmings.world 5 months ago
Valve gives you a taste of gambling.
Every billionaire out there has become a billionaire by being a fucking idiot. No exceptions.
pcgamer.com/…/valves-reported-profit-per-head-fro…