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this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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I hate to agree with a billionaire, but he's right. Currently steam is not a monopoly at all, and hasn't yet gotten so dominant that it amounts to one.
But they are the single most dominant outlet, and are in the first stages of having an ability to control the entire market in unfair ways to the point of crushing competition. It won't be long before they do have that ability completely. And we can't just trust the billionaire because he's shown an unusual degree of user focused choices overall. Even if he's perfect, he ain't immortal, and as soon as he's not in control, there will be fuckery
This is what I don't think a lot of people will be prepared for ...
I dread if there's gonna some useless MBA coming around afterwards and saying some shit like: "why don't we charge steam users $9.99 to play their games per month?" and start cutting projects that benefit gamers to "save money" -- who needs Proton? who needs to invest in things like couch co-op? Then give themselves a shitload of money in exchange for all the goodwill that Valve have built up over the years.
But Valve is not a public company, so you don't get randos. Gabe is very aware of this fact himself.
Yeah, since Valve is not public the odds of the next head being an outside hire or some loud tech exec are extremely low.
GabeN is most likely to pick someone who's been around with the company since the early days, like Erik Johnson or Scott Lynch.
If he wants it to stay in the family, his own son Gray could take over, he's also a game dev.
Gabe has often expressed distrust of publicly traded markets, a plausible outcome is that his ownership gets converted into an employee-owned trust or a collective buyback, this would effectively permanently lock Valve into its current profile, distributing profils back into salaries and bonuses for the staff.
That would be absolutely amazing if it happened. Plus, Valve would be able to hire damn near anyone they want due to the dividends the employees would get each year
Yes but it's not a certenty
How would you want it to be certain?
I think if it's in a contract or law ... I think most of us have just been burned by trusting "people".
Oh no. Most of us are pretty much expecting the apocalypse whenever Gaben is gone.
Yep. This is how it goes downhill.
Some business analyst will make a pretty chart showing a massive revenue increase Vs some minor player attrition caused by the monthly subscription model, and the board will salivate at all those billions they're gonna get.
Is that revenue necessary? Not at all. But capitalism says you must maximise profits regardless for the sake of it, and without an all powerful overlord to say otherwise, it will be a tragic downfall.
I'm ready for it, I "backed up" my steam library because of it. The whole movement these last few months against steam make me think the industry is coordinating against it because steam won't play ball.
I really hope Linux will get a bigger market share, thanks to Steam devices, before Steam has to change CEOs and starts the inevitable enshitification.
Because for Linux gaming, Steam's support for Proton is pretty much a monopol.
Most of 3rd party launchers for other stores also rely on Proton under the hood, IIRC.
Nobody stops EGS to implement Proton. Neither ActiBlizz, Ubisoft or EAs Origin.
The "monopoly" in this case is again just other stores not wanting to do what gamers want. Proton is FOSS and anyone can use it.