Made large contributions to Linux gaming compatibility

>made their own linux distro

>develop Proton and Lepton

>all that in Valve-Time™

>Windows gave up

Valve could've legitimately done nothing and still be winning in comparison to the big three, but instead they've slowly and steadily been helping the gaming community to give Windows the middle finger by making huge contributions to Linux gaming.

Honestly, its downright shameful how many companies have forgotten that a good way to make money from customers is simply to treat them nicely while they're buying your goods.

Actually the trigger for Valve to build a focus on Linux was that Microsoft was planning to lock down Windows so that only apps from the Microsoft Store could be installed. If Microsoft woul have went through with that, it would have killed Steam.

... They're like the opposite of doing nothing.

MSFT in particular has been essentially utterly out manuevered by Valve and their developements.

Its... its actually rumored (by Moore's Law Is Dead) that the specific weird custom chip the Steam Machine is using...

... was originally going to be used in something like like a planned Surface Super Duper Pro tablet.

But MSFT cancelled it.

After AMD had already made a bunch of the chips.

... And... then Valve comes along, figures out how to build a PC/Console out of MSFT's abandoned scraps, which also functionally hammers the final nail into the coffin of Xbox as an actual hardware device.

Valve beat MSFT at large segments of literally their own game.

Proton and Vulkan, both largely funded by Valve, flipped the fucking game table into another dimension, but MSFT did not notice untill it was beyond too late.

... Thinking with portals, you might say.

This is what you can accomplish when you don't have shareholders forcing you to be an idiot.

He iight

Valve was responsible for creating the gambling mania in gaming. Remember that!

What he did was resisting the temptation of screwing gamers. I wonder if this will last

Fostering developers to go ham on windows to Linux comparability and now the same for X86/64 to ARM is much more than nothing. Valve have actually been the ones doing the most to pave the way for theirs and anyone who follows' future.

I'm not too jazzed about their virtual monopoly but that's sadly because they've just been working for consumers in more ways than the others. They're not the best at everything like GOG trumps then when it comes to actual ownership but it's sum of all of their parts that puts them head and shoulders above the rest.

They've done so much that they've paved the way for non gamers to be able to switch over to Linux much easier (I wouldn't say it's all on them but they've helped foster cross compatible development on Linux in general). I don't think you could say the others have done as much to affect the space outside of gaming as valve either. Except Microsoft, but their decisions have been much more controversial.

I hate to see myself glazing valve as much as I have here but it is what it is. I'll criticise them when the context allows and praise them like this in other times.

Can we stop the steam/gabe glazing?

They are responsible for some of the worst practices in modern video games and are generally not a consumer focused company but you're doing PR for them for free

We have very different ideas about doing nothing.

Look, failing at selling video games people want to buy, is like failing at selling porn, or running a casino full of machines that tabulate a set amount of winnings before giving back a predetermined amount.

Doing nothing is sometimes the smartest way to make money.

Playstation isn't lazy. They happily shoot themselves in the foot every other week. For every 1 good thing Sony does with the brand, they do 3 or 4 fucked up things.

Buys 10 yachts.

look, im very grateful for valve employee’s work on proton (& other technologies), and i recognize that out of the major gaming companies, valve is one of the least bad…

but they’re still a corporation. they’re still unethical. they popularized gambling mechanics and they basically have a monopoly on PC gaming distribution.

don’t worship companies. they don’t care about you. need i remind you, in the late 2000s/early 2010s, nintendo was the good guy. just making good games and innovating, while everyone else was busy making yearly slop, day one DLCs, paid online, microtransactions, broken games on release… and now, look at them.

Yeah but then one of the things you have to remember is there's a lot of people who may enjoy PC gaming but don't actually want to PC game. My cell included. And I've been in the IT industry for 20 plus years and I can't be bothered to build a PC to play my hundreds of steam games that I own. Hell I keep buying humble bundles yet I still haven't put together a PC for probably the last 5 years. The only PC I actually own is a laptop that I use just for work that I don't have it customization done on and it's used for my clients to be able to connect remotely to sites so I don't care what goes on it and what stays on it. I enjoy my Xbox because I don't have to do any tinkering with it I literally just turn it on and play on my nice big tv. I enjoy my switch because I just turn it on and play it on my TV or in my hand. I enjoy my phone because I just use it and play on it when I need to. Same with my tablet. However owning and maintaining a PC is quite a bit more work. Not only that but if I wanted to put it in my living room I'd have to either build a small form factor PC to fit in my living room and then connect it up and maintain it, or I'd have to go into another room to game on a desk where it's specifically set up.