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> Much credit to Valve for pushing that out as FOSS. Cynical: Valve doesn't sell hardware or operating systems, they sell games. These devices are merely anoth

• atomicnumber3 11mo ago
  This is what I say a lot. Valve isn't even remotely close to having clean hands here. They invented loot crates. Hats. Etc. It's just that the bar is so INSANELY low - it's probably somewhere deep in the earth's core at this point - that valve looks like a fucking angel by being only VAGUELY greedy on occasion. When your competition is EA... it's not hard.
  • tapoxi 11mo ago
    > They invented loot crates. Hats. Etc. Don't forget the part where they're encouraging kids to gamble with real money on Counter-Strike skins. They rely on an API that Valve freely provides and makes no effort to curtail. But they like Linux and give refunds so they get a free pass.
    • jsheard 11mo ago
      > and give refunds so they get a free pass. They only begrudgingly conceded refunds in 2015 after the no-refunds policy they had maintained for 12 years was found to be illegal in Australia.
      • nananana9 11mo ago
        They made the new refund policy worldwide, which they absolutely did not have to.
        • jsheard 11mo ago
          Sure, but I imagine they saw the dominoes falling and realized that the optics of going down kicking and screaming in endless battles against basic consumer rights would be exceptionally bad. If they hadn't fully conceded then the EU would have been up their ass too before long.
          • aranelsurion 11mo ago
            > kicking and screaming in endless battles against basic consumer rights “Apple has entered the chat.” There are so many examples of other companies doing exactly that.
          • deleted 11mo ago
            [deleted]
      • mikkupikku 11mo ago
        Whatever the reason for their policy, it provides a nice sense of safety to Linux gamers. They can buy the game without worrying about compatibility; if the game doesn't run then its two clicks for an automated refund.
      • protimewaster 11mo ago
        Also, competing stores like EA's Origin had a pretty friendly refund policy before Valve did, helping to put some pressure on Valve.
        • rockskon 11mo ago
          I seem to recall Origin initially reserving the right to revoke your license to play games you purchased after a few years of inactivity.
          • abustamam 11mo ago
            Classic EA. "Oh, you haven't played this game in a while. You should pay us again if you wanna play it again. Give you a sense of pride and accomplishment!" (reference for those who haven't seen it https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/comment/dppum98 https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b... )
          • protimewaster 11mo ago
            AFAIK Steam has this too. The Subscriber Agreement clearly states that you're not guaranteed continued, free access to Steam. If they decided they wanted to charge you to access games you already bought, they could.
    • jchw 11mo ago
      I truly believe that Valve has two fundamental things working in their favor: Firstly: Despite inventing or at least popularizing a lot of new microtransaction concepts, they've just never been the greediest company in the business when it comes to microtransactions. Mobile gacha games have cleaned up their business quite a lot lately, with most of them being significantly less predatory than they used to be, but even back when TF2 introduced lootboxes and hats, the important thing was that the game was not pay to win; you could get all of the items in relatively short order just by playing, and the only benefit to paying was cosmetics. Contrast this to the earlier reign of Korean MMOs: pretty much all of them had egregious microtransactions. MapleStory, PangYa, Gunbound, etc, and even some current platforms like Roblox. Valve also came into this whole thing before lootboxes became the root of all evil, and while TF2's lootbox mechanism looks bad in retrospect, there was simply no stigma against a system like that, and it never felt like a big deal during the game's heyday. Just my opinion, but I strongly believe it to be true. Secondly: The most egregious things going on are not things Valve is directly involved in, they are merely complicit, in that they don't do much to curtail it. It's not even necessarily cynical to say that Valve is turning a blind eye, they benefit so significantly from the egregious behavior that it is hard to believe they are not influenced by this fact. But: It is consistent with Valve's behavior in other ways: Valve has taken a very hands-off stance in many places, and if it weren't for external factors it seems likely they would be even more hands-off than they are now. I think they genuinely take the position that it's not their job to enforce moral standards, and if you really do take this position seriously it is going to wind up looking extremely bad when you benefit from it. It's not so dissimilar from the position that Cloudflare tries to take with its services: it's hard to pick apart what may be people with power trying to uphold ideals even when it is optically poor versus greedy companies intentionally turning a blind eye because it might enrich them. (And yes, I do understand that these sites violate Valve's own ToS, but so does a lot of things on Steam Workshop and elsewhere. In many cases, they really do seem consistently lax as long as there isn't significant external pressure.) Despite these two things, there is a nagging feeling that every company gives me that I should never take anything but a cynical view on them, because almost all companies are basically lawnmowers now. But I really do not feel like I only give Valve the benefit of the doubt just because they support Linux; I actually feel like Valve has done a substantial amount to prove that they are not just another lawnmower. After all, while they definitely are substantially enriched by tolerating misuse of their APIs, they've probably also gotten themselves into tons of trouble by continuing to have a very hands-off attitude. In fact, it seems like owing to the relatively high standards people have for Valve, they get criticized and punished more for conduct than other companies. I mean seriously, Valve has gotten absolutely reamed for their attempt at adding an arbitration clause into their ToS, with consequences that lingered long after they removed and cancelled the arbitration clause. And I do hate that they even tried it -- but what's crazy to me is that it was already basically standard in big tech licensing agreements. Virtually everyone has an insane "you can't sue us" rule in their ToS. It numbs my mind to try to understand why Valve was one of the first and only companies to face punishment for this. It wouldn't numb my mind at all if it was happening to all of them, but plenty of these arbitration clauses persist today! So when I consider all of this, I think Valve is an alright company. They're not saints, but even if the bar wasn't so terribly low, they'd probably still be above average overall. That can be true simultaneously with them still having bad practices that we don't all like.
    • Hikikomori 11mo ago
      The same api users use?
      • koolala 11mo ago
        a social chat interface where bots pretend to be humans. so its a UI not a API yeah
    • cornhole 11mo ago
      there are worse capitalists to give money to
    • tarsinge 11mo ago
      Yes everybody is trying to find rational reasons but to me like in recent politics a lot has to do with irrational tribalism. I stumbled on an article of Gabe talking about his new yacht[0] and it made me realize he is not different than other billionaire (and maybe worst than average because he doesn’t even give to charity). But he looks like he is "one of us" and he likes Linux, so it’s okay. Would gamers keep the rose colored glasses if Valve was exactly the same but the CEO was a business suit style type? [0] https://fortune.com/2025/11/17/gabe-newell-leviathan-superyacht-features-submarine-garage-hospital-spa-gaming-pcs-inkfish-oceanco/ https://fortune.com/2025/11/17/gabe-newell-leviathan-superya...
      • rpdillon 11mo ago
        It isn't tribalism, at least not from my side. There's a tangible, noticeable, immediate difference between buying a piece of hardware from Valve and buying a piece of hardware from Google or Apple. I really resented Valve after the Steam box debacle that left me with a $1,200 paperweight, but since then, they've done enormous amounts of work to regain my trust through tangible increases in the quality of the gaming experience, including not having to use Windows to game anymore, and providing me with open hardware that I can install whatever I want on, including using their hardware as my own personal PC when e.g. traveling. Its weird to me that people choose what companies to buy from on the basis of whether or not the CEO owns a yacht or how rich he is. That is not the operative criteria when I choose what products to buy, but rather how well that product suits my needs and how much I trust the relationship with the company that produced it. Valve is just miles ahead of every other manufacturer in this regard.
      • wiredpancake 11mo ago
        I'm not sure what you are trying to suggest. What does it matter if Gabe has a yacht? He has multiple of them. Gabe also have an undersea research company called Inkfish, which is a non-profit company designed to "conduct deep-sea research and explore, map, and study the least-explored parts of the ocean". In 2020 he donated $300,000 to the Starship Children's Hospital. In 2020 Gabe Newell arranging free concert for New Zealand. In 2014 Gabe founded a Racing Team which helps support Grassroots motorsports, the Heart of Racing Team also supports the Seattle Children's Hospital. Game is also the co-founder of a company called foundry10, which is an education research organization focused on youth philanthropy. Gabe is not the evil person you are trying to make him out to be. He has visited numerous schools, colleges and universities and done free talks out of goodwill. He has put millions into research and development of Linux software for the bettering of Linux community as a whole. He doesn't "Just like Linux", through his investments and care for the Linux community, Valve has made Linux a viable gaming platform, which it would be likely a decade behind without his investments.
  • ecshafer 11mo ago
    The difference is that valve loot crates/hats have also always been tradeable, and Ive never had to buy them or suffer a disasvantage.
    • tpxl 11mo ago
      TF2 hats used to bring an advantage until about a decade ago.
      • BlueTemplar 11mo ago
        Oh - were they already tradeable ?
      • OoooooooO 11mo ago
        All items had stats / skill changes, no?
      • super256 11mo ago
        That is simply not true. Hats have always been cosmetics only. Some unusual hats even give you a disadvantage as they broadcast your position through sounds.
        • Thorrez 11mo ago
          This video describes how, in the past, certain item sets, which included hats, gave stats boosts when worn together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZDIqnS0FcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZDIqnS0FcI
          • super256 11mo ago
            The author is completely ignoring that you didn't have to BUY these hats. For example, you could (and still can) craft the Milkman hat with 1 refined metal + 1 special delivery weapon.
  • rl3 11mo ago
    >It's just that the bar is so INSANELY low - it's probably somewhere deep in the earth's core at this point - ... Sounds like we need someone to.. raise the bar.
  • jefftk 11mo ago
    What's wrong with hats?
    • conorcleary 11mo ago
      lice
  • GuB-42 11mo ago
    You don't become a billionaire by having your hands clean. But what set them appart to other companies is that they go out of their way not to be hostile to their users. Loot boxes done well are not user hostile, players pay because they like them, and sure, it uses all the tricks from the gambling industry to get as most money as they can, but player don't feel scammed or considering it an obstacle to their goals. It is just an additional feature they may or may not use. Compare to say, locking part of the game behind a paid DLC, players don't like that, they feel forced. Same end goal, that is to make their money your money, but the latter is considered hostile. And ads, Steam is full of ads, from recommendations to the store page showing up right as you launch steam. But they won't put a popup between you and your game. They show you the ads you want to see... And you buy games you wouldn't have bought otherwise. And Steam has DRM, that's weak DRM, but effective at what it does, and importantly, if you bought the games legally, you won't even notice, contrary to some other company intrusive practices.
    • caphector 11mo ago
      Steams default landing page can be changed in Settings -> Interface -> Start Up Location. Setting Library skips the store when opening. Steam
      • oxcidized 11mo ago
        While true, you do still technically get pop up ads occasionally when set that way.
  • awill 11mo ago
    I have a super high opinion of Valve. Sure, they have loot crates. But sensible people don't buy them. I guess you could blame them for having it in the first place. That's fair I guess. But I've never for a second considered buying any of that junk. I just buy single player offline games with no IAP, and Steam is amazing. It's a million miles ahead of the competitors, and it's really surprising that EA/Ubi etc.. try to compete but don't get the reason they're losing. They screw customers and then act surprised that customers hate them.
    • m12k 11mo ago
      They've hedged their bets by making, and selling, both games whose monetization is exploitative and non-exploitative
    • nolok 11mo ago
      The problem with loot crates, and the reason why they're being slowly regulated against in several places, is that "sensible people don't buy them" has never stopped people to lose their life to gambling.
      • jakeec 11mo ago
        I hope everyone who is so outspoken about loot crates are also fighting for TCG packs to be banned/regulated because they are literally the same level of "gambling".
        • iinnPP 11mo ago
          Let's not forget mystery boxes for real toys and things like mini brands. Though I am not outspoken about it, I think individuals need to come to terms with telling themselves no. Otherwise we need to outlaw everything bad and open to abuse to specific individuals. Things such as cake, donuts, coffee, etc.
          • rpdillon 11mo ago
            > Though I am not outspoken about it, I think individuals need to come to terms with telling themselves no. This really resonates with me. I feel like self-control has gone out of fashion, but it has a lot of merit.
  • RobotToaster 11mo ago
    It's amazing that an always-on DRM company can become the "good guy" by staying the same level of asshole they've always been, while every other company became much worse assholes.
    • BlueTemplar 11mo ago
      Steam isn't always-on DRM. For instance Valve's own games don't have any. Their worst failure is allowing games with Denuvo on their store.
      • account42 11mo ago
        Steam itself is DRM, especially when games depend on it to even run, which many of Valve's games do. They don't have additional DRM on top of that but why would they when they already control Steam.
    • jakeec 11mo ago
      Because in practice that "always-on DRM" is actually just purely an advantage for the customer with zero downsides. It only sounds like you're making a good point when you frame "provides the best shopping and library experience in gaming" in the least charitable way possible. The Valve hate-boner is so weird.
      • ndriscoll 11mo ago
        There are disadvantages. e.g. if you don't want to update a program (maybe the new version breaks your modded setup), too bad. Or if you need Windows still for compatibility, it no longer supports Windows 7, so you have to go hunting for old versions of the client and fiddle with it to prevent updates (if that still even works), at which point you'd might as well just mod it to remove the DRM instead. Basically, it creates a failure point for setups that should otherwise last and be stable several more decades.
        • patmorgan23 11mo ago
          Can't you run old versions by setting the version in the game properties?
  • jakeec 11mo ago
    > They invented loot crates. Hats. Etc. You listed one thing. What's the "etc."?
  • TulliusCicero 11mo ago
    On a personal level I just don't give a shit about the loot crates or cosmetic stuff because I don't buy them, they hold no interest for me, and they typically don't impact gameplay. I acknowledge that there's a legitimate ethical concern there the same way there is for, say, Magic the Gathering or other card games. But much like MtG, I can't bring myself to be all that upset about it.
  • Perepiska 11mo ago
    > They invented loot crates It looks like false without sources.
• gmanley 11mo ago
  Does it really matter if they take these consumer friendly actions because they know it will get them good press and dedicated consumers? The end result is the same. Like you touched on, for whatever reason, most large enough companies haven't seemed to figure out this obvious truth. I tend to believe it's because it's harder than it looks, once a company reaches a certain size. Now sure, they are by no means perfect, but I'd like to at least give them credit for being far better than any of the competition, no matter the rational behind it.
• torginus 11mo ago
  You can install your own store or games on the devices if you want to without Steam. You could also take their work and build a custom distro or even a device without any trace of Steam whatsover.
• madeofpalk 11mo ago
  They did the thing. Let’s judge their actions (which they have plenty of good and bad)
• rustystump 11mo ago
  Valve is private right? One of the reasons they are not pure evil is because they have the luxury of not needing to chase the magic dragon of inf growth. They can focus on product. Bet your ass if they were public u would see the slimiest shit coming out to eek every possible percent so bonuses are made. I wish more companies were private for profit but not inf growth.
  • kubafu 11mo ago
    Came here to write exactly this. IMO it is the big reason what Valve is as a company.
• safety1st 11mo ago
  No one is hiding anything. No one is pretending to be something they're not. Life is not a Saturday morning cartoon. There are no good guys vs bad guys. There are just businesses trying to earn more profits. Valve is a business. When Microsoft introduced a Store they threatened Steam's market share. In theory Microsoft could one day update Windows so that it's hard to buy games through non Microsoft stores. Valve responded by investing in open source OS stuff. Their goal is to commoditize Windows, so that Microsoft doesn't wrest control of video game sales away from them. Commoditize your complement is a strategy as old as the software industry itself. We've known all this for years, it's been discussed publicly and no one is hiding it. It always annoys me when people think we're in Lord of the Rings and one company is Sauron or another is Gandalf. It's all just business. To everyone who makes decisions, it all boils down to numbers on a spreadsheet. They want their number to go up. What you SHOULD care about is competition. Valve would never have invested in all these OSS technologies if Microsoft hadn't tried to compete with them. They wouldn't be consumer friendly and they wouldn't make investments if they thought they could sit on their ass. They would just coast and enshittify (like Microsoft has in the OS space with its Windows monopoly). We don't need good guy companies, we need strong pro-competition laws and strong enforcers of those laws. You can vote accordingly at the ballot box, and you can also vote accordingly with your wallet, buy stuff from the little guys.
  • afiori 11mo ago
    The discourse is not valve good others bad, rather it is consumer/product focused good and next-quarter/short-term-profit focused bad. With the context that a lot of modern enshittification, outsourcing, layoffs, anti-consumer practises follow from these short term approaches
    • safety1st 11mo ago
      My point is that is a shallow and not especially productive discourse. Companies respond to market incentives. If they have to compete for their market share they'll do stuff consumers want. If they don't because they have no competition, they'll focus on maximizing their profit margins at the expense of their customers, suppliers and everyone else. These responses to incentives are in the DNA of every corporation and any solution which ignores that will fail. Competition for the consumer's dollar is the key and what you need to promote. These are basic economic principles that go all the way back to Adam Smith, a lot of problems would be solved if more people were aware of their significance and considered restoring competition to markets where it has been eliminated a main function of our government.
• pksebben 11mo ago
  The "more to the secret sauce" is the structure of the company. Valve is flat. Employees have 100% control over their time. By not centralizing decision making, you create the conditions for good ideas to form and connect with the problems they are going to be best suited for. The dynamics at work here are very well understood (see Ackoff / Sycara / Gharajedaghi, and yes I had to look the spelling up). Hierarchies and centralization cause fragility and maladaptive behavior, autonomous cellular networks are robust and highly adaptive. For another look at similar principles in action, look up gore-tex and their corporate fragmenting. It's not flat like Valve but it's still kind of genius. I wish there were more discussion about this stuff in general - society could benefit from having better systems literacy.
  • inejge 11mo ago
    > The "more to the secret sauce" is the structure of the company. Valve is flat. I'm too lazy to dig up references, but there have been semi-exposés over the years by ex-employees stating that Valve's flatness was anything but. Namely, in the absence of formal hierarchy an informal one will inevitably arise, and can be equally constraining and pathological, without the benefit of having known avenues for redress. To be sure, formal procedures can also be window-dressing: it's a balancing act, and not an easy one. I'm just skeptical of ascribing too much benefit to lack of structure.
    • rixed 11mo ago
      My understanding is that the emergence of informal hierarchy can actualy be the feature; The problem being addressed being the rigdity of formal hierarchies in a changing environment. As long as informal hierarchies emerge and die according to circumstances, that can be a win.
    • Philpax 11mo ago
      See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne....
    • pksebben 11mo ago
• nialv7 11mo ago
  and that's why Gabe's wealth is "only" 10 billion not 100 billion. The problem is many CEOs will look at what Gabe has and think "I want more than him".
• msy 11mo ago
  The real secret sauce is that Valve is private and doesn't have external investors. As soon as you're owners are primarily interested in short term capital extraction everything else is inevitable.
  • fooblaster 11mo ago
    yeah this is essentially everything and all this other discussion of corporate structure is irrelevant
  • roody15 11mo ago
    I think you are correct here. If you want to look at the decline of the US ... this is perhaps a good place to start. Short term capital extraction little long term strategic planning. Maybe Cisco is a good example.. lets move all of our switch hardware production to China and still charge the consumer 3500$ per switch. Equals short term gain, makes lots of millinaires... and then just a few years later.. now Huawei makes excellent switches that are mostly on par with Cisco at a better price point.
• xzjis 11mo ago
  In reality, Valve is doing all this work on GNU+Linux because they've been afraid of Microsoft ever since Windows 8 and the introduction of the Windows Store. For now, Microsoft is remaining open and isn't restricting installations to its own store; we even see that with the full-screen gaming version of Windows for handhelds, they display games from other stores, including Steam. But Microsoft also has a history of abusing its dominant position and monopoly to push its own products (Internet Explorer, Edge, OneDrive, etc.). Gaben made the only possible decision to protect Valve from that: having their own OS.
• usrusr 11mo ago
  Other CEOs are not owner-CEOs. They may be founder-CEOs, but at the end of the day those aren't really more powerful than a CEO hired off the street by owners. For publicly traded companies, even a majority stake only makes them powerful on paper, because the 49% selling would shatter their paper net worth.
  • graemep 11mo ago
    The other difference (and I think a more important one) is that they take a longer term view of the business, rather than next year's bonus and options vesting. A hired CEO will probably not still be there in a few years time. > or publicly traded companies, even a majority stake only makes them powerful on paper, because the 49% selling would shatter their paper net worth. That threat is limited because the other shareholders do not want to reduce the value of their investment either. Look at what a firm of Musk has on Tesla with something like a 15% stake.
• javier2 11mo ago
  I dont really know what has happened, but many forces have had to improve Linux kernel incrementally. 15 years ago, linux was terrible at suspend-to-ram, wifi drivers a nightmare. Power efficiency was lagging far behind on most architectures. Everyone from intel, to amd, router vendors, server datacenters and android manufacturers have gradually improved these parts over years and years and now, there seems to be enough vested interest that linux compatibility is not a third afterthought, but having good linux support early means you can launch on a android phone, in the datacenter, or build for a custom SoC.
• rpdillon 11mo ago
  To modulate your cynical take somewhat, it's remarkable to me that all the devices are completely open. You can install anything you want on them, which makes them more than a storefront. It makes them a device that works for the user, which, to your final point, does create loyalty in people like me.
• afiori 11mo ago
  Many CEOs are either paid by mythical "shareholder value" or beholden to it in the shape of a board, if they tried to go the valve route they would likely get replaced too soon for the benefits to materialize