3 ms·

That is not a plausible scenario at all. Gaben made it clear he's never going to sell out, and generally makes fun of people for suggesting it.

• Steko 12y ago
  It's not like we haven't ever seen people swearing they won't sell out and then selling out later because of changing circumstances. When push comes to shove will he really lay off half of his employees? Fundamentally Valve is two companies and Steam's chances of conquering the world and remaining independent don't seem great to me. Business today is great and they have many users who love them. They are however, ultimately an extra middleman on an increasingly irrelevant platform that they don't control. They're also about to enter another market with fading relevance against established players with much deeper pockets. That's not a bet-the-company move but, if it's a mild initial success, it may spiral into something like it. That could be worse than if it flopped out of the gate as Valve may end up issuing lots of stock to support growth in the cutthroat console world, where the competition spends billions on subsidizing hardware, marketing and gaining exclusives and is also facing growing pressure from Android and iOS. Yes Steam has millions of avid fans today. Ask Sega, Nokia, RIM and others how long that lasts in the hardware world.