When Gabe dies, how much do you want to bet valve is going to suddenly want to start working on half life 3? Only to produce a buggy shallow generic AAA title with micro transactions? I'm hoping I'm wrong, but I'm a little cynical about the whole gaming industry these days.
You are aware the Gabe was there when Hats and Karambits were added to TF2 and CS:GO?
Newell isn't some saint, he's running an obscenely profitable business. The games Valve are actually maintaining, CS2 and DOTA2, both have a lot of microtransactions. I really don't understand why you're making out that Valve would never add MTX until some evil corpo suit takes over after Gabe's death.
I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm saying it could get much much worse. That's all. Valve is a breath of fresh air in comparison to other corporations and publishers at the moment. Steam deck, valve index, the steam platform in general.
It's still a private company, so if he has a worthy follower it's not going to happen. Let's just hope there is someone to start running valve like it's supposed to
Gabe’s choice of successor is arguably going to be one of the most important decisions in gaming, ever. Crazy to say, but finding someone who can maintain course and propel the medium without getting greedy is likely gonna be tough. Gabe always had vision, or at least hired people who did and listened to them. Hope he makes the right call.
Not sure, whether this is possible in the US and how to correctly translate that...
A company in the area where I live had a founder, that feared, that his company might change to a new (more capitalistic/ "evil"/generic) corporate culture, when he would eventually step down and some other manager takes over. So, when he resigned, he transferred all his shares I to a trust? foundation? endowment? to make sure his vision and culture stays with the company as this legal entity enforces it.