Well, that's certainly an article title isn't it. But I mean it. Microsoft, don't you dare touch Valve. You're fat enough already and too big as it is.
This is the biggest problem with Valve at the moment. They're awesome, but only because of the current leadership. Once these guys retire or die, it's very likely Valve will enshittify like every other business.
Valve needs to be hit by regulators at some point. They just have too much market power.
I wish the decent guys who started companies would leave a directive for the company that must be followed to prevent it from becoming just another shitty piece of garbage like everything else these days has become thanks to the geniuses with business degrees running the world.
Valve is not awesome at all. Ffs, they didn't become a monopoly by accident. People need to stop worshipping this company just because they started packaging wine with their app.
This is the same company that literally started the trend of requiring storefronts and custom installers for their games with HL2... the exact same thing people whine about EA and Blizzard doing.
PC gaming will become a total shit show if Valve dies and they'll be fully responsible for it.
What valve does is so distinct from what most of the industry does the comparison is laughable. Valve is still a company and not our friend sure, but they are not openly anti-consumer like EA or Blizzard. And they don't abuse their monopolies like Google or Microsoft.
just because they started packaging wine with their app
Even if that's all they did, that is more than anyone else is doing. What they really did was make nearly every game they sell easily playable without requiring you to use Windows. As byproduct, DXVK (part of Valve's Proton) provides greater compatibility and performance for Windows users as well (Intel ARC driver and DX9 game support for example). They have salaried employees working exclusively on making this work and their development is open source for anyone to use modify and share. Epic or any other store front could freely take advantage of this work and benefit why don't they do that instead of whining?
Gabe seems to be able to handle wealth much better than notch, at least. If he would have been susceptible to falling off the deep end like notch, he would have already done so.
Know what, that Gabe hasn't fallen of the deep end like notch? Well, mostly by the lack of any controversy with him personally. Sure that's not a perfect measure, but it still puts him above notch.
Gabe Newell quit working for Microsoft before Windows 3.0 was released. Valve is an employee-owned private company, Gabe Newell ensured that even after his passing, Valve stays true to their roots as long as there's the majority of employees sharing his ideals.
No, that's not how it works. You have no idea how valves shares are spread out and neither does anyone else outside the company. Just because Valve employees own shares does not mean their votes are all equal, in fact they almost certainly aren't.