My unpopular opinion: Valve is basically a parasite or a landlord. They've been so successful it's hard to imagine a world without them, and they say "you gotta give the parasite its due" and we believe them and comply.
It's been kept around because they treat their customers ok, but they absolutely exsanguinate their developers.
And their engineering culture is... odd. They hire senior people and then let them all fuck sound aimlessly. Their APIs are terrible, their infrastructure is all over the place, they still have patch Tuesdays. But because they are the landlord that owns every house in town, what are you going to do, not pay rent?
Gabe is out there cruising the world in a billion dollar yacht, eating thousand dollar meals. All that came off the backs of developers who actually make the games.
It's been kept around because they treat their customers ok, but they absolutely exsanguinate their developers.
And their engineering culture is... odd. They hire senior people and then let them all fuck sound aimlessly. Their APIs are terrible, their infrastructure is all over the place, they still have patch Tuesdays. But because they are the landlord that owns every house in town, what are you going to do, not pay rent?
Gabe is out there cruising the world in a billion dollar yacht, eating thousand dollar meals. All that came off the backs of developers who actually make the games.