[majewsky]

> Looking at Steam itself, has the service dramatically improved since launch? Certainly there have been a lot of good incremental updates, e.g. two-factor auth. But the Apple App Store has seen a lot more updates in terms of search, discoverability, etc.

This may not be your main point, but have you ever used the Steam store? It's the only app store that I've ever encountered that actually gives me valuable suggestions, and thus the only one into which I've sunk a considerable amount of money. (At least 200€, probably more. In second place is Google Play, where I spent some 7 € or so on apps.)

Just look at the huge percentage of games that are only purchased and never played (or even downloaded) to see that Valve has absolutely nailed the Steam store.

Regarding the actual argument: I agree that for a company this large, the turnout in form of actual products (esp. games) from Valve is surprisingly low. But I'm not sure if that's even a bad thing: For some studios, it works well to release 10 mediocre games within a certain amount of time. For other studios, it works better to release only one extraordinary game in the same timespan.