For what, being slightly less greedy than his peers?
Steam is what normalized always online DRM in gaming. Steam and Valve games also normalized micro-transactions and gambling mechanics. The guy is far from being a saint.
Steam does not require always online, you can login, download your game, then go offline.
Steam also does not require DRM, developers can choose not to use it, if they do you can just copy the game install dir to a separate folder and run your game without steam.
I guess you could say Valve made this easy, but its not like games didn't have DRM befores team or wouldn't have required always online without steam.
Agreed, the DRM and the always online and forced updates have bothered me ever since steam became a big thing.
I really like that on gog I can choose to install every version of a game ever released. So they can't remove content like music due to expired licenses etc.
Gabe is pretty cool and Valve is an amazing company that has done great things for both PC and Linux gaming. But this is not enough to counter the absolute shitshow that is USA right now.
But hey, they have midterms coming up this year. That's a great opportunity to redeem some of their earlier sanity. That is, if the democracy still exists then. It's not just the left that is worried -- many american centrists have started to wonder.
In democracies money going to governments isn't sucked to some kind of vacuum. It's reinvested in infrastructure, social programs, investment programs, etc.
The US would be better off if it had more money to invest in healthcare and education, and Gabe would still be fine living in a house worth a few millions instead of on a half billion yacht.
> In democracies money going to governments isn't sucked to some kind of vacuum. It's reinvested in infrastructure, social programs, investment programs, etc.
In practice it mostly goes to other rich people/corporations and affluent retirees.
Around half of federal revenues go to retirees (and disproportionately to the affluent ones), another trillion+ dollars goes to defense/VA contractors, another trillion dollars goes to interest (i.e. other rich people/corporations), and then all the rest of it combined is less than any one of those things individually.
You don't think food security is something a country should invest in? Sure, let's have everything we need to live be produced in China, what could possibly go wrong.
This comes right after the news that Gabe purchased another Yacht (like his 6th or 7th?), so at least some fraction of the money is going towards normal billionaire stuff, which certainly doesn't help the homeless, or the even more oppressed Gamers.