People need to remember a lot of the pro-consumer things that Valve has ever done were things they were forced to by regulation. Like being able to return games? That was to comply with an Australian law, and it was just *easier* to implement it for everyone than just do it for Australia specifically.

even then, "he used to make games"… was he alone? did he not have a team with him? where are their yachts? valve is an alright company all things considered, but it’s baffling to me how many people act like they’re the second coming… people should know better. valve is a corporation operating under capitalism. [they’re not above doing shady stuff for profit.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmNy11Mn7g)

Actually a few of the current ones and the purchase of the yacht facility a few years ago have all been to support inkfish.

It's still a luxury yacht decked out with nearly all the things you'd expect from a half a billion dollar superyacht. Only part of it is customised for research. If the main goal was to turn half a billion dollars into a research boat, this isn't the boat that would get made.

Gabe looks a lot like me. I think I see where they could cut some corners. 

That sounds like a reasonable compromise.

A billionaire whose hobby is Marine conservation. That yacht is a floating lab. Inkfish, founded by Gabe Newell, aims to advance marine science by providing tools and access for deep-ocean exploration, focusing on serving the scientific community rather than personal interests. The organization's mission is to integrate marine science, engineering, and technology to map uncharted seafloor, study biodiversity, discover new species, and protect ocean ecosystems, while also providing open-source data and technical support to scientists

While all that is indeed good, we shouldn't *have to* rely on the benevolence of the wealthy to be able to have a better world. No offense, but that kind of stuff should be paid for by *taxation.* He is doing some good here, but it's also his pet project, his choice where the money goes, no one else, no input from society at large. It's still overall not a real great thing, because it means that we have to just *hope* that billionaires have pet projects that help society and the earth at large.

In general, I think being decent to customers is a business strategy, because the barrier to entry for a Steam competitor is nearly non-existent, and there's always piracy. Still, capitalism working the way it's "supposed to" is still capitalism.

It's quite true, they were one of the first companies to make successful inroads in selling video games in Russia back in the day. Other companies avoided it due to rampant piracy of games in Russia, but Valve successfully (at the time) provided a service and price point that made it more attractive to many Russians than piracy. Being decent to customers is indeed a viable business strategy, and up until the 1970's was sort of the norm. However, they were also pioneers in certain aspects of gaming that have become detrimental to consumers, such as loot boxes and digital marketplaces. They have done their best to manage those within their own walled garden, but they have taken a hands-off approach to gambling on Steam marketplace items that takes place on websites outside of Steam (which to an extent is fair since many of them exist in countries where Valve would have very little success in taking them down in any way).

This sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole after skimming through the article... > I'm guilty of going on about the luxury side of this, but Leviathan has also been designed with scientific work in mind: Newell's interests now include Starfish Neuroscience, a company focused on neural interfaces (popularly known as "brain chips"), and Inkfish, a marine research operation Neural interfaces? Uh oh, that reminds me of another billionaire and a heart-breaking story about animal testing. https://www.gsmgotech.com/2025/05/gabe-newellbacked-starfish-bci-chip-to.html > Unlike bulky, invasive BCIs used in medical settings, the Starfish chip is designed to be minimally invasive, leveraging a proprietary array of microelectrodes that attach to the scalp. >The device’s compact design, roughly the size of a postage stamp, also addresses a common hurdle in consumer neurotech: wearability. Early prototypes suggest the chip could be discreetly integrated into headbands, VR headsets, or even augmented reality glasses. Oh ok... well that doesn't sound as bad. Wait, didn't Valve just announce a new VR headset that has a port which can be used for 3rd party accessories? >BCIs inevitably raise questions about privacy, data security, and ethical AI use. Starfish claims its device anonymizes neural data and processes most information locally, rather than cloud servers. Still, skeptics argue that neural data’s intimate nature demands stricter regulatory frameworks. >Dr. Rachel Kim, a bioethicist at Stanford University, cautions, “The benefits are immense, but we need clear guidelines on who owns brain data and how it’s monetized. This isn’t just another app—it’s a window into the human mind.” Hmmm...

I mean they are still making games, even if they're not the games you want. CS2 released not long ago, Deadlock is under very active development, and there's solid reason to believe another game is currently in progress (like their Steam developer page showing 2 upcoming games).

There was an article about a year ago posted to Reddit about how Gabe owns 6 yachts worth $1B. I called him out in the comments and got flamed by every gamer on the platform. It's crazy the mental gymnastics these simps do to defend others living like Gods.

If I recall correctly Newell himself has made comments on how scary brain interfaces become when the interfaces can start influencing the mind as well as reading it. Giving it positive signals in association with certain ideas or products, essentially a shortcut to what traditional advertising tried to exploit about human cognition, except now it could be forced directly, where you can essentially "force" people's brains to be happy with a certain situation, idea, or product. He is at least cognizant of the dangers, but who knows how cognizant or how he plans to address those dangers.

I dont have a problem with it. If i had that much money i would buy crazy shit too. I start to have a problem with it when it encroaches on my quality of life (buying politicians, scooping up homes meant for families, etc)

Alternatively, it's a luxury yacht for small teams of passionate scientists to keep them happy and comfortable for long periods, and also a floating town for Gabe to live in Also, if you want to criticize it there's one implication that worries me... Part of the concept is that this yacht will be a floating lab that can pick up and move to avoid regulations

Personally, if I had GabeN money to spend on a yacht, I would commission something similar to S/S Delphine, S/S Norrskär or / S/S Storskär, I love the classic lines of a late 1800s, early 1900s small ship. Modern yachts/ships look so boring...

Fuck billionaires, him included. A personal submarine bay is just baller as fuck, though.

We are so used to billionaires being obnoxious assholes that one that isn't obnoxious about their billions feels like one of the good ones, I guess. He made his money (like any other billionaire) by overcharging and underpaying. He wastes his money on useless bullshit like any other billionaire. But he's not obnoxious about it, which causes people to just ignore the part about billionaires that's actually bad (the way they became billionaires).

>Like being able to return games? That was to comply with an Australian law, and it was just easier to implement it for everyone than just do it for Australia specifically. Well you say that but Sony also has an online game marketplace that operates in Australia. I don’t know how it works in Australia, but in the U.S. their return policy is not nearly as generous as Steam’s. In fact it Sony’s return policy only really exists on paper. In reality they don’t really do returns at all.