Privacy and Security. You're out there where no paparazzi can take bikini pictures of you. It's easy to secure so that nobody can kidnap you. And take a look at the interior of those Yachts, they are not cramped. Look at this thing:  It's bigger than your home. It has its own helipad. It is 111m long.

Elephant shit for you then :)\ (just kidding.)

I've thought he was a piece of shit ever since he tried to monetize modding. He was so out of line, even [redditors downvoted him to hell](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/cqol9re/). I buy from gog or directly from the dev nowadays.

~~Millionaires~~ billionaires. It’s a dick-measuring contest from more civilised times.

In fairness, the employees are the highest paid in the industry, making well over 1/2 million a year + bonuses, and even the janitor I believe is well paid, from a leak that came out once in the news. They also have very few employees surprisingly. And they're private, so there's no "line must always go up" mentality either. Should they be paid even more? Yes, but compared to basically all other corporations, he's like last on the list. Not to mention gaming on Linux and open source software (and now, VR on Linux) has basically become possible and easily achievable thanks to Valve, so at least some of that huge money is going back directly to the relevant community. That's way more than can be said about any other tech company. He's still on the list, but he might be the furthest down.

Cat shit is not the same as elephant shit. Contents are different and there is a enormous difference in amounts. Would you rather have an elephant shit in your house of a cat shit in a litterbox in your house?

At this point Gabe has a fleet of yachts and a large knife collections. I've never heard anything about Gabe in connection with cars or large houses. Just knives and yachts. So I guess in the case if this guy he actually _really_ likes yachts.

Neither is you, or anyone except people he works with and is close to.

Frozen excrement blade on a scorching hot day. Might need a dozen or so blades to get halfway through his neck but the splat after each one will be marvellous.

Yup, that's part of the deal: cat shit is *preferable* over elephant shit. The other part is that cat shit is still shit, and it's still *undesirable*. Now look at the discussion in this thread. Gabe Newell is cat shit; some comments are trying to defend him as not shit, some trying to pretend his behaviour is exactly as bad as elephant shit (your typical billionaire). Between a billionaire like Newell spending money on a research yacht versus one like Musk fuelling some random dictatorship, Newell is *preferable*. And he's still *undesirable* as any of those money-hoarding psychopaths.

I too take to the seven seas.

>they are just required to contribute to the world more than they take They wouldn't be millionaires or billionaires then. You don't get millionaire without appropriating the labor of others.

Standards are low

Half Life 3 takes place on open sea.

Good comparison. Two billionaires that enjoy their yachts and private jets, didn't get rich by speculating with food or shelter, are well respected by their employees and mostly leave us alone. Better them than the chairman of the party, king or whatever.

Dota has a battle pass and micro transactions

No sarcasm, pure sincerity, that was a beautifully eloquent comment, kudos.

Also... banned substances. Among other less acceptable things.

It's not network effects (but slightly related), it's opportunity cost. Getting your app into yet another app store isn't hard, but takes time, so you need to make sure it doesn't cost devs more to add support for you than it earns them. The slightest fuzz and they'll drop you if you're small. But stores like Gog are able to exist just fine. They're big enough that many devs think it's worth it to support them. If you want more devs to do so, tell them that's what you want and show it will be worth it. And if you want to open another store, copy Gog & co

But the money from that goes to professional players that participate in the tournament and to organizers who organize the event. How much money from battle pass goes to Fortnite/Battlefield/COD pro players?