Sure, we know loot boxes are bad because they exploit the psychology of gambling. But what about Steam sales? They’re exploiting FOMO, hoarding/collecting psychology. We know that Steam users are [buying billions of dollars worth of games they never play](https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam/pile-of-shame).

1. Blatantly untrue, as [update visibility rounds](https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/visibility/update_rounds) are one of several marketing tools Steam gives you that can put your game on the front page for free, regardless of popularity. 2. Kitfox Games has published a [guide](https://medium.com/kitfox-games/the-0-marketing-game-guide-e649a5ac83f4) (one among many you can find on the internet) on how to successfully market a game with no advertising budget. While their existing audience definitely helped, and as they mention, it takes a significant amount of time and effort, they do not spend actual money on sponsorships or advertising. This would not be a viable strategy on any other storefront, save maybe Epic, though Epic still gives fewer tools than Steam.

And the market is only open from 9:30-4. Not that steam is even publicly traded.

From what little I know about Gabe, it’s seems he doesn’t want to be the center of attention at valve. He wants Steam to the center of attention. It’s a smart play as we are seeing more and more people turning on techbros and their cult leader status’.

It's not untrue. Most games never get that exposure. You have to be popular within a certain time frame to get any chance at showing up. You can try to game it, sure, but most will fail to achieve that

Gabe Newell is better than many others, but this is true, the best man on Earth will become an absolute pissbag given power for continuous enough period of time to realize that. And the best man on Earth is probably some volunteer medic in some African warzone, not a computer programmer and a tech businessman.

Hekps to keep a healthy routine. Nothing worse than an unstructured day where you mentally waste away.

> valve and steam are not the friendly aw shucks corporation they’ve been whitewashed into. And the goalposts go *flying.* Who the fuck cares if valve is cute and cuddly? Who even wants that in a marketplace other than morons who think they can take advantage of someone else's kindness? Valve is a company, their job is to make money for the people who own it. * You the customer want the most out of your transaction with them, they know it make it a priority. * They understand that devs working there making fucktons of money is good because they'll stay and be motivated to work, so they are selective on who they hire and then pay them an insane amount. * They want to avoid microsoft cutting their nuts off so they pushed linux as a viable alternative. * They want devs to sell on their platform so they refined a business deal that works well enough that they get several new games on their storefront a day and *still* make back their operating costs, despite servers that can literally be used to benchmark several gigabit download connections. * They are the most economically effective company in the world and they achieved it by not enshittifying their platform and not going public. Selflessness would literally be a downgrade, I want Valve to have every damn cent they *earned.* They're not the only game in town, they are the *best* game in town, and at every turn they make an effort not to become a monopoly, either, because they know the good will of their customer base is more important than attempts at short term spikes in company revenue, which is only possible because they are a privately held company. So yeah, are they cuddly and nice? No, fuck no, but they are extremely effective while providing a service that puts every other provider in their field to shame, so why the fuck would I want them to change?