They're free to comment as they like, but as their comments are about disengaging from US-based tech and as there's no need to announce their departure, it just seems performative.
It may be the reality in your mind but it is not the reality in the actual real world. Don't expect to be taken seriously by anyone outside your political bubble until you learn to communicate your concerns using reasonable language.
I think you're absolutely on point and right that you shouldn't be listening to me, a potential internet nobody. There's no way you could tell me or anyone here apart from an AI at this point.
You should be listening to actual reporters, such as Jonathan Rauch from The Atlantic: https://archive.is/Maalh "Yes, it's Fascism"
I guess the point is that they got this level of success (which GOG didn't reach) because they're based in US.
And I tend to agree with that, there are some reason, including the fact that it's a huge country with a wealthy population that use loans and credit cards to buy even more that they can afford. That creates a strong domestic market that you can leverage before having to look at international sales.
Nothing to do with the US government policies of course...
Good example. I’d want to look at the first-mover(ish) advantage Valve had and other differences in product timing/delivery before I concluded it was impossible to found a company like Valve in the EU.
I think this American exceptionalism is getting old. The country is a lot more capitalist and that stimulates certain industries, especially venture capitalism which is basically gambling with investor money.
But a lot of the companies that came out of this like Google, Meta, Microsoft are also a big net negative in the world and causing societal decay with their attention-driving algorithms and hard business practices used to establish their monopolies.
It's not surprising the more ethical business models come from the EU like GOG without its DRM. And valve isn't really one of the worst companies out there, but gog is a lot better and I always buy there if a game is available.
Europe has its issues but look at the state America is in right now. A lot of all that hate is fuelled by people who have been drawing the short end of the capitalism stick for decades. And are now mobilised by the people making things worse for them.
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.
If the money is currently going to the wrong places, and collecting more money only causes it to go to the same places, then you need to focus on getting the existing money to go to the right places and prove that you can actually accomplish that before "just collect more money" becomes anything resembling a reasonable proposal.
At which point you wouldn't need to collect more money, because there is already scads of money being collected, it's just going to the wrong things.
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.
