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Gabe Newell is very rich

Grief.exe

Member
Whilst Steam wasn't the first means of digital distribution, it's the one that's stuck around the longest. Primarily because of titles such as Garry's Mod, CounterStrike, Half-Life and so forth.

Shame there's no competition in the PC market, as GOG is the only service to challenge Steam.

That's not really true. The PC market is massive and worldwide.

There are digital distribution services in China, Korea, and even individual games like League of Legends have higher concurrent numbers than Steam.

You have a narrow view on what's competitive.
 

Ionic

Member
Still not enough to allow Valve to grow in size.

Didn't they like, just move into a new and much, much larger building?

Edit:
Still can't donate 100M (which is a 0.02% of that fortune) to make HL3 for the fans who allowed him to be that rich.

Pedantic point, but 100 million is actually around 2% of 5.5 billion, not 0.02%. That's two orders of magnitude off.
 

Z..

Member
That's not your decision to make.

This type of rhetoric keeps us from launching. There's no decision involved, of course nobody DESERVES to be a billionaire. The idea that such ridiculousness is "normal" in any way is what keep us in limbo. The more time passes, the more Nietzsche's übermensch concept resonates...
 
Still can't donate 100M (which is a 0.02% of that fortune) to make HL3 for the fans who allowed him to be that rich.

Not that he wouldn't turn a profit either.

Rich people, I'll never understand.

It's not hard to understand. People won't spend money on things they don't want to spend money on.
 

Usobuko

Banned
It cannot be 55 because, for example, some of the largest ecosystem + making multiple times profits only have folks around that level.

That's not really true. The PC market is massive and worldwide.

There are digital distribution services in China, Korea, and even individual games like League of Legends have higher concurrent numbers than Steam.

You have a narrow view on what's competitive.

It is uncompetitive on PC space.

China is mostly a walled market and Korea do not have the China size to form any kind of competition.

Generally speaking, the ecosystem battle in the West ( and hence by proxy the World ) heavily favours American companies because of its market size over other western countries and English being the universal language.

It's a cultural dominance over the rest of the world because you only need to win over America and it becomes winner-takes-it-all for the rest of the world and for a very long time in the distant future.

You could even become like Facebook and uses your newfound wealth to buy over early upstarts similar to yours. Instagram took the money while snapchat says no at $3 billion.

Valve has a kind of dominance on the PC market that I do not see being challenged whatsoever. At best, Tencent would keep its China market and that's it.

The only real form of competition would be mobile games, kinda like what it did to traditional handheld segment but this takes time to replace and compete the kind of experience you can get on PC.
 
To be clear, he doesn't actually have that much money. Forbes just estimated the value of Valve/Steam and based on him being the majority shareholder guessed his wealth. So to those saying no one should be that rich and he should give away his wealth, that would require him selling Valve. He doesn't just have 5.5 billion in his bank/brokerage account.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Is interesting how many people think it is money holding back Half-life 3 when in reality it is the lack of interest on the part of the developers to work on that type of game again.

If you really do get to work on what you want to at Valve HL3 is never getting made, short of a change of genre/sub-genre.
 
That's not really true. The PC market is massive and worldwide.

There are digital distribution services in China, Korea, and even individual games like League of Legends have higher concurrent numbers than Steam.

You have a narrow view on what's competitive.

I should have elaborated a little, as I was referring to the Western market. Not to mention how Steam has over 70% of the platform in their pocket. Besides, League Of Legends is a video game, and not a digital distribution service.

As for things in Asia, I was aware of how intense PC gaming is over there (especially within China), as CrossFire is the most popular FPS worldwide. And let's not forget the obsession with Blizzard products within Korea.
 

tauroxd

Member
You know what I can do with all that money?

Make Half Life 3.

Give us Half Life 3, Newell.

All this dolla and still a bare bones CSGO dev team, gg gabe

And he still can't get Half-Life 3 made.

And Valve is a privately traded company. If he went public I wonder if he could pass Bill Gates as the wealthiest man on earth.

That's his money, not Valve money, and he probably thinks like so many other business men "Never risk your own money."

At least he can live a Full Life

lol
 
It certainly is when the riches he's amassed is on the backs of other people who've used their labor to produce the commodity his company sells. Why is Newell entitled to the profits of the labor of others? Shit, even on Steam itself, Valve is using the free labor of their customers to fix their platform, while fucking neo-nazi groups are out in the open.

No one deserves to be this rich while we have the worst economic inequality in history, while also exploiting the labor of others to become a billionaire

Dats Kapital. 🤷🏼*♀️

I agree with you by the way.
 

Bluth54

Member
So, Forbes says that he owns half of Valve. How much is Valve worth? We can't double it to 11 billion because Gabe has also Microsoft stock and probably some other stock.

Valve is a private company so no one really knows for sure how much they're worth except for Newell, a few higher ups at Valve and the IRS.
Companies like Forbes do their best to estimate Valve's value based on what info we do know.
 

Ban Puncher

Member
Dats Kapital. 🤷🏼*♀️

I agree with you by the way.

xC2OR3z.gif
 

Octavia

Unconfirmed Member
I would probably off myself if I owned over a billion and didnt try to use most of it to help the world from climate change, war, or disasters.

1 person having that much money is pointless to humanity.
 

poodaddy

Gold Member
To be clear, he doesn't actually have that much money. Forbes just estimated the value of Valve/Steam and based on him being the majority shareholder guessed his wealth. So to those saying no one should be that rich and he should give away his wealth, that would require him selling Valve. He doesn't just have 5.5 billion in his bank/brokerage account.
Quoting because I don't think most posters in this thread have a clear understanding of how net worth is estimated for these lists. Gabes rich sure, but that estimation is based on all of his assets, both private and business.
 

MUnited83

For you.
If Valve is that rich why don't they spend some of that money making some games?

They can certainly afford it.

They have at the very least 4 new games in development, as well as continuing to support the games that are already out. They spend money in making games.
 

Flandy

Member
They have at the very least 4 new games in development, as well as continuing to support the games that are already out. They spend money in making games.

Weren't they working on 2 or 3 VR games at some point? Any idea if those are still in development?
 

ASaiyan

Banned
Wow.

I figured he was doing well, but...Gabe Newell is wealthier than Donald Trump. Let that sink in.
And never again ask why Valve stopped making games, lol.
 
Well, Uncle Gaben risked it when he left Microsoft and he stopped PC gaming from dying and is now pushing VR.

Convincing people to do the moderation work and sell the hats that the community makes and making full games out of mods is genius.

Someone should take all that money from him. No one deserves to be that rich.

Git gud
 

pkScary

Member
He should fund Half Life 3 as a public service at this point. Dump millions into it - polishing iteration after iteration, until something that will meet most people's expectations is created.

You gave the gaming world blue balls for 10 years Gabe Newell. Make it right.
 

Damaniel

Banned
If Valve is that rich why don't they spend some of that money making some games?

They can certainly afford it.

Why would he bother? He seems to be doing perfectly fine even without HL3 (skimming 30% off of pretty much all PC sales is quite the racket), and there's nothing that the company could produce that would ever live up to a decade of HL3 hype.
 

tauroxd

Member
No one should be a billionaire.

I don't know, I wouldn't be mad or something if I had a billion in my bank account.

Now, seriously, sure it is a lot, but if he worked and had the vision to do stuff that got him that much money, why shouldn't he have it? He have absolutely no obligation to help anyone or anything or do anything, really, he worked for that right to answer to no one. I mean, I would me super swell if he used a lot of that money to help those in need, I would think a lot better of him. Does he do that?
 

Hermii

Member
55 billion or 5.5 billion is more money than anyone can spend in a lifetime either way, sp the difference isn’t significant.
 
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