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so what happens to Steam IF... you know...

so, a thought had occur to me. what would happen IF, Gabe (blessed be thy name) is gone. I mean, the man is not exactly the picture of good health from the looks of it. I know Steam is like basically solely own by Gabe, so if that happens, does the company get turn to his family? would they sell it? would they go public? honestly, either option left me with lots of worry. anyone has some knowledged guesses on this?
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
i won't pretend to be an expert but i'd assume someone will just take over as the owner. someone who is already at Valve working closs with Gabe. I'm sure Gabe has plans for someone to take his place in such a situation. if things were really bad then Valve would either look to be bought or go public.
 
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Midn1ght

Member
Gabe is eternal. Shut up.

beard GIF


More seriously, I'm sure they have it figured out. I also don't think the community will let Steam go to shit.
 

bargeparty

Member
so, a thought had occur to me. what would happen IF, Gabe (blessed be thy name) is gone. I mean, the man is not exactly the picture of good health from the looks of it. I know Steam is like basically solely own by Gabe, so if that happens, does the company get turn to his family? would they sell it? would they go public? honestly, either option left me with lots of worry. anyone has some knowledged guesses on this?

yeah no one has thought about this until this very moment
 

bender

What time is it?
Gabe doesn't have a will & trust. He listed a game called "My Empire" on the early days of Steam which delisted after the first copy sold. Rumor has it that when you launch the game a window pops up with a countdown timer. Some say the counter will hit zero in a few years and others say a few decades. No one knows for sure who bought it.
 
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Kssio_Aug

Member
All the games you bought will be gone too.




Nah, I don't think you need to worry about it. If it's gonna become better or worse is also something we can't do anything about and not worth losing sleep for.
 

KellyNole

Member
The curse Gabe has over us will be over. He can't hurt our wallets any longer.

All jokes aside, hopefully, someone will follow in his path and keep things going like they are.
 
yeah no one has thought about this until this very moment

no need to be snarky. Gabe is only about 15 years older than me and my health had not been all that good lately, which prompted my thought on this subject since I had never really thought about it.

and yeah, I can definitely see he had made arrangements for when that time comes. and IF it goes to a big company, I imagine it'll probably be MS consider his history.

and yes, it's something none of us has any control over and we shouldn't worry about it, but sometimes you just want to get some opinion on the matter and that's not a bad thing.
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
no need to be snarky. Gabe is only about 15 years older than me and my health had not been all that good lately, which prompted my thought on this subject since I had never really thought about it.

and yeah, I can definitely see he had made arrangements for when that time comes. and IF it goes to a big company, I imagine it'll probably be MS consider his history.

and yes, it's something none of us has any control over and we shouldn't worry about it, but sometimes you just want to get some opinion on the matter and that's not a bad thing.
Well I hope he has things like a Will for his estate and succession plans set up. Seeing as Valve has a small army of Lawyers, I'm sure the discussion has been had.

Btw, sorry that your health hasn't been so good lately but I hope that you too have plans for your estate once you've passed. Otherwise it will be some government bureaucrat deciding what to do with everything while taking a good percentage for the trouble.
 
Well I hope he has things like a Will for his estate and succession plans set up. Seeing as Valve has a small army of Lawyers, I'm sure the discussion has been had.

Btw, sorry that your health hasn't been so good lately but I hope that you too have plans for your estate once you've passed. Otherwise it will be some government bureaucrat deciding what to do with everything while taking a good percentage for the trouble.

haha, thanks. nothing serious, just some numbers got a little high. daily life is not getting effected. and I'm broke as hell so no worries on what would happen to my stuff :messenger_tears_of_joy: but yeah, he probably already got things setup for that and maybe even a roadmap on what he envisioned for the company.
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
The user with the largest game collection (in value) should own steam after GaBeN passes. That's the endgame to end all endgames.

Also minimum CSGO threshold to be elegible: 10k hours played
 
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Notabueno

Banned
My default answer nowadays would be: it's gets taken over by a bunch of scum stockholder leeches picking untalented imposters like Jim Ryan to milk a maximum out of it even if it means destroying its value slowly, and so it gets 10x worse, not that it was great to start with.

Unless Gabe chose some solid guy/gal to take-over and continue.
 
Gabe has been dangerously obese for his entire life. I'm sure he knows he's not going to live to see his 80's and I'm sure he has a successor in place.

Obviously he's turning the keys over to Phil Spencer next Thursday.
 

Skifi28

Member
It's certainly an interesting question. We all like to think of PC gaming (and steam with it) as eternal, but we have no idea what the future holds for our bloated libraries. What if Gabe's successor sells steam and the new owner runs it to the ground? What If tencent buys it and turns it into Spyware?

I'm afraid nothing lasts forever and all our digital investments could potentially disappear overnight. It's a scary thought.
 
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PC games claim to love the open platform but somehow want Valve to be the only store that gets everything?
Jeff Goldblum What GIF by The Late Late Show with James Corden

I imagine it's a combination of having an already established library on Steam, and none of the other contenders had even come close to the level of Steam in terms of some of the features. plus other issues due to the other companies themselves. I know I use GOG for some games also and I would gladly support them when they have good deals. EA Origin and Ubisoft Connect are both not my thing for more reasons than one. and I have my own reason for not using EGS. outside of those, if a company can run a store as good as Steam, and with something of a decent business practice, I would use them also without a second thought.
 
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Skifi28

Member
Perhaps a little unrelated, but I've also been wondering what happens if Desktops cpus switch to Arm in the next few years which doesn't seem completely unlikely. Maybe steam will still be there with our libraries, but will we be able to actually play them?

Food for thought.
 

FStubbs

Member
I'm pretty sure Tencent would make his estate an offer they couldn't resist. Though some other companies might be interested, none of them would have Tencent's unlimited money.
 

Jaybe

Member
I swear if Gabe dies this weekend, I’m going to blame OP for sending bad karma into the universe.
 

daveonezero

Banned
Maybe that is the day Valve pushes the button and removes the online requirements and all DRM from the library.


Hopefully this is still true.

The only specific response Valve has given players on the matter is a share support email: “In the unlikely event that the Steam network is shut down,” Valve representatives said, “steps are in place to ensure that all users continue to have access to their Steam games. “

I'm pretty sure Tencent would make his estate an offer they couldn't resist. Though some other companies might be interested, none of them would have Tencent's unlimited money.
His personal estate and the corporation probably aren't the same entity. And probably have separate succession plans.

PC gamers claim to love the open platform but somehow want Valve to be the only store that gets everything?
Jeff Goldblum What GIF by The Late Late Show with James Corden
Valve is the only store worth the headache of DRM.
 
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