zlacker

>>evolve+(OP)
Everything valve doing for linux is making such a huge impact.

The HL3 memes don't even seem fair to use anymore. I don't even want to un-seriously make joke fun of them at this point. They are just genuinely doing so much for the community.

>>adverb+H53
Valve is one of the few companies regularly seen on HN where the headline is something like "[company] is secretly doing something really great" as opposed to "[company] is secretly doing something evil"

>>levoca+Yb3
People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there.

But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty towards the consumer than other major companies in their space, by a long shot.

>>Tulliu+2d3
The major reason is they are a private company with good business. The don't have a need to keep adding to shareholder value ie stock price instead just need to generate a yearly income. We have reached a point where the shareholders are a companies real customers and that is who they all try to attract.Everytthing else a company does is just to attract shareholders

>>xbmcus+EA3
But isn’t Valve extremely profitable compared to pretty much non private company in the industry?

They have few employees and massive revenue.

>>wqaatw+L94
They're the #1 most profitable per employee. There are plenty of companies more profitable than Valve, but they have more employees. Valve could hire more employees.

>>Qwerti+RF4
Yes, I meat profit margin which is what public investors care about (in addition to growth).

And IIRC Valve and EA had almost exactly the same revenue figures last year, yet EA had 10x more employees.

On paper it would seem extremely appealing to public investors.