• Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    *Valve laughs in Gabe Newell, owner of Valve and former employee of Microsoft.

    Motherfucker left Microsoft to focus on games. He spearheaded the move to Linux to protect their store from becoming blocked on Windows. He knows how Microsoft works, intimately.

    I’d be really surprised if Valve got sold to Microsoft while Newell still lives.

  • theragu40@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Valve is a private company. Microsoft can't just buy Valve, Valve would have to agree to that. Considering Valve has (for a company their size) effectively unlimited resources already, and considering that Valve's founder and leader is a known detractor of Microsoft, this is a nothing story. Microsoft will not buy Valve. This is baseless musing, like how I sometimes daydream with my wife about what we'd do if we won the lottery (which we don't play).

    Of course Microsoft would love to buy Valve. Just like they would love to buy Nintendo. I'd like to buy a Lamborghini. All these things are about equivalently likely, zero likely.

    • ilikekeyboards@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Gabe Newell will die one day and with him the age of gaming shall die as well.

      Any other owner would sell out to the billions of amazon and microsoft.

      • theragu40@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        We can only hope that there are people waiting in the wings at Valve who are ready to take over the reins whenever Gaben is done and carry the torch forward in the same direction.

        • notepass@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          I am pretty sure that already happened. Any bigger (or even many smaller) companies have disaster recovery plans if one of the higher ups dies or vanishes. There is a high likelihood that the next valve leader is already fixed or at least a Gremium to get to there.

      • Danileonis @lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        They could open the code even more, that day real free gaming and Steam Machines will be a real thing.

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Even if they were public, they would have to lose majority share of the company to lose control over whether msft can buy them.

      But yeah, no shit they'd like to buy valve. Valve is positioned to eat their lunch in the gaming space.

  • const_void@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    They know that gaming is the one thing that often keeps people from switching to Linux. Buying up all these gaming companies is their strategy to keep gamers locked into Windows.

    • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      They know that gaming is the one thing that often keeps people from switching to Linux.

      They know this because they keep purposefully making Windows worse and less consumer-friendly. They want you to use Windows how they want you to use it, in a way that maximizes profit for Microsoft.

        • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Refusal to let the user decide how they want to use the system. Examples such as:


          1. If I uninstall Skype or Candy Crush, I expect them to stay uninstalled. Nope. Each update, Microsoft says "Nope, you need these" and re-installs them.

          2. Pushing Microsoft Accounts hard. For most consumers, the copy of Windows 11 they'll get won't even allow them to use a local account. If they're savvy enough, they might be able to look up the PowerShell commands to bypass it, but it's pretty much a done deal for most average people: if you want to use consumer Windows, you're looking at needing to submit to using a Microsoft account for logging in.

          3. Ads ads ads everywhere! I don't ever remember Microsoft being this pushy before. It won't shut the fuck up about Microsoft Edge. Hell, I had to put up with fucking Cortana on every install until very recently when they finally decided to drop her useless ass.


          They have in general decided to say "fuck what the consumer wants, they'll use our OS how we say."

          • BakedGoods@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            And then there's the administration. It's like they hired a billion Indians to make a billion random admin centre interfaces with random functions and random names that change once a year and make no sense. With 10+ years of enterprise windows administration behind me I suddenly have to look up guides on how to do basic things because they keep moving everything around to nonsensical places (probably so they can sell the newest certifications).

          • Eheran@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Good points. Non of them affect me personally or the family where I do support, but still. Maybe I don't see that as most are still on W10.

            • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              That's fair. I don't know why you got downvoted for asking a reasonable question. Not everybody deals with these issues front and center.

              • Eheran@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                For me, it has essentially only gotten better, which is why I wondered what is getting so bad. With 10 or 11 I hardly have to help people with things. But yeah, privacy etc. is clearly getting worse.

            • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Continue to use Linux as my primary go-to for operating system except in cases where I am in need of a Windows machine.

              Then, when it comes to Windows, continue being informed about the inner workings of the OS and using Powershell and other tricks to get around the worst of Microsoft excesses.

          • Default_Defect@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            I deleted Skype and candy crush once, years ago and its never showed up on my system since then and I forgot cortana even existed not long after it was introduced. How is your experience so much worse than mine?

        • socsa@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          It continues to lack real mandatory access control, for starters. You can deny system apps permissions and Windows update will just quietly revert them. It has a hidden "user" which cannot be restricted.

        • olicvb@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          ads, start menu becoming tied to internet searches ultimately slowing it down, performance decrease win11 vs win10, Bloatware, Xbox locking game folders, the new context menu… these are the ones i can quickly come up with

          Update to add: The goddamn shortcuts, can't just click and drag from desktop to start menu or taskbar, and vice versa anymore

    • irmoz@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      Perhaps that's part of it. But I'd say the bigger part is just wanting more control over the tech industry in general - gaming and OS are just part of that.

  • TrollBlox@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    wtf they just had trouble buying Activision/Blizzard and now they wanna buy Valve. they would ruin valve

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      What would "rising up" mean? So far, gamers have never shown a rebellious bone in their metaphorical (yet still emaciated) body. Every action by the gaming community has always been defined by corporations. Even gaming on linux is only viable because of valve.

    • MajorHavoc@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I would just stop buying games. I'll only play old games and open source games, if Steam gets enshitificaties.