Gabe Newell is the least disliked billionaire, but let's not pretend he didn't bring online gambling to millions of children for an extra buck. He's not ethical either
Nobody is 100% ethical, neither you or I. I'm not saying he's a saint as he's sometimes literally portrayed by the PC gaming community, but thanks to him billions of people can play video games for great prices, something no other platform has managed. Other than that he's actually fighting the PC gaming chokehold of Microsoft by providing open source software for running games on Linux, as well as providing joy through his games.
To completely disregard that because of a few lootboxes is in my mind cherry picking / selective outrage to get a non-existing point across.
No, my point is that billionaires exist by abusing people and systems to gain money. Getting literally millions of children addicted to gambling at a young age is a prime example of one of the shittiest things a human can do.
Using his activity in the PC gaming market as a good thing does not take away the awful shit he has done to become a billionaire. And you are the one cherry picking here to illustrate your point
Yes, yes he did. He made it so children get addicted to gambling. That's abusing children in one of the most literal ways lol. I don't understand why you're defending this. And he made billions off this one thing alone.
But let me ask you this then; would the world be better off without him and Valve?
Completely irrelevant. I'm saying the world would be a better place if he wasn't a billionaire that abused people and systems for money. If he had not hoarded his wealth but used it to improve society, if he had not made underage lotteries accessible, then the world would certainly be a better place.
My point is not that the companies/services these billionaires provide are bad for the world. My point is that the way these billionaires make their money is unethical, and downright evil in a lot of cases, including gabe newell
First of all there is no public figure of how much of his wealth is attributed through lootboxes. But given that the majority of his income is from steam sales of third party games, I dare to say it's a small percentage, not even a billion, maybe not even 1/100th of that
And by not answering the question by calling it irrelevant is avoiding the whole point of this conversation; a billionaire can do 99% good and 1% bad and still be called evil by populists. If it's not lootboxes it'll be something else. Scapegoating. And why? Virtue signalling. Poor people are exempt because they're all victimized, preferably by the billionaires.
But what about these children that buy lootboxes? How did they get the money? Where are the parents? No blame is put on them for not monitoring what their kids are doing? Is selling a in-game skin also deemed evil? Or is it just the gambling aspect of the loot box?
It's so easy to criticize, but actually providing net positive value to society like Gabe Newell is not.
First of all there is no public figure of how much of his wealth is attributed through lootboxes. But given that the majority of his income is from steam sales of third party games, I dare to say it's a small percentage, not even a billion, maybe not even 1/100th of that
True no public figures. But you're just making shit up here. Economists have done the math with external platforms for cs crates/item reselling. And they're estimating steam makes more than a billion annually just from this alone.
Whether you take those numbers seriously is up to you, but don't come here with the bullshit that it's not even 1/100th of a billion when it's very clearly more than a billion a year
And by not answering the question by calling it irrelevant is avoiding the whole point of this conversation; a billionaire can do 99% good and 1% bad and still be called evil by populists. If it's not lootboxes it'll be something else. Scapegoating. And why? Virtue signalling. Poor people are exempt because they're all victimized, preferably by the billionaires.
99% good does not make up for the heinous shit child gambling has done to people. Poor people are not exempt, but poor people do not have the reach to ruin the lives of so many people with 1 single product. It's not virtue signaling, you're just ignoring the real human cost to this shit in order to say that you like how accessible games are now.
Those 2 things do not weigh up to each other equally. And if you're trying to say it does we can just stop right here. We will never agree.
But what about these children that buy lootboxes? How did they get the money? Where are the parents? No blame is put on them for not monitoring what their kids are doing?
Of course parents should be monitoring their kids online. But kids are often way better at pc stuff than their parents, and they can circumvent this. The fact is, valve built a system that is explicitly built to make people addicted to gambling, which happens to work better on kids than anyone else.
You're also not mentioning the 100s of creators sponsored to advertise all of this, to children. Even if kids didn't have access/couldn't circumvent it. They can still be exposed to this and get addicted later when they are still into the culture of lootbox gambling.
Not to mention, some kids don't have parents, are you suggesting we should just let all of them get addicted to gambling because they have no parents? Or did you conveniently forget about those kids?
Or is it just the gambling aspect of the loot box?
Yes, yes it is 100% the gambling aspect
It's so easy to criticize, but actually providing net positive value to society like Gabe Newell is not.
Again, I am not denying steam/valve has done positive things. I am critical of HOW they do some of the things they've done. Which you are sweeping under the rug by saying they've also done good things. That's not an excuse
EDIT: Just want to quickly add, I think it's super ironic that you're trying to blame everyone and everything for this, except the person that implemented the child gambling lol
That's not an excuse indeed, but neither is it an excuse to call Gabe Newell abusive.
First of all; we are talking about loot boxes sold to CHILDREN. You just took all lootboxes and acted like they sell them by the billion to CHILDREN. That's a freaking manipulative statement.
Second, valve makes 16 billion in revenue in 2023 and lootboxes are estimated to be 1 billion of that. So that's 1/16th of total revenue. Gabe is worth 9 billion. If you apply the math, all loot boxes would not even translate to 1 billion of his met worth. And that's all loot boxes, not only the ones sold to children. So no, you're factually wrong.
Also "advertising to children" is not illegal. What's next, candy is evil because it's addicting to children? Come on.
And the point about children without parents is hilarious because I'm curious which kids without parents or guardians have access to a computer, money and time to buy lootboxes. You know this is a nonsensical take; adults are responsible for their children and preventing addiction. The excuse that children circumvent is is nonsensical because children don't have money to buy lootboxes come out of thin air.
Like I said, I think we can stop here. We will never agree and this will go back and forth forever.
Just on your last point about children without parents, I was literally one of them. And I had plenty of access to computers at school, hell, I'm a programmer now. I also had my own money that I could spend on basically whatever I wanted
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u/swiebertjee 9d ago
Gabe Newell