Valve has done some good things for the game industry: they encouraged modifications, and made some good games.
However, I feel as if the gaming community praises Valve too much.
- The gaming community praises Valve’s monopoly on game distribution services.
That’s about it though.
They are a worker run company and support Linux a lot. Plus sometimes they make really great games. Sure they are not perfect, but compared to the possible alternatives I think they do deserve some praise.
Wait they’re a worker run company? Awesome!
Not in the purest form, but pretty much. You can find their employee handbook online I think.
But they still exploit peoples’ labour, right?
You might call it self-exploitation as they mostly pay people on a peer-review bonus system, so if other workers in the same company think you significantly contributed to the success of the company your salary will increase multiple times.
There is an older Podcast with Yanis Varoufakis who used to work for Valve where the general (anarcho-syndicalist) principles are explained: https://www.econtalk.org/varoufakis-on-valve-spontaneous-order-and-the-european-crisis/