[bogwog]

Valve has a weird obsession with maximizing their profit-per-employee ratio. There are stories from ex-employees out on the web about how this creates a hostile environment, and perverse incentives to sabotage those below you to protect your own job.

I don't remember all the details, but it doesn't seem like a great place to work, at least based on the horror stories I've read.

Valve does a lot of awesome things, but they also do a lot of shitty things, and I think their productivity is abysmal based on what you'd expect from a company with their market share. They have very successful products, but it's obvious that basically all of their income comes from rent-seeking from developers who want to (well, need to) publish on Steam.

[wocram]

There are numerous other ways to publish games. Is it really rent-seeking to own and maintain the most popular game publishing platform?