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Kira

Valve refuses to sell out on stock market

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"All [companies that float] end up getting their customers changed," Valve's Erik Johnson told the latest issue of PC Gamer.

"Any bad decision I ever see out there is because somebody created this different customer that was whoever funds them, and not the consumer of the product."


Kudos to that man for having enough common sense to realize this about the stock market. It's astonishing how few people understand this. And not just in the video game industry.

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Sounds like a noble endeavor. On a semi-related note, Barnes & Noble is going private.

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It's less interesting that this is Valve's opinion than it is that there are still several important game studios with this idea. Time to send these guys on a speaking tour to educate some people.

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I applaud Valve here, not really because they avoided selling out or whatnot, but because the stock market confuses the hell out of me and I'm too lazy to figure out how the hell it works and, as a result, really wish it would go away. ;)

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But... wait, who doesn't want to have Christopher Walken in their favorite game?

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Xaser said:

I applaud Valve here, not really because they avoided selling out or whatnot, but because the stock market confuses the hell out of me and I'm too lazy to figure out how the hell it works and, as a result, really wish it would go away. ;)

Heh - the stock market's easy enough to figure out since it's primarily driven by two conflicting forces -

  • Greed - drives share prices up
  • Fear - drives them down
The biggest problem with listing on the stock market is that Valve's management will find themselves being held hostage by shareholder expectations, which are bound to be at odds with their plans for the company's future. Selling the business by way of a public share offering is more likely to be used as an exit strategy by Newell and Co. when they decide it's time to move on to other projects.

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