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Former Valve writer says Gabe Newell has been pretty clear about Steam: "It's an MMO"
(www.gamesradar.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2026
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No it isn't.
It is not a game.
A game is a form of art, Steam exists to make Gabe money it is not a work of art and has no artistic relationship with its players and the fact that Gabe doesn't understand that as CEO of a gaming company is fucking embarassing.
I am tired of this lazy conflation of attaching superficial, lazy carrots on sticks to things and calling it "gamification" it is such an empty, cynical condescending way of looking at the world.
Why is everyone so condescending about games? No Gabe Steam is not an MMO because it isn't fun, there is no actual core experience other than numbers going up. Therefor it is NOT a game.
Now if you wanted to argue Steam was a shitty multiplayer idle game sure, but it has to be the shittiest idle game in the world then and Gabe even worse your multiplayer idle game is full of Nazis and extremely toxic behavior none of you give any shit about moderating....
Not all games are a work of art actually. Especially Asian grinder MMOs are not, such as Silkroad online.
There are many that treat Steam's achievement system kind of like a game, so maybe it can be considered a pseudo game, just barely.