Still walled garden, but they act way better.
We've reached a sort of gaming singularity where nearly every video game can be run on any hardware you choose or be streamed over the network to a thin client. PlayStation and XBOX consoles are basically dedicated gaming PCs that can only run Sony or Microsoft's version of Steam. DirectX is losing ground too thanks to Proton and Vulkan, so Microsoft won't have the last laugh there either. If Valve controls the store you purchase games from, the software which runs the games, and the operating system running the software, they are an ODM contract away from becoming Sony's PlayStation division, and look where they are now.
And even if they somehow arrived in a market position where being less benevolent would make more money: Valve isn't publicly traded, nobody is forcing them to make the most profitable move. As long as Gabe and the other owners prefer being benevolent they can continue doing it
(not that they are all around benevolent. "consistent" and "usually choosing the side of the customer over the side of the publisher" is maybe the better framing)
[citation needed]
My understanding is that Proton is effectively a distribution of WINE + DXVK, which does for DirectX what WINE does for Win32. Valve is even on record saying "make one good copy of your game and trust our compatibility tools to port to other platforms" which is effectively saying "use DirectX if you want - Proton will run it just as well."
Now if the RAM companies make it so you won't ever be able to afford your own hardware and every game company pushes cloud-only gaming... Well, we aren't there yet thankfully, but I fear it'll happen.
There's a lot that I love about it, but "choose which of these thousand settings permutations to get the game to look good without crashing" is a major chore.
One nice thing about Valve/Steam leading with hardware is that it gives console-esque performance targets. If you know your device is a bit better than a Steam Deck, you can probably start at the Steam Deck preset and adjust accordingly.
Gabe seems like the kinda guy who is in the Game for the love of games.
It would be a legendary legacy indeed to commit Valve and it's profits to a trust which defends digital rights and freedom.
I believe the switch 2 carts don't contain the actual game, just a license key. The game is downloaded on first run.
And "gamers" refuse to listen to reason and assume physical copy = they can play it for eternity, when in reality, in 5 or 10 years when a server is inevitably shut down, they're forced to pirate. Nintendo does not allow offline patches.