The HL3 example was partly tongue-in-cheek. The other stuff was not.
If SteamOS and SteamBox are important for company's long-term health and even survival[1], then what happens if not enough people at the company are interested in working on that stuff? Valve does stuff which make it money in the short term and get people their bonuses, but I don't see a lot of well-executed strategic moves coming from them. And, they might need some, if they want to stick around. Perhaps I'm not looking at it correctly though - I'd love to be proven wrong as I very much want Valve to stick around.
[1]: Which is to say, if it's necessary to circumvent Window's stranglehold on PC gaming to prevent Microsoft from cutting Valve off from the package gaming money fountain - the jury is out on this.
If SteamOS and SteamBox are important for company's long-term health and even survival[1], then what happens if not enough people at the company are interested in working on that stuff? Valve does stuff which make it money in the short term and get people their bonuses, but I don't see a lot of well-executed strategic moves coming from them. And, they might need some, if they want to stick around. Perhaps I'm not looking at it correctly though - I'd love to be proven wrong as I very much want Valve to stick around.
[1]: Which is to say, if it's necessary to circumvent Window's stranglehold on PC gaming to prevent Microsoft from cutting Valve off from the package gaming money fountain - the jury is out on this.