This one won't explain any features or lay out a roadmap. It's a dedication, to a company, a product, and a moment three years ago that quietly started everything.
Three years ago, a daughter was born. The way every new parent knows, life had to adapt completely, and it did, totally, wonderfully. But gaming had been a lifelong thing, and there was no interest in choosing between the person I'd always been and the father I was becoming.
So: a Steam Deck. It arrived a couple of weeks later, and for the first time, favorite games ran handheld without thinking about anything. No setup, no compatibility, no settings. It just played. And here's the image that stays: a daughter sleeping nearby, and quiet nights spent deep in a game on that little machine. Not choosing between two lives. Living both at once.
Those nights changed how we think about playing games. Then they changed how we think about making them. Somewhere in those quiet hours, the idea of this studio was born. One purchase kickstarted the company we're running today.
So this is owed to Valve. There's endless debate about Steam's cut, the distribution fee, and that debate is fair. But here's an honest position: for what they provide, it's worth it. They've made gaming approachable for almost the entire world, for players and for makers, and they keep investing in the platform in ways that improve the whole scope of gaming, every day.
Coming from film makes this hit harder. Film has never had anything like Steam: one place where a tiny studio and a giant one can distribute side by side, on the same terms, to the whole world. Film is fragmented into gatekeepers and systems that can't give a small work what it deserves. Twenty years navigating that makes Steam look less ordinary and more like something the other industry still dreams about.
One more thing: Valve is huge, but they've kept it small in the way that matters, small enough that everyone is heard. You can feel that in every product. That's not a small thing. It's exactly the kind of company we're trying to build.
So: thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. Somewhere out there, a new parent is playing quietly in the dark next to a sleeping kid, not giving up on who they are. That was us, three years ago. Look what it started.