Gabe's power extends

[Albino Boo]

It was confirmed today that the finance Minister of Greece and thus by proxy the person charged with saving the Eurozone will be the economist Yanis Varoufakis, a self described ?erratic Marxist?. Three years ago he was hired by Valve to manage their real and virtual economies. Yanis has said that he used his time at Valve to sharpen up his understanding of how economies work and used Valve?s internal economies as a test-bed for ?meaningful experimentation? on his economic theories. Just a couple of years ago Varoufakis was writing in great detail on the Valve company blog http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/arbitrage-and-equilibrium-in-the-team-fortress-2-economy/
about the intricacies of trading guns, keys and earmuffs in TF2. No word as yet if you can use steam to pay your taxes in Greece

 

[Queen Michael]

Welp, he can't mess things up worse than the last guy did. Good luck, Mr. Whatthefuckis.[footnote]Oh, like you weren't thinking the exact same thing.[/footnote]

 

[Ryotknife]

That....doesnt exactly inspire me with confidence. This feels like the Guitar hero of economists, just because you can do it in a game doesnt mean you can play a real guitar.

 

[Recusant]

Well, this will be... interesting. Good luck, Greece.

 

[Dansen]

Will Greece now Print Gabe Newell on all their currency now? Greece will be the first global econemy to survive exclusivly on hats!

All Hail Gaben! Our lord and savior!

 

[Atmos Duality]

That...isn't really Gabe's power expanding at all.
Just some guy that worked for him applying his experience from working with Steam.

 

[Albino Boo]

So ... will Greece be selling hats? I had an I <3 Rhodes hat when I was about 11, but I don't know where it is now.

Hmm a hat based economy for Greece, can't be any worse than now. Perhaps the Greek air force should drop crates and the government should sell keys.

That...isn't really Gabe's power expanding at all.
Just some guy that worked for him applying his experience from working with Steam.

I see you are a regular traveller on the comedy bypass.

 

[Pyrian]

Steam has ~75 million or so active users, while Greece has a population of ~10 million or so. XD

 

[Haerthan]

All Hail Gaben. I, The God-Emperor of Romania, salute you as an equal. Come to us Gaben and together we shall rule the world and bring Steam to every computer and country, every person and console. AND OUR DOMINANCE SHALL BE COMPLETE AND TOTAL MWAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Edit: I will let you have Greece as a gift. Actually you can also have Russia. I don't really want to deal with it to be honest. Ciao.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I see you are a regular traveller on the comedy bypass.

Really?
And here I thought humor was self-evident; if you have to explain a joke, it wasn't a very good one.

 

[Pyrian]

I see you are a regular traveller on the comedy bypass.

And here I thought humor was self-evident; if you have to explain a joke, it wasn't a very good one.

If nobody gets that you're joking, then the problem is clearly in the joke itself. But if it's just you, well... I mean, geez, it wasn't even a good joke, but it was obviously not serious.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Well, I hope he does a better job with the economy of Greece than he did with the TF2 economy, which was always a total mess.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

That....doesnt exactly inspire me with confidence. This feels like the Guitar hero of economists, just because you can do it in a game doesnt mean you can play a real guitar.

He was already a professor of Economics before, and wrote books about economics. Valve hired him in the first place because he was qualified.

 

[Zontar]

That....doesnt exactly inspire me with confidence. This feels like the Guitar hero of economists, just because you can do it in a game doesnt mean you can play a real guitar.

He was already a professor of Economics before, and wrote books about economics. Valve hired him in the first place because he was qualified.

Keep in mind Economics is a social science: even the qualified usually have no idea what they're doing, and a lawyer is usually better at doing the work anyway.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Well, I hope he does a better job with the economy of Greece than he did with the TF2 economy, which was always a total mess.

I look forward to the day people pay their taxes in hats

 

[Chicago Ted]

That...isn't really Gabe's power expanding at all.
Just some guy that worked for him applying his experience from working with Steam.

I see you are a regular traveller on the comedy bypass.

Not really, otherwise it'd be titled to the fact that Greece is now to base it's economy off silly hats and key exports or something, rather than the founder of Steam.

In any event, my reaction to this is pretty meh. The guy has experience in virtual economies and marketplaces and is doing a job in the same field but a bit different. It'd be the same as if he had experience for Apple & iTunes or something. We'll see how well he does.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Does this mean that smaller financial prepositions will have to be greenlighted first?

I also hope that it doesn't mean lots of 'Early Access' tax that eventually leads to nothing a failed project without release...