Court rules Gabe Newell must appear in person to testify in Steam anti-trust lawsuit
Court rules Gabe Newell must appear in person to testify in Steam anti-trust lawsuit
Newell had requested a remote deposition in the Wolfire v. Valve case because of concerns about contracting Covid-19.
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Newell had previously requested a remote deposition, saying "that he is at risk of developing a serious illness were he to contract Covid-19," according to the filing, and thus "has structured his life to minimize exposure to possible Covid-19 transmission. According to Mr. Newell, an in-person deposition, even with the health measures which plaintiffs propose, is not consistent with those safeguards."
Yet, he was perfectly happy to go door to door handing out Steam Decks with just a mask on? Throw the mask back on until you get on the witness stand, you'll be fine.
Edit: Forgot what a bunch of pathetic fanboys you all are around here. If this was any other CEO (Kotick or Riccitiello, for instance), you'd all be frothing at the mouth about how ridiculous it is that they're trying to get themselves out of a simple request like this, but since it's daddy gaben, he gets to do whatever he wants and you lap it right up đ
He was outdoors, with a mask on.
How does compare to being in an enclosed courtroom?
He was mere feet away from total strangers who may or may not have been masked when he opened the door (taking the video at face value, and assuming he didn't send the production team up there to tell the residents to mask up first). Much more dangerous than a courtoom of people with N95s on, none of whom he would need to get as close to as he did for those Deck deliveries.
Interacting with maybe a dozen people outside with a mask on for a few minutes at a time is almost certainly much lower risk than being in a courtroom with, likely, many more people and stale air for hours. Itâs certainly helpful if everybody is masked up in the courtroom, but people are notoriously bad at wearing masks properly, theyâre going to require Gabe Newell to unmask for questions, and thereâs a lot more factors you donât control in that scenario⊠outside delivering stuff you can always walk away if somebody isnât giving you the space youâre comfortable with⊠Regardless, all risk is cumulative and you may want to limit the number of times you do higher risk things as much as possible. Even if you rarely do some riskier things, it doesnât mean youâre okay with that level of risk all of the time. I donât think itâs that unreasonable to want to manage and minimize your exposure if youâre high risk.
Bit different to being in close confines on one or more planes and a court room buddy.
Close confines.
Thanks autocorrect check bot
It amazes me that covidiots still don't understand the difference between inside and outside spaces for that matter. If people breath and cough around the outside, shit will just be swept away by the wind. If people do that in enclosed spaces, then they'll just start to saturate the air with germs over its prolonged time. And then you even expect them to take off the mask when they're in the witness stand? Do you think that's like a germ free zone? lol
You may have an excellent argument to make but Iâm afraid I stopped reading at âcovidiotâ.
I think we found oneâŠ
Ahh shoot. I wasnât clear at all.
My family refers to vaxxed people as covidiots. So I tend to associate it with antivax people. I will accept my negative number either way. Apologies for the confusion.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/covidiot
Your family is just wrong, seemingly on every single shit they say or think.Lesson learned for me. My apologies for the snap judgment. And I appreciate the time you took to help educate me.
One of the most helpful mindsets I've adopted was accepting that I don't want to be wrong any longer than I have to be.
Strangers on the internet don't care. The only person you're hurting is yourself.
I wouldnât say Iâm hurt. More embarrassed that I accepted a definition without further scrutiny.
My philosophy is to always be learning. Sometimes trauma impedes it and a wake up call is necessary. So I appreciate your time and thoughtful response and will take this lesson as an opportunity to do better for myself.
I wasn't strictly talking about the definition of covidiot, I was referring to the virus' transmissibility; indoors vs outdoors.
There has been a lot of misinformation during covid, from both sides, and virtually everyone needs to accept that they were wrong about certain things.
For example, I was forced to change my mind about the safety of the vaccine. I still personally believe most people should have been vaccinated, but we need to accept that it didn't do what was expected.
At the end of the day, Covid is a respiratory virus, and the consensus of indoors vs outdoors transmissibility had been reached decades ago.
I appreciated the measured response, it's rare to see people sincerely reflect on their beliefs so quickly without feeling condescended.
Going door to door in fresh air is something else than sitting in a room with lots of other people and "you'll be fine" is an insane argument. You'll be fine until you aren't. Every person should be able to make that risk assessment for themselves and courts should not be able to force someone to risk exposure to anything.
Outdoors with proximity to 1-3 other people, where he can move at will and distance himself vs indoors, courtroom full of people and heâs sitting while people move around. Probably not the same. If the guy has risk factors for developing complications with COVID, which we can see he has one which is being overweight, I donât think itâs reasonable for the court to force him to attend when he could attend remotely.
Wasn't that like, 2 years ago? Isn't it possible that his health situation has changed since then?
Others have explained to you why it's different, and that that happened 2 years ago and a lot of things health related can change in that time. But even if he had done that yesterday, even if it was the same, he should be able to choose to attend remotely, he's not asking to be excused, he's not asking to change anything, all he's asking is to be able to do it from his home, and I wouldn't deny that to anyone unless there's a reason to be physically there, which there isn't.
Plus, since he's just testifying, it sucks on a climate level to make him jet around for absolutely no reason, too.
Yeah, I donât really think anybody should have to go to court in person, and I can definitely empathize with somebody wanting to avoid COVID (even if theyâre not super high risk, you never know how it will affect you it seems). I kind of understand the bias towards in person things, but I really wish people would get over it. Sometimes itâs just a lot more practical to do things remotely, and while a video call isnât quite the same as being there in person I think itâs something we can deal with. It certainly doesnât seem like it would be that much worse for testifying tbh.
Damn someone is angry. You should really talk to somebody if random strangers disagreeing with you about news that happen to people you don't know either rile you up so much.
Kotick or Riccitiello
I mean, yeah, if you drop those two as the alternative, every time, fuck those guys every day and twice on sunday. But.... Gaben's got a very different record.
I'm of the opinion that he should have to testify like anyone else just to preclude Trump and their ilk from trying to get out of testifying in person.
Actually no, I'd let the science speak for itself. Being outdoors with a mask on significantly reduces your chances of contracting COVID-19. Being in a crowded room with lots of other people significantly increases your risk. Gabe is right, just like any other CEO would be right if they said the same thing.
Court is boring AF, he's just using covid for an excuse to avoid having to go. I can't really blame him for trying, but I'm not surprised it didn't work.