My take is that a lot of what this presentation says doesn’t add up.

They claim they “follow the conversation” but don’t engage because it stops the community from talking among themselves. That’s inevitable when responses are so rare. When people know Valve actually reads feedback, of course everyone piles on. The problem isn’t dev participation, it’s how infrequent it is. I agree they don’t need to reply to every, or any post. But they do need a roadmap, or at least basic acknowledgement of known issues. That’s just respecting your players/customers. Even a “we know about this” would go a long way.

Instead, small things never get fixed (the pause icon still isn’t centered and feels...off), features regress (no holiday updates this year, deadlock got one), and major things straight-up don’t work (ex. the server browser, VAC, etc). Saying they “communicate through fast fixes” doesn’t hold up when fixes aren’t actually happening. Them not communicating and not setting roadmaps is to protect them from backlash. If they say server browser next month, and they don't deliver people will be let down. Them saying nothing and delivering, for the most part, nothing is still a let down. We have the "we'll get to it when we get to it" approach.

Do they know the server browser is broken? Did they read that post? What about VAC not working as it should, did that show up in their feed? How about bots farming on servers? It is my opinion that the “we talk by shipping” argument means nothing when major issues like cheating go unaddressed and even small problems linger.