<story><title>Valve is a wonderful upstream contributor to Linux and the open-source community</title><url>https://www.phoronix.com/news/Valve-Upstream-Everything-OSS</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blibble</author><text>steam was terrible when it came out&lt;p&gt;however it was still miles better than &amp;quot;Games for Windows Live&amp;quot;, which was so bad I don&amp;#x27;t even try replaying the games that still require it</text></item><item><author>deelowe</author><text>Steam got so much flak when it first came out because it supported DRM, facilitated the death of physical media, and was generally kind of clunky and buggy. However, looking back, I&amp;#x27;m thankful. I think Gabe did truly care about gamers&amp;#x2F;gaming and was worried about Microsoft&amp;#x27;s growing interest in gaming. I think he knew that that the transition to digital distribution was inevitable and made it his mission to get a platform out there before Microsoft did, because they would ultimately create something that was not gamer friendly.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is all wishful thinking, but history has proven that Valve was perhaps the best steward we could have asked for in supporting the transition to online distribution. If we look at the alternatives be it Microsoft, Epic, or even GOG, no one has done it better. And, when tested, Valve continues to show they strive to do the right thing. For example look at returns. I never thought we&amp;#x27;d see a no questions asked return policy for digital games and yet, with steam, it&amp;#x27;s a fairly simple process. On top of this, when the policy doesn&amp;#x27;t work (e.g. games which are broken outside of the return window), Valve again does the right thing and creates exceptions.</text></item><item><author>reactordev</author><text>Valve is a darling. Not simply because of steam (though, that enables them) but because from HL1, they truly cared about making good games, providing gamers a platform for good, working on problems outside their wheelhouse (Linux, VR, etc) for the betterment of gamers.&lt;p&gt;Seriously. Yeah give them flak for steam’s store policies and such but Valve has &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; cared about gamers. They just don’t have the means to do it all (maybe they do?). I’m a fan. Not for HL1 or 2, not for Portal or TF2, not for CS, but for their never ending support on making sure “gaming” can be enjoyed by all.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mpixel</author><text>Just to clarify, Steam came out in 2003 and GFWL in 2007.&lt;p&gt;Initial Steam was a horrible horrible experience, it also didn&amp;#x27;t have a store, and it was mainly just something you had for Counter Strike. Now, CS was MASSIVE, it still is, but that was enough to get a whole lot of people experience Steam.&lt;p&gt;It didn&amp;#x27;t help the internet connection back then was, to put it mildly, shit for most people, so a constantly disconnecting program wasn&amp;#x27;t a shocking outcome in hindsight, remember, this is 2003-2004.&lt;p&gt;It also felt unnecessary, you bought the game off Steam, Steam didn&amp;#x27;t let you buy anything and then anything not-made-by-valve, so why couldn&amp;#x27;t you just play CS directly, why did you have to install an additional app on your limited hardware?&lt;p&gt;And then things have changed. It&amp;#x27;s my go-to shop, and their contributions to the Linux ecosystem is much welcome. There&amp;#x27;s self interest, since operating a shop on Windows comes with inherent risks, but I don&amp;#x27;t see the same interest in other parties, so I&amp;#x27;ll take it over anything else today.</text></comment>
<story><title>Valve is a wonderful upstream contributor to Linux and the open-source community</title><url>https://www.phoronix.com/news/Valve-Upstream-Everything-OSS</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blibble</author><text>steam was terrible when it came out&lt;p&gt;however it was still miles better than &amp;quot;Games for Windows Live&amp;quot;, which was so bad I don&amp;#x27;t even try replaying the games that still require it</text></item><item><author>deelowe</author><text>Steam got so much flak when it first came out because it supported DRM, facilitated the death of physical media, and was generally kind of clunky and buggy. However, looking back, I&amp;#x27;m thankful. I think Gabe did truly care about gamers&amp;#x2F;gaming and was worried about Microsoft&amp;#x27;s growing interest in gaming. I think he knew that that the transition to digital distribution was inevitable and made it his mission to get a platform out there before Microsoft did, because they would ultimately create something that was not gamer friendly.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps this is all wishful thinking, but history has proven that Valve was perhaps the best steward we could have asked for in supporting the transition to online distribution. If we look at the alternatives be it Microsoft, Epic, or even GOG, no one has done it better. And, when tested, Valve continues to show they strive to do the right thing. For example look at returns. I never thought we&amp;#x27;d see a no questions asked return policy for digital games and yet, with steam, it&amp;#x27;s a fairly simple process. On top of this, when the policy doesn&amp;#x27;t work (e.g. games which are broken outside of the return window), Valve again does the right thing and creates exceptions.</text></item><item><author>reactordev</author><text>Valve is a darling. Not simply because of steam (though, that enables them) but because from HL1, they truly cared about making good games, providing gamers a platform for good, working on problems outside their wheelhouse (Linux, VR, etc) for the betterment of gamers.&lt;p&gt;Seriously. Yeah give them flak for steam’s store policies and such but Valve has &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; cared about gamers. They just don’t have the means to do it all (maybe they do?). I’m a fan. Not for HL1 or 2, not for Portal or TF2, not for CS, but for their never ending support on making sure “gaming” can be enjoyed by all.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pradn</author><text>It seems like any product named &amp;quot;X for Y&amp;quot; is terrible enterprise-y drivel. It means the project is part of some umbrella corp, which ofc means they can&amp;#x27;t possibly actually care about anything by profit, move slow, and are un-responsive.</text></comment>