August 31st 2012 6:00 am PT

OSX is based on the Mach kernel, from the NeXTSTEP days. It’s more accurate to describe it as UNIX-like, not Linux-y. It’s closer to BSD if you want an open-source tie.

If you think Valve is “more customer-centric”, that’s because you’ve never had to deal with them. A friend of mine’s brother bought a game for his birthday using friend’s PayPal account, and Steam locked down the brother’s account for potential fraud. Despite PP confirming the transaction was legitimate, it took Steam 6 months to unlock his account (and all of the games attached to it were unplayable for that time). It took me 3 weeks to get Valve to accept a key for a game I bought new that some little punk at best buy installed and then resealed, despite the fact that I included the photographic proof and all the requested information in the initial email that I owned the game. They refuse to even provide a customer service phone number to anyone as part of their bare bones operation. I call MS, and someone, unfortunately usually an Indian without a clue picks up. I could have gotten it resolved in 3 days instead of weeks with MS, and a simple call by them to PP would have gotten the brother’s account unlocked. If your Live account gets banned, all your games still work. If your Steam account gets banned, you lose all your games. Now how is that “good customer service”?

The “real sales” that Steam offers are essentially fire sales. No one is making money on a $2 game, the credit card fees alone are 25% of that. The PC games industry is awash in piracy is the real problem, and those sales are the way they keep at least some money coming in, but a model for profitability or even survivability? Forget it. And people wonder why most PC games these days are console ports. Quirky indy games? Sure they can survive, but only a handful of AAA titles make it, and with few exceptions only if there’s tangible benefits to having a registered copy (like online play)

Valve will never make a real console, they simply do not have the money, the manpower, or the IP to do so. What they are trying to do is do what MS was doing with Windows 7, where your PC is certified as a level 5 or whatever. Valve is operating on near 10 year old technology on their games right now, it’s easy to guarantee it’ll run on everything. Mostly Valve survives on religion, not on actual quality or customer service. Like The Matrix, it’s the first thing of its kind most people saw, and you never get that high again, and that’ where your other games are so you stick with it That’s why Ubi and EA are starting their own services, so that they keep all the money, and more importantly are less beholden to the Steam pump n dump. I’m not loyal to any DD service. I have at least 6 of them (Gamefly/Stop,Origin,GFW,Steam, Amazon) that I’ve bought from, and GFW is definitely the worst out of all of them (locking you out of your save games if the flakey interface doesn’t connect, I really hope achievements are separate on Windows 8 so no matter what the DRM we can get them).

Finally, it’s bad enough for game makers to be beholden to one or two companies in the console business, and allowing Steam to dictate what you can and cannot make (look at Pinball Arcade, can’t launch a PC version because Steam decided no one wants pinball), for essentially the entire industry, is a bad, bad thing no matter who is holding the reigns. Do you really think the phone industry is happy that if you actually want to get paid for your apps, iOS is your only choice?

Most people just don’t understand the backends of this industry

This isn’t about “having it in for Steam”, nor is it “Xbox LIve/GFW FTW”. Read it again. Any business that controls the vast majority of the PC gaming world and doesn’t have an instant access, 7 day a week customer service number, and a corporate headquarters that hides behind a mazelike phone system where you literally cannot get a human being on the phone without knowing the extension, and a company that can take away thousands of dollars worth of games forever on a whim, (something Origin specifically does not do I should add) is not a company that should be in that business

I don’t let Steam or Origin run when they’re not needed. Why would I waste my computer memory doing that?

If you think the Xbox is overpriced, I suggest you check out (except for the hard drives and controllers, which are grossly overpriced in a way that made Steve Jobs green with envy) the cost of materials to build the system. Xboxen are pretty much sold at cost

Valve has essentially zero expenses. They make hats. They occasionally produce a game on a decade old engine, and they keep some servers up to collect money for other people’s product. Big challenge there. Like the senseless worship of the “new innovation from Apple”, which is typically something that other products have had for years (pre-emptive multitasking anyone? Sinclair 1984, Amiga 1985, Windows 1995, MacOS 1999 (limited implementation, not true implementation until they “borrowed” UNIX, which had had it for decades). That’s all Steam did, was have their own “brand new innovation”, and introduced Xbox Live style features for the PC when MS couldn’t be bothered to for years (and maybe with Win8 it finally won’t suck, but not holding my breath)

I’m glad you like Steam, it doesn’t change the fact that they are irressponsible, and virtually unaccountable guardians of virtually the entire PC gaming space, who can steal thousands of dollars in software on a whim from you forever, and you legally can’t do a thing about it. Monopoly is bad for the consumer, and when a game I buy on another service still has to be activated through Steam, that’s not any different in the end who I gave my money to.