Possibly the best thing ever invented for gamers.  When this baby came out in 2003, it forced a fuck-ton of Counter-strikers the world over to download it.  It was a little rough around the edges and infuriated a LOT of people, but Valve cleaned it up and it is now the first thing I download on a new rig after Chrome.  It’s like iTunes if iTunes let you keep everything you ever bought rather than limiting you to 5 downloads.  Assholes.  But Steam sells you the licence for the software and you can download, uninstall, download, uninstall etc. ad infinitum.  Why am I even bringing this up? ‘Cause I fucking LOVE it!  I am currently debating with myself where I want to get the above image tattooed on my body.

But its other fantastic features include non-video game software like Maya, fantastic sales, an immense library of indie games and community-selected greenlighting on games.  If you don’t use Steam Jesus doesn’t love you.  If you still hold fast to your skepticism, you can make your friends buy you games you like by adding them to a wishlist, gain early access to pre-release games, earn achievements and check out any number of stats on games you love.  It even recommends games to you based on games you already play!!!1!11!  If you still think this isn’t for you, go get a console.  I will always love you Steam.

Oh, right.  Need I mention the Steambox?  A console that you can use to play Steam games?  Xbox and PS4 won’t even know what hit them.  I have been saying they should make this baby since 2005!  Of course, I just googled ‘Steambox release date’ and I found this article calling it the Steam Machine.  It was updated today, too, but there is no release date.  It looks like Valve is just like, “Fuck your consoles, get a console that lets developers push the envelope, would ya?”  That is nice to hear since us PC gamers look at the console wars like a bunch of retards arguing over their favorite color flower.  But everyone in the world plays console games ( as they want you to think ), so in a lot of ways gaming has been held back repeatedly by its slowest evolving component.

This offers a chance to up the ante in the console wars.  Maybe.  You can talk a mean talk, but when your new console boasts an i5 processor, 16 gb RAM and an NVidia GTX 780… Hey. That is almost exactly what I have in this computer.  I just built it, and it cost me $2000 on Newegg.  Granted, it has a much larger case a monitor and a new mouse on that price tag, but the processor, graphics card and RAM altogether will run you around $1190.  Granted, the Steambox doesn’t have a centralized developer.  It’s licensed out to developers and each of them makes a version of the system that will match the base requirements for running Steam, not any particular games.  A netbook could probably run Steam, so that worries me.  If this system is going to sport the power of my system and be like $900, what is the point of getting a bitchin’ computer rig?  At that point only computer hobbyists would, but I doubt that such a competitive price is even possible.  Oh, wait, did I say competitive?  The PS4 and Xbox One are half that price albeit with a fraction of the computing power.  Did I mention that Valve is hinting at virtual reality support? True life.  Just scroll to the section of the aforementioned article labelled ‘Virtual Whispers’. Sounds kinda sexy.  And there is the point that the Steambox’s controller looks like an alien pleasure device.  Who is supposed to use this thing, jedi?  There are prettier versions, but it looks as intuitive at first-glance as a Ouija board.  I am a proponent of what Valve’s Steambox proposes to do, which is ass rape its competition until they are firmly relegated to historical footnotes, but at what cost?  I would say that innovation is the key to owning the future, but sometimes it can lead you to the Wii U.  And as this guy details, such shenanigans will lead you to ruin.  I hope they know what kind of shitstorm this is setting up because if Valve is not careful they’ll be the ones left without an umbrella.