I'll save you all a five minute read: "Valve is a business and that's evil."

Next you'll be telling me video games are an industry.

Man, the internet has changed a lot since I was a kid. Almost any mention of a corporation was in order to insult them. Their shitty service, their security holes, their immoral business practices. Even their names were often bastardized to remind us that the companies weren't our friends. That they shouldn't be trusted. I remember back in the day when slashdot was first starting out and a lot of the dreamers thought the free software movement was going to take over the internet and bleed out into the real world. Lol. No nice things.

There's always Good Old Games.

Let's extend that list to some nice, DRM-free retailers and bundlers:

gog.com
humblebundle.com/store
groupees.com
IndieGameStand
Desura

Most gamemakers sell directly as well. In the end, it's a matter of exposure.

This article sounds like a total strawman to me. I don't think Valve was ever a "Good Guy" company.

I recall the days of HL2 very differently from the author. Steam was complete garbage when it first started. The most common gif seen at that time was the animated Steam logo "fisting" into a guy's butt. Steam broke so often that it was viewed as justification for piracy (the classic "pirates have a better experience than paying consumers" argument).

It was only after a very long road that Steam became the reliable platform it is today. The reason it is preferred is because it is competent now while every other company that tries to start their own (Games for Windows Live, Uplay, etc.) starts in the same garbage condition that Steam did back then.

Which is not to say that Steam is flawless these days either. It is still known for horrendous customer service, scam/fake games trying to mine money from card trading, and an exploitable sorting system that can get undeserving titles to the front page. But they are by far the most competent of the available options and deservedly have their dominant position.

Honestly, if you're really concerned about Steam's dominant control of the market, the thing you should really be fighting for is removing DRM. Its the DRM that is tying you to Steam, or Uplay, or any other client. GOG is great because they don't allow any DRM, but unfortunately there aren't that many publishers that will agree to that. In fact, I believe Steam even allows DRM-free games, its just that since they don't require it almost no one does it.

If consumers really vote with their wallets that attitude will change.

Edit: Actually, now that I looked there are a surprising amount of DRM-free games on Steam. This article is just click-bait.

::adjusts ponytail:: Fuckin' Capitalism.

Valve is a corporation. Its primary reason for existing, regardless of what its founders may have originaly imagined, or what you imagine, is to make money. "Good Guy Valve" is good marketing. Valve mostly sells completely non-essential entertainment and makes a hearty profit. (Yes it does sell some other software, too, but that's a small fraction of its income.) You get something like 100 hours of entertainment for every dollar you spend with Valve, and you are bitching about it? Turn off the fucking computer and go play stick ball with some friends for Christ's sake.

I'd like a list of some of these 100 hour games you're buying for a dollar, please. :)

Closest I can think of is GTA San Andreas, at which I'm clocking 300+ hours on steam (and a few hundred off of it, I think), and which has been sold for a couple of dollars.

I'm thinking of threads like this one.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/32humn/what_games_have_you_spent_hundredsthousands_of/

I'm not a huge gamer, since I usually buy games 5+ years after the come out, but I'm pretty sure I'm pushing triple digits per dollar on some titles like Halo, FTL, Fallout 3, etc. The big Steam sales seem to be priced similarly. Heck, I still go on Myth and Marathon binges every few years. Don't get me started on Angband.

The fetch wear the skins of men out of necessity, for if the eye of Wyrd were to fall on them not so adorned He would recognize their alienness and smite them.

According to Steam: I've put 719 hours into Civ V.
... Most of that is because of the Brave New World expansion pack (makes the end-game so tense!)

I compare any game to going to a movie entertainment /dollar wise and is already a great deal.