A response to Gabe Newell's new complaint on Windows 8

This is a guest post by Robert Kegel. Gabe Newell is at it again. Last time he seemed scared that Windows 8 would cut into Steams business. Now he thinks people are going to hate it? Make up your mind Gabe! I wrote an article on his last comment and I stand by what I said. Gabe seems like he’s grasping at straws. All I have to say is Half-Life was my favorite game and still doesn’t have an ending. Gabe seems to be bored with developing games and wants to be a distribute. I say he should sell Valve the game company and keep Steam the distribution service and rename the company Steam. This way maybe Half-Life will get an ending. Even if he sells Valve to Ubisoft, Activision, EA or Microsoft it will be in better hands than in Gabe’s. This developing a game every once in a blue moon idea is getting old and fans of the Half-Life series are getting old as well. On that note Steam can be so much more as well. Its good you’re getting it on other platforms, the more the better. I use Steam, I like the service and hope it stays around for a long while to come. Steam will work with Windows 8 and the only way I’ll stop using it is if you give up on Windows. I still believe you should look into a download/streaming hybrid. If a person wants to download a game they have that option, and if they want to stream it they have that one as well. You can also make a console. These are just ideas, not sure how well they’d work, but worth looking into. Ideas on expanding your service is better than complaining about Windows 8. No one knows how the population will feel about Windows 8 until it actually ships. Maybe people will love it, maybe you’re right and people will hate it. No sense in complaining about it until we know for sure, its not going to make Microsoft re-think Windows 8 at this point in time. If people hate it Microsoft will have to be quick on their feet like they were with Windows 7 and being out something that people will like. I think Microsoft had to make Windows 8, weather people like it or not. They had to make a finger friendly OS for tablets. Now using that same OS for the PC market who knows. Maybe this is Microsoft saying “the PC is dead and tablets are taking over” and maybe this is also Microsoft’s way of pushing that along? The only thing we can do is sit back and see what happens, and weather good or bad see how Microsoft responds. Maybe people will love Windows 8 on tablets and buy tablets like crazy but hate it on the desktop. If that happens what people do from there may say what Microsoft does. If people demand Windows 7 on their PC’s then maybe Windows 8.5 or 9 will bring back the start menu and login to desktop (even though Microsoft may say no now), maybe people most people will stop buying towers and buy tablets and hybrid laptop/tablets in which case then Microsoft will keep on track the way they’re going now. Should Microsoft have not gone all in on the new UI and made separate OS’ for PC’s and tablets? Who knows. Microsoft is taking a stand and weather that stand works out or not is up to the consumers. Only time will tell.]]>