The view exposed in the article is all wrong. It is MBA-analyst levels of wrong.
Valve didn't conquer anything. Valve defended PC gaming when everybody else including Microsoft, had abandoned it, and focused on consoles.
Windows XP had amazing gaming APIs, like DirectInput: still superior to XInput after all these years, because of more axis and better FFB support; and DirectSound3D, which enabled hardware accelerated 3D positional audio.
These APIs were declared obsolete by Microsoft, in favour of XBox-compatible inferior APIs, which were feature equivalent to the APIs in the inferior hardware of the first XBox console. Inferior not in absolute terms, but inferior to what a PC was capable of.
And that was just the beginning. Microsoft focused and pushed for their console, and most AAA game studios followed suit. Consoles have been incredibly profitable, so their gambit has paid off.
PC Gaming was for old nerds, old game mechanics like FPS (Counter Strike) and RTS (Starcraft) and indie gaming. Valve kept the dream alive. Valve kept open computing alive, in a sense, as consoles are closed computing, and in some cases you need expensive proprietary licenses just to produce a game for one of the consoles, like Nintendo.
So no, it was not that Valve released Steam in the right moment. Valve is a big reason PC gaming is alive and thriving. They believed in PC gaming when all the big companies went the console way.
Valve saved PC gaming.
Then Microsoft and the AAA game studios took notice and we have the XBox store on Windows, and many game launchers, but they are opportunistic companies, who would destroy PC gaming if they could, to get their console profits up.
Dumb money listening to dumb things propping up dumb businesses doing dumb deals, like devaluing ips and rebuying new ones over and over with dumb money.
Valve didn't conquer anything. Valve defended PC gaming when everybody else including Microsoft, had abandoned it, and focused on consoles.
Windows XP had amazing gaming APIs, like DirectInput: still superior to XInput after all these years, because of more axis and better FFB support; and DirectSound3D, which enabled hardware accelerated 3D positional audio.
These APIs were declared obsolete by Microsoft, in favour of XBox-compatible inferior APIs, which were feature equivalent to the APIs in the inferior hardware of the first XBox console. Inferior not in absolute terms, but inferior to what a PC was capable of.
And that was just the beginning. Microsoft focused and pushed for their console, and most AAA game studios followed suit. Consoles have been incredibly profitable, so their gambit has paid off.
PC Gaming was for old nerds, old game mechanics like FPS (Counter Strike) and RTS (Starcraft) and indie gaming. Valve kept the dream alive. Valve kept open computing alive, in a sense, as consoles are closed computing, and in some cases you need expensive proprietary licenses just to produce a game for one of the consoles, like Nintendo.
So no, it was not that Valve released Steam in the right moment. Valve is a big reason PC gaming is alive and thriving. They believed in PC gaming when all the big companies went the console way.
Valve saved PC gaming.
Then Microsoft and the AAA game studios took notice and we have the XBox store on Windows, and many game launchers, but they are opportunistic companies, who would destroy PC gaming if they could, to get their console profits up.