I really don't understand where you're coming from when you say there need to be other viable options of digital distribution services. There are. Most notably Direct2Drive. Now maybe D2D doesn't offer a "community" portion like Steam does, but who's stopping them? Honestly, the most viable option for them would be to buy out or cooperate with X-Fire and integrate its buddy messaging services with a D2D storefront and then add on some unique features. I made my Steam account on Sept 12, 2003. I hated it in beta and I hated it then. But Valve made a huge amount of changes. Many of them coming from community suggestions. About a year after launch it took on a new face and _really_ caught on. So let's face it. Valve came up with something truly original and molded it into exactly what the consumer wanted. Anyone else is free to do the same. But the question remains, who has ever done better than Valve in Valve's field of operations? Good luck.

This show was never all that gre-ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

April Fools!