Steam, doing what Windows Live does for free?

[Bodhesatva]

ckmlb said:
Steam > Live on PC for sure.

Why pay to play games online on a PC? In fact why pay to play them on a console I ask MS...

 Yeah. There's a specific problem on the PC, though.

In the console world, Microsoft was the definitely the first of the three major players to establish a strong online presence. Xbox live is still considered to be the best online service of the bunch -- both in number of players and in quality (yes, the PSN seems to be catching up, and I'm personally very excited about Home, but that's another discussion). Microsoft was there first, so they theoretically can claim they established the correct price point.

But on the PC? Steam was there first. Steam has many more users. And Steam... is free. It's very difficult to enter a market where the dominator already exists and is already free. Really an akward situation, I think.