Pay to play, would you stay?

[BenKenobi88]

Steam is really close? To becoming a pay service? Hardly...if they whored out, they'd lose everybody.  Not only is Steam free to use, but the games you buy on them are always cheaper than retail, because there's no tax, and they often have bundle deals or straight-up instant savings.  If Valve hits hard times, they can do less package deals to cut costs I'd imagine.  They would never turn it into a pay service.