[jerf]

It seems at least necessary to do the classic "Hey, Microsoft, we have a credible alternative, give us good pricing" move, if nothing else. Given that Microsoft is a direct competitor with Games for Windows it's not a great move for Valve to be dependent on them, lest they get Lotus'ed or something.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Lotused? What's that?

[xsmasher]

A reference to Lotus 1-2-3 I presume.

[jerf]

Yes. It's an urban legend if you really get down to it, or so the official debunkings go, but nevertheless the underlying issue is still true. You don't want to build your Amazon competitor on AWS, you don't want to build your Google competitor on their cloud, etc. Even if you can completely write off true sabotage as a threat, there's other real issues, like the needs of the platform vendor simply diverging from yours over time.

[wtracy]

So the saying went back in the day, "DOS ain't done 'till Lotus won't run."