I'm beginning to hate Valve.

[Woodsey]

And that's what gets me. Valve blatantly lies about their plans,

Plans change. It is not a lie to say that you are planning to do something and for that plan to then change. Stop whining and learn how the world works.

I don't get why this needs to be explained to a notable amount of people like they're children.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

(that Blizard/Activision has not pursued any action on the subject is strange given their propensity for legal action and the relative strength of that position.)

They did though. Albeit only over the name.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-22-dota-trademark-blizzard-valve-respond

the deal was cause for significant uproar with talk that the proper makers weren't getting their due.

While they did hire IceFrog, I agree it is cause for concern. In the development of mod creation it becomes hard to tell who "owns" the mod, Valve definitely could have broken some new ground by addressing that issue.

 

[Parakeettheprawn]

I know that's akin to sacrilege among gamers, but I was just playing Half-Life and it occurred to me that it has been 5 years since Episode 2 came out. 5 years. The entire thing they said about releasing them in episodic format was so that we wouldn't have to wait so long. Well that was fucking bullshit.

And that's what gets me. Valve blatantly lies about their plans, stays all secret and then someone thinks because they are Valve it is all okay to treat their fans like shit. And yet people eat it up and defend them. "Oh, that's just how Valve does things," people say. "They're probably waiting for the next engine/console/big gaming thing to be ready." "Valve never releases 3's of their games"

We don't take that shit from other companies. This whole fiasco with Bioware and Mass Effect and more recently Gearbox and Aliens proves that. So what makes it okay for Valve? How is blatantly lying about their plans for a game any different from releasing bullshit like ACM?

I don't get it. I don't think it would be so much of an issue if they would just communicate and say they were not interested in making it right now or that they were indeed waiting for the technology to catch up with the vision. But nope. They're content to treat us all like shit and then people defend them tooth an nail.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

Edit:

I love this. Most people here are missing the point of my post, whether intentionally or not. I am not "entitled" or "have problems."

My issue with them is not that I feel entitled to HL3. I don't give a shit about HL3 anymore. My problem, which I apparently failed to make clear, is that they keep everyone in the dark and sit on their high chair without communicating their plans or anything. It's the air of superiority and--frankly entitlement-- coming from them that pisses me off and the blind defense of their practices shown here. Not the fact that they haven't released it.

I get it, I get where you're coming from. The main thing is that they've already said that they are being silent because the development has been chaotic as hell. The game's apparently been done like 3-4 times now and they still aren't happy with it. I genuinely like a lot of things about Valve, including their employment structure and the way they develop games, but yes, I am tired of them being held on a pedestal. I know that if last year's Syndicate reboot had been published by them, it would have sold more copies simply because Valve's name was on the title, even if all they did was sign a check for the devs to have funding. But because EA was on the label, people immediately assumed it was the spawn of Satan. I'm not saying EA is a great company but they also aren't that bad.

I'm tired of both extremes, we need an even middle, as in most areas of life...

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Aha. DOTA2 (weekly patches), constant TF2 patches, annual game releases (sorry but what you consider 'real' is irrelevant. They seem to do quite enough.

None of which have anything to do with Half Life 3, the game that we have been waiting for since 2007. I don't consider making a couple new hats, fixing balancing issues with a F2P MOBA, and updating Counter-Strike do be a lot of work, especially when that's all they've done since April 2011.

 

[EyeReaper]

I can't be the only one who hopes HL3 ends up like Duke Nukem Forever. Then again, the next half-life could solve world hunger and cure AIDS and i don't think it could live up to the hype

 

[Atmos Duality]

Comparing vaporware to actual fraud is foolish.

 

[Daft Time]

I tend to think it goes a fair bit further than that. Half-Life 2 Episode 3 has now taken as long to release as Half-Life 2 did from Half-life. In the Interim, they have produced two left for Dead games, found enormous financial success monetizing (and, as a bitter fan of Team Fortress Mega, ruining) Team Fortress. They have taken DOTA and while they may be proving to be good stewards of that brand, there is something terribly ugly about that process.

Given how highly subjective this entire paragraph is, it's hard to construct an argument greater than "that your opinion!" but I'll try. Simply making money off a product is not a negative in itself for a company. In fact, it's the whole purpose of a company. To achieve this, did Valve use any practices which are bad for the consumer? If you can answer that question, that you can really get ball rolling but left as is you have no real foundation for an argument.

...an operational plan that is as evil as anything Activision or EA has ever accomplished. They run a retail outlet loaded with features that, coming from anyone else, would be met with rage (see, for example, Origin - a platform that doesn't do anything more egregious than Steam). They purchase promising indie development efforts and buy up mod teams to monetize the work - something the communities have wrinkled their nose at more than once. They've even purchased the rights to a mod to a game they didn't make and dubious legality of that aside (that Blizard/Activision has not pursued any action on the subject is strange given their propensity for legal action and the relative strength of that position.) the deal was cause for significant uproar with talk that the proper makers weren't getting their due.

The part of you quote I placed in bold makes me cringe. EA and Activision have are very, very long list of taking actions seemingly against the consumer. It's a bold claim to compare any company to these two exemplars of corporate greed, but we'll see if you claims are sufficient.

* Steam is comparable to Origin.

It's worth remembering that people didn't object to Origin because it's a digital download service. People rejected Origin because of these issues which are unique to it:

A) A EULA that allowed the service to severely invade your privacy.
B) Taking away your access to games if you break any of their strict terms of service, including modding.
C) Incredibly bad customer service.
D) The service is a buggy mess.

The issues are not applicable to Steam. So no, the two services are not comparable. Steam is the basis for any reasonable anti-valve argument, but you missed the plethora of valid points.

* Purchasing independent developers.

Huh, you used "monetising" again. As opposed to the independent developers who were going to try that themselves? Sigh. Buying up developers has never been an issue in and of itself. In fact, it can be what gives small developers there chance to release the bigger project they want to make. It's when they are bought up, stripped of the intellectual property and pulled apart or suffered significant publisher interference. See Bioware, Bullfrog or any of the other developers bought by EA. Has Valve been doing this?

* They've even purchased the rights to a mod to a game they didn't make/

These is really an issue a lawyer should cover, but the mod itself was the creation of the hard work of a team of modders. In fact, apart from using their game to make it, Blizzard didn't contribute anything to the development. Valve bought the rights to the mods concept, and made a game based from it. As far as I'm aware they didn't using any content owned by another company. I'm not sure where they went wrong here. The "proper makers" did get their due, it just wasn't Blizzard.

Why Valve gets such protection is the better question. They aren't a tiny company anymore, and while their exact financial status is unknown (they are a private company after all), one could expect their revenues to be in the billions annually.

...because people who make arguments against them seem to miss all the valid points, and instead make bad comparisons with companies that do? I've said before I've got my own problems with Valve. I actually try to avoid their service at all costs, because it does have problems unique to it, which is actually pretty hard being a PC gamer.

 

[DoPo]

Aha. DOTA2 (weekly patches), constant TF2 patches, annual game releases (sorry but what you consider 'real' is irrelevant. They seem to do quite enough.

None of which have anything to do with Half Life 3, the game that we have been waiting for since 2007. I don't consider making a couple new hats, fixing balancing issues with a F2P MOBA, and updating Counter-Strike do be a lot of work, especially when that's all they've done since April 2011.

$ aptitude search steam

p steam:i386 - Launcher for the Steam software distribution service
i steam-launcher - Launcher for the Steam software distribution service
v steam-launcher:i386

$ sudo aptitude install steam

$ steam

Running Steam on linuxmint 14 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically

System startup time: 9.06 seconds
Running Steam on linuxmint 14 64-bit

the deal was cause for significant uproar with talk that the proper makers weren't getting their due.

While they did hire IceFrog, I agree it is cause for concern. In the development of mod creation it becomes hard to tell who "owns" the mod, Valve definitely could have broken some new ground by addressing that issue.

Well, I can't find the damn World Editor EULA online but I recall that it explicitly stated something along the lines of "Anything you create using the World Editor belongs to Blizzard". Or something like it. I'm not entirely sure to what extent they had phrased it either but I somehow doubt it'd be very loose. That's why I was actually surprised when Blizzard sued - and I mean I was surprised they sued so late. I just assumed (or read?) that Valve did get a go ahead from Blizzard for Dota 2. Maybe that's actually why Blizzard sued - because they gave them the right but not the name. Blizzard did pull out the lawyers around the time they thought of making their own MOBA. They ended up naming it Blizzard Allstars to milk some name recognition but I'm pretty sure they would have wanted "Dota" in there, too.

Which reminds me - I've got no clue what's going on with the Blizzard MOBA thingie. I wander how well it would go, seeing as the genre is becoming the new competitive FPS in terms of players and number of games - DotA:A, Dota 2, LoL, Demigod, Heroes of Newerth, Smite are just some that are around, then we have a Total War MOBA announced (was it Arena?), and recently the game that EA would publish (forgot the name). I wander if Blizzard Allstars is actually needed. Or many of the other games, too.

 

[TheBaron87]

Dude... not cool. Valve is the only game development studio willing to employ the handicapped.

It's pretty obvious Gabe Newell doesn't know how to count to 3, and he's very sensitive about it.

Half-life 2
Left 4 Dead 2
Portal 2
Team Fortress 2
DotA 2
Counter-Strike "Global Offensive"

We're actually waiting for Half-life 2: Episode 2: Part 2.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Given how highly subjective this entire paragraph is, it's hard to construct an argument greater than "that your opinion!" but I'll try. Simply making money off a product is not a negative in itself for a company. In fact, it's the whole purpose of a company. To achieve this, did Valve use any practices which are bad for the consumer? If you can answer that question, that you can really get ball rolling but left as is you have no real foundation for an argument.

The argument is that there a number of reasons why someone might hate Valve. I can muster no greater disdain than apathy entirely because they have done nothing to offend me save for not releasing games I want to play. The list of things I posted are merely examples of actions that others have or could conceivably take offense to.

For example, monetizing Team Fortress 2 fundamentally altered how that game plays. It isn't about making money in that case but making money at the expense of a design people may have enjoyed.

The part of you quote I placed in bold makes me cringe. EA and Activision have are very, very long list of taking actions seemingly against the consumer. It's a bold claim to compare any company to these two exemplars of corporate greed, but we'll see if you claims are sufficient.

Dramatically altering the base functionality of a known property for the purposes of making money is a fairly naked attempt to make money. Especially when you consider this was done long after millions and bought and paid for the game.

A) A EULA that allowed the service to severely invade your privacy.

Section 4 of the EULA gives them the right to scan all open processes and existing hardware in an attempt to combat cheating. This is in addition to the information they already collect about users implicitly including address, credit card information, purchases, play times, PC hardware, etc.

B) Taking away your access to games if you break any of their strict terms of service, including modding.

Steam's EULA (Section 4) outlines a non-complete set of conditions in which your account is terminated. Termination by Valve (Section 10, subsection C) specifically states that in the event of such termination, there is no refund on the products you can no longer access as a result.

C) Incredibly bad customer service.

This is hardly unique to EA.

D) The service is a buggy mess.

Steam has not always been a paragon of clean programming either. The service has proven to be just as susceptible to problems as Origin.

The issues are not applicable to Steam. So no, the two services are not comparable. Steam is the basis for any reasonable anti-valve argument, but you missed the plethora of valid points.

Huh, you used "monetising" again. As opposed to the independent developers who were going to try that themselves? Sigh. Buying up developers has never been an issue in and of itself. In fact, it can be what gives small developers there chance to release the bigger project they want to make. It's when they are bought up, stripped of the intellectual property and pulled apart or suffered significant publisher interference. See Bioware, Bullfrog or any of the other developers bought by EA. Has Valve been doing this?

Purchase of independent developers has resulted in changes to a property. Team Fortress, for example, changed fairly radically when valve gained ownership and now bears no resemblance to the game I loved more than a decade ago. But, that really isn't a problem for me. I would instead point you toward the lamentation surrounding the acquisition of dozens of other small developers when EA or Activision or any of the other giants get their hands on it.

Regardless of my personal feelings on the subject, Counterstrike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress and DOTA are brands that mean a great deal to many. Valve Ownership has resulted in fairly significant changes in those games. Thus I can safely surmise that not everyone is happy about such things. But, then, we don't really hear much lamentation on that front do we?

These is really an issue a lawyer should cover, but the mod itself was the creation of the hard work of a team of modders. In fact, apart from using their game to make it, Blizzard didn't contribute anything to the development. Valve bought the rights to the mods concept, and made a game based from it. As far as I'm aware they didn't using any content owned by another company. I'm not sure where they went wrong here. The "proper makers" did get their due, it just wasn't Blizzard.

The game was developed using Warcraft 3 as a basis and as such is a derivative work of warcraft 3. Not having ready access to whatever agreement governed that game, I'm at exactly as much of a loss as you because my assumption is that valve's actions would be actionable, but given the only legal action taken was about the use of the name it may be that Valve's position isn't as vulnerable as it would appear.

...because people who make arguments against them seem to miss all the valid points, and instead make bad comparisons with companies that do?

I think my larger point is that there are parallels. Steam isn't the bed of roses it appers to be, greenlight is much maligned by the indie community, Valve has irrevocably changed a number of beloved franchises over the years, and they have thus far failed to deliver on promises made about a beloved game franchise. Bioware went from being adored by the masses to reviled with fewer strikes against them.

But, as I've said, I don't hate Valve - not making a game I want is insufficient for such a response. I can just see a great many things that Valve has done over the years that, coming from a different source, would have been met with vitriol.

In many ways, the larger discussion about Valve is about that unique narrative we've associated with them. If people where really honest with themselves, Activision and EA have probably done relatively little to earn their ire. Sure, we can talk about poor customer service but aside from a few apocryphal tales what would I have to base that on? I've never experienced a problem with either's customer service after two decades. EA's purchase of Westwood is widely remembered as a terrible turn and yet even under such a cruel taskmaster as EA, Westwood still produced two of the best remembered iterations of Command and Conquer. Under the same boot, Bioware managed to produce both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins and both were loved by fans.

The narrative surrounding Valve is that Valve are the good guys and yet there is shockingly little to base this on. Sure, I can't point to anything egregious that they've done to me or to a franchise I love, but then I can't point out a particular thing EA has done to offend me personally either.

 

[AT God]

I know I am mostly alone in saying this but what they have done to TF2 makes me very afraid for the future of their games. So far CS:GO has proven me wrong in that they aren't letting fans make all the decisions for them but I also have a bone to pick with them for CS:GO in that they haven't added silencers back yet (Also the scout is a different gun with a different sound and I am not a fan of change).

I had a flash back to playing the old TF2 beta and watching people fight to death over little control points and thinking that this game is amazing. The scouts can get the caps, the soldiers can destroy defenses, spies can help stop engies, engies can help stop heavies, it all balanced out so well. Then I watched a game play video of a recent TF2 and saw people with goofy hats, glowing particles trailing after them, people throwing jars of piss and milk at people creating some silly bonuses and engineers rushing front line points AND TAKING THEM.

I understand them wanting to make the game fresh but they have completely ruined the balance of power of the characters. Make goofy hats all you want but all the old tactics that made me play love playing scout no longer matter, instead of weapon heckling soldiers, scouts can use the stupid over powered weapons to merely take them head on. I know that soldiers have their new equipment to counter scouts but if I was a soldier and I liked the original weapons, I would get sick off the scouts who can run up and kill me unless I can hit them with two rockets back to back.

Best new out of Valve is the rumor that when Source 2 comes out they will remake Ricochet. Love that game, no one plays it, makes me sad inside.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

We're going to a release a sequel and not is a lot different from A; CM
A complete lie of a game

 

[NiPah]

snip

I tend to think it goes a fair bit further than that. Half-Life 2 Episode 3 has now taken as long to release as Half-Life 2 did from Half-life. In the Interim, they have produced two left for Dead games, found enormous financial success monetizing (and, as a bitter fan of Team Fortress Mega, ruining) Team Fortress. They have taken DOTA and while they may be proving to be good stewards of that brand, there is something terribly ugly about that process.

L4D was pretty much a side project that became so much fun to develop for it evolved into it's own game, then two. It takes a very simple formula, and while coding AI and making the entire experience fun it's just not as difficult to make when compared to Half Life. The same can be said for Portal, when they started programming episode 1 Portal was hardly a blip on the radar, once it was brought to light, the team hired, and assets moved towards its development that became the priority, once of the reasons the games are so much enjoyed is because they enjoy making them, I'm just guessing here but if Valve didn't have so much fun making them I don't believe the two games would be nearly as fun.
You speak of Valve ruining TF, you'll have to elaborate on that since no news stories pop up on google.
Also what's terribly ugly about Valve handling DOTA well? You say they are good stewards yet say it's a bad thing, you make no sense.

They have consistently failed to deliver the games I actually care about which is as much as any company has ever done to earn my apathy while running an operational plan that is as evil as anything Activision or EA has ever accomplished. They run a retail outlet loaded with features that, coming from anyone else, would be met with rage (see, for example, Origin - a platform that doesn't do anything more egregious than Steam). They purchase promising indie development efforts and buy up mod teams to monetize the work - something the communities have wrinkled their nose at more than once. They've even purchased the rights to a mod to a game they didn't make and dubious legality of that aside (that Blizard/Activision has not pursued any action on the subject is strange given their propensity for legal action and the relative strength of that position.) the deal was cause for significant uproar with talk that the proper makers weren't getting their due.

So you're looking so forward to a game that you develop apathy? Wouldn't that mean you just stopped caring? You cared so much you went back around to not caring? Never knew that was even possible. You also make the blanket statement that their operational plan is as evil as Activision/EA, but fail to state what their actual operational plan is, if you're refering to how they run their business your following statements fail to properly assess EA and Activision's business model and you show inadequate knowledge on why people were angry with them in the first place.

They run a retail outlet loaded with features that, coming from anyone else, would be met with rage (see, for example, Origin - a platform that doesn't do anything more egregious than Steam).

This is a common lie I've seen, you may or may not know of the major issues that first showed up with the launch of Origin, to sum it up people were angry because:
It required a scan of your entire system (Steam does not require this and when allowed only scans certain files connected to steam)
All accounts associated with a banned user's computer are banned (son gets banned, brother, sister, dad, and mom are banned as well)
Questionably perma bans without information and poor customer service
Being banned on a forum gets your Origin account banned losing all access to purchased games.
Obviously some of these may have been fixed later on, but when Origin first came out this was all the news, hell even here on the Escapist we saw these stories again and again, it's no wonder why people hate Origin and enjoy Steam.

They purchase promising indie development efforts and buy up mod teams to monetize the work - something the communities have wrinkled their nose at more than once.

I guess there are some people who hate this type of thing, honestly I think it's great when a small team gets hired by a bigger company. It also goes to show people have more trust in Valve, a developer/publisher that has been good to those it hires. I look at EA and what it did to Westwood, then I look at Valve and what it did with a small team of college students who made Portal... the differences are pretty night and day, a mark in Valve's favor.

They've even purchased the rights to a mod to a game they didn't make and dubious legality of that aside (that Blizard/Activision has not pursued any action on the subject is strange given their propensity for legal action and the relative strength of that position.) the deal was cause for significant uproar with talk that the proper makers weren't getting their due.

If I remember correctly there was some talk of legal action between some of the makers of the original DOTA, I don't think Blizzard even came into the picture because it was a mod remade from the WC3 engine to an entirely original engine with all Blizzard content removed. I guess you could make the argument that DOTA too closely follows WC3's unit control styles but that would be an issue for the court, Blizzard never brought it to court which either speaks for them as a good company or that their lawyers saw nothing in the case, I'd say it was a bit of both.

None of this is sufficient to generate hate from me though. But it is a long history of missteps that, had they come from a different company, would have been considered unacceptable by the vocal masses who shot about such things. Why Valve gets such protection is the better question. They aren't a tiny company anymore, and while their exact financial status is unknown (they are a private company after all), one could expect their revenues to be in the billions annually.

I go back to my original point, your entire argument against Valve hinges on half truths and misrepresentations of past mistakes by other companies. Origin was not equal to Steam, it was a shit copy with many mistakes that quickly grew ire from users. EA has made many mistakes in the past, so people are less forgiving of them when they make smaller mistakes, we're still getting Sim Cities from EA and Diablo 3s from Activision, while they are not bad companies these are valid marks against them. Valve? Honestly has done very little to be angry at, they hire indi developers, they require steam for their games (which can be run offline), they take a long ass time to make a game, these a bad company does not make.

 

[Piorn]

Personally, to me, Valve is something that just happens.
Like a rainbow, or animals around my house.
It's nothing you actively seek out, but when it appears, you watch it and enjoy it.

 

[SecondSince]

such long replies here... I'm gonna keep it short.

I don't think they'll release ANYTHING any time soon. Valve over the years has moved more and more away from developing and are now very content just sitting on their asses and raking in the Steam-money. And that's about it.

Why risk your reputation on making a sequel that EVERYBODY wants and everybody will have an expectation about. And that's the risky thing. Lots of expectations inevitably means a lot of people won't see what they want in the game and that'll only hurt Valve's name. Better to sit on old goodwill than to fall into new disappointment.

Just the way i view the situation... ^^

 

[Excludos]

The half life series has been discontinued.

As much as we like to think otherwise. As much as we'd hope for it to be different. It's about time we confront the truth.

Valve does not have any plans to create another half life game, nor do they have any intent to.

Maybe they were gonna at some point, but it's long past, and we have to move on.

Based on the rather small leaks and comments scraped togheter from various sources, I'd say it's very likely Valve is working on the Source 2 engine right now. Which also explains why, with the exception of dota 2, its been so long since anything has really happened. With source 2, they will need a game to show off their engine, thus half life 3.

I don't think it will be like the previous half life titles though. Gaben did go out and say that they are done with strictly singleplayer games. So it could be anything from simple coop to some kind of multiplayer title..or something else entirely thats not hl3 of course.

 

[Paladin2905]

such long replies here... I'm gonna keep it short.

I don't think they'll release ANYTHING any time soon. Valve over the years has moved more and more away from developing and are now very content just sitting on their asses and raking in the Steam-money. And that's about it.

Why risk your reputation on making a sequel that EVERYBODY wants and everybody will have an expectation about. And that's the risky thing. Lots of expectations inevitably means a lot of people won't see what they want in the game and that'll only hurt Valve's name. Better to sit on old goodwill than to fall into new disappointment.

Just the way i view the situation... ^^

Heh, I never thought of it that way but I think you may have hit the nail on the head. There are some who would say that was the case between Half Life and Half Life Two, but this time they have a cash cow they can just ride off into the sunset on. Risks are for people trying to make it, people already in a perplexingly good position don't take them.

 

[ksn0va]

I love this. Most people here are missing the point of my post, whether intentionally or not. I am not "entitled" or "have problems."

My issue with them is not that I feel entitled to HL3. I don't give a shit about HL3 anymore. My problem, which I apparently failed to make clear, is that they keep everyone in the dark and sit on their high chair without communicating their plans or anything. It's the air of superiority and--frankly entitlement-- coming from them that pisses me off and the blind defense of their practices shown here. Not the fact that they haven't released it.

They communicate just the right amount if you ask me. If you think Valve doesn't have an open line of communication with their fans then your eyes and ears aren't in the right place. Valve is an independent company, they don't have to please anyone. Look, Valve isn't forcing you to like them, you can go like EA if you hate Valve so much.

 

[cikame]

Valve made the transition from being simply a game developer to running the largest digital distribution service on the web, through Steam they've done more for the PC gaming industry than anyone else in recent years.
They haven't made crappy PC ports, they haven't purchased and destroyed other companies like some of those larger publishers, they've certainly fired employees but nowhere near the scale of companies of a similar size.

My favorite video game franchise is right there ready for them to continue its story and i'll wait, but remember that Half Life's past still exists as proof that Valve should be respected.

 

[SnowWookie]

I love this. Most people here are missing the point of my post, whether intentionally or not. I am not "entitled" or "have problems."

My issue with them is not that I feel entitled to HL3. I don't give a shit about HL3 anymore. My problem, which I apparently failed to make clear, is that they keep everyone in the dark and sit on their high chair without communicating their plans or anything. It's the air of superiority and--frankly entitlement-- coming from them that pisses me off and the blind defense of their practices shown here. Not the fact that they haven't released it.

So you're annoyed that Valve feels entitled to communicate about *their* product in the manner *they* choose? Can you cite an example of this "superiority and entitlement"?

Valve gets cut a lot of slack for a few reasons:
1. They generally make high quality games (even if they take forever to do so)
2. They have been and still are incredibly support of the mod community (see hiring TF guys, etc)
3. They are pretty generous with their content updates
4. They created an online distribution system that (for the most part) just works. Most people don't feel that Steam is too invasive or rips people off.

Now, are they perfect? Hell no, on 3 and 4 alone there is plenty of scope for improvement (see people complaining about L4D vs L4D2, offline mode etc.) and unsurprisingly, they get taken to task for that.

So there isn't a "blind defence" of Valve. In fact, they have their own very vocal minority of detractors on many issues ("steam is drm!", "hats suck!", etc).

But most people look at Valve, then look at other major players and decide that they're really not that bad.