Microsoft buying Valve would be a disaster for PC gaming

Right now, it’s just a rumor. Hopefully it stays that way.

There’s been a rumor recently, thin even so far as these rumors usually go, but so enormous in potential impact it seems to have captured people’s attention anyway: According to Polygon ( go.pcworld.com/ poly), Microsoft has reportedly talked about acquiring Valve, the independent company behind the Steam gaming platform. Or there’s been “a whisper about Valve,” as Polygon puts it.

It seems ludicrous to me—after all, we’re talking about Valve, the company that hated Windows 8 so much it tried to convert developers (and players) to a custom Steamcentric Linux build.

But let’s assume this hypothetical scenario is more serious than it seems. Anything’s