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Steam is every bit as walled a walled garden as any other.

Valve wants to build it on top of am open platform (Linux) because building a walled garden inside someone else's (MS's) walled garden is risky. But that doesn't make steam itself an open platform.

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There is pretty much nothing you can't do to a game you bought on steam. You can copy and modify all the files you download - in fact Valve strongly encourages doing so! You can even play on multiple machines at once over a LAN by turning off the steam client's ability to phone home.

Steam is a more like a walled national park - the walls are there, but they give you a lot more room to run around.

Not to forget, game sharing with up to 10 friends/devices is coming.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24063613

Yup, that's true. Currently they're blowing the open platform horn (for their Steam Box as well), but Steam itself is by no means open.

At some point, open platforms might no longer align with their business goals. That's when they'll do nasty stuff, and that's when I'll whine about them. Currently, I'm cheering them on.

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