People have a blind love for Gabe. The people talking about he was the savior for gaming because he turned down an offer from EA to buy Valve for half it's value were met with praise and cheer! Everyone ignored the super lowball offer and hailed Gabe as the savior of PC gaming.
And when he came out and said Windows 8 sucked for gaming, yep everyone jumped on board with that. People who haven't used Windows 8 claim it is bad for gaming, despite it being better from a technical standpoint than Windows 7. The only downside is the Metro UI that you can get out of.
I think Steam showed us why PC gaming is so great though. It showed us a store front with games having a shelf life of infinity. (Assuming servers stay up, which MS has now shown us isn't so...)
The potential for PC gaming though is great and it's been growing. I just don't see what Valve or Gabe has done recently for PC gaming other than try to stop the growth of other digital distribution methods and fight against consumer rights.
Ballmer had a tough shitty job running such a huge company, and while there's now hope someone better can come along and push MS in the right direction. MS should have always focused on PC gaming as well as console gaming in my opinion. The push to everything Xbox was a bad move to me, console gamers and PC gamers don't really overlap and I don't think anything was gained by shunning the PC gamer.
PC gamers upgrading hardware drives sales of not only the software but the hardware for OEMs, Ballmer made a lot of bad strategic decisions. That being said, MS also created the PC market as it is today, PC gaming today is relatively easy compared to 15 years ago and I find it less frustrating then even console gaming. MS and DX are to thank for that. I just hope the next CEO views PC gaming as a separate market from the Xbox instead of one to try and cannibalize for the Xbox.
Give PC gamers what Gabe really fears, a real digital competitor. EA is starting to and Impulse did a fair job. It's why Windows 8 was pissed on by Gabe, not for any technical reasons, but it had the potential to actually compete with Steam. Gabe threw fits and started to run to Linux.
Strong PC gaming needs MS. Time to play Madden 25 and get drunk at noon. YESSSSS.....