Family Sharing Announced on Steam's 10th Anniversary

The past week marked the 10th year of existence of Valve's Steam service. The past week also saw Valve announce a Family Sharing scheme for users to share their Steam game library with family and friends. A good move to commemorate Steam's 10th Anniversary.

Family Sharing is a boon for users who have family or friends who have hundreds of games in their Steam library and who can't seem to find the time to whittle down their game backlog. These hundred game backlogs are a sign of how far Steam has come from 10 years ago.

When Steam came out in 2003, like many people, I regarded Steam as just another form of oppressive DRM and I vowed I'd rather pirate their games than use Steam. Like many people, what changed my mind was the incredible sales Steam offered throughout the years.

I bought my first game on Steam, which was Half-Life, for only $0.98 in 2008. Since then I've bought all of my games on the various sales of different game shops. The low prices effectively ended the specter of piracy for me. Like many people, the sales built up my game collection to the point where I have a huge backlog.

Thank you Steam for helping to revive PC gaming and to reduce software piracy. Curse you for making me spend so much. Happy 10th Anniversary.

Oscar Schmidt Enters the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inducted new members this past week. Most of the attention is usually focused on well known recently retired NBA greats, which in this batch consisted primarily of Gary Payton followed by Bernard King.

I'm a huge admirer of Bernard King, one of the most unstoppable scorers of all time, but I was only interested in the event this year because of the induction of one of my basketball idols, one of the greatest shooters in the history of the game and a scorer on par with the scoring champions of the NBA, the Brazilian great, Oscar Schmidt.

After seeing him dismantle a Team USA led by David Robinson in the 1986 PanAm Games (now called FIBA Americas), leading Brazil to take the gold medal, I wanted to shoot and play like Oscar Schmidt. More than my other basketball shooter idols, more than Larry Bird, Andrew Toney, Pistol Pete Maravich, and Chris Mullin, I wanted to be like Oscar. I wanted to be like Mao Santa (Holy Hand).

He never played in the NBA because of his low draft position and his age. It also didn't help that he didn't play any defense and didn't rebound well for his height, but oh could he shoot and score. He looked so effortless and it was beautiful to watch him work. He didn't have the on-court arrogance of players like Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, or even Drazen Petrovich but he also had no conscience whatsoever in dominating the ball and putting up a shot. 

Oscar played similarly to Kiki Vandeweghe, the former All-Star NBA player who also played at small forward and was also a shooter with a beautiful effortless touch but who played no defense. Their difference was that Oscar had the confidence of a superstar who felt he could take every shot and make them. He was a player a team could build their whole offense around and this is what his teams did for his entire career.

He never made it to the NBA but he is the all-time leading scorer in the Olympics and he has scored more points than anyone in his entire career. For his accomplishments, for his love of the game, and for showing fans how beautifully the game could be played, my idol, the Holy Hand, Oscar Schmidt, deserves his rightful place in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.