Valve gives free games to ATI Radeon owners

DOUG LOMBARDI from Valve just gave us the nod that this game developer/publisher from Seattle reached an agreement with DAAMIT. The cooperation will result in owners of ATI Radeon cards getting some content unlocked.

To be more precise, Half Life 2: Lost Coast tech demo and Half Life 2: Multiplayer are unlocked and free for all the folk with ATI cards carrying "Radeon" moniker. Owners of ATi Radeon HD 2900XT will get that cancelled retail package named Black Box, containing Half Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal.

In order to ease the deal, starting from now, ATi Catalyst will come with a bundled installation of Steam. Since Steam is only some 0.6MB in size, it will not increase download by much. This Catalyst+Steam bundling deal will last until mid-2008, but offer for ATI owners will remain - a definite cool move by ATI and Valve folk.

This deal includes all ATI Radeon cards ever produced, so if you own an ATi Radeon card you bought at the time when big bells pants were popular, you can get these two games. While there are still complaints about Steam, one cannot overlook just how easy it is to backup games - a regular nightmare for owners of DRMed games. ATI has been partner with Valve for years, and now - you can expect this relationship to continue in the future. µ

L'INQ
Steam site...