Steam Controller And Link Owners Get Free Games From Valve

If you were one of the early adopters of the Steam Controller or Steam Link, you may have an unexpected surprise waiting for you, from Valve. Over the last few days, owners of one or both of the devices have been getting emails similar to the one above, letting them know that they now have access to all past and future Valve titles, free of charge. Specifically, the Valve Friends and Family Pack.

Now, of course Valve isn't just handing these things out because they want to make the owners of their first hardware devices feel special. Rather, it's part of an apology to those wanting to use either device on a Mac. Specifically, the Link doesn't work with a Mac at all, and the Steam controller doesn't do gamepad emulation on a Mac. So those that bought either hoping to use it on that platform are no doubt very disappointed.

It's not clear if everyone is getting this email, but it is most likely that only those that have actually used Steam on a Mac, and likely have tried to use one of these devices on a Mac have been contacted. I can confirm getting one of these emails, but I have gamed on my Mac in the past, and did attempt to test my Steam Controller on it.

The other nice tidbit is that Valve is extending the return policy for both pieces of hardware from 30 to 60 days, for any reason. While it's disappointing that these issues were not resolved before the first batch of products shipped, I'm happy to see Valve step up their customer service game in this way.