Why one by one? Just copy the Games folder to an external folder and you are done. Heck, Steam doesn't even allow you to install your games to the directory you want. Directly installing to "C:\" anyway. Dicks!

nope, that's false information. It installs automatically to the dir you installed Steam to, mine is in D:\Games, so all steam games are installed in D:\Games\Steam\Steamapps\.... . Anyway, you now can select dir you want to install games to:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/11/finally-an-in-built-way-to-choose-steam-install-locations/

I don't boycott Steam. I don't buy from there though.

PC game DRM shenanigans made me quit buying PC games altogether though. I didn't really think about it back then and try to raise a fuss about it or anything, I just simply...left. I guess that's how I would put it.

Yes i know that. But looked at this way. I use SSD for my programs and program libraries to load faster. So i install applications like Steam to "C:\". But SSD is small so i can not install games there. I install them to my mechanical HDD on "D:\". Yet Steam wants to that for 7 years!! (Is it around for 7 or more years) Now they will include it with the beta but still not in the stable release(god knows when).So it doesn't count yet. Everyone praise Steam like this great that great when it still don't allow you where to install your games.

When you don't include a basic and vital option like this you lost to me at the beginning. Even i managed to move my Steam games to "D:\" with a ugly workaround, it still don't allow me to install them to a place i like. I use my computer in a very neat fashion. Everything has a place. And for games there is one master directory. And beneath that there is directories like: "Rpg, Shooter, Adventure..." Guess what? With Steam i can not organize my games that way too!

Steam really fucks up your directory structure and clutter your games. Why? Because Gabe Newell likes that way. That is why.

^This.

The idea that I would need an internet connection to some server to play a single-player game doesn't make any sense to me.

Putting a fixed lump sum of money upfront to play a game that is dependent on an external server to run just seems wrong on many level.

First of all, I could buy the game today and and they could shut down the servers tomorrow.

If they charge me say, 2$ a month instead, then I'm risking at most a month's worth of gameplay if they shut down the server tomorrow and also given that the agreement clearly stipulates that they need to provide me the service for a month only, they would be much more likely to just honor the agreement and wait until my month expires before shutting down the server.

Second, they need to maintain those bloody servers.

So everyone pays 20$-60$ today and all is fine and dandy, but what happens 10 years from now when nobody is buying the game anymore, but tons of people are using the servers to play the game, because they hadn't planned for the game to still be popular 10 years from now?

At what point do server costs exceed what they had planned given that their revenue stream is fixed rather than continuous?

And then, there is the why do I need to be connected to the internet to play single-player?

Common sense dictates that games that are single-player and/or peer-to-peer be sold for a lump sum and run off the internet while games that genuinely require a client-server architecture be sold as a service.

But beyond the fact that I can't reconcile their business model to my sensibilities, I don't really have a problem with Steam.

I just wouldn't buy from them personally.

Agreed and well put. I don't have anything to add to that.

Same for me. I just avoided them. Though now that I know more about the details of their TOS, I'm definitely in the boycott camp. The drm was bad enough. But a service that can, on a whim, change the rules on you and demand you submit to them or get cut off from the games you already paid for is down right tyrannical. No thanks. I suffer from a condition called "dignity".

I don't buy games with DRM that make me reliant on a server after the purchase, so I guess that could mean that I boycott. What I don't do though is tell other people how to behave or try to start a petition or something similar. I'm not trying to protest, I have a preference that I'm willing to pay for. I don't want to spend my time researching if a game has DRM or not either.

Maybe that will clear up my position a little bit.

If I play them, and accept their tyranny, then not only do I have no ability to go after them in the future, I have given up my principles.

Perhaps your games cost more than than my principles?
Agreed. For me, many of my Steam games were purchased at a price reasonable to me for a rental/extended demo. That did not include potential loss of access due to new draconian EULA changes, but I digress! :)

Some of my principles I got for free from my parents - don't know how much they paid for them, though.. =P

And thank science for that!

Of course, they do have considerable affection value now, though. And, you could say I'm pretty invested in them by now. Hard to put a price tag on them, but I'm open for negotiations. Send a couple of .. entertainers .. to my hotel room, and we'll talk business over lunch tomorrow.

Ah, the old Nashville Shuffle. Sir, I like the cut of your jib.

I don't boycott Steam for a number of reasons. I think a lot of people overlook some of its features because it's effectively DRM. I like having the community, being able to easily upload and share screenshots, comparing achievements, etc. If a game uses Steam for multiplayer, I don't have to sign up for anything else, plus in-game friends lists are synced with Steam's. If I want to join a game someone's playing, I can just right click -> Join Game. Sure you have to be online to run the game, but at least when your internet cuts out you can still continue to play. And you can still install the games on any computer you own, even though you can't run it on multiple machines at once. There are exceptions within Steam, but that's up to the developer to include it. The main point I'm making is for an effective form of DRM, it's a pretty cushy, convenient DRM.

The way I see it, Steam basically is modern PC gaming, like it or not. There's no use "boycotting" it because of its already huge userbase. I love what GOG's doing - when it comes to game ownership, their ethics are better than anyone's - but Steam's not going away anytime soon and developers/publishers know that. It's the norm to have online activation these days, and to me, Steam is simply the most convenient since it's the most used by publishers.

Don't get me wrong, I love GOG, if there's a game on both GOG and Steam, I'll get the GOG version hands down, but at the same time, I'm not going to wait 10 years (or however long it takes to hit GOG) to play Borderlands 2 on my PC.