I DO !

Steam is the only reason AAA games (the ones that usually come with regional restrictions) are still going to the PC. I'd love to see DRM free-games, fair price for EU-AUS-whatever and so on, but it doesn't work this way when talking about the big boys.
If you think publishers are like stupid children, don't let them playing with your money :) I buy "big" games very rarely.

I might have bought them when they were 75% off or something during the summer sales. The first game(s) I bought from Steam was the whole GTA series (I to IV), even thought I had never played any GTA game and had no interested to play them. I generally gangster games and gangster movies -- I think of them as decadent to glorify lowlife scums. (Yes, the Godfather movies disgust me.) Yet I bought the GTA series from Steam because they were like, 80% off at one time. And I still have never installed or tried any of the GTA games.

Lack of self control is a valid reason to dislike Steam ^^

Doesn't this sometime happen when the HiB adds games later? You don't get a new Steam code but suddenly you got games you never remembered buying.

I also have the Steam client app installed on my Android phone. It's too easy to just check into the app regularly, and just tap on the "buy" button when I see something I remotely like is 75% off. That is why I keep telling GOG to put out an app on Android and iPhone. GOG has no idea how a mobile app would facilitate people to buy so many more games from them. I actually bought a lot of those games I didn't remember buying on my Android phone.


A nice thing about the Steam mobile app is that it lets me quickly check into my "Wish List", with the current prices nicely displayed beside the items in the list. When I see an item on the Wish List has a sales, like 75% off or more, I immediately buy it. I didn't realize I had already bought so many games from Steam through the mobile app.

So I suppose I have not been doing a good job of "avoiding" buying from Steam after all.

Well, you know how the wisdom goes - when you end up accidentally buying the same game twice or forget that you've bought a certain game, you know you should probably start working off your backlog. XD
That, or you just keep saying "nie rozumiem" everytime someone tries to speak to you.
No, they do actually give you a new Steam code for the bonus games. I've had a couple of instances where I've bought stuff off Steam (the Paradox pack and the 1C pack) and I've had stuff added later on (the 1C pack had AIM Racing and Streets of Moscow, and Majesty had Majesty HD added to it).

A significant advantage of Steam that I failed to mention is the ease of sharing games. Trying out one of your friends' games is as easy as passing along some login information, that is indeed a notable improvement over the olden times. I make liberal use of this feature, esp. since demos are an increasingly rare breed, and would consider this a possible reason to rethink a boycott stance.

That's not a feature, that's a breach of the SSA and leaves you open to account theft and account closure.

I do. I have physical copies of all my Steam games.

Indeed. We have a Google Docs spreadsheet, Steam users get an entire website.

I do, I have Portal 2(Bought for PS3 got it free for PC) and have FEAR 2, at the time I was unaware that it required steam, now I try to inform on games I intend to purchase and see what kind of DRM they have, if it is steamworks I skip them.

And that's sad because there's so many games I'd like to play and I'm not able because there's no other option unless you're a steam user, Shogun 2 Total War, Warhammer dawn of war 2, Civ V and many others I don't recall right now.

I have a couple of games on steam, the games through which I discovered steam : "Half-Life 2" and episodes, "Portal". Recently, I bought some cheap indie game in a bundle, the "Penny Arcade" game, which is steam-based.

But apart from that, yes, I boycot. I haven't bought "Civilisation 5", "Portal 2" and "Fallout New Vegas" even though I was looking forward to them. If "X-com" is steam-exclusive, I'll have to pass too. I generally consider that steam games are out of my (psychological) reach.

So yes, i basically punish myself out of dislike for steam and its logics. But frankly, there's enough awesome drm-free games to play before worrying about access for the steam ones. I'm comfortable with the idea that they'll be freed of their DRM in 5 or 10 years, and given that it's the average age of the games I enjoy most nowadays, I'm not hysterically impatient.

I haven't had any especially bad experiences with steam, but I'm wary of them. The SSA puts them in a very privileged position financially, but also seems to murky the water insofar as their role as a middle man.

I've been considering on and off the true legal position I am in as a steam user for a little while, and that has set me at ease more or less. But either way, I don't like the idea of them monopolising digital distribution.

With that in mind I haven't bought a game from steam since the summer sale, and have opened accounts at GG and Desura to 'widen my net'. So far I'm glad I did, Desura in particular is a treasure trove. You can't really buy a modern game without at least activating it on steam, but at least you can spread the wealth.