Tarnicus: I'm that unfamiliar with Steam still even though I have over 700 games on there, I wasn't aware that cloud saving was ever a REQUIREMENT. Serious? I assumed it was an option :( I might have to look up which games require it.
It's not a requirement. Steam is just a service and they have various services provided centrally by Valve which are available to game developers to use if they wish to do so, or to ignore if they wish to do so. One of those features is the ability to save data in the cloud. Some games provide the ability to do save games and other data into the cloud as an option and you can turn it on or off in the game's settings, while other games the developer might decide to make cloud game saves the only option. Either way it is the developer who decides and not Valve or Steam. The same is true for DRM or any of the other "evil" things that people dislike about Steam.
As an example to illustrate how all of that stuff is optional, the Tomb Raider 1, 2, 3 games that are on Steam are literally the GOG version of the game, complete with the GOG launcher, DRM free. Steam's service is just used to install the game, and the installed game is the exact same binaries and launchers as provided by GOG. There is no DRM, no cloud storage, nothing unique to Steam and Steam is not required other than to install the game.
Note that I'm not promoting or defending Steam, just clarifying things for those who otherwise don't know about that stuff. Some people have misperceptions about Steam requiring DRM or requiring other annoying things and it just isn't true. The game developer always decides what DRM or Steam specific things they will put in their game and they can decide to not put any Steam specific stuff in their game and still sell it on Steam, just like Tomb Raider 1. So if a game uses Steam's cloud storage and provides no other option, that is a conscious decision made by the game developer to both restrict their game to the Steam platform and as a form of DRM that they alone are deciding to include in their game with Valve not having any say in the matter nor caring. In other words, Valve provides the tools to allow developers to do whatever they want, whether it is saving the dolphins, or killing babies and it is the developer that decides which way it's going to be. ;)
