I think the point Dodogeo was trying to make was that some games developed by other people than Paradox themselves (especially Magicka which was a student project) use Steamworks as a convenient to implement multiplayer system and Paradox publishes the game. But when Paradox itself develops a game, they don't put DRM into it. I haven't bought a Paradox game myself, but I do seem to recall they don't use DRM on their own games. I'm not saying the guy shouldn't have been more forthright about it, I do, but I think you are being a touch harsh since Paradox does develop DRM-free games themselves.

Or public education ...
:)

See my points about Walmart, Steam had first mover advantage and expanded very aggressively (which is often a good thing to do in the short term). Those 30 million accounts don't necessarily mean people like it any more than they like Walmart, it simply means Steam made economic sense to them when they created the accounts.

Incidentally a lot of people believe Walmart is irrevocably tanking because they've expanded as much as they can in their major markets and their prices are no longer any lower than their competitors' prices. This leaves them in the unenviable position of competing with places like Target that have nicer stores, the same prices, and lower end brand names (something Walmart doesn't have) as well.

Steam took a lot of heat from Amazon over the holidays and Amazon is still fucking with them. Amazon is taking Steam's cut of the sales, even on Steam games, by aggressively matching all of Steam's best sales and making them eligible for the $5 off coupon so many still have. Sonic Generations is still on sale for the entire week at Amazon.com for $14.99 and is eligible for the $5 off coupons. It wasn't slated to go on sale until Monday but the moment it went up on the weekend sale on Steam, Amazon.com matched it.

So if Steam no longer has the best prices, even on Steam games, Valve could immediately lose their 30% cut on sales and still be on the hook for supporting the buyers. This means that Steamworks may become less "inexpensive" for developers to use. In addition now there's Origin and GfWL will likely be rebranded and made to work in the same business model that's made XBox Live such a success. Btw, I've checked into Steam achievements and how they fucked it up compared to the amazing implementation MS (and even Sony) has is beyond me.

All I'm saying is Steam may not have as much going for it as you believe and those 30 million folks may like it a whole lot less than you think.
That too, the teachers in the "good" school districts took paycuts again this year to avoid layoffs. Yes, they have a union and it's economic reality, my state has the shortest school year in the US.

it's ok Ork, simmer down.

I go through this "Steaming rage" every so often myself, emphasis on the "often," what your doing right now is like trying to argue logic against casual bong use.

Just a note: Steam now has over 40M active accounts.

Logically I'm all for casual bong use for those who enjoy casual bong use;)

Anyone have a link to where steamworks requires paying for in order to use in a game?

Reading the brochure right now and it pretty much hints at being free to use: http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/SteamworksBrochure2011.pdf

I literally have no idea what the business model is. It may be a "it's for free and you can pay us for support" or it may be the free giveaway entirely just to get more Steam users.
And 10 million are coal farmers from Christmas 2012?

In all seriousness, any number of millions of accounts can mean crap all for Steam as a business model if people severely reduce their use of Steam's storefront, which is where they appear to have their major profit center.

It lists $0 for steamwork features, but (as expected) never mentions steam integration/development costs, if there is any. The royalty fees are also sidestepped in the brochure.

DAMMIT!!

We need a dev who worked with steam to verify. ;)

One more interesting thing to note, the 30% figure you mentioned before isn't listed anywhere in the brochure or the FAQ in the client. So valve can take a bigger cut, or less.

This cut seems to be a pretty settled figure as far as the leaks go. I'm sure devs sign a NDA so I doubt you'll ever find the full price for everything, but it's been confirmed by many devs that they give Steam a 30% (roughly) cut of retail sales on Steam's storefront.

You didn't, Fred inferred that.

Oh, oh right, cheers for the clarification. :)

Around here it's not even just the money, we're rarely ever able to end debate on anything because somebody isn't getting what they want. We literally waited 2 decades to replace a bridge that we know is going to go down if we ever get a substantial earthquake. Thankfully work is finally underway, but there's over a hundred thousand vehicles that go over it every day, even though it's a death trap in the case of an earthquake.

The bridge by me has en earthquake rating of 2... out of 100. It very well might be one ofthe worst in the nation:( I know what it's like, I use that bridge. The people who never use it don't get that the downtown upon which they rely uses the "poor people" that drive over those bridges as workers. We'd literally start having urban blight if we even lost 1-2 of them and our unemployment rates would go up in the area as a result.

Ours isn't quite that bad, I think it's only in the 30% range, but it's got a known structural deficiency that will cause it to collapse if it's ever hit with a significant earthquake. The last time it shifted fairly good. Fortunately nobody was hurt. Unfortunately it was deemed "safe" for continued use.

In college I arrived shortly after an earthquake and the entire time I was there I'd have to cross a temporary bridge every time I went downtown.

Around here earthquakes are fairly common and I don't think where you're at you're much better off.

So, naturally, I'm moving to a part of the world that not only gets earthquakes, but has even lower standards for earthquake safety. Hopefully my apartment is on the top floor.