Oh dear.

I'll hold my hands up and say I used to love Steam. Saying that, tt was really the only digital distribution channel around, unless you were keen on paying 200% the price of boxed versions. I even loved the software and how it kept my games up to date. I couldn't envisage a future without Steam and today my account is worth $3K.

Then competition happened on several fronts.

First: Steam started to get very expensive for non-discounted games. People bitch about Origin's prices, but apart from a few £60 release day versions, they're not far off one another.

Second: their sales became less good. Everyone can see they're deliberately bumping up prices days before they discount them.

Third: the software causes problems, particularly when publishers have patch games in ways that break or fundamentally change games. Sure, you could set all games not to update automatically, but then what is the point of Steam? People getting their games from certain other channels have the advantage of being able to choose whether to download patches and some could even roll back (which is why I support GoG's new universal patching system).

Third, part B: every bugger wants you to download their special software. Steam doesn't keep my games in one place, it's a piece of DRM that I need to have running to play most of my games - even in offline mode. All these other softwares are the same. Take off the DRM, decouple the game from my account and allow me to add it to my own bloody software if I feel the need to catalogue all my games (I find a partition called Games does the same thing). Personally, I now have 5 software platforms with games on and the aforementioned partition for my GoG games and many of my GamersGate ones. If I want to play a DRM'ed game quickly, I need to have all of these software platforms startup with Windows (talk about bottlenecking) or manually start them as I need them (haven't found a fast one yet).

Third, part C: bloody pop-ups. Why do I go out of my way to install advertisement blockers on my browser, but happily download software that pops up advertisements to me between gaming sessions? Exit Through The Gift Shop? Sometimes I think the gift shop is the main attraction!

Fourth: the Workshop is an insult to modding. DRM is a restriction to what you can do through modding - stop pretending the Workshop is not only comparable, but a necessary upgrade.

Fifth: the community upgrade. Forums, in particular, are a mess.

Sixth: Greenlight. It is not the same as GoG's wishlist - it is a tool through which Indie publishers/developers are funneled and used to keep them keen. That's unfair. Valve deserve credit for giving the whole indie scene a platform, but they've pulled the rug now.

I can't think of any reason to buy on Steam any longer. The only advantage they have is their catalogue.