Lots of good input -- more than anticipated. Thanks guys.

I guess my view on it is going to be this: subtract one star for a game requiring Steam. If the resulting rating is still over my "buy" threshold, then I guess I'll use Steam, at least for that game.

Actually, two days of loading and updating games on my new PC, and realizing that I'll have to dig out the CD every time I want to play one of those games (or find a "no CD" crack), has made the online storage and auto updating parts look a lot better.

Slowly dragging myself into the 21st century, I guess.

If you accept that Steam is essentially an always-on DRM scheme and that you rent the content and they can pull it at any time for any reason, then there's nothing wrong with Steam.

They can pull your content, but they don't unless you're cheating. The reason they say "for any reason" is because cheaters and hackers love to say they don't cheat and hack. That leaves Steam with the ability to say "too bad."

Personally, I don't like Steam, but I use it. They have crazy good deals which are becoming less and less common as Valve earns more money from Steam, but they still happen pretty regularly. For example, I spent a total of $12 on the Thanksgiving sale so far, and I have a full AAA game that will give me at minimum 10 hours of enjoyment, and all the DLC I was missing for Fallout NV, which will give me another 6-10 hours of enjoyment. Compare that cost to movie tickets - $8 for 90 minutes these days. You do the math.

Steam is not inherently evil, but it is most definitely DRM. If you're prepared to rent your purchases and just buy stuff when it's crazy cheap, Steam isn't bad. If you're hardcore and want to buy Modern Warfare 20: Old Snipers Eat Prunes, on release day, and pay the $60 for it, then no, I don't recommend it.

Also keep in mind a lot of games you can rent on steam you can actually own from other digital distribution sites for minimal differences in price. For example, I rebought The Witcher tonight off GOG and I feel like I actually own it, for 3 dollars more than Steam's sale price where it would be a longterm rental.

Be a smart consumer. If there's some crazy deal and the game you've been waiting for since launch to drop down to $5 is $5, it's a safe bet that Steam's servers aren't going down next week and you'll be able to enjoy the game at your leisure. Paying $60 for Skyrim? No ty, I'll wait till the spring sale when it + all its dlc is probably going to be on sale for $15 similar to Fallout New Vegas today, this very second. Impulse buying has almost killed our hobby, so that's why so many on here hate Steam. It promotes it.

I love Steam. They have an excellent selection of games and awesome sales all of the time. They have been very supportive of the indie gaming scene and I've discovered a lot of really great games there. Also, I've never had a problem with Steam working, or Steam DRM, or playing any of the hundreds of games that I've bought over the years offline sometimes for months at a time. Never. One. Problem. I think most peoples' negative experiences with Steam boil down to the typical I.D.10-T error and they need to RTFM.

That being said, monopolies are bad, m-kay. So I spread my money around. I've bought digital delivered games from Gamersgate, Amazon, GOG, and even Games For Windows Live. Sometimes that means spending more money, but so be it. And I'm always looking for new options.

I really like GOG and support their anti-DRM mission, but I don't really think it's a realistic expectation in many cases. Do you really think you'll see a game like Skyrim here on GOG any time soon?

You mean except when VAC goes nuts and bans large numbers of people, your account gets compromised or when there's a payment glitch that results in your games being taken away. Google for any of those and you'll turn up a substantial number of hits.

That being said, it doesn't affect most people, but it is a risk one takes in dealing with Valve.

Depending on what games you get through Steam it could be a good experience.

Some of the games that Steam sells are better purchased elsewhere where there is less DRM attached and the client, itself, can't tangle with the game.

However some games elsewhere, are better purchased through Steam because Steam keeps them up to date and gets new downloadable content for the games where as other sites do not.

My boss here had a scary experience with Steam last year. On the year-end holiday sales he kept buying games everyday(like you tend to do). Just really minor amounts. He used Paypal to pay for these. When suddenly his bank decided to stop this and pull the money back. For them the daily small transactions appeared suspicious. Naturally this causing Steam to close his account. For few days he was screwed because he couldn't access any of his games. The bank and Steam support fixed in the end, but shows one that you never really own the games.



Personally I haven't ever had problems with them. At one point I was even buying and playing games through Steam on business trip to India. Got now about 300 games with them so I guess you can say that I don't hate them. Of course the platforms is one big DRM and that sucks. It would be nice if the offline mode worked.



Having said all that I wish I had discovered GoG earlier. If a game is available on both it is always the GOG version I would get.

Just a correction: technically, Steam uses an on-launch DRM check, not always-on. Once the game is running, you can unplug your network cable and nothing is going to happen; Steam will only silently disconnect you from the community network, but the game will keep running.

Read before you post. I was not talking about offline mode at all; I have never actually even tried offline mode. I was saying that once a game is launched, in online mode, you do not need an internet connection any more, it will keep running. Which is not always-on.

Like it hell a lot better than origin! Wish BF3 was on steam instead of origin = =

Ok so here's a question. LA Noire PC was released not too long ago. And yet now it's on the Steam sales for 50% off. Who controls the pricing for the discount? Rockstar or Steam?

I don't know, but it might be like for GOG, so the service provider makes a suggestion and the publisher agrees or the publisher asks for a temporary drop in prices or upon initial launch both parties agree an a certain number of sales with a certain price and time range.

I guess the price power is more on the side of the publisher, since he/she normally receives a cut of the sales price, not a fixed amount per sale, so price matters and even if it would be a fixed amount per sale, the number of sales during a sale would still be important since the overall demand for this game might be limited.

So the publisher has a vital interest in controlling the selling price of their products.

edith: For price comparisons I like Deals4Downloads:

http://www.deals4downloads.com/games/detail/12gp/buy-la-noire-the-complete-edition-pc-download

Oh and we see that Steam and Amazon Download has the same price for LA Noire PC. Actually what DRM is amazon downloads using? Comparable to Steam?

Does anyone remember if Steam used to have as grazy deals and spanking promos years ago, back when they were pretty much the only significant digital distributor (apart from maybe Direct-2-Drive)? Have the promos become more frequent and aggressive?

If so, it would seem to me all the major digital distributors are now fighting so fiercely to get people to attach as many umbilical cords to their service as possible. People who have lots of titles tied to certain DRM service are less likely to buy games from a competing DRM service, let alone to migrate. Hence, grazy promos all around, Steam, Origin, GG etc. as they are fighting for their initial market share.

Enjoy it while it lasts. Hopefully the day, when the distributors realize the situation has stabilized and there aren't anymore masses of new PC gamers yet to be tied to their service, doesn't come quite soon. Competition is good, I hope the price wars keep on going as long as possible.

Steam is great. that's all i'm gonna say here as these discussions never end well.

also, there's almost no way around Steam unless you're willing to miss out on many great games coming out now and in the future. like 90% of the brand-new full-price games i've bought this year were SteamWorks titles; Shogun 2, Dead Island, Rage, Skyrim, Space Marine, Serious Sam 3, Red Orchestra 2, Deus Ex: HR, Homefront, Modern Warfare 3.

I used Steam a lot from around 2008 to 2010, but since it was mostly to just buy cheap indie games, I stopped using it for game purchases after I realized that the humble bundles would be so frequent and they've contained pretty much anything I've been interested in.

I do still use the platform, of course, for the games I own on there, and it's very convenient with regards to auto-patching, combined download/installation. It is a good platform for multiplayer games also, due to the community features. Though I don't play any online games currently, so I don't use it for that anymore.

I do not condone of the way the client is used for DRM: I've experienced being locked out of playing a game I was very into for a few days when my connection was down, and I can't help but think of that every time I log on.

Overall Steam is a pretty good platform for playing and buying games (though the euro prices suck), but I infinitely prefer GOG, of course, or DRM-free games from Gamersgate.