Yeah, it started with some promise but now the catalogue is frozen there.
IMO, the only game worth of buying there is the penny arcade's own game, and that IF they really will complete the episodes and depending on what DRM scheme they use for this game.

My dislike for Steam has many different causes though. I mostly try to warn people - I won't tell you not to use Steam, but there's a LOT of things people don't know about Steam which they should. Some examples: (some of which you most likely know)
- you never own a game on Steam - you subscribe to a game instead with a life-long subscription fee
- Valve has the right to close any account they please without any notification nor without needing any reason to do so
- you're not allowed to use more than one account - neither is your brother, sister, son, daughter, father, etc. if you live in the same house
- it's not possible to play two games from the same account
- if your account gets hacked or you get falsely accused of cheating, its well possible that Valve will VAC ban you which would effectively kill a whole range of online games including Counter Strike, Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 etc. etc.
- you do not enjoy the same rights as you do with any retail store or other online digital store. Refunds are not given, support for a product is not given, not possible to trade a game, not possible to sell a game, not possible to lend out a game, etc.
- etc.
There's a lot more than that but these are just a few. I could tell you at least a dozen stories of dirty business tactics done by Valve but suffice to say, they're far from clean. As a company, I find it hard to support them and as a platform, there's too many angles and hooks for it to be appealing. I still buy the cheapest games but as platform for new games, it's just not for me. All I can do is warn others though - if you decide to take the risks, that's fine, but many people are not even aware of these risks.

Emphasis mine.
Thing is they know those things and have agreed to them the moment they read the EULA/TOS for the service and decided to accept them. The fact that people don't read those things is their problem.
In the end they're the same kind of people who post all kinds of photos on Facebook without knowing that they give up any copyright they may have on them and that Facebook can do whatever it pleases with them without any warning or prior consent.
It's not like Steam/Valve or Facebook or any piece of software for that matter is lying to you, all the clauses are clearly stated in the EULA/Terms of Service. It's your and only your fault if you decide to just skip it and blindly click on accept.

Part of the problem is that most people don't read every TOS, EULA, etc for every single service they buy into, and this is well known by the folks who write those things. The main problem is when you have situations where the large print giveth and the fine print taketh away. If what a service is presented as and what the EULA/TOS for that service states (in greater detail) are materially equivalent then there's not much of an issue; people are still getting what they thought they were getting and everyone is happy. It's when the service is advertised as one thing while the TOS includes materially different terms or various gotchas that come to bite back to bite people that issues arise and people unsurprisingly get a bit upset about things. And regardless of whether one argues that people should have read through those 20 pages of fine print, the reality still stands that you've got pissed off customers which just isn't a good place to be in if you're running a business. And it really shouldn't come as a surprise at that point that some people are going to start calling out the business as being deceptive about what they're offering.

Okay, a few remarks here:
- there's quite a few games that come with Steam only. In the store, you don't see the EULA and stores won't let you return games anymore if you don't agree with the EULA.
- almost nobody reads the EULA. It's written by lawyers and is hard to understand as a layman. Plus, it holds many terms that are vague and may not have any meaning. Do you expect people to hire a lawyer every time they buy a game?
- most people expect to get the same "rights" with Steam as they do with other games and other online stores. They don't. Many won't even know the difference between a license and a subscription. When I first mentioned the subscription thing, people just said "so what" until I explained why they're a bad thing compared to licenses.
Is it that bad to make sure people know what they do before using Steam? If it's not that important, they won't care but at least it will give the option to those that DO care.

Actually, a license is at heart the same as a subscription which you don't have to keep paying for as both of them can at any time be revoked on the terms mentioned in the TOS; the only difference would be that in case of a license you could still be playing the game (although you would be outside the law) and in the case of Steam you wouldn't be able to (thus the law being enforced upon you).

ToS and law are two different things, the law can very well allow you to keep playing even if the ToS says you're not allowed to. Before it's tried, we don't know for sure, and the verdict can differ between cases and judges as well.

Actually I had gifted a few copies of the witcher and after 2 days of it being a pain in the ass, they got back to me with an email and got my issue cleared up...
(granted... just the fact my internet sucks donkey balls I would never use steam but I was actually surprised they were helpful in resolving my having half a dozen ISP addys :P )

http://impulsedriven.com/mudtv
WTF happened with Kalypso?

Impulse price: $48.84
GamersGate price: $29.95
Steam price: TBA
As always, unless you're in NA, avoid Impulse when it comes to Kalypso games, Stardock have a habit of wanting to fleece you.

Yep. Unfortunately GG is following Steam. It's costs €39.95 for me if i buy it from there.

What the heck's up with free DLC everyone seems to be using instead of (better put: As) DRM nowadays? I really thought very restrictive DRM's gone when Ubisoft didn't use it on Prince of Persia... It wasn't of course, but we were half way there. And now, everyone seems to be pulling this. I really wonder when will people start globally complaining about it and what will suits think up next...

That's not true. You can have as many Steam accounts as you want. Valve doesn't care. They've confirmed this on the forums multiple times.
At least in the United States, when wording in a contract is ambiguous the person who did not write the contract gets to interpret the wording (to a reasonable extent). So ambiguity isn't really a big deal.

Never blame the publisher, yeah? It's not like Kalypso is responsible, oh no. Stardock forces them to mark up those games in Europe!
Right.

forum moderators on Steam *angry*