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I don't use steam, and haven't played PC games in awhile. But this rubbish. It basically is forcing the buyer into installing software that he/she intends not to if you buying from the store. I'm sure Valve will be paying a price sooner or later.

That's the price of piracy.

Has nothing to do with piracy, didnt stop people pirating Modern Warfare 2 including hacking the pirated copy to play against legit copies until they patched it.

+1 When will games companies realise that the only thing DRM is good for is ****ing off the lawful paying customers. The pirates with a version of the game where DRM has been hacked out sit there laughing.

Wake up games industry, your attempts at stopping piracy is what is hurting the industry, not piracy itself.

I fail to see what the problem is? I'd much rather have Steamworks then be forced to install crap like Starforce or SecureROM which are known for damaging your system. This whole mess if the fault of both pirates and the software companies, pirates feel it's their right to remove the DRM and software companies feel it's their right to keep adding more DRM every time the pirates break it...when will the cycle of insanity end? ok that is the end of my little rant :P

Steam is brilliant, it works as a central hub for all the games you buy, some games are available extremely cheap as well (the weekend deals are brilliant). Installing the games is a 1-2 click process. Editing launch options is easier and also it auto-updates the games. The advantages seriously out weigh the disadvantages. Adding steamworks to games is much less obtrusive than the alternatives.

Steam is not brilliant, Modern Warfare 2 £39.99. in the shops as cheap as £27.

Actually I was anti-steam until about 6 months ago. I installed it so I could play Half Life 2 episodes, and have never looked back. I now own about 90 games on steam alone, and wish I could transfer all my bought games to steam.

Sorry to sound like a Steam ad, but reason being, is I can often get games at ridiculous prices ($4 for Stalker, $8 for GRID, $20 Arma2), even new releases like Dragon Age are on sale currently for under $40 (Who can be bothered to pirate when you get your games for $10). Compared to retail outlets like GAME or EB, where I'm often paying over $100 for the same game I can get on Steam for under $50, and never have to worry about disks, or updates. Yet I can still make mods for these games, as most are identical to full retail games except the main exe. Best of all, I can chat and surf the web while in-game (any game.) Finally, my ISP offers free Steam content downloads country wide, so downloading them is fast and free.

So all in all, retail games are far inferior products at often twice the price (you're only paying for packing and some fancy store front). Just check the Steam Store each day for sales and you'll probably end up with 20 decent games for the price of one retail game, just like I have. Why shoot yourself in the foot.

Pricing is set by publishers. It's not Valve's fault if some of them get greedy.

They can't do anything about the price of Modern Warfare 2. Also that is only one game, just go buy it in the shops. Your point was you didn't want steam for 1 game, people refuted that point by saying that there are hundreds of games available for much lower prices on steam, and now you say steam is bad due to the price of 1 game?

An example: http://store.steampowered.com/sub/2539/

How is that bad in any way?

That offer looks good, but Amazon usually beats Steam with the price to the ground when new popular release comes. Games from Amazon are not only cheaper but you will get Real product with Real manual and FREE delivery.:

Steam/Valve:
£24.99 - Left 4 Dead
£29.99 - Left 4 Dead 2

Amazon.co.uk (These are Valve Games! Integrates with Steam when installed):
£13.30 - Left 4 Dead
£24.99 - Left 4 Dead 2

A lot of people are blinded by trust to Steam (like Apple fans) and buy games from Steam without realizing that cheaper and better option exists.

^ Once again, it depends on region.

It appears L4D2 is $54.99 on amazon.ca (no PC version available, go figure ). Elsewhere, say Best Buy, it retails for $59.99. Either of these prices do not factor in the 13% tax we pay for domestic goods.

Last week I got the game for $53.52. With no tax. Figure how much savings that comes up to.

So I'd get the game cheaper if I could. But thanks for insinuating Steam users are blinded by trust.

Steam prices are determined for compulsive buyers.

By logic, is way better to wait a week then purchase the box instead to download it directly from the net, but if you are a compulsive buyer then you are pretty screwed cause you must pay premium (without counting to wait for the first patch).

Price of L4D2 (XBOX) on amazon.co.uk is £37.96.
So price of L4D2 (PC) on amazon.ca probably would be $36.20 = $54.99*(£24.99/£37.96)

Usual practice for pre-orders is to deliver them on release date (it is because with proper planning shops are getting games earlier on order to be ready for official release date/events). Of course, things not always goes according to the plan.

If you can get the game cheaper elsewhere then do it. A steamworks enabled game will register with the steam network regardless. This means that you will be enabled to download it via steam later anyways. I hopped on steam when I originally purchased Half-Life. I have a good chunk of games on that network. One thing they are working towards doing (I don't know if they have already) is making it so you can put in a retail serial for a game you won and is also on the steam network now and have it so you can digitally download it in the future. That would be nice for old games like Quake and Quake 2 where my discs are badly scratched. Here are the different DRM methods and the way I see it.

SafeDisc/Securom/Tages/Starforce -- Known to have issues with some drives and doesn't always work. You need to have the disc in the drive to authenticate even if you installed the full game onto the computer. The protections can be duplicated onto copies without modifying the game.

Activation -- Copy is locked to one machines or x number of machines defined by publisher. Spores was done like that and it flopped majorly.

Online verification -- This is steam. Locked to an account. Account usable anywhere on any machine and content using it as a verification method is downloadable directly from service. No cd authentication methods so don't need a disc in the drive.

They usually knock off 20% for pre-ordered on the steam network. It is if you wait until after the pre-order do you get screwed. Also if you do pre-order the majority of the time you get to start playing a few days early.

Shouldnt have to install some online required to active third party content delivery system as part of the game.

then i guess you don't play the game then.. third party items have been implemented in games for as long as i can remember...Physx/Havok physics, bing video and other items. from what i have read steamworks is gonna be implemented into the game not a 3rd party you install like gamespy, xfire and comrade