For consoles, I don't quite see the point of Direct Download. On PC however, there is Steam. I will never buy another PC game at retail again.
Pro's with Steam:
All games gathered at one place
Easy to install games
Keeps track of how much you are playing
Achievements
PRICE!!!
Even easier to uninstall
No need to go outside the house to get the games
Friend list
Easy to play online with your friends
NO CD CHECK! (and often no DRM!)
Well stocked store.
Automatic patching (not everyone likes this)
Cons with Steam:
You don't own the games
Downloading takes a long time
Sometimes weird pricing.
The clear winner here is the price. I'd put up with all the cons just to buy games at the prices I'm getting them for now. I have 70 steam games installed on my PC right now, and yet it's so easy to keep track, install, uninstall and doing anything else I'd like to do with them. It keeps track of how long I've played them, how much I've played in total, what achievements I have managed to get for each game, how many percent of owners have gotten what achievements and tons of more cool stuff.
I bought 50 games last year. 50! That's more than I had bought before in my entire life. And it cost me less than 250€. I would have gotten 5 newly released retail games for that price. And if I had to choose between having a game on Steam and having a hardcopy, I'd choose Steam any day.
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