That's got nothing to do with anything. I use MS products every day, but that's because Visual Studio, SQL Server, Office and Windows 7 are excellent. I actively avoid games that use GfWL because it's shit.

Yes, Steam deals are awesome,just like most deals from PC DD services. It's not my fault if you don't want to take advantage of those deals.

I bought Mass Effect on Steam for $5 last year, it's been a long time since then.

Valve doesn't put the prices on the games.... it's the publishers that price their own games.

Valve and Steam don't control the prices of games, unlike what Microsoft does on Xbox Live. Microsoft didn't even allow Valve to release the DLC free for the X360 version, while it was free for the PC version.

Let's face it, we all love the way PC gaming has traditionally had no restrictions whatsoever and offered endless flexibility, unlike consoles. But personally I'm willing to give up some of that freedom (just some!!) to support an effort to curb piracy, which is killing PC gaming. I can live with the useless piece of software in the background, and being tied to an account. If I couldn't play it on other PCs, or copy my save files, then that would surely be a problem (for which I see the competition is good for, to make sure a place like Steam doesn't get carried away with those sort of restrictions). It's just a matter of preference I suppose.

Sure. But there are also deals on retailers. You can't say that a DD service is cheaper than retail if it is because of some random deals. Especially if you count just the DD deals and ignore the retail deals.

You should use the prices at the moment. I bet there are very few games right now which are cheaper on steam than on retail.

Except that they are NOT just "some random" deals. There was an SE pack deal which saved you around $468 a few weeks ago. Can you ever top that?

No, I propably can't because I don't know what that pack included and how much did it cost. Could you tell me that? Was this saving based on what it would cost on retail or steam prices?

Is the deal available now? If not, when is it available? I guess you should know, since it is not random.

Found the pack, so:

battlestations pacific - normal steam price 34,99€ - 6€ retail
arkham asylum -  49.99€ - 15€
supreme commander 2 - 34,99€ - 10€
just cause 2 - 49,99€ - 10€
kane&lynch - 29,99€ - 6€
mini ninjas - 39,99€ - 7€
order of war - 37,99€ - 5€

tomb raider underworld -  29,99€ - 5€

244€ savings on just those games! I am not going to bother with other games, but the results are likely to be similar. Not as good as steam, but close enough. You can even sell those games if you don't happen to like them. Buy from steam and you are stuck with the crap you bought.

I still haven't seen a DRM system that actually works. I haven't heard of a single game that hasn't been cracked despite trying. Even Steam games can be pirated. But surely you must have noticed how much publishers have been complaining about people buying used games? Somehow I feel using Steam is seen as a good way to prevent that, even more than it is seen as a working DRM system.

Also, this doesn't entirely belong here but still: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.". Again, not entirely fitting here but still worth thinking.

Can you honestly say you were interested in all of those games? I'm sure you would have liked to remove half of the games because they weren't interesting if it was reflected in the price as well, even though you would have "saved" less.

The pricing all depends on how big everyone's cut is. If Valve became the only digital distributor then they could charge the publishers X amount more to have their games on the service. In turn publishers jack up the asking price for their game. That's all i'm saying. Competition is good.

1. Congrats. You have some sense of responsibility and pride. But accidents can happen and discs do rot. Any PS1 games and old PC games should have maybe another year or two before they start getting disc rot. Any physical data disc will eventually be destroyed by time.

2. Steam's competition has existed for years. Its not now since Direct-2-Drive, Impulse, and several others have existed and stayed strong for at least a decade now. Just because you haven't heard of these doesn't mean they dont exist and that they dont have decent sized user bases ranging into the millions of users each.