So basically what you're saying is that a few nice features on Steam- Valve exclusives like HL2 and its mods, cracking sale prices and the ability to gift games- are enough for you to overlook what you consider to be intrusive adware and onerous DRM. Which is exactly what a lot of other people think- there's a compromise to be made with DRM (and ads in your case), but taken as a whole, Steam is very consumer-friendly and you get a lot back for what you give. It's certainly not like  SecuROM or GfWL, where it's all one-sided.

HL2 sucks ass. Only good valve games are CS, TF2 and maybe CS:S.

I am overlooking it, since steam has been the only way to play CS competitive since 2003 or so. I have steam only on one of my computers and I don't want to see it on others. If I wasn't forced to use this service, I would not be using it now. I would have bought many of those games elsewhere.

Cracking sale prices, in few select cases. Of course I like to be able to get gifts from friends, who would not?

I find it laughable that you call any DRM consumer friendly.

In the options you can change the favorite windows so that when it opens it goes to your library, instead of the store. Also any pop ups I have ever had ar solely when I exist games, and only sometimes. Sometimes I have missed amazing deals I would have gotten if the fucking pop up ads worked consistently. Now I maybe see them once a week and a half, with 5 to scroll through, 4 of which are old.

I don't like the bug where my computer forgets the password and i can't go offline wihout loging in first though.

Furthermore, Steam itself doesnt eat resources if you have it running in the background, so I don't see your laptop argument at all.

P.S. At least pick a manly game that requires skills from back in the day like Quake or UT, don't be a countard and discredit yourself by saying HL2 sucks.

Count me in with the folks that consider this a hollow threat.  Fry's still has a half-decent PC gaming section, but other than that, you can't find PC games at retail anyhow, so threatening to cut off the last drips doesn't mean much.  I AM a bit concerned that this would have long-term consequences, as people who don't already do PC gaming won't have a retail outlet to introduce them to it, but that's pretty much where we were heading anyways...

I'm not calling DRM consumer-friendly though, read it again. I'm calling Steam as a whole consumer friendly. It auto-patches my games, it lets me download my games as many times as I want to as many PCs as I want, it has a fuck ton of community features and it's downright pleasant to use, especially if you're reinstalling an OS (just back up your Steam games folder and paste it back over when you're done).

I consider this a fair exchange in return for the imposition of DRM. In contrast just about every other DRM system offers me fuck all and imposes more restrictions upon me. In an ideal world, DRM would not be necessary, but it is and Steam offers a workable compromise.

I'll leave alone your other 'arguement' as it's pretty daft. One of the first things I did when I got a new laptop was to install Steam and get some of the casual games like Puzzle Quest and Peggle on it.

MS has a monopoly with XBL, Sony has one with PSN.

Are there any consequences of that? I haven't been privy to any.

Yes, you actually have to pay to play online. Considering LIVE is inferior to regular online and you have to pay for it's a sign of lack of competition.

I'll support it as long as the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. To me, having saved game backups, the ability to play anywhere without having to take my disks, not having to worry about finding disks when I get new hardware and the new cross platform ownership if I decide to buy a Mac, outweigh the disadvantage of second hand sale. That's not including all the extra community features.

Essentially, it's DRM which whilst in one hand takes away one ability, but gives a lot of benefits to the customer with the other. In other words, it's the only DRM I've seen that's actually doing something right.

On the second hand sale of DD products you have to remember that the laws were originally written for physical products that undergo degradation with use. With digital download the area is very grey. With a digital download there is not degradation, hence if you sell a DD product onto another party, they will essentially receive exactly the same product as one from brand new/full price.

For physical media, the equivalent would be if you purchased a DVD, made a perfect replica, then sold it on. It bascially equates to a form of piracy. These are really some pretty insane issues for law makers to sort out, because on one hand you have the right to sell, but on the other, they have to protect the content holders/distributors.

You will see those when you log on steam, if there are new ones.

My argument? I just don't want to install steam on my laptop. Why should I install it there? That is if steam would not force you to install even if you buy a game from a retail store.

HL and HL2 are propably the worst shooters I have ever played. They are just so boring.

May I quote your post scriptum on my sig? I just love that manly part.

Yes you are. If some DD service is customer friendly, it should allow customer to sell their products if they want.

Just to say, I own 100 games on steam and if I could sell them, the number would be something like 20.