• What is Steam?

Steam is online client provided by Valve that facilitates digital distribution, game management, online gaming, and social networking on the PC and Mac platforms.

It boasts a wealth of content and features, some of which can be found in other services such as Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, and some of which can only be found through Steam.

Features such as:

• Unified Online ID - One ID for all games.

Any game using Steamworks will use your Steam ID for online play. Such games will also sport Achievements, which function similar to Achievements on Xbox Live and Trophies on the PlayStation Network. Achievements are tied to your ID, alongside other general information regarding the games you own, such as how long you play a title on average per week. Of course, stats such as playtime extend beyond Steamworks titles, applying to any game you've bought and play through Steam.

• Cross Game Chat - Chatting with friends.

Steam allows for both text and voice chat with other gamers across multiple games and programs. Any games bought through Steam have this feature enabled, and you can implement such features into any other game (or program – I have a friend who did it for MS Word lol) you wish. It's simply a matter of adding the game to your Steam portfolio, and starting the game through Steam.

• Steam Cloud – Saving your games online.

Back in May 2008, Valve brought cloud storage to Steam, allowing for all saved games, replays, screenshots, and other files found in any Steamworks game to be saved on Valve's servers. This enables gamers to access their save files regardless of what hardware they're using. Simply logging into your Steam account will allow you to pick up right where you were last playing Portal, even if you happen to be on somebody else's PC miles away from your own.

Of the big three, only Sony has hinted that they may be adding cloud storage to their online infrastructure, and even then it'd be a part of their premium Plus service. Only through Steam do you have access to such an excellent feature free of charge.

• Steam Play - Playing across both PC and Mac.

With Steam's recent arrival on Mac, Valve implemented Steam Play. This allows you to buy any title that is available for both Mac and PC and access it via either platform.  When coupled with Steam's Cloud functionality, this becomes especially awesome.  For example, I could be playing Half-life 2 on my Windows PC, save my progress, head over to Ameratsu's house, log into Steam on his “Mac” (though it's not really a Mac, just a PC with a pirated copy of osx LOL), and continue playing right where I left off.  It's a beautiful world, isn't it? =)

• The Witcher 2 - Making the most of Steam.

Ah, the Witcher 2, the current poster child of PC gaming.  It looks absolutely amazing, doesn't it?  Set to release on May 17th, 2011, you can pre-order the digital premium edition for a mere $45 through Steam.  It's a Steamworks title, and thus it comes with all the benefits that accompany such status – Achievements and Cloud Storage.  This may very well be the most important release for Steam next year, given it's actually PC exclusive.  It boggles my mind that Valve makes their games for consoles as well as Steam, but that's another issue for another day.  My point is that the Witcher 2 is a perfect example of why Steam is so awesome.  Cross game chat, achievements, cloud saves, and awesome deals on games both old and new.

But what does all this have to do with Live, you say?

• Games for Windows Live – Microsoft brings all the features of Xbox Live to PC.

In early 2007, Microsoft unveiled a plan to expand their Live service to the Windows platform.  They created Games for Windows Live, a service that brought Gamertag, Gamerscore, Cross Game Chat, and all the other benefits of an Xbox Live account to the PC platform.  Users would now have a single profile spanning two platforms, even allowing for features like voice chat trans-platforms.  Alongside the service would launch Shadowrun, a game boasting cross platform play between PC and Xbox 360 users.  Other titles were planned for the service in the near future, such as Gears of War, Halo 2, and Viva Pinata. It was all the greatness of Live, only on Windows. Sounds awesome, right?

• The catch?  $50 a year to play games online.

Yes, playing online would necessitate a Gold Live account, so PC gamers would have to pony up if they didn't already have a Gold account through their Xbox 360.  PC gamers by and large laughed in Microsoft's face over the idea, and for the most part stuck with Steam.

• The result?  Within a year, Microsoft were forced to completely drop the fee for a Windows Live account, in an effort to compete with Valve's Steam and other services.

Yes, that's right.  By refusing to pay for Live, PC gamers forced Microsoft into making the service free.  There is no reason 360 gamers could not do the same.

And despite the removal of a subscription fee, the service has only continued to expand and improve, with Microsoft adding a full digital marketplace for game distribution in December of 2009, completely revamping said marketplace last month, and even starting Steam-esque “deals of the day” last week or so (btw, Viva Pinata is currently only 80 MSP [99 cents] on the GFW Marketplace!).  It seems good ol' fashioned competition is the best motivator when it comes to improving a product, and not necessarily how much revenue you're making.

The problem with this theory is that the PC gamers who rejected live had grown up with free service, to console players it was new- and to them- worthy of cost. 

So yeah, if anything console online is just going to go up in price.

You're explaining why they pay, not would have happen if a majority of them started refusing to pay.

And caiming all 25 million Gold subscribers pay solely out of ignorance is selling most people a bit short.

True, but its not like a majority of them will ever stop paying. 

Not trying to sell them short, but I think its mostly younger kids who grew up with halo and live and think they are the best things ever. To them paying for online is a totally acceptable thing. 

Hey MM476 I bet you theres more chance Sony will add pay to play or pay for premium online features than Microsoft will remove Live given the fact that they recently increased the cost to $60.

Anyway check out: http://www.mcvuk.com/features/808/OPINION-Retail-vs-Steam and find out why publishers are pushing for the download option more than ever.

Given the way things currently stand, I believe you may be correct, and this is a day I fear.

And I read that article the other day.  I agree with his sentiments vis-a-vis retail vs digital distribution, but I feel as if the PC market is kinda hurting itself at the moment.  For example, Crytek's latest comments saying that consoles are holding PC back, given publishers are focusing on the console versions of multiplatform titles as that's where the money is.  I believe that's sort of a self-fulfilling statement.  The money is on consoles partly because there are so few PC titles that really push the platform these days.  People have no reason to invest in PC gaming when the best looking title on the platform came out three years ago.  Thankfully, the Witcher 2 should be changing that next year.

The lack of proper development support these days is incredibly sad, given how much Valve has done to streamline and unify PC gaming over the past half a decade.  Steam has done an incredible job of making PC gaming a more console-like experience through its user-friendliness, even going so far as to auto-download and install new drivers for your video card as of the last major update, yet the service has little in the way of killer apps with which to draw in non-PC gamers.  Of course, this also falls partly on Valve's shoulders, given their titles are some of the few blockbuster PC titles left, and they for some reason make them multiplatform. 

The only real killer app we've seen lately is Starcraft 2, which of course is the one recent title that doesn't support Steam, given it's Blizzard.

Ya know what MS needs to implement?  Live Play.  Much like Steam Play lets you access your Steam games on both PC and Mac, Live Play would let you access a title bought via Games on Demand on either PC or 360.  As it stands now, if you want to play a game on both, you have to buy it on both.

I'm also surprised MS hasn't tried to leverage their XBLA portfolio on PC.  Providing the XBLA catalogue through GFWL would really increase the value of the service, given how popular the indie scene is on PC.

You're also forgetting some big points that steam has as a free service.

1)  Bigger sales than any other service out there, more than XBLs deal of the week, PSN plus sales, or Nintendos complete lack of them lol

2) Servers, steam games are mostly server based with the exceptions like MW2 (lulz) making for more stable online games and being yet another thing Valve/publishers are supplying when XBL requires peer to peer.

3) Automatic updates, none of this pop a game in and see there's been 3 updates since the last time you played with 600MB of downloading needed, which ends up making you wait before you can play, no steam does it all seamlessly in the background and when you want to play it's ready!

4) Downloading entire games, yeah XBL and PSN has started doing this but its not their entire library, Steam goes all the way back to some big PC games of the mid 90s, and just like the updates they'll download in the background seamlessly multiples at a time, at high speeds, again all for free.

Yep and no pesky fees, yet I'd be more willing to pay for Steam than XBL any day

Of all the features I've seen in these services, the only one I'd argue would actually be worth paying some form of money for is cloud storage.  The cost Valve probably incurs by providing storage and access for that data combined with the convenience it provides is the one thing I could see myself willingly providing cash for. 

Thankfully I don't have to. 

Oh I'd never pay for online, not even steam, but I'm saying if there was any service I did pay for it'd be steam