Not a bad article. I didn't find the comments about "crusty" old XP's insulting and I used to own one. :)

My experiances of Steam are these: it's a great way if you're outside of the US to buy Valve games: HL2 Episode 1 in retail box format costs $20 U.S, in the U.K it costs £20. At the exchange rate that means nearly twice the cost ($38 U.S). So Steam is very cheap way of buying for us.

If I have a criticism it's that they need more dedicated servers: d/l speed was very variable, on my 2MB DSL line it sometimes peeked at 225kB/s but it was up and down like a yo-yo and this was in a week when there had been no major releases for some time. I'm dreading trying to download HL2:Episode 2 when it comes out.

I downloaded the pack that contained HL1: source, HL2, HL2: ep 1, the Lost Coast, CounterStrike Day of Defeat, Deathmatch etc about 10GB in total and that took 12 hours to d/l which wasn't bad. Not great, but not bad. Like I said speed was up and down but the last couple of hours which were after midnight I could max out the connection permanently which made me think that maybe the speed problems were due to contention/bandwidth issues either at this end or between here and Valve's servers in the U.S. It's a known fact that if you access U.S servers here late overnight or early morning its noticeably faster because the US is asleep, after about midday when everyone is waking up in the US and going online everything slows down noticeably. Or maybe its simply that Valve's servers aren't so busy at this time.

Just my thoughts. B)

Originally Posted by yahooadam
offline mode works like this - you log in, set it to offline mode, steam checks with the Internet your games are kosher - and sets something up somewhere

you disconnect from the Internet and can play your games

offline mode is made for 56k'ers or people who pay for the time they use

I find that I don't have to connect to the internet at all - Steam will start up, tells you it can't find an internet connection, you ignore it, select the start in offline mode and away you go. I only need a connection to validate a fresh install or to update the files if theres a new patch available.

I find the whole idea of STEAM infuriating, and for several reasons:

1) Ownership privileges are taken away from the end user and given to STEAM. You are placed in a position whereby you must ask permission from STEAM before loading your game onto another machine, or in some cases even if you want to play your game at all. Internet verification is necessary for these games not just when you first purchase and load the game, but each time you play.

2) For most games available on the market now, STEAM is mandatory. There's no alternative to STEAM, which gives you the choice of accepting all their conditions limits on play - or not playing any new games at all.

3) STEAM's offerings are vaporware. If you get a manual, it's through STEAM - same conditions apply as with software, as you must get permission from STEAM to simply look at your manuals, guides, etc. There's no drop in price to compensate, either - and why should there be? STEAM has a virtual monopoly on game distribution, so you must either tolerate STEAM or give up playing most new games altogether.

Now, to add insult to injury, we have an article bragging about how filthy rich STEAM is becoming by ripping off the PC gaming community. Apparently the people behind it are quite proud of what they've done.

Well, I expect they have gotten filthy rich, but not from me. I'll never buy a game that requires a mandatory STEAM activation. I'd rather buy a console, where at least I can still own the games I buy and can play them whenever I want, without asking "pretty please" to some huge corporate crooks in the cloud.