Are Steam-games known for being freed from the Steam chains
 

... after some time, like they deleted Starforce from according games after a year or so, when the primary release phase was over?

Not that I'm aware of. They might become available elsewhere, but I doubt it.

Nope (at least not legitimate ways), which is the reason why I will not touch anything that has steam on it, as I refuse to allow steam on my system.

I have to admit i didn't like steam that much.... at first. All my friends were like, "just get it on steam", while i INSISTED to have the hard disk in my hands. After awhile though I gave up. The PC selection of games at the local electronics store has become less and less while the console section keeps taking up more and more shelf space. That's when i threw in the towel and accepted steam. Now i'm fine with it, and the sales are crazy.

As regular readers probably know, I was a long time opponent of Steam. It was becoming more and more obvious that I was probably going to have to stop playing anything other than hardcore wargames unless I got steam, but when Sports Interactive revealed that the next Football Manager would be Steam only I finally relented.

It's OK, Not great, not bad, just OK. I've buy most games as digital download now anyway, but the actual nuts and bolts use of Steam has never really worried me as much as the huge monopoly on PC gaming and sales Valve seems to be creating. But Ducimus is right: If bricks and mortar stores no longer want to support gaming that's fine, I'll just give my money to the company that does.

I still hate the fact that third party games bought as a hard copy still require you to sign up to Steam and their license before you can play it. Something about that arrangement just seem fishy.

I was very wary of installing and using Steam, but soon became converted - especially at certain points in the year when they have extremely great value sales. Patching worries are also a thing of the past.

The answer? no. not unless valve shuts steam down, which im positive they wont.

Honestly, i dont understand why people are so scared of steam. Hell id use it over a normal store any day.

The other difference is that steam is not just a DRM method, it's also services platform that also includes a marketplace, matchmaking service, community features, achievements etc. etc. Most people who actually like Steam that I know like it not because of the DRM, but because of those services. A lot of Valve's commercial success is also down not to DRM but the success of those other services. And they're not likely to step off their competitive edge there.

However not everything is released with Steam only. Look for games to be released elsewhere, I guess.

Myeah, much of the success is definitely due to the ease of use and having more
or less everything available right there in the same app.

As for the DRM, well, it doesn't work THAT well, never has. Steam DRM was
cracked aeons ago already. Tho, much of the games that have a good multiplayer
still benefit from the DRM as that hasn't been cracked AFAIK, unless you count
"patches" that allow for Hamachi or other 3rd party app to be used to play
via LAN. Still, I prefer this DRM over the more intrusive ones. :yep:

I admit I've had my various problems with steam, and my slow connection often makes it a royal pain to use. Also there is the issue with Deleting an entire install for no reason and forcing you to redownload. (Don't verify without backing up your files for that game!)

Most of the time though it works rather well, especially in offline mode, and the in-game interface is nice for chatting with people or even using the integrated web browser.

Honestly though, with the deals Steam has, especially around the holidays, you pretty much have to use it unless you have loads of money to spare.

Plus without it you can't get in on Steamgifts

If your lucky though you can sometimes find games that have ways to get around steam, like AI War you could input the keys given by steam into version you download at their site to activate the game.

Also for Europa Universalis 3 (Dunno about the other ones) they snuck the launcher from the non-steam version into your game and for awhile you could use it to convert your steam version into a non-steam version thanks to patches. :O:

I got Bloodbowl Legendary Edition last week for 6 quid. I was pretty happy with that. I am looking forward to the first proper Steam Sale. I'm holding off buying Cliffs of Dover until I see it on sale.

I am mostly just happy I will now be able to play Skyrim when it comes out. That almost helps me get over the dirty, self loathing feeling I get every time I double click on the Steam shortcut.

Almost.

On a Steam related subject, I bought New Vegas as well. It's OK, no where near as much fun as Fallout 3, but not bad. However, it does seem very, very crashy. I even got a BSOD last night and I cannot remember the last time I got one of those. Anyone else had the same experience? May start running it in offline mode and see whether it makes a difference.

I hated Steam to begin with, my major beef with it was the requirement to be online all the time. Back then I had a naff connection and I didn't like what Steam foretold. I still don't. However if you take a look at most high street game stores now you'll be hard put to find many PC games there any more. It's a sad fact. Which leaves either ordering a hard copy or downloading a copy.
So far I have had no problems with Steam at all, it's behaved itself, I use the chat function on it regularly and nothing has gone wrong with my games that could be traced back to Steam. The Steam sales have some excellent games at ludicrous prices, and it's through them that I have increased my game collection with limited financial problems.
Do I like the idea that Steam could one day disappear and take my games with it? No, no I don't, however I think there would be a small international riot if that happened, and I can't see Valve going bankrupt any time soon which is, to be honest, about the only way they'd ever shut down. Valve and big Gabe do seem to be focused towards Gamers although in recent years the DLC bandwagon has seen them becoming a little greedy in terms of things like extra weapons (and hats...the goddamn hats) for TF2 and the like, I don't like that kind of thing, it makes the playing field unlevel, and I don't like that, but to be honest everyone is on the DLC bandwagon these days, and at least Valve do release some DLC for free (like the recent Portal 2 - Peer Review DLC).
Certainly I have found Steam to be relatively unintrusive, much less so than things like youtube and Google who seem to remember my every move...but there's ways around that if needed and it's not even that much of a CPU hog on my new system.
So while I'm not ecstatic about Steam and what it represents (the death of the PC gaming industry on the high street) I have taken advantage of what is available through it, and I have had a hassle free experience with it to this date.

I think that is a New Vegas thing rather than a Steam thing. It's got its fair share of bugs in it...which reminds me, I've encountered one myself (not BSOD worthy but still annoying) so it could be that rather than Steam.

More than likely. It's crashed three times today already. I'll maybe have another go later. I was actually thinking about reinstalling Fallout and Fallout 2 for a laugh. Wonder if they work on W7 74?

Back to Steam: Of course, ordering a hard copy of a game is no guarantee that it won't need Steam anyway. The one advantage I can still see in hard copy titles is that they tend to be substantially cheaper on places like Play and Amazon at release that via Steam. Well, that and having a box. Lets face it, manuals aren't worth the paper they're printed on anymore. The last proper manual I got with a game was for WiTP:AE - 328 pages of goodness.

If they don't, you can get all three original Fallout games from GOG.com
for $5,99 a piece and they work on 64bit Win7. :up: