What are the advantages of Steam?

You don't have to deal with physical media (discs), meaning you'll never lose your disc or have it break. With Steam, the game is in your account for good. If you delete the files (or your PC explodes), you just download them again. Let's say you go on holiday and there's a PC where you are, you can download Steam, login and download any of the games on your Steam account and play them.

It's convenient. You don't need to go to the store or interact with other human beings! And if you usually buy through online stores, well, you can download a game on Steam in a few hours if you net's pretty good, vs days and days of waiting for an online delivery.

Early release dates. Not only are new games sometimes released on Steam before they're in stores, they're usually released to the entire world. .co.uk is British, right? I've heard you guys are a few days behind us for release dates, so buying on Steam would get you new games earlier.

It's greener. You can reduce the negative impact you're making on the environment by not encouraging the manufacturing of plastic boxes or the printing of manuals.

Games auto-update. A 500mb patch just came out? Ugh. But despair not! Steam games auto-update (if you want them to), so maybe it'll download while you're at work or school and be ready for you when you get home.

Community tools. There's a built-in friend list and IM/voice-chat thing. With the Steam overlay you can run the Steam IM stuff at the same time as your Steam games, even if you're running it fullscreen. There are also groups and stuff. It's a great tool for social networking.

But there are downsides to Steam.

Firstly, you're British, yeah? Well, the pound is way down against the dollar right now and everything on Steam is charged in dollars. Left 4 Dead would cost you about 35 pounds with the conversion rate and British taxes and the pound might continue to drop against the dollar. Stuff could get very expensive for you.

Secondly, the software is temperamental. It doesn't work well for some people, or at all. It crashes, games don't run properly, offline mode doesn't work and you might even get banned from Valve's anti-cheat system for no reason, effectively banning you from playing Valve's online games.

So if I buy boxed games and add them to Steam later, will these games get the benefits that games downloaded off Steam receive?Hexagon_777

If they are supported by Steam, absolutely.

[QUOTE="Hexagon_777"]

So if I buy boxed games and add them to Steam later, will these games get the benefits that games downloaded off Steam receive?Johnny_Rock

If they are supported by Steam, absolutely.

That would only really be Dawn of War from what I know. Cheaper by around $40 on amazon.co.uk. Other games such as Far Cry, Age of Mythology, Age of Empires 2, WarCraft III and Heroes of Might and Magic III would not get the benefits. Judging from the posts, you guys believe that it isn't worth waiting for the games to be released on Steam either.

[QUOTE="Johnny_Rock"][QUOTE="Hexagon_777"]

So if I buy boxed games and add them to Steam later, will these games get the benefits that games downloaded off Steam receive?Hexagon_777

If they are supported by Steam, absolutely.

That would only really be Dawn of War from what I know. Cheaper by around $40 on amazon.co.uk. Other games such as Far Cry, Age of Mythology, Age of Empires 2, WarCraft III and Heroes of Might and Magic III would not get the benefits. Judging from the posts, you guys believe that it isn't worth waiting for the games to be released on Steam either.

You realize that Steam has loads more non-Valve games than Dawn of War right? Have you even looked at their games catalog lately? There are tons.

[QUOTE="Hexagon_777"][QUOTE="Johnny_Rock"]

 

If they are supported by Steam, absolutely.

zomglolcats

That would only really be Dawn of War from what I know. Cheaper by around $40 on amazon.co.uk. Other games such as Far Cry, Age of Mythology, Age of Empires 2, WarCraft III and Heroes of Might and Magic III would not get the benefits. Judging from the posts, you guys believe that it isn't worth waiting for the games to be released on Steam either.

You realize that Steam has loads more non-Valve games than Dawn of War right? Have you even looked at their games catalog lately? There are tons.

You realise that I am only listing the games I intend on purchasing? 

[QUOTE="Hexagon_777"]

[QUOTE="Johnny_Rock"]

If they are supported by Steam, absolutely.

zomglolcats

That would only really be Dawn of War from what I know. Cheaper by around $40 on amazon.co.uk. Other games such as Far Cry, Age of Mythology, Age of Empires 2, WarCraft III and Heroes of Might and Magic III would not get the benefits. Judging from the posts, you guys believe that it isn't worth waiting for the games to be released on Steam either.

You realize that Steam has loads more non-Valve games than Dawn of War right? Have you even looked at their games catalog lately? There are tons.

[QUOTE="zomglolcats"][QUOTE="Hexagon_777"]

 

That would only really be Dawn of War from what I know. Cheaper by around $40 on amazon.co.uk. Other games such as Far Cry, Age of Mythology, Age of Empires 2, WarCraft III and Heroes of Might and Magic III would not get the benefits. Judging from the posts, you guys believe that it isn't worth waiting for the games to be released on Steam either.

Makari

You realize that Steam has loads more non-Valve games than Dawn of War right? Have you even looked at their games catalog lately? There are tons.

Lost Planet is Fully supported by Steam too. In fact, it's like a Valve game in that regard, it forces you to install Steam to use it.

I have been using D2D a lot more, it has nearly every game you would want. You also don't have to be logged in to play.harrisi17

D2D is a little bit iffy on the support. I couldn't play Chaos Theory because I ran out of activations, and instead of giving me a new key or something they just said "Here's $10". A few weeks later, they just said "Here's 10$ more" and considered it case closed. D2D is a definite hassle if you don't want to deal with activations and for me the download speeds are less than stellar. I'd get ~400kbps from FilePlanet, where I get ~1.2mbps on Steam.