hannibal

I have been reading a lot of hate for steam. Not on this site but elsewhere on the web, and while I do not like other forms of DRM (DVDCSS, AACS, Ubisoft DRM) I love steam. First thing to get out of the way, you cannot legally re-sell physical copies of PC-Games. Unfortunately when you buy software for a Computer, you are not purchasing the physical media, they just provide that as a courtesy, what you are buying is a revocable license to use that software. Now while you can reject the terms of that license at any time, you also have to discontinue the use of the software.

Back in the day when hard drive space was scarce I needed physical media to cut down on the amount of hard drive space the game used. The drawback to using CDs was that you had to keep track of them and swap them out when you wanted to play. Now, hard drive space is plentiful so if there was something that allowed me to eliminate the need for keeping track and swapping out a DVD that would be awesome. Also if I could still play my games offline that would be great. I wonder what product would allow me to do that?

Steam had a rocky start, it was slow and bloated and not very good at what it did. Now however it is better as a communication platform than XFire, and more useful for purchasing games than any Brick and Mortar store. I bought borderlands at best buy and I must say I hate that the entire game is sitting on my HD but every time I want to play it I have to find the Goddamed DVD. (Thanks Secure ROM) On the other hand when I want to play Battlefield Bad Company 2 I just open up stem and boom, I am there. Now Steam is DRM, but the rules are, I can play the game anywhere as long as I login to my account and download it. Hey I am cool with that, the thing is in return for the pain of Steam's DRM I get a service that allows me to talk to my friends and I don't have to lug around DVDs. If other companies were as reasonable. Also from time to time they throw in a free game.