I'll keep it nice and short.

Steam used be a pretty good system. These days, it's not -- especially where I live.

Hated it on a principle way back when. I really dislike all kinds of DRM systems.

But after trying it out, I like it anyway.
It's better and more convenient than having to keep the DVD on tray anyway.

No-DRM is the best, but a complete rarity.

Keeping in mind all steam purchases are essentially rented for indefinite time, I mostly by discounted products.
If it's -50% I'm okay with the off chance the system may go under at some point.

I love Steam. If I have a choice between GOG and Steam, I go GOG, but otherwise, Steam is my go-to store. I only use GOG and Steam. If GOG decides to sell good new games, okay, I may bite, but I have some doubt that many publishers support their no-DRM policy for their new games.

I am shocked; it seems there still is hope for these forums. My take is this:

- You are an American, so the two genuinely bad aspects of Steam don't concern you at all(regional locking and crazy regional pricing).
- If you have a spotty internet connection or want to play your games on the go, Steam may not be the ideal solution, as the offline mode is reportedly rather temperamental. I've never used it myself, so I wouldn't know.
- There is a probability, albeit very, very low, that something weird happens and you get locked out of your account even though you did nothing wrong. There is a reason many people call Steam a rental service for an indefinite period of time. As I said, it's highly unlikely this will happen to you unless you cheat in multiplayer games or dick around with the system, but the possibility is there. So don't get attached to your account too much. My stance is that if this ever happens, I'll have absolutely no moral qualms with just pirating cracked versions of the games I bought there; for some people, however, this is a major problem they just can't ignore. Your call.

I'd definitely think twice before purchasing a Steam game for full price, but with all those sales they're having, I think these negatives can be easily lived with. I also rather like the convenience of the thing, and the social side of it is quite good.

I have no issues with Steam......after I unSteam my Steam games.

I think Valve is good with puns but they slipped up when they called their engine Source and their distribution service Steam. They could have done so much more if they has switched those around.

Two things to remember with Steam:

1) Always wait for sales to spend money. They have sales literally every day (Daily Deal), every week (Mid-week Sale), every weekend (Weekend Sale/Promo), every once in a while, weekly sales for games of specific companies, and twice a year pretty big 12-day sales marathons, albeit a lot of kickass games can be bought for ridiculous prices, if you can just wait.

2) Your Steam account, is YOUR Steam account. You do not lend it, give it, exchange it, play with it, use it for whatever purpose, the same way you do not lend/give/exchange/use your woman or your car. Remember to take good care of it and keep your friends list small, remember to check everything in Steam once the client starts to ensure that you know where to search if you want to find something, make sure you're the only one using the account, make sure you activate legally bought and owned games (there is a trend of stolen keys from eastern Europe and Asia being stolen and then re-sold, and Valve is closing down accounts or removing said games from shelves, or asking for evidence [photos] of a game and its cd-key) and then game on.

Thanks to all the indie bundles I created a Steam and Desura account and activated the games to test the systems. Personally I don't like client systems, but I can understand and accept why others like it (update, easy to use, many sales). It's a trade-off and personally I prefer to backup all my games and to be complete independent from any service. That's why I like drm-free games and especially gog.

Edit: What I really don't like are steam-only games, also single-player games. I can wait and have no problems when games are released first on steam or use the multiplayer-benefits from it, but after a while I see no problems to release them also elsewhere. I really hope gog can take that part and so I have no problems when they expand their service also to newer games - as long as they can keep their actual standards and release cycles of old games.

As I've always said, Steam is great for multiplayer games.

For single-player games, it depends whether I consider the game a keeper, or just a rental for an undefinable time. So most probably I would not buy e.g. game collections from Steam (or Origin, or or or...) to increase my backlog collection "to be played in the distant future", like I do in gOg all the time, or how I used to buy CD-based games with no online authentication. This of course applies to other DRM delivery systems as well, and pretty much all new retail PC games as they currently always require online authentication anyway.

I might get games from sales etc. from Steam if I was pretty sure I will play them in the near future. 5€ for e.g. Bioshock 1 and 2 a piece does not sound bad at all even for a long-time rental. So far I haven't done this because I have too many (DRM-free or CD format) games in my gaming backlog, but when I e.g. get a new PC, I might want to snatch a couple of brand-new games to show off their capabilities that are not available e.g. in gOg. Then I might just as well turn to Steam, unless the same game is available elsewhere with less intrusive DRM (like requiring authentication only during installation, being permanently offline after that).

In the long run, if most new games will continue to require online authentication DRM, my game buying habits will simply change so that I buy much fewer games, only games that I'll start playing right away. Kind of "not buying more food than you can eat right away", since DRM-food cannot be necessarily frozen to be eaten in the distant future. This will save me money in the long run, but I can't continue my game collecting hobby anymore. Maybe it is just good for me, and less money from me to the game publishers.

There are two sides to life. fun shit, and serious shit, never the twain shall meet. Just enjoy your games irrespective of where you purchased them.

They have good sales and I don't mind buying new games from them for cheap, or certain indie games(Recettear, Cthulu). But with GOG starting to add more recent titles next year I may buy less from steam next year.

I have over 100 games on Steam and I'm fine with that. I never payed full price for any of those games, most I actually bought at 75% off or around that. And about half are indie titles, mostly from bundles but not limited to bundles.

I also never had a problem with the offline mode. I have 2 computers at home, and one of those is going online only rarely to download games.

What Steam does good and I appreciate them for is that it's giving indie developers a huge customer base. I believe it to be one of the main reasons to the many good indie titles we have seen recently. Sure there are digital distribution platforms aimed specifically at indies but they don't have the same kind of reach as Steam does.

Steam: A soulless hard drive in the cloud that fulfils a need.

True, as long as you are able to enjoy (=play) the game you've purchased, even for once.

steam will cause severe injury or death

As someone else, I started using it activating some indie bundles games. I've been using it since mostly for sales, though I still prefer clientless DRMfree services (GOG).

While I don't love it, I don't hate it either, but I hate the I won't buy it unless it's on Steam attitude certain people have, especially toward indie games.