That's what they always say. But it hasn't stopped Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Empire: Total War, Modern Warfare 2, etc. to be huge commercial successes.

Steamworks is starting to get me steamed....

And while you guys are boohooing over Steam, Steam has now released a Mac version, with, a Linux version close behind.

Civ IV, and undoubtedly Civ V, will support Steamplay, meaning if you buy one copy, you can get it on both Windows and Mac.

Valve is also granting anyone who bought any Source game on Windows the Mac equivalent for free. Watch out, the evil Steam empire is coming for you by expanding into your market when other companies don't even bother to do so.

From your posts it's been obvious you're not arguing as a gamer but as a corporatist (and, of course, there's nothing wrong with that).

Second -- we know the result of the decisions made for HL2, LFD, etc.  We don't know what the results would have been had the decisions been otherwise. You can speculate or cite studies that estimate (have you any?) but that's it.

Regarding Civ5, we won't know how their decision to force steam would compare with making steam a choice.  Even if we knew that, knowing the long-term effect is something else.  I've been a civ fan for almost 20 years, since day 1.  Many companies today, especially in the US, are short-sighted, looking from quarter to quarter instead of the long run - decades, generations, even centuries.

EDITED TO ADD:

Third -- Has anyone claimed that not forcing steam will cause Civ5 to not be a 'huge commercial success"?  I haven't, and I haven't seen that claim.

If not, then yours is the fallacious argument Strawman.

In fact, arstal who you replied to, said the opposite -- folks would pay to not have steam forced upon them -- making Civ5 and even greater commercial success.

And who are the ones who go to parks to entice young children to their lairs by offering them candy?

It may have been a big commercial success, but it lost all of my future business. Eventually it will start to catch up to them.

The Total War series declining rapidly in quality isn't due to Steam- but due to the studio rapidly declining in quality.

That  said, I do expect Steam to cause the mod community to take a hit, given the nature of Civ mods.  (different animal then a Source mod)

Valve/2k offering a free Mac version with a Windows purchase is a good thing- and a good idea.  However, I'd never use it- I don't care for Macs.

As for start games being on multiple platforms- you could ask Paradox what their sales figures are- as Paradox games are on every DD platform, and in the case of expansions, are DD exclusives.

Nice strawman. There's virtually no Valve bashing in this entire thread.  Nearly all the ire is directed towards 2K.

Don't get all Derek Smart on me. You know as well as I do that the majority of this thread is the bashing of the evil Steam future monopoly. If not, then simply bashing Steam.

You know, I've never seen a sales pitch that insulted, attacked and otherwise annoyed potential customers work. In every case, it only influenced those potential customers to become hostile to the company the sales pitch was for. I've boycotted many products because I was annoyed by their aggressive and rude sales people.

Just a hint, mind you.

Good thing you were already boycotting Steam before I got here, or else I might have changed someone's mind on the internet! Would've been a world first.

I agree with you here.  I love Impulse personally because I can buy the games I like and not have to worry about losing disks.  I never had a problem myself reinstalling software after a reformat.  I do however have a problem with game companies requiring a constant Internet connection to play their single player games.  One time activation I have no problem with at all.

I want to point out that right now CIV IV complete is at a bargain price here on Impulse.  Even tho I have it on media, I went and picked it up here just so I have it available through Impulse.

You might have changed my mind. Then again, maybe you're one of the ones who did.   I had never heard of steam before this week. I had been checking out the progress of civ5 at civfanatics every once in a while, when I noticed a discussion about steam. Didn't like the idea about having to use them to run civ5, but I didn't feel strongly about it one way or another. I was still undecided about whether I'd be interested in picking up civ5, anyway. It was all the aggressive steam sales spamming on that site that convinced me that something was wrong. So I looked into steam a little deeper, at which point a search lead me here, btw, and that's when I found out steam was working on a microsoft like monopoly and using some of the same manipulative tactics to get there. So it was your fellow sales people (and possibly you too ) at civfanatics who turned me off using steam in the future (I really don't have any use for the service right now, anyway). It was learning how they they practiced business that really offended me. I've seen too many aspects of people's lives get microsofted by these control freak corporations, and never has any good come from this. It always leaves people with less control over their own lives and a gives a few greedy, fat, drooling yutzes a lot more power over people than they really should have.

That's my objection to steam. I don't like their aggressive sales people and tactics and I don't want them getting a monopoly on game downloading (and perhaps later, all sorts of programming).

With the civ people, I briefly entertained the thought they might have changed their ways with civ5, but this steam malarkey convinced me that optimism was foolish.

I'm just curious, I've never really used Direct 2 Drive, but I vaguely remember hearing that there's a one year time period on game downloads...is that true?  I could be confusing it with a different company, or maybe I'm confused as it's just something I heard on some forum.  Anyway, is that, or was it ever, true? 

Edit -

It seems to be the EA Store, atleast according to the wiki on it.  I've never used them, so I don't know..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA_Store

Not my knowledge, and if it were true I'm fairly sure the uprising in revolt of this would've ended the known world since Direct2Drive's prices are around the same as Steam and Impulse's prices.