28th July 2011, 1:27 PM
I wouldn't say Steam is overrated. Oh there are the fanboys who think Valve can do no wrong (in spite of how annoying the online store in Team Fortress 2 is, I think going "free to play for everyone" is a bad thing, not to mention Valve is as guilty as all the other western developers in submitting us to that pre-order exclusive nonsense.), but all in all it's a very solid service, the best online game store run with a MOSTLY "do no evil" attitude. Much like Blizzard, they've kept supporting their oldest games with patches right up to today. The store itself is about the best DRM scheme out there if one has to have it (short of Valve's proposed individual data stamping of copies of a game so the person who distributes it becomes the target, that one is indistinguishable from no DRM at all from a user perspective). The updates are done fast and almost seamlessly (even better now that they have "difference downloading" like MS does), and their online gaming network is slowly catching up to the best game in town, XBox Live. I could mention they've got achievements, but I don't care about those.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)