The Point of Steam?

[Jamz]

Before I begin, please pardon me for what is most probably my ignorance.

I would like to know that besides these Steam Achievements, what is the point of playing on Steam, or even, the benefit of having Steam? I should point out that I've never had Steam and only downloaded and installed it when this game came out on Steam just to see if there was any difference. Obviously I understand that from virgil's perspective, it makes a huge difference as the game opened up to loads more gamers. But what about for me or for someone who already had the game? Apart from the achievements, does Steam make a difference, or could it make a difference in the future? Could something possibly be introduced that would say only work for Steam gamers and not for non-Steam gamers?
And even generally, not just CW3 related but is there much purpose in having Steam? Are there some games that can only be played on Steam?

Right now so far, I see it as a liability more than anything. An extra program installed on my computer. Have to log on and be connected to the internet to play a game that does not require the internet. Receive (sometimes) annoying messages at annoying times from people you've friended when all you want to do is enjoy and focus on your game (although I suppose you can probably change the settings.)


Thanks, and apologies again if I appear to be silly and/or old fashioned.

[Grayzzur]

From a CW3 perspective: pretty much just achievements.

From a gaming-in-general perspective: They offer a lot of older classic games and low prices, make some of the old dos stuff work on Win7 (if you like those). You have an account and can re-download anything you've purchased, no looking for lost CDs or DVDs. You can see what your friends on steam are playing, chat with them, compare achievements. They often offer sales, and notify you when games on your wishlist go on sale. The world is moving toward a digital distribution only system, and Steam is the big fish in the pond for that model. Steam does need to be running to play Steam games, but you can set it to not auto-start on boot up. Steam itself takes up less than 1 gb of hard drive space, but it does stick all your steam games in it's SteamApps folder by default, making it look much bigger -- but that's really just your games. You can go to store.steampowered.com and browse around to see what else they offer without having to sign up or download anything. You do need to signup and download in order to buy, of course.

[Michionlion]

There are also things like Steam Workshop, and other community things for mods, maps, and such.

[Karsten75]

THe Steam cloud backup allows you to carry the game over to multiple computers and lay there with the same saves files, etc.

[Asbestos]

Yeah, if you buy your games on Steam, you have them automatically backed up. Whenever you get a new computer, just redownload Steam and you have access to all of your original games.

[stewbasic]

The reason I play CW3 via steam now is that it saves me from manually downloading game updates (though maybe Virgil will add that to the non steam version at some point). Admittedly some of the downsides don't apply to me, since I already had steam for some other games.

I should point out, though, that you don't need to be online to play CW3 via steam. And you don't have to add anyone to your steam friends list ;P.