I have to agree and disagree with some points here, I think that "steam like" systems are the future,
At the moment the problems are really only, slows down the initial loading of a game, stops you from using on a computer not connected to the internet e.t.c.
the main forum I particpate in these days is gamedev, read this post I made on copy protection, and you will see a lot of game developers think the same
http://www.gamedev.net/community/for...opic_id=353819... in there, I even said I downloaded SEIV, but plz read the whole thing past there!
I personally hate copy protection systems as you can read and see in that link above, but at the same time, I think that if steam was made better, it could be the best, these days A lot of people have broadband (not saying everyone, I remember the complaint in the other thread here
) and I am sure that by the end of the decade close to 90% of people with computers will have broadband available.
anyway, steam is annoying if you are just a solo player and want to install and go (personally I think for solo you should be able to bypass it) but for multi player, I think it is the best thing since sliced bread, it is kind of a game manager, it will allow you to always have the latest version and as for Fyron saying "Too much of a hassle for when you need to reinstall Windows periodically" I personally think that is steams best feature of all, I switch computers frequently, reinstall windows for diffrent reasons (I have multiple pcs and a computer lab, I always do experiments in the lab that need to do reinstalls) and all I need to do is install steam, click on the game I want, and without cds, it auto downloads the game, and within about 5 mins, it is ready to play and patched! and it streams it as I need it.
As I said above, I personally think that steam should not really be used for people without broadband, but at the same time, steam is a little ahead of its time, when we all have broadband, and the computer speed that the overhead of using steam loading will do nothing, that is when it will be best, already if you have a fast computer and broadband, I think it is brilliant!
anyway, I bet I will get stick and some comments about this post, but hope you read it all!