Not OT and hitting the nail on the head.

Besides that, I'm also glad that we have young newcomers to flightsims. Even if they fly like little Rambos (do they even know who that is?), they'll grow up, they support the game and they make flying much more colorful.

I'm sorry, do you know that for a fact? I can tell you for a fact who's going to make money if Steam is on: Valve. Now why do i need to pay Valve for? I don't even like Steam (i like Valve though lol). Actually Steam and Valve's "bussiness model" (fancy expression for bs) are the reason downloadable games are not cheaper.

What most dominant community? That's not even a community. Me using Steam to play Il2CoD does not make me pal with the guy playing The Sims or whatever; we're not a community. There's just a bunch of people using a download service. Dominant community? WoW has a dominant community, Starcraft 2 has a dominant community. I don't see Blizzard on Steam... you know why? Because they're smart. Wanna download Starcraft? No problem. Wanna pay Valve to download Starcraft? No you can't :). Why would Blizzard share some of that money with Valve? Why? Bandwidth is cheap this days. The developer should sell it as directly as they could, not go through 2 intermediaries, and then wonder how come they're not making as much money as they should for their hard work.

I got no problems with downloadable games, yes, that is the future. But not by giving half your profits to Valve (or anybody else). You don't need to do that. I bought a few months back ARMA2 Complete, where did i bought it from? Sprocket download baby, because i wanna put money in the developers' pockets, not a bunch of middlemen.

They should have went the Bohemia Interactive way, sell it yourself if possible at all, especially in niche markets. Make no mistake, if a game is good, it will sell, but such types never in huge volume, so more reason for you as a developer not to let other people get money you deserve for your work.

Well honestly I'm glad they have used Steam. At least the game will have a working server browser. I don't see Steam dying any time soon the way the ubi.com servers did for Il-2.

1)All the evidence points to it, and that has been pointed out numerous times over the last 2 days by numerous people with numerous links.

2)Frankly because although bandwidth is relatively cheap these days running FTP servers 24/7 365 and maintaining your servers isn't. STEAM (which is a software program made, updated, and run by Valve not a separate business or partner business) Has an approximate 70% market share of DD, and 30 million users. You don't get that kind of business over night, and 1C sees that. Valve had to keep prices up to the same levels as brick and mortar stores because B&M's threatened publisher with "we won't stock your games if you let Valve sale lower than box retail prices."

3) 3.
a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually preceded by the ): the business community; the community of scholars.

I wasn't referring to a social community such as this one. As to why Blizzard can do that and say 1C can't really at this juncture is frankly Brand recognition and loyalty. It has nothing to do with Blizzard being smart or dumb they just simply have the weight to do it on their own.

Awesome - Now I just have to move all my peripherals from one to the other PC, lol.

Steam OK, but what of HL?
 

if it's the only way I can get to fly CoD online, then I'll go with steam. Does this preclude CoD in Hyperlobby? I don't understand.
Flyby out

Maybe. Steam's server browser is better than Hyperlobby, though.

do you know if they are private servers or company run (rentals) servers?

You do not have to rent servers from Valve if that is what you are asking. You can use any server service you desire including running a personal server.

Edit: For clarification. VVVV Yes VVV

what i meant was can anyone put up a server like we do on HL?