I'm neither of them too, and I'm not being fooled. I liked Steam ever since "Half-Life" came out under Valve (parent company of Steam), and I have never had any issues with them. How do you justify that it's "bad for you"? I like downloading games. It's quick & easy, not to mention it saves me a trip to the store. As for the last part of your statement... It's normal for Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive, or any other media downloading company to take a piece of the action. It's a contract between those company's, and the publishers. They know what they're getting into. It also saves the publishers packaging, distribution, and shipping fees. I'm sure it's beneficial to both parties, or there would not be such a high demand for it.

It happened to me although not on steam that I brought a game online, downloaded it, played but then forgot about it. And a year later I wanted to play again, but I realized I don't have the game installed anymore, I changed computer hardware reinstalled, etc, it was gone. I don't want that to happen to me anymore, so If I can I go with the physical version that's there whenever I need it. Downloading is ok when its fast, but for me steam is so slow if I decide to play, it will be tomorrow when I can start playing, If I have a DVD it installs in ten minutes tops, and not ten hours. Yes I know there is a backup function in steam, but no thanks I won't do their work. If I buy a game, I want it on a physical data disk.

That's exactly my point, they save money on distribution and shipping and packaging and still charge more or the same amount, for the games as in a store. And the money they save doesn't go to the developer, who would at least deserve it, it stays with valve. I've heard it from developers that valve asks so much from developers for publishing their game on steam that they end up with less money in the end.

While in itself steam is not a bad concept and could do much good for the gaming industry, currently the people behind it run it to maximize their profit, they don't care about the developers, they don't care about the gaming community, all they care about is the income they can generate. And I refuse to support such a company, that has no passion for gaming, and gives nothing to the community. I know most publishers are profit oriented, but at least normal publishers do marketing and advertising, and handle distribution. Valve/Steam does almost nothing and still picks up a big chunk of my money. This combined with my preference to own the games physically and not by just a placeholder email I received when I paid in steam, means I don't buy game downloads. Especially not from steam.

Steam is not perfect, I been using it since it was released. Sure it has its down sides but nothing as bad as what you make it seem. Steam is better then any digital game distributor out their on the market right now.

It has been a long time since Steam took hours to download a game. The most they take (at least for me) is about an hour, or so. I have had many computers since Steam came out, and every time I logged into my account the games were there to re-download.

It's the publishers of the games that are saving money on "distribution & shipping". Not Steam. Steam also doesn't charge more than the retail version of the games. In fact RnR is $10 cheaper along with many other games I have purchased from Steam. Another point to keep in mind is that the developers don't have much of a say on how the game is marketed. It's the publishers that do. The developers get a salary, and/or commission by the publishers. Steam has nothing to do with this, and Steam, or any other media download company get a small percentage (about 15-25%) of the cost. This is all done by contract between Steam, and the publishers of the games in question, and everyone knows what they are getting into. Steam isn't cheating anyone.

1C, the publishers of RnR are in a contract with Steam, and are making a substantial percentage for Steam to have their product downloaded, or else they wouldn't do it, along with other publishers. The price set by this agreement is between Steam, and 1C. NOT Steam, and the developers.

I bought the game on Steam as well as many others and never had any problems with Steam. As a matter of fact, I think Steam is the best digital distributor out there.