ROF online shenanigan.

[Feuerfalke]

Yes, it is a biased vote as there are 2 negative votes and one neutral, but no positive vote.

@_ITAF_UgoRipley

STEAM is sort of gamebrowser, like Hyperlobby in many ways. It contains buddy- and chat-functions as well as the ability to join online-games your friends are playing. Additionally it also contains voice-chat, autoupdate and even mod-support and access to exclusive demos.
On the downside, it sends data to STEAM, like what games you play and how much, so you get special offers fitting your interests.

As you can see, there are many parallels to Hyperobby, even more to other gamebrowsers like AllSeeingEye, X-Fire, Gamespy, etc. It's just that STEAM is the largest and also offers a platform to sell games.

Is it bad in general? Well, you have to make up your own mind, but as STEAM also offers own ways to provide hack- and cheat-protection, I guess in our internet-world, it is the future of how games will be distributed (especially smaller games, independend games, etc.)