Game Protection: Where do you draw the line?

[TevashSzat]

I've never used Steam before, and so I don't really know what to expect if I were to purchase ETW. On paper it sounds okay, but I've also heard complaints about Steam going back since its inception. Are these complaints legitimate? I honestly have no idea, and unfortunately I have no real frame of reference against which to compare it.

What do you mean when it says going back since its inception?

Anyways, steam is basically you need an internet connection to initially play the game. Afterwards, though, you can go into offline mode unless you want to get a patch or something like that, which requires you to go online again with Steam.

The great thing about Steam is that your game is tied to your account, not to your computer. That means, you can install any of your games that you have bought on any computer as long as you have your steam account logged in

[PBI]

As I understand it the main criticism of Steam when it was first implemented in Half-Life 2 was the fact that it was not made sufficiently clear that you would need an internet connection to play a singleplayer game (and that game stores would not refund people who had bought the game not realizing this because the need for an internet connection was buried in the small print).

But surely so long as the need for an internet connection is written on the front in big letters, it's not such a problem? Unless there are some more fundamental issues with Steam itself that I am not aware of; if there are any, they certainly aren't as well publicized as the problems with SecuROM or Starforce.

Personally, I'm not aware of any reason to avoid Steam since, well, I clearly do have an internet connection. I don't much like SecuROM (especially the increasingly Draconian versions we have seen recently) and I doubt I will buy another game with it included.