So I've taken the plunge into direct downloading games. I originally was introduced to steam via half life 2. When I first encountered it, I disregarded it as a rip off and more software on my computer that I didn't need or want. But here I find myself years later. Playing a demo of a game at 2am, and saying to myself. "I'm going to go hunt down this game tomorrow morning", because I really wanted to play it.  No longer than that thought passed through my head and had another sip of cheap beer did the second though pass through... "Why don't I just download it". Then a third thought. "From where?". This is where I started...
I don't know about you, but I don't trust giving my credit card number out to just any given company. I'm an avid reader of The Consumerist, I have had trouble with banks screwing up my accounts, and I just don't generally trust anyone with money. Having said that. I did a little reading, and not having heard anything majorly bad about steam, I did a search for my game on them. Low and behold, there it was, Dirt cheap price, no shipping, on my drive NOW... But wait, there's more.
I like to have a copy of the thing in the palm of my hand. I'm the type of gamer that still has a copy of sacrifice and plays it from time to time, I still have my original warcraft 2 cd, and my original diablo cd, not to mention, going back further, i still have my original copy (on floppy) of Ultima Underworld 2... you know, just in case i get drunk and get the urge to play it, like NOW. Which brings me to this...
We all love google... learn how it works and how to use it... and it can be your best (search engine) friend. So i dumped in the words "burn steam games" and came up with a butt load of articles on how to back up steam games.
From my understanding on a quick read through, you have to have the steam account, and be connected to the internet. That kind of sucks, but I guess it's the price you pay for not driving to the store. Having said that...
Who is steam marketed toward? I still have not realized what kind of audience they are aiming at. Geographically speaking. If you lived out in the middle of nowhere, and everything was 20 miles away... I could understand the need to impulse buy via the internet. BUT, based on that most of these remote places don't have great internet speeds or support systems... kind of ironic... right? But then I thought...wait... it's 2am, I live 5 minutes from any given store that MIGHT have it, or probably DOES have it, but i'm downloading it... why? because i'm a drunkard... and traffic is hell....
Supposedly more and more of the 'gamer population' are in their 20's-30's. Yes, that's right, drinking age. And what goes better with a bottle or two of fine wine than a few hundred frags? Point being... ever been to a bar? or a convenient store? You see people paying more for less all around you every day because it's convenient.
I took the plunge because I've wanted this cheap game for forever and a day. I got in the mood to play it. So instead of wait and change my mind by morning, I just bought it. How awesome is it to say that I just helped save the environment by not driving my car all around town on an easter egg hunt for a game that probably had no boxed copies on the shelves? Amazing if you ask me.
Leave your comments and participate in the poll. I'd like to extrapolate the poll more. but this is just one post, and i hope it reads more like an article with an opinion than it does like a forum post.  
 
the only question left for me is... will I ever buy another hard copy game?
 
sincerely,
89% proud owner of a steam downloaded game.

hmm, steam has been out for ages and i trust it, never had a problem.  true i like hard copies too but dvd's can be scratched whilst as long as you have your account info you can get them anytime you want and on any cop you want at any one time.
 
  if i can get a game through steam i will if not i will get a hard copy.

I would like a hard copy even for my games on steam e.g. orange box - my internet is...... more than a little slow...

I couldn't check the fourth option that suited me.
 
In addition to steam I will also use Stardock, where for $5 more I can have both the physical copy and the instant gratification online copy.
 
It all depends.  If I am wanting the game NOW or if it is cheap through steam, I will buy it on steam.  If I am less impatient about it I will pick it up next time I am out at a store.  Sometimes I will preorder a game online and have it shipped to me.
 
If a game is on Stardock though I will almost always go with the download on stardock plus the physical copy shipped to me.

stardock is an interesting choice that I forgot about completely.  
 
and here is a short update thus far.  
 
after downloading and playing titan quest on a daily basis for quite sometime, i can say that i'm not entirely disappointed. but i'm also not completely happy.  
Having one of the worst isp's known to man (charter) and all of their problems and their underhandedness has made me lose internet connection several times. And to no luck have I been able to go in and play titan quest in offline mode. I also tried to do a game back up restore to an external HD when I last reformatted. And I didn't mess with it for very long, but i could not get the game to properly reinstall from these files. It was actually easier to just re-download and re-install them via steam. This wouldn't be the case if i didn't have a 10meg connection though as the games are pretty big. Another problem I ran into is getting custom maps. I have a friend that I had help me test this on two different types of TQ installs. I have steam, he has the hard copy. I downloaded a custom map, copied it to the correct folder, and every time I try to load it it gives me an error message. On the other side of the coin, no such error message with the hard copy install. Both versions are up to date, and both versions are tq with expansion. not to mention I could actually join the game with the map, but not load it outright. I am led to believe this is an issue with steam.
 
issue number two. Steam seems to always have problems with either crashing, or not starting up properly, etc. Every time i restart my pc the "end program now" box comes up for steam. 2 out of 3 times i restart my pc, i have to ctrl+alt+del to shut down steam, then restart it before it will work or any of the games will work. This is just mildly annoying.
 
On the upside, I'm almost always connected to the interwebz, so I can play 95% of the time that i need to. It was convenient, I had a brewski or four, decided i wanted to play and it was on my pc that night. I actually like the game update news pop up. It's not too terrible obtrusive, and is usually straightforward, and does not steal focus from what i'm doing. Not to mention it keeps me up to date on new releases and special deals i would otherwise not be aware of.w
 
anywho... that's my deal, and i might check out stardock as well. thanks for the input.

Left 4 Dead will probably be my first Steam purchase.

^ +1

I like to buy retail version of my games unless its made by Valve.
The reason i like retail version is cause i have more control over my games, i can install it on another computer and play it without it tying up my Steam account, or i can pass it to a family member to play, that's one of the major issues i have with Steam, you have all these games on it yet only one computer can use that account at a time.
 
I try to stay away from DRM infested games like Mass Effect, Bioshock and other well known games.
 

My response:
 
I basically just viewed this thread because I already looked at all the pr0n on the net today and i am bored.