Bandwidth is bloody expensive, lol. Plus, Steam has to make some money, the publisher needs to make some money, and the game developer needs to make some money.

All new release games are at retail price, but you'll notice that Steam often has sales ($5 for ACI vs $20 retail, for example) and other discounts.

People who buy games at launch don't care if they're paying $49.99 for the retail box or $49.99 for the download. They want the game NOW. If you wait a bit, prices drop :).

-robodude666

Steam does sure offer some great sales every now and then. I got Bioshoack and Unreal 3 for 9.99 each a year ago, not sure how much they are now. That made me real happy that I got 2 great games for 20 bucks. It's great that they always have weekend sales you never know what you'll get for a bargain. Waiting to see Left 4 Dead 2 on sale. Most likely on a Friday the 13th as they did with L4D.

Ad-free, HUGE file-size, bandwidth is not free. As robodude has said, there are costs involved in the Steam distribution. Keep in mind that you may redownload the game as often as you want. That they manage to keep the service up at that price is actually quite amazing. I like Steam, because I can't loose/scratch the disks. But games that activate on Steam anyways are disk purchases for me.

Wait a minute! lol I just went to Target and saw CoD MW2 and they just reduced it to 49.99, came home to see if Steam might of beaten that but no its still 59.99. Dang it lol.

I have boughten tons of games from STEAM. They are usually five dollars cheaper and there is no hassling with CD's.

the weekend deals are great. Christmas sale was AMAZING!

Steam is great IMO!
Sure it costs 5 or 10 bucks more sometimes, but the weekend sales are awesome. January sales are nice too!
Until now the only thing i used my DVD drive for was installing win7, rest is done over the internet. Im wondering if motherboards will allow you to install it from a microsoft server soon? That'd be cool.

Steam is a revolution in gaming, being able to go to a random computer, log in and play. MW2 Keeps all of your multiplayer rankings, classes etc. And the way you connect with your friends, and join them in 1 click if you own that game is unbeatable.

I'd like to see a way to store your config's within steam, i hate having to bind my keys all over from pc to pc. There i use a flash drive.

I dont really care if i buy the disc, i just activate the key when i get home.

Steam FTW!

Most of the Valve games support cloud gaming which means your keyboard and mouse configs are saved over your profile and are automatically adjusted no matter what computer you are on.

I am not a fan of Steam. Never have been. Probably an irrational uneducated thing, but hey, I am who I am. :)

My new system came with free STEAM games - but I want CD/DVD in hand and no online tether, even just for startup confirmation.

Bummer too - Some of them sounded pretty cool. But it's one of those "matter of principle" things that I am too stubborn about, so I'm back to Painkiller Black...

Steam does allow you to burn your own backup disks so in the case of a re-installation you do not need to redownload all games.

also, as a slight bump, the cost to produce the game case and the actual cd is very very minimal, the price tag on games is actually for the software on the game, so the few pence/pounds that went into producing the case or dvd have gone to steam, but this is only a small amount

games from steam are cheaper :S

for the most part yes, but not all the time

I might buy BF2, but probably not on Steam this time should I want to let my kids play it when I'm done. If only STEAM would allow a person to make sub child accounts so you can have all the games you want, but limit the ones you want for your kids. They would rather I make a new account for my kids, but we often like the same kinds of games and others I like are just to scary for them like FEAR 2 and stuff.

Steam is okay for me, I have a few games on there. Some of the games I wanted only came out for steam on release or is required, which at times I don't like.

But there are times I would like to have the actual box, manual, etc. Just to be able to have and to hold is what I want, LOL. For example the Witcher Enhanced Edition comes with all the extra goodies that makes me scream in glee to myself of course not out loud.

Of course steam lessens the waste, but there are times you just got to have that box in hand.

I've been messing with it just to refresh my knowledge on it and still think it's a pain.

If you spend time viewing a series of FAQ / Help articles you can get a handle on things for the most part, but it is really not very intuitive, to be sure.

So, wherever possible, I'm going to purchase games retail to get the media and the flexibility it gives you over Steam.

id rather have the cd's for back up, although great deals on steam.

You could create backup discs of your games so you don't have to redownload them again in case you want to reinstall.