What is Steam and why do I need it?

[BOb]

What does Steam do (other than add a layer of complexity to buying and running software)? Why is it needed? Why, for example can I not buy a game on CD, install on two PC's at my home and have my two sons playing the game simultaneously without me having to spend hours over enabling Steam Guard, authorising machines, authorising accounts etc. At the end of which i try to open the game on the second PC and it says the game was enabled already and can't be enabled again.

This is BS!

[wuddih]

you forgot that Steam only exists to fill up your bandwidth quotas.

[76561198161269496]

Yeah.

[76561198161207399]

good

[Heezy]

:)

[pax]

ok

[LoVe]

;))) gg brah

[Downspin]

I was never big on joining things either - never understood why I needed steam to play a game on my PC - what happens if the interweb thing breaks? But over time I got used to it like everything else. It's not so bad, and for kiddos it can be a social network thingymabob. My kiddo has his friends that he meets up with and plays games with - so again, it's not so bad.

Not sure about 2 systems in the same household. Might try asking that as a topic for a question.

[Jord77665]

Steam is a platform for gaming on PC it has many sales and games in its store that you can try out.

Some games can be free at the weekend , some games get weekday/end sales and sometimes you get haloween,winter and summer sales to get cheap games worth £20 for only £3 - £5

You can buy games on CDs but Steam remembers your codes and never asks you to reenter them and you dont need a disc to install its saved on the cloud!

You only need to authorise accounts when your swapping between computers alot so they are just doing their job and making sure your accounts are safe.

The Community is great and alot of people will be around for you to chat with and play games. Also Steam offers Steam groups which can form clans and organise events and discussions.

Steam hosts Valve games which are great fun and some free to play.

Steam also offers
Trading Cards
Events
Inventory items

Ill be happy to answer any more questions or add me if you want any help

Originally posted by a_biggart:

At the end of which i try to open the game on the second PC and it says the game was enabled already and can't be enabled again.

Please explain

[I AM THE DOCTOR NOW]

Wait wait wait... You can still get games on CD's? I thought we are on a high-compression DVD era?

Also you guys forgot the patches. Your games get patched through Steam.