They compare to steam because they're always there, before you experience the product you paid for, you have to watch/fast-forward the anti-piracy advert. Steam is similar, because it is a requirement that it is checked before you are allowed to play the game you have paid for.
They both discriminate against legal purchasers, while having zero effect on illegal versions.
They may be minor inconveniences in real terms, but they need not be there.

No, the game was HORRIBLE! Cel-shaded graphics should stay with the Japanese, because it fits there. PoP doesn't work with it. And the fact that you can't die makes the game easier than finding a hooker in Vegas at night. I'll be willing to bet that the game only had DRM because the game was so bad, nobody was going to bother torrenting it.

Team Fortress 2.

Well that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Irrespective of that, my point was about the way the game was released, not the game itself. Like I said, I found the game mediocre but being able to install and play without any fuss was fantastic and other developers should follow their lead. Infact, I hope Ubisoft follow their own lead and stick with that way of releasing games. I doubt this will be the case though :\.

Nope, you're wrong. It used phong shading.

You didn't say you found the game mediocre.

XD
it used both, silly billy.

I said it "wasn't bad" - but why the semantics?

The game didn't have DRM. That's what he was saying; more companies should have no DRM or disc check in their games.

Need to 'get a grip'? Why, because they don't agree that Steam is awesome? I hate Steam. The only reason I have it on my machine is because I refused to buy Mass Effect PC due to its asinine DRM scheme. When it came out on Steam I said "Okay, I'll give this a shot. Everyone says how awesome Steam is, so I'll try it out". I hate it. DRM issues with it aside, here are some reasons:
-The game is slow as hell to load.
-I cannot load my game onto my OFFLINE computer and play it. This is something I do with almost every game I own. That rig is in a room that has no internet connection and I often load games onto that one and play through them exploring different game paths. Steam won't allow me to do that.
-Steam offers me, personally, nothing extra that I want. I don't use their on-line services and I don't play multiplayer. I've no use for chat systems when I play. Sometimes I don't want to update my game right away.
- Sure, you can DL your games any time you want. Of course, with a disc you can install them any time you want and you don't have to wait the 2, 3 or more hours that DLing a huge multi-GB file takes to be able to play.
- speaking of multi-GB files, many people have DL caps. If you want to reinstall a few of your games, you're running the risk of capping your monthly DL limit in short order.
- I don't like being forced to run a secondary app just so I can fire up my game. At least Impulse, even though it's also a DRM scheme in the vein of Steam, will allow me to play my games without having to fire up the Impulse client to do so.
So, get a grip? No thanks. I hate Steam and see no reason why I should change my mind. If it's a wonderful service for you and everyone else, that's great. But it's not so damned wonderful for me. So I won't be buying any more games through Steam, nor will I buy a retail game that requires it.

I probably won't buy it for over $9.99. Not after the appalingly horrible demo.

steams pretty good service thou it may be drm in that you have to have active to run you games i'd rarther have steam than securom anyday of the week

This for the win. I don't play multiplayer. I don't chat. I don't hav multple computers to install the games on. I don't have Uber-Broadband (NZ is sort of crap with that). I have a monthly data cap. Basically Steam offers me nothing that I'm interested in. It is a shame about DoW2 and Empire:TW as I was much more interested in those than Fear 2 but oh well... Others games will come along.
Karl

No I actually had my views changed by steam itself. I was quite positive about it as a possible digital distribution platform and thought it was a great idea with heaps of potentially interesting features but then I saw the 2 negatives of it (from my perspective)
Firstly was the lack of respect. Not something you normally hear of from valve but a mate of mine couldn't get broadband and bought halflife 2 a few months afterits release. On a 4 hour connection limit and 56K speed, it took him 3 entire days before he could play the software he bought in the shop because of the then compulsory update (Not sure if it's changed since then but at the time there was no option to simply play the retail version), that to me is extremely bad design and whilst 56K isn't too common anymore, not giving the option to skip the update was a giant 'fuck you' to any user cursed with shitty internet.
Second was the wealth of options offered to steam users, every single one of which I would never use. As with others, I never multiplay on PC, the only time I multiplay at all is on xbox live and thats only because there's a few good coop games I play with mates. I always patch manually and I often avoid patches if they're only offering multiplayer fixes because they'd do nothing for me. The fact that I'd not use any of them makes the application itself a needless thing for me because once you strip that away, all it is is a shortcut to running the game and I already have a start menu.
I'll doubtless buy empire total war & dawn of war 2 when I have a computer capable of running them but as I said, I'm going to look for a way to circumvent steam. That said, my game computer is going to be a dedicated single task machine so I probably won't care about crap running in the background
As far as the mech is concerned, I'd have loved it if it was in shogo 2. In a game thats basically a claustrophobic horror shooter where you're supposed to be constantly on guard because a small mistake could let the enemy get the drop on you, riding around in a mech is sort of like standing in the middle of the street, firing an M60 wildly into the air shouting "HERE I AM! HERE I AM! PAY ATTENTION TO ME! ALSO I'M THE NEXT BEST THING TO INVINCIBLE AND HAVE UNLIMITED AMMUNITION! WOOOOOOOOO!". Ever so slightly breaking the mood

While I agree about the mech, the thing that broke the mood the most for me was the forced 16:9 aspect ratio. Hooray for console ports.

Steam started off as a US based release, where download quota and free content servers were in a MUCH larger abundance than over here in Aus. We do have several ISPs that offer free content servers (Telstra has GameArena and iiNet have the 3FL servers (which are next to empty anyway)). You must understand that Steam was only in it's infancy when HL2 came out, it was subjected to a LOT of negative feedback which they have since tried to address. At the same time, they're trying to push people into the latest technologies. It would be better for more than just home users, but businesses if more people were using broadband and as the business type model (read: proprietary) goes, they can dictate what people use. (See Windows.)
I sound like a Steam spokesperson! Haha, trust me, Steam still has a long way to go - perhaps they might open a branch of DRM free games? Perhaps they might take a leaf from GOG's book and try to make their games more Vista friendly. Just send 'em plenty of complaints, I've found the Steam customer service to be VERY receptive and helpful.