Now we're just starting to go around in circles. As for what I "want" Valve to do... well, I really couldn't care less what they do. There are plenty of entertainment options being offered by various companies, both in the area of video games and in other areas. As a customer I'll simply buy the things that I think are the best use of my money, and not buy things that I don't consider a good use of my money. While some may base their purchases on matters of principle I tend to be pretty pragmatic in my purchasing habits. Currently I simply don't buy any Valve or Steam games because I don't consider a game tied to an activation server a good use of my money in most cases. Others feel differently. Both views are just fine, it's nothing more than the market at work.
Yes, I believe I stated precisely this in my last post when I said that market segmentation is a standard business practice. Interestingly, with regards to DVD region coding there are some countries in which region coded DVD players are illegal due to it being an anti-competitive restriction on trade (your own country is among these, due to an ACCC ruling). I wonder if we'll see governments stepping in on the issues of game region-locking and DRM as well.

How did you know that? Are you watching me? I must need a bigger hat.

but that is a different issue Phoenix. Not liking steam because you find it annoying, bad, ugly etc. and not liking steam because GTA, Empire and others are not available in your country.
i don't agree with first statement but I understand it. Second one is just simply wrong.
as for the second part of your post.
Someday, probably. when current politicians die out and will be replaced with people who were raised on squishing turtles and ripping their friends' hearts out.

I think this discussion is probably going to go back and forth for the rest of the foreseeable future, because this is just like 'which console you like the most' as DRM/copy protection isn't a technical discussion of dis/advantages but personal preference.
I thought I might as well tell you my story as I was an avid fan of everything Steam, right back from CS1.6 days. I saw Steam then as a matchmaking client more than anything else, it was a convenient method of playing with my friends. Amongst us we slowly got sick of swapping I.P addresses over MSN messenger just so we could play unreal tournament (on dial up) with a 2 second lag. Steam changed that, it was so easy and simple, but I still had sick lag >.<
Slowly over the years, things changed; but it took me a while to accept what digital distribution meant. I bought my first digital copy of a game: CS: Source. It took me so long because I was so used to owning a physical copy of games, but once I had dispensed with the disc, I fell in love with the concept. Ergo I also fell in love with Steam because that's all I knew. All my friends were on it, we got to play together and all was well.
I think for me things changed with the announcement of Rag Doll Kung-Fu, the first non Valve developed game to be put onto steam (I thought so at least - excluding game mods). This, over a short period of time, exploded into a veritable gang-bang of games. I felt rather overwhelmed, I wanted to own everything because that's what I was used to, all the things on Steam were in my account but now I was looking at games I'd never even heard of before. I understood why valve games had to be on Steam, but why couldn't I get these games to download without having to log into a developer's match-making service?
I still wasn't exactly bothered though, as I knew of nothing else, but during a LAN party everything changed.
Myself and six friends all met up to play CS:Source together, but as you might guess we didn't have internet access and the crap really hit the fan. We all legitimately owned CS:S, but had to then waste about three hours just connecting to the net, to turn Steam into off-line mode. Yes, I suppose we should have done our research, but this really got my wick. We all owned our games, but this method of DRM caused massive issues. One friend couldn't even connect to the net for some reason, and so he couldn't even join in on his machine.
At this point forward I started losing interest in Steam, especially when I started thinking, "Is Steam really going to still be around in twenty years?". All those games I owned and paid real money for would be lost; I just got spooked.
As a consumer I decided that I didn't want to sink money into my Steam account any longer, not because I didn't get a physical copy of these games, but because I knew nothing in this world lasts forever. Can anyone really say when their in their eighties they know for sure that they will still be able to log into Steam? I know one thing, I'll still have backed up somewhere my copy of Fallout 2 I downloaded from GOG, and it will run, even if this website goes the way of the dinosaur.
As I said to start, this is to do with personal preference. I prefer games which respect me as a consumer instead of assuming I'm a pirate. I don't know, there is probably a million rebuttals to what I've said, but its just what I believe is right. Copy protection will always be around, but I'm choosing to avoid it as much as possible, and I blame no one or anything for it.

I think you're oversimplifying the matter a bit. I'd agree it's silly if people only dislike Steam because they can't buy a certain game through it, but I don't think this in itself is a reason that all that many people dislike Steam. I think it comes more from things such as region-locking keeping from their purchases if they change their country of residence or not being able to get the game in their language of choice because only certain languages are offered in the country they're in; also that regional pricing and currency issues make people they're paying more than they should for a game. In short, they feel that what Steam is offering is not worth their money, which is no different from my fundamental reason for not buying from Steam. There are also probably some who dislike Steam because they feel their business practices are unfair to consumers or anti-competitive, and thus they don't want to support such practices with their money. There's nothing wrong with this perspective either; it may not be your cup of tea, but it's still a perfectly reasonable and rational reason for avoiding business with a company.

But that's the reason I got involved in this argument. Bansama was attacking valve and steam unjustly in my opinion, by saying that it is their fault empire is not on steam in Japan.
and that is alright. you don't like steam for some reason? I'll probably not agree but it is alright. I did have a problem with:
"Of course it's Valve's fault" by bansama.
This is clearly (at least to me :) ) unjust opinion and undeserved attack. I'll tried to explain why it is only sega's fault and valve has nothing to do with that.

I am interested in this last point; how have Steam become anti-competetive? What unfair business practices?

The thing is, region limitations promote piracy, in the same way that staggered releases do, only more so. There are no regions on the internet (well, there are if you live in certain totalitarian regimes, but you know what I mean), and the way things have developed, this means that everyone is your neighbour, pretty much. So when you see your neighbours getting new games or movies, and are told that you can't have them for another couple of weeks, or indeed at all, piracy ensues. It's showing people how everyone else are getting new and wonderful things, while depriving them of any legal way to get them themselves.

Well it seems that steam is now a requirement for a number of retail games which have never been dependant on a 3rd party service such as steam before. That kind of thing reduces or even eliminates the chances of somebody other than steam legally offering the same service. From what I've read, MP for all steam games is handled through steam and can't be done legally by a 3rd party (this is just an impression I've gotten from reading things on the net, I don't play MP at all and hardly ever use steam so its probably safe to assume this impression is wrong). That may well be what DarrkPhoenix was referring to.

that's is incorrect. game can still be available outside steam if developer whishes so. there is plenty to choose from
EA for example
Impulse
d2d
gametap
they offer similar service to steam (well gametap is rental). so how can steam be anti-competitive when there is plenty other platform to choose and no game is forced to be locked to the steam unless developer desires so?

So can you play empire total war or dawn of war 2 without steam?

If the publisher chose to offer it through a service other than or in addition to Steam, yes. If they didn't choose to do that, then no.
BTW - I honestly don't know if those particular games are currently tied exclusively to Steam or not.
BTW2 - We seem to keep coming back to the point I've been trying to make all along, Steam is not the problem, its the publishers who choose to use it that is the problem.

In other words, guns don't kill people, people kill people. So why tighten up the gun laws? They can't possibly be part of the problem.

That's a bit extreme. Steam is not likely to kill anyone.
Even if publishers choose to use Steam, they can choose to not use its more undesirable functions and simply use it as a store front, but they don't. That's the real problem.

/OT
GOG.COM makes DRM obsolete
/end OT

It was an analogy to your reasoning, not to the issue at hand, as I'm sure you very well know.