Steam launches European beta; UK's read

[smilodon]

Buy through Amazon affiliates and also click the paypal link and put a few quid in.... even better :devil:

[T-Bag]

I agree none Valve games may not be as easy to port about onto other computers and being able to use the Steam cloud is a nice concept.

When I format I leave my Steam installation on a second harddrive. When I reinstall Steam I select the folder that I use before and it picks up all the old game files so it doesn't need to download them again.
(I've also copied files across the network from my brother when we'd both bought the same game to save on bandwidth)
My point being. Rather than taking the disk with the game on you can put your steam game files on a disk, memory stick of portable hard drive and be up and running maybe even faster than the install.

My steam folder is upto 80GB, but if I was going round a friends house to play CS:S or TF2 I could grab the Source games folder which is just a couple of gigs and could fit on a memory stick or even a Micro SD card and you could carry it in your wallet (copying to and from would take forever though).

(I do agree though, the L4D method of buying and activating is the best, I have a disk which is always nice to own, and it is registered to steam so all the advantages that go with that).

[b00n]

Yup, the Valve method of registering their games on steam is definitely the best, but I don't know how keen other developers would be to adopt that for disc copies, even if their games are also sold through steam.

In any case I work for Game so that's where I buy my games for the moment.

[GhostMjr]

Both T-bag and Smilo have made valid points.

I bought the gta pack before gta 4 came out as it was cheap but had a couple of issues. I got the auto generated email back from valve too informing me that they were simply the retailer. Eventually after a few emails and a phone call I got the problem solved with a techie from take 2 who guided me through how to sort out the problem due to a couple of game play issues.

Steam's prices are sometimes a tad high but often EA sells its games through EA downloader for much higher prices without any discount in the long run. Often Direct 2 drive has cheap deals for us Brits but you would need to patch it up too. I like the buy the box and insert the key routine as suggested by boon and did this for lfd but it is a waste of packaging for just a key which does sometimes feel irritating. Sometimes the actual reason for the high steam prices is to make sure steam cannot undercut high street retailers who are linked to the publishers through a corporate deal. However, steam do have cheap weekend offers on a regular basis to snap up parts of their catalogue which i often do.

Whitey is correct with regard to the security aspect as with steam your key or link to the game as it were is forever and hopefully unless your account is stolen cannot be compromised.