I Have Seen The Future, And it is Annoying

[CCountZero]

Not sure if anyone else has notified Mr. Young about this yet, but there are in fact games purchased on Steam that don't actually require you to have steam running while playing.

True, if you start the game from the "-applaunch" icons that Steam will make for you, then yes, you will not be able to shut down Steam while the game is running.

However, all of the games you buy on Steam gets put into:

Steam\steamapps\common
&
Steam\steamapps\(Your account name)

Quite a few of these games will be launchable via the standard icons that you would have with the same type of game bought from Direct2Drive or even retail boxed.

Somehow I imagine this information might be useful to a lot of you

 

[Gringoloco]

Steam is ok for me, but I really think they should implement a COMPELTEY OFFLINE MODE that actually lets you play games... (except for their multiplayer parts) I shouldn't need to connect to the net to play Mass Effect 2. Also, if you buy your game on steam, you shouldn't be forced to use another app - like GFWL... which is TERRIBLE! Steams community features are way better than that.. i dont get why the developers just stick to it.

 

[The Buck Stops Here]

This, combined with a lack of finances, keeps me only playing games that don't require other programs running in the background to play and freeware games.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

I'm on board with you, Shamus. Casual gamers tell me 'what's one more process' when I demand of my laptop that nearly every non-critical item be shut down while I game. 'Your computer is decked out anyway'.

This future sounds like a nightmare. I was hoping Steam could solve all my problems, I noticed early on that it avoided some of the more painful DRM like Bioshock 2 had, but if it's going to progress to multiple process per game, I don't know what the answer is. Maybe take up sports or something.