Kind new to PC gaming all over again since I've been a mac guy for the last 8 years. is Steam just like Xbox live or PSN but for PCs? is it free or is there some kinda monthly fee? so any game that's supported there can be played on their network and you can hook up with other players online through it? Do I have to buy the game through them and download it for it to work, or will any game I get at a store work just fine?

Steam is free. It's mostly a downloading service, although there are some games that use it for matchmaking as well -- including store-bought CD games.

Advantages: can play games anywhere, many are dirt cheap if you wait for sales
Disadvantage: no physical copy, you can't trade or sell what you buy

And like XBox Live or PSN, you create a profile and there are friends lists and stuff which let you see what other people are playing, lets you chat, and join groups.

There's a DVDTalk group, although i'm not sure how many people here still pay attention to it. But yeah, since it's free it doesn't hurt to download it, create an account, and browse the program and the services it offers. It's pretty nifty, and the winter sale on games old and new have been pretty fantastic.

It has achievements as well. It's a great service. I've had it ever since Half Life 2 came out for the PC.

Steam started out as a largely hated "big brother! DRM is evil!" service. It actually wasn't bad from the get go and has only gotten better with time. As much resistence as there has been toward downloading games over physical copies... it has become so insanely affordable and convenient that it's tough to complain.

Steam is now a community like Xbox Live with your friends list, matchmaking and game organization. It also saves your games (Steam Cloud) in some games so if you install the game on another PC you will be able to resume where you left off. They also run a lot of sales on software. It's also terrific at Key management.

There are some physical titles you can purchase and add to your steam account -- Meaning you can download it in the future should you lose your media.

I love Steam. It was real shaky when it came out back in 2003, but now it is THE PC gaming app to have. You can get a lot of games dirt cheap with no long install times (not counting download times), no cd-keys to fuss with, no discs to scratch or lose and a huge community. It also has built in cheat protection in a lot of games.

What I find amazing about is that a video game developer owns and operates it, Valve, and other publishers and devs have pretty much bowed down to them and offered their products through the service. That's how popular it is.

Steam has done a lot to appease the gamers of the DRM fears. I agree with Richc2's assessment that the deals are just too good to pass up most of the time. This week I got CivIV complete for $13, that's ridiculous.

It's even better if you have the Steam games like Left 4 Dead or Team Fortress 2, as it serves as matchmaking and friends. We even have a DVDTalk group on Steam you can join and find people to play games with.

Some of my posts are missing from this thread.

See the Feedback forum. All posts from yesterday seem to be lost.