This thread is becoming surprising civil.

Shall I pour some tea?  

Hmm... Although no one jumped all over me for it, I still got a couple of responses to the paranoid thing. Perhaps I should be clear.

I have no loyalty to a company. Do a good job and I reward with my business. Slip and I leave. That's not to say I don't understand that minor slips happen, but there are limits to all things. I loved Blizzard games for some time and then right around the release of Warcraft III, I found myself walking away from them without looking back since. All this establishes is that I have no special connection to Stardock, Ironclad or any other company.

My father and brother both use Steam. My brother uses it for single player games and very few of them. He has had a good experience overall. My father uses it for multiplayer games and several of them. He has had mixed experiences, from Steam suddenly eating memory by the ton to the server screwing with him to long periods of happy functionality. I have CDs and the occasional digital copy of a game. I reload them whenever I choose, on any machine I choose, and often without any access to the internet. I do not play many multiplayer games and amongst those that I have, I have only casually done so. I do not gain anything from the use of Steam, in any regard. I have not used multiplayer in some time. I don't care about achievements. My stats mean nothing from day to day. Patching is not difficult. Modding is just as simple. Any problems that could arise from Steam are not worth the fact that I have not had any issues without it.

I am security conscious. This is where people will say I am going overboard, but the truth is that I do engage in online business and I do have files and potential data that I prefer not be released to the public at large. I do not expect that Steam will steal anything of mine. I know how data mining works and am not so foolish as to think more of it. I also understand that anytime I make a purchase, download, or any other interaction with the world, I am briefly open to input and output of data. However, I will only leave only so many windows. With my money, I have one bank that I operate my personal finances through. Another for my business finances. I plan for yet another for upcoming investments. I know that my money is in the hands of others and those hands can fail. If one were to be struck, the other two are not open to assault. This way I am protected from total loss. People recognize this truth. You keep track of your credit card purchases. You worry when a check doesn't clear or goes missing. You hug the ATM close so no one sees your PIN number. Despite this common worry, people fail to realize why identity theft still manages to grow. People make bad choices for security questions, passwords, online security, and they even sometimes put way too much information on publicly accessible Facebook pages. In the digital world, people are too lax. I prefer to keep the smallest number of windows possible and see that those windows I find necessary are secure.

Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that I will not miss anything for rejecting Steam. There is, in part, a principle concerning their EULA, their ownership of my material, and even the label of 'thief' that one may feel is attached to them, but more than anything, it's the fact that I lose nothing. I'm sure I would enjoy the story to Fallout: New Vegas or the action in Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, but I am playing games less and less often as time goes by. I have more friends than I use to and see them more than I use to. I have traveled more, taken up more hobbies, and experienced more 'firsts' in the last five years of my life than most of the rest. I guess I'm just coming into my own. Point remains that for every game I never play again, I turn that time to another pursuit. Although I have played some brilliant games, I can't say any outweigh any other experience. There is no loss on my part should I not play a video game.

Not asking SD or IC to reconsider or care. I am not hating anyone who likes Steam or Steam itself. Simply making it known that I am certainly not their audience in this situation. I wish them no more or less luck than I wish upon any other group of people I do not personally know.

Indeed, I didn't say anything real confrontational in the OP but somewhat expected it to get some flames by the second page. Perhaps I need to brush up on my Britishisms in case this lasts the 24 hour mark and I can finally enjoy your tea.

It just disappoints me that we have to give up our rights to products that we purchase. Steam blocks you from your entire library if you cheat or anything like that; who is cheating hurting? It isn't like you're stealing anything. They also lock your entire account if for some reason your paypal messes up. Say all your payments get charged back for some reason and one of those was Steam you don't get to play any of your games. Maybe you get a gift from a friend and he decides to try to cheat the system after you have accepted your steam gift and charge back steam on purpose - you are out your entire library and have to pay them back for something that isn't your fault. You see what I am getting at. Steam is like Stalin in USSR era Russia - if you have any disagreement with the glorious leader you will get black bagged and no one will ever see your ass again.

I was going to leave this thread alone, but you be trollin hard bro. 

Cheating hurts the honest users that rely on Steam to ensure fair gameplay. I am a pretty good sport, but I hate to have a game ruined by unskilled wanks that have no regard for the other people in the server. And that friend thing sounds like a scam. If your friend really did that to you, then they screwed you, not Steam. And please don't generalize about Stalin. Almost all of the people thrown in prison were loyal communists just trying to make the world a better place. It is a completely different situation here. Stalin was a mass murderer who destroyed one of the best chances at a free socialist society the world has ever seen. He is not similar to Steam. The question I have to ask is why are there so many unsubstantiated accusations in your post? It seems like maybe you just don't like them for some other reason and are coding that dislike with these baseless comments. Best not to analyze a troll though. 

True. However, that does nothing to address his other concern(s)...

This is one of the reasons that Steam worries me. 

Those that have been around a while will know that I was a Steam hater for years.  Then Stardock sold off Impulse and I refuse to ever do business with Gamestop so I had to look at Steam as an alternative.  So I downloaded it (had used it way back in the day but that was 2 computers ago) and it ran fine.  Heck, my old account still worked and I could immediately download Orange Box games I had from 4 years previous.  Nice.

Anyway, I bought a couple cheap games and things went fine.  Then Skyrim was announced to require Steam and that pretty much did it for me, I was now a Steam user.  Well, less then a year later and massive super sales I have nearly 50 games already, most for under $10.  Steam just does not take that much memory to run and there are games like Crusader Kings 2 and looks like Sins that will not require Steam to run to play.  So just get those games then if you don't want Steam running.  You can use Steam for those games just like you used Impulse, install, validate and patch (and of course if you want to do MP).  Other then that forget Steam is even installed.  And it's a very simple to find checkbox to not have Steam run on boot up.  It was easier to find then it was for Impulse Now anyway.  LOL

I'm undecided if I plan to get Sins Rebellion yet or wait for a super sale.  But I think it's a great move to use Steamworks for MP because it's pretty much plug and play for Stardock/ICO to use.  Sure there will be a few (very few) who will refuse to buy the game because of Steam but that will pale in comparison to the tens of thousands of new buyers coming to the game via Steam.  Especially if it's good and they do a 50-75% off sale during the Summer Steam sales (or wait until the Winter sales if it's selling well at full price).

Just think were Demigod could have gone if they had used Steamworks for MP.  It probably would have been a huge hit.

Until someone comes up with something good to compete with Steamworks we don't have much choice other then to not buy.  I personally am not going to cut my gaming enjoyment simply because of Steam.

I'm a brand spankin' new player and picked up GC2: Ultimate Edition because it was on Steam and looked fun (it is!).  I may be in the minority, but I love Steam and what it provides.  Stardock wouldn't have my $20 if their game was only in retail stores or on other digital download sites.

     Lets not fool ourselves Sins moving to Steam has anything really to do with multiplayer. Although I'm sure there are features for the very small multiplayer crowd, this will put Sins on a lot more hard drives than if sold retail(joke) or on a Stardock owned delivery system. Which is a good thing.

     The great benefit of Steam is game pricing, you can really find some bargains, and for the crowd that hates Steam, they will find they are able to afford alot more gaming entertainment as opposed to paying the regular 49.99 (forever) at Target.

The "negative" thing about this is some of us, like Darvin, GoaFan, and myself, don't like Steam, specifically Steamworks. As GoaFan mentioned above, we don't like being forced into using Steam by a company that has until recently, been the last bastion for those who don't like Steam. We do understand their decision, and don't hold it against Stardock.

Well at least the modders arn't gonna go up and quit on us.

Half the reason I got this game was for the modding community.

We understand their decision, that's the important thing, not holding it against them probably wasn't the best choice of words.

I was a steam skeptic for a long time. Now I use it quite regularly, and I have no problem with it. It's not nearly as bad as a lot of DRM (Ubisoft, I'm looking at you), and it provides a lot of other stuff beyond copy protection for developers. For example, as a poor graduate student it's my primary source of affordable games thanks to all of its sales. As someone who likes indie titles, it's a great place to find hidden gems because they host so many. As someone who uses a desktop and laptop, it's great because I can have my games on both and even share saved-games across them. I don't care about achievements or multiplayer, but I can see how Steam is great for people who do.

The bad of steam is more than outweighed by the good, to my mind. In an ideal world, I'd get rid of the bad, but I can live with it, and I get why it's there. And, at the end of the day, Steam has done more good than ill for my experience as a gamer.

Plus, it doesn't have stupid popups like Impul... I mean "GameStop Now."