Originally Posted by Jack
My biggest gripe with steam is that it's always mandatory and used as a means to control the customers. What if I simply do not want to use steam? That means I won't buy the game because there isn't an option to play the game without it (not resorting to piracy that is).
If there's more than a disc-check and a serial key I won't buy it.

I know that using steam is beneficial for devs, but let's not pretend that it is meant to provide a better experience for customers since they would have made it optional in that case.

Steam stopped me from buying New Vegas. I wanted to support obsidian, but not steam. Which meant I didn't buy the game, instead I pirated it.
As a pirate I got a better user experience than I would have had if I bought the game.
I could play it offline at anytime without activation, hassle free without providing gaben with data about my playthroughs. I didn't need to install anything beyond the game and didn't pay a cent.

As a consumer I have no reason to buy the game instead of downloading it illegally. Instead of punishing customers I believe companies should reward buyers. How is that stupid?

The game having Steam is no excuse for piracy since you can do what I do and buy the game from a store and then download a crack. You don't even have to download the actual game since the cracks are out there separate from the pirated versions of the games.