Man who gives a crap. Valve's been there right from 98 since HL1, giving the community modding tools and helping modders grow. I dont give a shit about steam. Ive had to use it since its release in 2003 fall/winter and i really never had ANY troubles with it. Malware? Spyware? I dont think so. It gives you that RARE ad or news update about stuff like teh recent HL2DM map contest once a month or less. Does that bother you? Do you feel your anus is being raped by this? Give me a break and stop bitching. If you dont have an internet connection in 2005 dont blame Valve for this. But seriously, you DO have the option of an offline mode and it works without much of a hassle. All they want is one activiation. I see no spyware at all, i dont get any unneeded u/d activity when i have steam running. If your system is clogging when running steam ,then maybe its time to upgrade or clean out your system.
You guys really need to stop bitching about useless things, there are better things to do then to slap Valve like theyre the evil empire or whatever. Without Valve's support early on after HL1's release, which they were never under any oblingation to do, you wouldnt have people being able to mod things so easily. If you cant afford to connect to the internet for a short period of time to activate HL2 then its not their problem cuz it says on the box you need an internet connection. And even if they did not state this clearly on the German retail boxes, just fk'n activate that shit elsewhere then play at home offline. For a country with so many gamers like Germany im suprised that people would buy this and not have the internet on their home computer.
This comment was edited on Feb 7, 13:48.