Steam Passes 30M Users [Oct 18, 2010, 11:19 am ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Valve announces that Steam has surpassed the 30 million account mark. Here's word on some of what this represents:
During the past 12 months the platform had year-over-year new user growth of 178%, pushing the total number of active accounts to over 30 million, with over 1,200 games now offered. Peak simultaneous player numbers were also up to over three million, with over six million unique gamers accessing Steam each day.
In addition to new user growth, Steam sales during the trailing 12 months increased by more than 200%, putting it on track for a sixth straight year of realizing over 100% year-over-year growth in unit sales. To meet this demand, the Steam infrastructure has been increased and now has ability to run at 400Gps, enough bandwidth to ship a digitized version of the Oxford English Dictionary 92.6 times per second.
Verno wrote on Oct 19, 2010, 09:12:
That's kind of my point. You're expecting anonymity when you surrendered it by registering at all.
Well... that's kind of my point... forced registration. Something I don't have to do with a Retail Copy. As for expecting "anonymity"... I expect the exact same treatment as if I bought the game from a store. I buy the product, and leave me alone. At most, the only thing a store can do is track what you bought with the same CC.
Verno wrote on Oct 19, 2010, 09:12:
You're going to have to give up some info to make a purchase online period but that aside... Yes, they want you to sign up for an account on their service because they want to make it easier for you to purchase more games from them in the future and depending on the ToS, I'm sure some do sell your info or demographics to advertisers. So read the fine print.
Again, I don't wish to participate in targeted advertising. I am THAT adverse to advertising. If I want something I research it. I don't need everything under the sun trying to get me to buy something. I shouldn't have to be worried about being spammed (one way or another) when I go to purchase something.
Anyway... I digress.
Is Steam convenient? In some ways... yes.
Is it also intrusive? Absolutely.
Is it the same intrusiveness as DRM schemes that make you activate / deactivate, or limited number of activations, or be online constantly? No. But, IMO, it's still intrusive compared to buying physical media and cracking it (so media DRM intrusiveness is thwarted before even connecting to the Net)
Get your games from GOG DAMMIT!
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