darksiege wrote:
I have been looking at the about section... what exactly is Steam? is it an Emulator to play all these games?
Steam is Valve's digital distribution and matchmaking architecture for PC games.
You download a free client (the Steam client) that will connect to an HTML (? Used to be, now it might be CSS or PHP or something -- browser-based, in any case, though it's only accessible to the in-client browser engine) store in which you can browse games published by Valve and other publishers who contract to make their games available on Steam. Steam provides an SSL encrypted checkout system that can be paid with credit cards or, I think, Paypal.
Steam will also allow you to manage your library of games -- your account keeps a list of games you've purchased on Steam (or, in the case of Valve and a very small number of other publishers, games you might have purchased as a box from a brick and mortar or mail order retailer, and then entered the Steam code for after you installed the game off the disc -- this process links the game to your Steam account. As I said, though, Valve and only 1 or 2 other developers have done this). From this list, you can choose to download and install games, uninstall games (which will remove local content only, while still retaining them in your account -- so you can reinstall them at a later date) or start up games you've installed.
Steam also automatically manages updates and patches to games. It has the option to run the client in the background at start-up, in which case it will background download updates for any installed game as soon as they're made available.
Many multiplayer games on Steam use Steam's matchmaking services, which were derived from Gamespy's old matchmaking client (Valve partnered with Gamespy way back in the beginning for this purpose).
Steam also has a friends system, by which you can add friends with mutual authorization, and from then on be notified by the client when they are playing a game (along with which game they're playing, and the option to start the same game and connect to the multiplayer server they're on, if possible), and see what games your friends have been playing lately, as well.
A few years ago, Steam added an achievement system similar to Live!'s. Steam also provides excellent voice chat functions, which multiplayer games can integrate in-game if they choose.
Steam's content management system and account-based nature allows Steam to function as a basic copyright infringement protection for games downloaded on its network -- since Steam must be running to execute Steam-downloaded games, and two computers can't be logged into the same account at once, there's no need to put additional copyright protection in Steam-delivered software. Steam has an offline mode that can allow you to run it when not connected to the internet if you set it to run offline on that computer before you're disconnected. Valve also provides the option for games which use Steam's matchmaking to use Valve's VAC system (Valve Anti-Cheat) which uses the content delivery infrastructure to scan for file tampering.
TL;DR:
Steam is the bomb.
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After I read the entire post!
now its on sale for cheap