Originally Posted by Stargazer
Originally Posted by eisberg
...Do you seriously believe that Valve would do such a boneheaded thing like that?
Why would it be boneheaded?

Do the figures - Valve claim to have over 30 million active accounts. Imposing a $5/month "maintenance fee" would bring in an extra $1.4 billion per year, assuming an 80% acceptance rate, with virtually no extra work needed on their part.

The only downside would be the loss of new customers but that could be countered by buying in more "Steam exclusives" - half of the $1.4 billion should cover a fair few, leaving the rest for other things (Bugatti Veyrons, lap dancers, champagne, etc).
Originally Posted by eisberg
Seriously, who in their right mind would pay a monthly subscription to play their fully bought games...
Any subscriber with more than, say, $100, linked to their Steam account who would face considerable expense trying to obtain (legitimate) non-Steam versions.

With Steam, Valve have a life-or-death power over all your purchases which they have been perfectly willing to exercise.

Given this and the increasing incentive for Valve to force a subscription fee onto purchases, I would consider Steam the most dangerous form of DRM available. No other system has the same ability to hold you to ransom (other digital distribution systems like GamersGate or Impulse could pull a similar stunt, but you would only lose the ability to reinstall if you refused). GOG is the only safe digital distributor being totally DRM-free.

And for those extolling Steam's offline mode, there are plenty of reports of it not working. If Valve do intend to bring in a subscription fee, then it would clearly be in their interest to keep it from working properly - anyone care to suggest another reason for it not being fixed after so long?


At least in the US, Bait and Switch litigation would happen, and the plaintiffs would win. EULAs/Service agreements like those are legal gray area, and have been thrown out of court as being invalid agreements.