If you want the game badly(or any Steamworks game) and don't want to be a pirate you can always buy the retail box. You get a nice box, Manual , and a shiny coaster. Then simply grab the cracked version of it where you can play singleplayer(and some even MP) without ever installing steam. The Devs/Pub have their sale, you have your game, and no Steam installed.

They can still get you for violating the Digital Millennium act (which by the way is unconstitutional by US laws which is why they almost never enforce it here), but I can't think of a case where anyone was actually prosecuted for doing so.

There's a lot of info about Elemental, it's just scattered all over the place. Right now with beta 1 we're pretty limited in terms of what we can do, but it plays kind of like Age of Wonders 2 with a stronger leader unit and a lot more resources.

I still see plenty of worthy games not being tied to a particular platform. Machinarium comes to mind as a recent title (even though it's just a single flash file). Regarding full-blown games, Paradox Interactive is selling their titles through numerous channels, and the games don't require any online verification component.

I have the Matrix Games twitch... but no, I'll resist. Suffice to say that there are other small publishers which make astonishingly good games that have zero DRM, and these games will keep you happily occupied for years.

That said, there are worse things to happen to a game or a brand than Steamworks. Like an acquisition that completely derails the design process, milking the product with endless overpriced DLCs and ruining the whole game in the name of making it more "accessible". Certain highly anticipated events in January, that actually turned out to be totally anticlimactic, and the subsequent paid "expansions" made me give up on the mainstream market altogether.

You expect stupid people to make that distinction? They see Impulse, they see Demigod. They make the connection.

Anyway if I buy Total Annihilation Kingdoms 2   KnightsAndMerchants   Stronghold   KnightsAndCastles it will enterily depend on if its a good game or not. So far... not so much (Im thinkin SupCom2 with hover knights instead of hover tanks).

I agree with you completely on this.  I guess I am old fashioned, I prefer to have information I can read through.

Steamworks nor Raknet handle in game connectivity.  GPG's network code on SupCom 2 was simply a lot better than what was in Demigod.  It isn't Raknet's fault or Steamwork's boon that the game sim stutters in Demigod if there is lag.

All raknet/steamworks does is connect the players together and hand the socket to the game.

If the PC does become a closed platform, it's no skin off my back. There are lots of other platforms to develop for.  It's consumers who lose, not game developers.  You don't need to worry about us. We'll be fine.  It's people who don't want their big budget games consolized that lose out.  

Right now, Steamworks is the ONLY option because ever other potential alternative on the market has to monetize their library (Securom, GameSpy, GFWL).  Steam makes their money because Steamworks gets the title exclusively on Steam which helps generate Valve money.

Impulse::Reactor will be the alternative but won't be out until this Summer and even then, only time will tell whether the industry will use it.

But consumers don't have any say in the matter because the decisions are made at the developer and publisher level.