What's with the constant Steam key requests?

[lizifox]

automatic updating and having all your games in one place is nice and everything.  but truth be told, I just want it for one thing: "the total hours played" counter.

how else will I ever know when i played RW more than I've played Civ5? 

[IkeaSwede]

määh, I just really prefer to have everything on steam, so i dont have to navigate my computer each time I want to play a new game. Steam is a hella lot faster and convinient to use is all.

[narkul]

OK, fair enough, and at first I figured it would be something like that (convenience, basically).
Then I read somewhere that it's possible to add other games to a Steam account.

I don't know how it's done, but I've seen a few people mention this, so it seems credible.
If true, we're back to my original question: why is a Steam key such a big deal?  Just buy RW normally, then add it to your Steam account.

I understand it's an extra step, but surely that doesn't explain why so many people complain about it.  [And some get pretty upset, too.]

Adding a non-steam game to steam is basically just creating a shortcut to launch the game from within the steam interface, none of steams integration features will be available. No stat tracking, workshop, achievements, leader boards, friend stats, auto-updates, etc.

If you have to format your system, your hard drive dies, or you buy a new computer, all you need to do is install steam and pick out the games you want to install from your steam games list and wait for them to download. Those games not natively integrated won't be in the list, even if you previously manually added them. You'll have to hunt down all your non-steam games through websites and sift through piles of optical disks. Steam's convenience is priceless to me just for that.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Adding a non-steam game to steam is basically just creating a shortcut to launch the game from within the steam interface, none of steams integration features will be available. No stat tracking, workshop, achievements, leader boards, friend stats, auto-updates, etc.

If you have to format your system, your hard drive dies, or you buy a new computer, all you need to do is install steam and pick out the games you want to install from your steam games list and wait for them to download. Those games not natively integrated won't be in the list, even if you previously manually added them. You'll have to hunt down all your non-steam games through websites and sift through piles of optical disks. Steam's convenience is priceless to me just for that.

^^ This, all this.

In regards to Steam, I at one time was a big opponent of Steam. And I still have worries, but that only relates to what happens if/when Gabe is gone (i.e. quits, scandal, dies, etc.), as long as Gabe is there I mostly have faith in what Steam is doing and their policies.

[Jarwy]

Hopefully people realize the risk of giving Valve so much power...

I much prefer GoG's approach of; you have the installation files. In the murky future, even things as mundane as the Internet access might be called in question. No automatic updates, but frankly, I'm from the old generation. Downloading updates is not a big deal.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Hopefully people realize the risk of giving Valve so much power...

I much prefer GoG's approach of; you have the installation files. In the murky future, even things as mundane as the Internet access might be called in question. No automatic updates, but frankly, I'm from the old generation. Downloading updates is not a big deal.

I agree, and if this game were to come out on GoG, I may go that route. Although that might also depend on if GoG has any plans to do something similar to Steam Workshop. Steam Workshop is a pretty killer feature.

While I want all my games in one place, two isn't too bad, I can live with that. Not like I don't already have some there as well. It's mostly not wanting a bunch of one game only places to keep track of, that'd get messy/annoying.