Varsity wrote:All Steam does during gameplay is provide a filesystem. It slows loading a little for the benefit of handling each game as a single, portable file.
Yes, congratulations for making my point. It shouldn't in any way tarnish performance. Some people find it does. I suppose that makes you right somehow?
Everyone needs to remember that Darwinia is not HL2, we have no information about the format it will be in, in effect, how steamed it will be. A more appropriate comparison would probably be with the release of Rag Doll Kung Fu, which as far as I'm aware has not had much in the way of performance complaints re the running of steam.
Otherwise the 'arguements' that are coming up relate to;
a) linux users can't as readily use steam (which doesn't matter as the linux version is still availible via IV)
b) steam is often considered obtrusive (though we don't know how protected Darwinia via steam will be) - I think many people are over reacting to the news of the steam deal when they don't know enough about it. (see slashdot for plenty of examples)
c) not all windows uses can use steam, and are effectively losing out on this deal, which doesn't exactly seem fair. However, for that Darwinia gets a very large audience (the problem has not been the high scoring reviews, it's getting people to realise it actually exists) - I'm sure this bothers you more if you're affected. I'm sure you're probably still bothered from not being able to play HL2 if this has affected you since then, too.