You have got to be freaking kidding me.  Game after game after game requiring Steamworks.  So yet another high anticipated game that I will not buy.  I'm about to just give up on all gaming at this rate.  Seriously.

whats so bad about steam exactly, i've had steam for ages, never had an issue with it.  Even back when i had really bad net i could always play in offline mode just fine.

if the game has alway online drm as well as steamworks thats another thing, but so long as it's just steam it's just as rosy as impulse

From Nick's post: "We made the decision to use Steam after looking at all the various options out there and decided that it provided the best, least intrusive experience for PC gamers. We think you’ll agree."

I thought the least intrusive experience was Impulse Reactor.  But hey, I'm just a PC gamer.  What would I know?

If a game is multiplayer, I can understand why Steamworks would be useful (matchmaking and anti-cheat mainly).  I can see no benefits however for players when a game is single player like New Vegas is.

Elemental is going to be the first game to use it, so I think when that gets released, IR will be released for other companies to use. So hopefully after August we'll start to see games using Reactor.

Impulse reactor isn't yet an option for others companies. Stardock needs first to prove that it works correctly. And that will be done with Elemental.

I'm just trying to figure this out. So civ 5 and Fallout 3, even if I buy them at a store will force me to download and use steam in order to play?  And also does Steam get to be the only place to purchase a digital copy if one chooses to not buy a physical copy of the game?

- Yes

- I'm not sure for F:VN, but for other Steamworks titles you can buy steam key on direct2drive, gamesplanet... I think Impulse is the only digital distributor which doesn't sell Steam product (for obvious reasons).

I'm still trying to get through Fallout 3, so I really had no intention of getting New Vegas.  However, I am a huge Elder Scrolls fan, so I really hope that TES V does not use Steam.

I really didn't like Fallout 3 so New Vegas was a "no go" from the start for me. Neverthless, I can't really say I have nothing at all against Steamworks. It sure is ten times better than that huge pile of crap called GFWL.

Said that, I was wondering if Stardock, D2D, Gamersgate, etc.. have at least tried to reach an agreement with Valve, about making Steamworks some sort of shared standard, extended to the competing platforms too.

P.S. Guys, seriously, what's wrong with this forum and Chrome? It's pretty annoying to have your messages deleted so often  due to bugs when sending them.

No one is preventing other platforms from offering Steamworks titles except themselves. Impulse, Direct2Drive & Co tried to force publishers to stop using Steam and failed. Now they can keep loosing money or start to win back some of their costumers by offering a better service like lowering prices. Customers don't care if the game is bundled with a store, they buy where it's cheap. If Stardock is selling Fallout: New Vegas five or ten bucks less than Steam does, they would make tons of money.

Here's the thing though with GFWL and Fallout 3.  All that was required was that GFWL was installed.  That's it.  I never once ran it, I still don't have an account on it and don't plan on it.  All FO3 cared wast that it was just installed.  I chose not to use any of the GFWL features and thus never used it.  Maybe it's different with other games, I don't know.

Impulse is similar in that it just needs to be installed to get patches and nothing else.  Heck, you can even uninstall Impulse once your game is installed and never use it again if you don't want patches (or patches are available stand alone).

But Steam and Steamworks is totally different.  The DRM portion I have no issue with, say a one time login registration.  But after that to be forced to keep Steam on my computer and running when I play a game is what is unacceptable to me and many others.  Along with the whole monopoly thing.

If Steam were simply a digital store and DRM I don't think there would be the outcry against it.  It's that it forces itself on you, even for a single player only game, is what is unacceptable.