I never really appreciated Steam as much as I should have. It’s always been this annoying extra-door-I-have-to-find-the-key-for type of obstacle for me. I’m always one for a more elegant solution - clicking on another couple of buttons to get my game started via some resource hogging bloatware (all 12mb of it ) was never going to go down well with me.

It was a bit short sighted of me not to realise that it was a half decent games delivery platform.

I clicked on the "Buy Now" link for Orange Box, a few mouse clicks later and I was downloading the package within minutes. Backing up the files was also quite nifty, as well as prioritising the download speed for a game when I tried to open it. Speeds were also quite respectable as I believe I was downloading from the GameArena network.

Given the amount of mods and expansions for Half Life 2, it makes sense to consolidate them into a single platform. There is even an option to add non-Steam games to the list, which is pretty nifty.

So yes, Steam is actually quite a good distribution platform. Elegant? Open to debate. But it’s good.