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Comment by dfxm12 | Hacker News Reader

Is there a reason you care about Steam (social? something else?)? I mean in the spirit of free software, why do you want middleware to play your games through that just gets in your way and at times, could potentially prevent you from playing your games?

You don't need Steam to play these games.

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Ease of use. The downloads from Humble Bundle come with all kinds of random installers that work in different ways, and by default install your games into different places. Additionally there's no notification of updates being available, let alone downloading + installing the updates automatically or with a single click.

It's like the difference between distro packages and stuff you've compiled from release tarballs.

Ok, thanks. I get that it is more convenient, but be careful with this:

It's like the difference between distro packages and stuff you've compiled from release tarballs.

Steam collects information about you, and when Steam is down, there's a possibility that you won't be able to play your game. If you bypass steam you don't get these issues. Given this, that simile isn't apt.

Upvoted for being a good comment, but also for the (unintentional?) "apt" pun.

Using the Steam DRM is optional for developers. There are DRM free games on Steam, which means that even if Steam is down, they will still work. That said, I've never had problems with DRMed Steam games not working if the internet is down (you just need to make sure you check the "remember my login" thing when authenticating).

Oh, one other thing, is my son. He's eager to download anything resembling a game, but I've managed to get it across to him that he can't just download random 'games' and not expect bad things to happen.

I expect a little better vetting from games that are on Steam, so he has the ok to download whatever he wants from there.

Convenience. But more as a proxy to whether the game studios really care about their Linux ports, or are just checking the box then forgetting about them.

(I like the convenience of Steam, but I think having DRM-free downloads is important too.)

If you can get Steam working, pretty much any Steam game should play. You can play them outside of steam, but the headache is sometimes there. Not sure how steam is going to stop you from playing your games normally, and if it did, you can just play the regular version from humble bundle.

While I've put in some effort to get random games to play, I can tell you if Wizards of The Coast would turn their client over to Valve and let it run through Steam, it'd be a hell of a lot better than what they have now.

But I can add a game to my Steam library and never have to worry about it. I can download the game often under a minute, play it, and just as easily delete it. One day in the future I might download it again.

Another vote for convenience. As others here, I've bought games I haven't played and I can't recall any digitally purchased games that I never played.

Even though in this particular case, I can log into humble bundle and see a list there. But, it's still easier to launch steam and see what's the best way to kill a couple hours before bed.

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