Even games published by Valve are available at places other than the Steam store so go to Best Buy or wherever and buy the DVD. Problem solved!
Glares at Athena, taps 24th September entry on a nearby calendar which has written next to it “Non-US territories launch of Civ 5”
Please don’t make me feel worse.
Installing Steam on your computer is still required to play them.
Apparently Firaxis has decided that the “enhancements” Steam offers will make them more money than otherwise. Time will show if they’re right. Still, they won’t be seeing my money.
Because if they didn’t do this, they’d have to develop two significantly different versions of the game which might have some trouble interfacing. As it is, they get to use the full toolkit of steamworks, which is sort of like xbox live. They can have the game integrate stuff like comparing your friend’s stats to your own in the menus, achievements that everyone can see, high quality matchmaking, ease of joining friends in game, cloud support to get your save games and option settings on multiple computers, etc.
Sure, they could write two totally seperate versions with seperate interfaces and seperate matchmaking systems and seperate everything, but why? Because of a knee-jerk dislike of steam, which is a lightweight and well designed program anyway?
They don’t have to. They could have designed one version of the game, a version that doesn’'t have anything to do with Steam at all. Nobody made them decide to use Steam. That said, they’re obviously aiming at a target market that doesn’t include me, and maybe it’ll work for them.
Oh, boy. Gosh. How exciting.
Fine - you don’t like those features - but what harm does it do to you to have to have 40 whole megabytes of steam loaded in memory in the background? You can still launch the game from a shortcut on the desktop or start menu and pretty much ignore it.
A Civ V DVD requires Steam for a one-time authentication only.
And remove Steam after installation.
I’m the one who gets to decide what programs are on my computer. I don’t want Steam on my computer, and Firaxis doesn’t get to strongarm me into adding it just because I’ve played thousands of hours of Civilization over the last two decades. I suspect I’ll continue to muddle through life without Civ V, somehow.
[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher]
A Civ V DVD requires Steam for a one-time authentication only.
[/QUOTE]
You’ll need it for patches. You’ll need it for upgrades.
None of this answers the question I asked.
Sure it does. You asked me what harm it does. It forces me to put a program on my computer that I don’t want.
Well, I didn’t intend to have my participation in this thread turn into a squabble about Steam - it just sort of growed like Topsy. I hope you enjoy the game. I’ll be over here trying to replay Crusaders of the Dark Savant with six faerie ninjas. 
This really isn’t meant to be an insult so please don’t take it as one, but you do realise that this statement comes off as the whine of a petulant teenager right?
What is so terrible about Steam that you’d completely forgo getting a game you might otherwise be interested in because Steam is required? I’m not keen for this to be a for or against steam thread either but I’m just sitting here going 
when people say “yeah I’d like to get this game but it requires Steam and there’s no way I’m putting THAT on my computer”, as if Steam were kiddie porn or something. And okay I get that a lot of the features cited as the key ones of Steamworks might not be of particular interest to you, but they are to a lot of other people, so Firaxis has obviously done a cost benefit analysis and worked out it’s just a lot less work in the long run to implement all these features through a platform that tons of people have and works very well.
So please, help me understand where you’re coming from on this.
For me, it’s because I’m sick of the constant battle of trying to keep unnecessary garbage out of my memory and off my computer. Virtually every software publisher out there insists on installing some unneeded “utility” or somesuch along with their program that takes up memory, and I’ve had it. So I’m wary of anything that states up front that some program I don’t want is required.
In the case of Steam, even if I could just install it to get Civ 5 running, then I’ll have to uninstall it, and root through the registry to make sure it’s really gone. This is a pain in the ass, and I shouldn’t have to do it.
ETA: If Civ 5 was a game I was looking forward to, it would be worth the effort to go ahead and install/uninstall Steam.
Considering that around 90% of the games currently on my computer are through Steam, I’d say that Steam actually reduces your problem. Imagine if had to choose between:
A) Buying retail and having to install and uninstall a brand new annoying “utility”.
B) Just use the same “utility” that 90% or your games already use, and has been on your computer since day one.
Since this isn’t 2003 anymore, can we just ignore the anti-Steam brigade and talk about Civ 5?
Does anyone have the list of Civ 5 achievements?
I dumped my own list of achievements and these are pretty damn boring.
I pre-ordered the game on Amazon 4 months ago and I checked in on my order tonight. I’m very, very pissed to see that they are estimating that it will be shipped on September 27th! I didn’t pony up for the obnoxious “release day” shipping assuming I could wait the 2-3 days that comes with typical shipping, but I didn’t expect that they’d punish me by making me wait maybe 10 days to get the fucking thing. Making things worse Amazon won’t let me cancel the order so I can go to Best Buy Tuesday because it’s been “being prepared for shipment” for the entire weekend. If it’s being prepared why in the Holy Fuck is it due to ship out on the 27th?
Anyways, enough with the rant. This is the last time I buy any games from Amazon. It sucks that you people will probably be burned out and bored with the game and the thread will be 20+ pages long before the damn thing even shows up at my door.
This concerns me so I checked everywhere to see some reference to it, but couldn’t find any…so…cite?
Go buy it at Best Buy, and return the Amazon shipment when it comes. There’s actually a return reason that’s something like “shipment didn’t come in a timely fashion.” They’re very good about returns - if you can catch the UPS guy, you can just refuse the shipment altogether and you’ll get a refund.
I dunno, I’m tickled about the “Discover Horse riding first as Catherine the Great” one (yes, yes, I know it never happened and it was a ridiculous smear. It’s still funny.)