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That's all great, but it's just words. On the other hand, when I wanted to buy GTA4 on Steam from Russia, I found out that the release was North America only (and despite this, I've got bombarded by ads urging me to preload and save, etc - all also NA-specific). After seeing the ads and the trailers, I really wanted to have that game, and getting such a slap in the face on release date was... very unpleasant. I immediately went and downloaded it from the torrent, and I am not going to pay for it anymore. I wanted to in the first place, but they said "no, we won't let you". So be it, then.

I guess it's publisher policy really, not Valve, but still, Steam is and will be associated with Valve first and foremost, so maybe they should clean that mess up before speaking on this. Once I've got burned, I looked around, and I've found that there are many other games that are similarly released first only in North America, and then gradually elsewhere. There's even a Steam group, "Rest of World", that's dedicated to this problem, with over 10,000 members.

It's extraordinarily difficult to code games for a virtually infinite number of software and hardware configurations.

Fortunately, there are things like AGAR that make it almost just as easy for developing on one platform, one set of hardware.

In addition, I never have to worry about upgrading my system to ensure that I can play the latest game with all the graphics options turned on.

I don't either, I just buy a very good computer initially and after several years, a new one, also very good.

In short, I like my console more for gaming because of its simplicity.

I've avoided consoles because they were often the worse deal.

Currently with the games I am interested in and own, which have console versions, perform, look and work a lot better on the PC than on the consoles. They don't have the numerous issues or the lagg issues from not running dedicated servers etc.

Orange box is a biggy when it comes to issues, lack of updates, worse graphics, insane amount of bugs, barely anyone seems to play it anymore on the consoles due to the bugs. UT3 doesn't work as well on the consoles (annoying irritating bugs) while the PC version is fine, the graphics are slightly poorer, Left 4 Dead - it's really poor on the consoles in terms of how the AI screws up, multi player is horrendous with lag issues and visually, on my laptop it still looks better. Call of Duty 4, having to pay to get the console updates for the new maps while PC users get free copies - I don't want to do that. The graphics in that case were still, also superior on my laptop...

Don't mistaken me for a graphics freak, having slightly lesser graphics doesn't bother me -- but when I have to compare having a portable system (laptop), spending less money by spending a bit more on a PC, not forced to upgrade every five years to play the latest greatest title, getting often superior graphics (as was in all the cases above) and usually not being on the short end of the stick when it comes to the games working on a certain platform and the capability to have all these wonderful mods people create....

I don't have to pay silly subscriptions to use my own hardware as a server on my own internet connection I paid for (see xbox live), I don't have to pay to get trivial features that should be free. I'm not restricted in what a single company decides (Microsoft, Sony) I should be able to run.

On top of that, we have the console creators (Sony, Microsoft) who charge the developers for releasing various updates to their games. Requiring numerous things like having to pay for certification (which obviously don't filter bugs or improve the game quality) to paying for just having a download available, this causes the developers to stagnate greatly on updates or just simply not release them because it's too much effort. Meanwhile, the PC versions of the game are kept fully up to date with fixes etc.

Sony has tried to make the console more complicated, more like a PC.

You know, before Microsoft came on the scene, people were joking that if Microsoft ever made a console it would crash, have numerous hardware issues. The sad thing is that when they did come on the scene, they brought it all. Crashes, hardware failures (red rings of death - really a high failure rate), it's incredible. Sony's own agenda with the PS3 was not to make it PC-like, but to push bluray on everyone.

When it comes to a choice between consoles or PC... There really isn't a choice when I look at both of them logically.

But probably not as well as a PS3 (which is capable of running OpenOffice via Linux) or Xbox 360 could.

I can't agree since I often find the games I own which have console versions, perform, look and work a lot better on the PC than on the consoles [1] and as such, I prefer my laptop - Which additionally, is running Linux (the sad thing is that my Windows games, running under Wine+Linux run faster and often better than they do under Windows Vista).

By the way, per your sig, on some systems (like the YDL I have installed on my PS3) netcat is "nc"

'nc' is supposed to be the name used for the original UNIX netcat application (by *hobbit*), while 'netcat' is supposed to be the GNU version (maintained by Giovanni Giacobbi) due to some backwards compatibility issues with parameters.

I wonder if yellow dog Linux actually has the GNU version and named it "nc".

What the hell don't they understand that oppresive DRM is not the solution to piracy? Seriously, I would pirate it if I wanted to play, but that would give them more ammo to increase the invasion of DRM, so I will just pass and play something else. Steam is a nice trade-off for DRM. At least, the user benefits from automatic/user-friendly updates, and an evolving community around it. I'm actually buying games, so don't think I'm supporting piracy. http://steamcommunity.com/id/m-p-3/games

Almost every steam game, you can find and write down your product keys.

I bought all these games on Steam, some of them don't even have product keys, like X3: Reunion, X2: The threat, original Unreal Tournament, Unreal, Unreal II etc.

What do I do in those cases?

I pulled my COD4 Key out of my registry after getting it from steam.

You cannot register CoD4 keys with another Steam account.

One of the biggest resons that people are stikking with Windows, is Games.

I run all these games on Linux.

It is still not the norm to make games for other then Windows, and when game companys do, it is offen whit 6+ month delay after the windows release.

So? Use the Windows version on Linux.

So gamers can't really leave Windows :-(

Sure they can, I did.

And there is A LOT of gamers out there

And a lot of miss conceptions. I've done everything from running Microsoft Office on Linux to using specialty windows-only software.

And yet for many users they must manually edit and configure xorg.conf to get anything to work, and sometimes they never get it to work.

The chronometer on your time machine is malfunctioning -- it's 2008.

Xorg is painfully slow

It's so slow that my Windows games running under Crossover games/Wine which actively translate DXSL to GLSL in real time for a graphics server that isn't even running on ring-0 (like Windows and OS X are) is able to beat both OS X and Windows XP/Vista in performance and quality (I can boot the quality settings right up without performance issues) on the same hardware.

Now try Gentoo which doesn't autoconfigure X and see how X performs with your hardware.

I'd rather be gaming with my already good enough, better FPS than Windows/OS X setup. I'm not that much of a tweaker.

But once it's booted up it can actually play the games I want to play. Fast boot times are meaningless if you can't do what you're wanting to once it's started up.

Thank goodness I can have a fast booting system, games running faster than Windows (thanks to Crossover games) all under Linux.

- Quicken

Quicken, Quicken 2007 - 2008 works decently in Codeweavers.

- Civ4

According to, http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=2514 apparently runs very well.

- Neverwinter Nights

Also apparently runs very well.
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=870

- web (using Firefox)

- copy DVDs

I'm assuming you know of k3b.

Three of those can be done natively in either Linux or Windows - the other two require jumping through several, arguably complicated hoops. What's the point?

I pretty much stick to using Crossover over Wine for my games and everything. It uses a brain dead UI (my games work well with it - some of which have more FPS than under Windows natively).

Let's divide people into three groups: those who buy, those who make the pirated (DRM-free) version, and those who pirate.

There are plenty of games on TPB which have DRM, they just use those CDROM emulators to trick TAGES, Starforce etc.

Don't believe me? Just search for "x3: Terran Conflict" on TBP (I actually own a legal copy in you check my games list).

Those who pirate never see the DRM in the first place.

Sure they do, I just proved it to you.

Those who make the pirated version will have an easier time; this benefits the pirates ever so slightly, but DRM is often defeated faster than you can say Yo-Ho, so the benefit is ever so slight.

What? Mounting a cd image? Err.. If it still has the DRM, I don't see how.

I did my own comparisons, and really, I see the Mac tax.

I have a HP Pavilion DV6000, comes with pretty much everything. I bought it a few months ago for £400 (GBP). A Mac Mini costs £399 (GBP).

This laptop has dedicated RAM for graphic card (GeForce 8400M GS - runs all my games just fine, with excellent quality) usage, 2GB RAM, sdcard reader, firewire, A/G/B wireless, DVD burner, HDMI, three USB ports, VGA, modem, ethernet, video out, webcam, microphone...

I use this machine as my mobile gaming machine (it works great) and work stuff (software development, office work), home stuff (movie editing etc). The only disadvantage with it, is that it each core has 1.66GHz, while on the Mac Mini has 1.83GHz. That said, I couldn't use the Mac Mini for decent gaming, or for the majority of the stuff I use this laptop for without significant performance costs, lack of hardware options etc.

That's just the Mini, the cheapest laptop from Apple is the MacBook is £719.00 (GBP), which has Intel GMA graphics, no dedicated graphic card RAM, only 1GB RAM.

Sorry, I'm not convinced Apple systems are on par with PCs for their cost.

Because driverless gNewsensian purity is too much work, dear.

One would suspect you would be using a Linux system at least then with the drivers, but you went further than that and used OS X for ease of use.

Now, having been a OS X user and a neooffice user, I am aware of the many faults in Neooffice. From the stability issues to various UI issues and I cannot imagine someone who gives up functionality/ease of use over licensing, would be still using OS X after this.

Or, if I flip this around, would be using neo office for it's lack of ease of use.

Your line is so fine, that I cannot see it.

What about you? Perfectly pure, are we?

No, I don't care too much for licensing schemes. I do understand them however and their philosophies.

What I care about is what I consider superior technology, which is why I use Linux with binary drivers (I truly consider it technologically superior in many ways to any other OS offering out there), VMware (rather than some FOSS solution like dropbox or qemu - I use it for testing and development under the same OS and other OSes), Steam (running under crossover) with my game collection, KDE and it's applications, Firefox (rather than say, Iceweasel) etc.

Things like GPL/LGPL/BSD/MPL/Apache licensing are just frosting to the cake, they don't influence the decisions I make on what system I use.

I've been a long time FPS gamer (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom 1 and 2, Quake 1, 2 and 3, Duke Nukem 3D, Unreal Tournament 2004, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2).

Nowadays I play a huge amount of Team Fortress 2. I really enjoy the death effect where it shows you who killed you and how they did it. It allows me to learn from my mistakes and do better the next time around.

I was just thinking that. I'm gonna guess they plan on doing that soon. With the Orange Box they just added achievements for the PC. I remember that I noticed a change in the achievement system a few days ofter the games came out too. For those of you that are unaware your achievements are stored online. The change that I noticed was that Portal and HL2 achievements became visible from your Steam page http://steamcommunity.com/. An issue with this is that if you complete an achievement while off line it's not counted. The problem is that saved games are far bigger and used for more frequently. They might just make a "back up this save" option from the save menu.

I've been playing the TF2 beta and I absolutely love it. It took me a while to get used to the changes since I came from the original QWTF and later Q3F... I was pretty upset at first when I found out that Valve removed grenades, medic infections, pyro rocket launcher, etc.. But I slowly began to enjoy TF2 for what it was and now I really enjoy it. It is basically a simplified version of Team Fortress, but it's still fun. I consider myself a hardcore TF fan, and even I can enjoy what Valve has done. Also, if I want to play a more classic version, I'll play Fortress Forever.

I really like the stat system, though I wish it would keep overall stats for each class instead of just your best scores during one life. My TF2 stats: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Emetophobe/stats/TF2