Steam...

Bit of a minority subject here but I was so impressed, so I'm going to go on.

Has anyone ever had experience with Steam? Note the capitalisation.

Steam is a content delivery system developed by the same people that did the HalfLife PC and console games, Valve. I've only used it slightly I'm sure but pricipally, it is used as a sort of virtual games shop for PCs. You can pay for, download and launch full retail games from it.

Herein lies my speil. When I first came across it, I was suspect as I am with any extra software I install on my computer. Don't like things that might take up more space and resources slowing the machine down.

I bought a copy of Portal on DVD from a real shop some time ago and tried to install it onto our Sunday laptop to see how it would run...

Here, as a wee side speil. Have you ever played Portal? If not, and you are in any way interested in video gaming. Play it. It is without a doubt, one of the finest pieces of game design I've ever come across.

...Anyway, for some reason, the DVD just wouldn't even recognize so I thought, HmmI wonder if I could get it to download it as it was registered through Steam. What do you know. Not only did it let me download the game I'd already paid for in the shop, it also knew I'd previously completed it and brought across all my achievments. It downloaded in no time at all as well and I've even been told that it also caches the downloads so you can start playing before it has completely downloaded.

I was amazed.

If I was to build an online content delivery system, that's how I would do it...
...If I could!