Valve collecting system spec info

[Force Flow]

I was greeted with a little servey when I started up steam today. They're collecting info on peoples' system specs, which will probably shape where they're going with game development.

Here are the results:
http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

[Nuclear Krusader]

I never liked that Steam thing and that's the reason I said, "HL2, forget it," nothing but a tool to spy on people.

[Bud Light]

I was probably gonna buy halflife and ive got a couple of questions: What exactly is steam and do I have to pay some kind of monthly fee to play on there. Also are there other servers where I can play halflife and css for free.

[04nmr85]

Steam is just used by valve for software distrubution. It doesn't require a monthly fee or anything. You can buy games from steam, games made by valve that is. All the servers that you can play half-life and CS:S on are free. Someone else can probably provide a better description of it then i tho. A lot of people have had problems with Steam but as for me i haven't had any problems what so ever. It's worked flawlessly. It automatically downloads updates for your games and everything.

[Force Flow]

Once you buy the game, steam is free, and all the updates are free. IMHO, the steam system should have been implemented a long time ago. It's very handy and saves a lot of time to go looking for updates, and to keep *everyone* playing on the same version of the game so that there are no conflicts.

[Propain]

neat idea IMO , Im not sure how many times Ive logged on to a game in 1942 and gotten the "wrong data error" or " wrong map error " tanks for clearing thaT up fellas , I didnt know what it was aboot either.